This essay first appeared on Splice Today.
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Americans in general, and American sit-coms in particular, take pride in being stupid, so no one is likely to be offended if I point out that the premise of The Big Bang Theory is somewhat dense. The show is based around the hilarious hijinks that result when a hot young waitress and aspiring actor named Penny moves into the apartment across the hall from a couple of nerdy physicists, Leonard and Sheldon. And…quick! What’s wrong with this picture?
If you said “hot girls and physicists don’t go together!” you win because you are on the wavelength of your culture and can launch a hit comedy series. If you said “income disparity!” on the other hand, all you get is that smug satisfaction of feeling like you’re smarter than everybody else. Because while The Big Bang Theory reportedly uses consulting physicists to vet story ideas so that the writers don’t get their tachyons stuck to their gluons, nobody about the place seems to have ever spoken to an economist — or for that matter to a real estate agent. Which is to say — successful physicists. They make a fair amount of money. Enough money, probably, to live in a condo. Enough money not to live with a roommate. Exponentially more money, in any case, than waitresses. Unless a waitress is some sort of slumming boho scion, she really wouldn’t be living across the hall from a physicist, much less across the hall from two physicists who needed to live together in order to afford their apartment.
In some sense, this blooper is completely gratuitous — surely you could have figured out some other way to bring together Penny and the physicists that didn’t violate credulity. Why not make her the department administrative assistant, for example? Or the waitress at a restaurant where they hang out? Or, for that matter, why not just say that Leonard and Sheldon are still in grad school?
To raise these possibilities, though, is to immediately see why the show’s creators discarded them. The whole point of The Big Bang Theory , its whole reason for being, is to poke fun at the nerdishness of Sheldon, Leonard, and their friends/fellow social cripples Howard and Raj. It’s to show the intellectuals getting their pants taken away from them by Penny’s burly ex-boyfriend, or to watch their hideous relationships with their parents, or to observe as they pathetically strike out with various women. In short, what’s funny about the show is that the physicists are losers.
But, of course, by the standards of our culture, the physicists aren’t really losers at all. Or, at least, it would be hard to think of them entirely as losers if Penny were working in a subordinate position in their lab. Similarly, if Leonard and Sheldon were grad students, their couldn’t be a humorous disconnect between their professional pretensions and their lameness. Everybody knows grad students are lame; that’s a truism, not a joke.
So Leonard and Sheldon need to be full-fledged physicists if it’s going to be worthwhile to mock them. But, at the same time, the actual benefits of being physicists have to be downplayed, or the mockery would ring rather hollow. After all, this is a capitalist society, and if you’re making good money, you must be doing something right. Moreoever, if the show acknowledged that Leonard was a high-earner, the sexual tension between him and Penny would have connotations that the writers would rather avoid. Penny worrying that she’s not smart enough to date Leonard is light comedy; Penny worrying about differences in earning power, though, starts to look uncomfortably like melodrama. Thus, while Penny does have money troubles, they are all carefully presented as temporary rather than systemic. And when she borrows money from Sheldon, it’s intimated that he has lots of money because he’s weird and autistic and never spends anything, rather than because he’s got a job at a research facility and is probably pulling down high five figures.
The Big Bang Theory isn’t alone in pretending that brainworkers are evolutionarily disadvantaged beta-males. Everyone knows that Bill Gates is (a) happily married, and (b) the most powerful person on the planet, but no one seems to want to generalize from there even a little bit. The fact is, though, that scary-smart geeks are not just smarter than folks like Penny — they’re also in a higher social class. As labor historian E.P. Thompson noted:
Social approval of educational success is marked in a hundred ways: success brings financial reward, a professional style of life, social prestige; it is supported by a whole apologia for modernization, technological necessity, equality of opportunity. It is not necessary to work long inside any university to discover that even the most humane among both staff and student bodies find it an effort not to equate educational achievement with a valuation of human worth.
And, of course, to twist the knife further, intellectuals are often actually higher class first and scary smart only later and as a consequence of being able to access some fancy education. From this perspective, the anti-intellectualism which is the raison d’etre of The Big Bang Theory looks less like know-nothingness or submerged jealousy than like revenge. Geeks and their kin control the world. Penny (interesting name that) and her kin can’t change that; so all they have left to do is to point out that their rulers are socially incompetent and sexually repulsive.
Anyone who has seen the The Big Bang Theory , though, knows that this isn’t a very accurate depiction of its tone. While the show is anti-intellectual, it’s so in a very gentle, even loving way. As in a Woody Allen movie or a Jeff Brown comic, geekishness in The Big Bang Theory is emo chic; goofy, occasionally annoying, but ultimately endearing and even sexy. Leonard and Sheldon are good guys really…and why not, since in the show’s world, they really are just folks like Penny, working a nine-to-five job at the supercollider rather than at the local eatery. If geeks control everything, they also control the successful sit-coms. Leonard does hook up with Penny eventually, after all — a fantasy of nerdy-boy-gets-hot-girl made all the more delightful by excising the income realities which would suggest that she isn’t out of his league in the first place. If anybody benefits from The Big Bang Theory ’s brand of anti-intellectualism, in other words, it’s intellectuals themselves. Say what you will about them, they’re a clever bunch.
This drives me squirrel-fucking crazy — the glorification of stupidity and the deprecation of intelligence in American culture. And it’s not just in the mass media, either. Look at how American schools and colleges exalt dumb jocks.
In the 1940s, American colleges wanted to install quotas for Jewish students. In the 1990s, they wanted to do the same for Chinese-Americans.
Why? Because both ethnic groups turned out far more brilliant students. And why was that? Because those students came from cultures that valued intelligence and scholarship at the level they deserved.
No wonder China, India, and Japan are eating our lunch. We asked for it, we bought it and paid for it, and it’s got to be delivered– that’s how history works.
Do you know that in French, there’s no equivalent to ‘nerd’?
Stupidity is the secret glue that holds the universe together … think about it … very carefully …
Well, the universe is idiotic…in the original sense of the word.
Many from the Gnostics to H.P. Lovecraft have posited that the cosmos is ruled by an imbecilic schmuck.
“Or, for that matter, why not just say that Leonard and Sheldon are still in grad school?”
I watched some episodes and assumed that was the situation. Worked fine as far as I was concerned, though the show would have been better if it had betetr jokes.
Alex, it’s not exactly an anti-intellectual show, though. It makes fun of them, but they are the lovable stars…. It’s an attraction/repulsion thing, definitely.
I sometimes find Big Bang Theory quite funny. Other times it’s painful. It could be worse. But, yeah, Tom’s right; it could definitely be better too.
Alex,
I think you’re oversimplifying. As Noah points out education (and access to it) has at least as much to do with socioeconomic status as it does pervading cultural attitudes about intelligence.
Yeah; I think the anti-intellecualism in the U.S. is in part a not entirely unhealthy mistrust of the upper class….
For some people the show is a mainstream statement that finally the geeks (not the nerds) have taken control of the world. Being and ex-Star Wars Fan Club member who still hangs with some of those guys, I hate everytime they pull a comparative among themselves in the kind of “you are our Sheldon” or “I´m Leonard” just because they identify with the proficiency in geek culture that those characters efuse.
I still hang around them because I love to bring their emotion down asking if any of them already have a PhD in anything and that if they don´t know who Dick Ayers is, they know shit about geek culture even if they have the latest super-hyper-ultimate blue ray edition of Iron Man.
The Big Bang Theory is the crest of yet another superficial trend to get out and feel good about buying crap.
“I think the anti-intellecualism in the U.S. is in part a not entirely unhealthy mistrust of the upper class….”
But the people who feel that anti-intellecualism the most deeply vote Republican. As always, look at Sarah Palin and her supporters.
Education is seen as elitist; wealth is seen as the result of enterprise and hard work, no matter how the rich person in question got his/her money.
“the people who feel that anti-intellecualism the most deeply vote Republican.”
Maybe. I bet there are a not-inconsequential number of anti-elitist democrats as well. Some of them are probably black. Sarah Palin’s support is pretty demographically circumscribed. And it has as much to do with cultural politics (anti-abortion, anti-gay) as with anti-elitism (though they all inflect each other in various ways.)
Also… I think Americans can be more anti-wealth than it sometimes looks like. There’s plenty of support for taxing the rich, for example. At least my understanding is that that policy — soak the rich — polls quite well. It’s the elites who don’t want to do it, for obvious reasons involving donors and self-interest. It’s not part of the mainstream debate because the Dems and Republicans don’t want to piss off the rich.
Not just Palin, also our last Republican president.
We can’t pin down how many people think the way you or I claim. I argue that 1) enough people think the way I’ve described for them to play a key role in U.S. politics, and 2) that most of them are on the right. So nothing too hard-and-fast here.
To back up my point, two rhetorical questions.
Where are the Democratic politicians who get a following by being anti-intellectual? You’d have to go back to George Wallace.
And how does the GOP stay competitive electorally when its chief policy initiative is to cut upper-income taxes?
You’ve got a lot of people out there who think that taxing individual wealth is the same as destroying the country’s collective wealth. And they aren’t all rich (Tea Party).
The polls you mention, better check their wording. I also think it’s possible that some slice of the population will have one opinion about an isolated policy question (even taxes) but another when they go to vote and a broader, more mythological view of the world kicks in.
After all, Clinton did raise taxes on the rich, and he was not especially liberal. So it isn’t entirely a matter of the elites keeping the question off the agenda.
Well, one of the things that happens if you cut upper income taxes is that you get a lot of rich people funding your campaigns. That’s a lot of marketing.
They tend to sell anti-tax policies as being against taxing anyone, not just the wealthy. It’s difficult for the democrats to fight back because they actually don’t want to tax the rich either. If the Dems were willing to make an explicit class warfare argument, I think they could probably get some traction. They have trouble doing that, though, because the rich pay for their campaigns too.
The GOP is in general more anti-intellectual; I can’t deny that.
I suppose we have a difference of emphasis. I’d say that since our last Democratic president raised taxes on the rich, and since our current one tried to, that cuts against the idea that they don’t want this notion on the agenda.
But, as I’m sure you agree, this doesn’t mean they want to beat down the economic elites. One of the big changes in American life is that over the past 40 years much of the elite has lost interest in keeping the country solvent. But there are still some who are willing to face reality, and it’s on their behalf that the Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich. The idea isn’t a more equal society, just a government that doesn’t go broke.
And in the meantime too many Americans hate elite education while not having much of a problem with elite economic privilege, and these Americans make up a key part of the Republican base.
“The GOP is in general more anti-intellectual; I can’t deny that”
This goes back to your point about class antagonism- the GOP wants to be populist, but it’s still the party of rich old men (even more so than the Dems). Manufactured anti-intellectualism was the way in which populist rage could be harnessed and directed at liberal elites (lawyers, academics, etc.) while conservative elites (CEOs, bankers, etc.) get to pretend that they’re just “one of the guys.” Of course this doesn’t always work, look at how hated bankers are right now.
Nerd-bashing is an interesting phenomenon though, and I think there’s more going on there than just class antagonism. I need to think more on it…
That show is truly awful. Can’t last more than 10 mins. with it. My mother-in-law’s a big fan of it. That’s a bad sign.
Eric, I’ve seen the sit coms you like, and you are in no position to throw DVD cases….
I remember reading this essay a while ago, but I didn’t realize you’d written it!
I’ve seen one episode of Big Band Theory. I remember being kind of annoyed with the way the show seemed to be saying that if you were awkward and uncool in high school, then you will be awkward and uncool forevermore. SOMETIMES that is true but OFTEN it is not true at all, particularly for people who have had some measure of academic and professional success.
“Nerd-bashing is an interesting phenomenon though, and I think there’s more going on there than just class antagonism.”
Well, it’s fun!
On the political angle, I’m reminded that the term “egghead” was invented by Republicans. They needed something to call people who voted for Adlai Stevenson, something that specifically addressed the question of intelligence and education (as opposed to pinko).
I thought it was a German term originally– ‘Eierkopf’. Certainly the Nazis used it freely.
Oddly, the French ‘tête d’oeuf’ refers to a moron…
There certainly is anti-intellectualism in France, and for having been called an “intello” (a derogatory shortening of “intellectuel”) in my school years in France, I’d say it fits the bill perfectly as an equivalent to “nerd”.
Noah,
There’s typical sit-com humor (which you don’t like)…and then there’s complete dearth of humor. BBT exemplifies the latter, along with that godawful sinkhole 2 1/2 Men, which serves as BBT’s lead-in. Both are popular, signaling the spiraling death knell of civilization. Or something less cataclysmic. I’ll stick with my sense of humor…It’s served me well.
Not really, 2goldfish. ‘Intello’ just shows what you’re into, the way ‘Goth’ or ‘Emo’ might do in today’s American high schools.
And someone into science/computers/whatever American ‘nerds’ would pursue isn’t called an ‘intello’. That’s pretty much reserved for aficionados of the more esoteric humanities, such as philosophy, psychology,avant-garde literature, or political theory.
Though, of course, one can’t generalise for every individual school subculture. Where did you go, 2goldfish?
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Reading all these comments about BBT is just like listening to Sheldon pontificate about…well anything and everything. You guys have less of a life than the Bangers do. Lighten up it is just a silly sitcom, not a constitutional amendment! If you don’t enjoy it-change the channel, unless of course you are of the mind that everyone should have their entertainment censored…
Popping up to tell everybody to lighten up on a months old comments thread is a little ridiculous. If you care, comment, if you don’t, click on to something else. Or, alternately, you could be a concern troll. Whatever makes you happy.
Or perhaps, a theory which seems proved by the names on comments, it is the static world of males, male in-humor and obsessions. The only character which interested me left in season 1, because she had casual sex with Leonard, was bold enough to be sure she was correct and didn’t like to play mental masturbation with the universe….or green latern.
She came back! She’s still around, I think, though how important she is has vacillated….
HU comments always skew male, pretty much, so I think it’s more the venue than the show…or at least, I don’t think you can indict the show on the basis of the comments here.
I am glad she returned. Can you shed any light on why certain sites, liek HU, IMDB, and reddit have such a male drift of appeal? Women watch TV, often buy more books, and are present on the net yet for example IMDB had a forum thread on trying to find even ‘chick flicks’ that didn’t have a 3-1, 4-1, 5-1 male voting bias over females (versus the 10-1 ratio for most films on the site). I own or have read almost every graphic novel, film or author this site discusses, and I discuss them with other women.
Back to Big Bang, the aspect of the superhero is a static mold, one which, once inhabited, prevents the kind of idolization which seems an undercurrent to the show (as the ‘nerd’ idea itself in the show seems also static – as working in Pasadena, I could tell where they lived from the view of the City Hall from the window, and the library card holders they have beneath it).
Or referring to Nerdy Apple’s experiences, no one has a problem with a girl who dresses up as batman, encourages it, but when a young boy dresses as Daphne ala Scooby Doo, he and the family get kicked out of the preschool. Wearing one face, then another, as part of development in finding what can be done within the limits of society, and what is most enjoyed is just a standard female journey. This is not the ‘superhero’s’ journey (though often objectified), which has nothing to do with glass ceilings or needing to use a fake name in order to recieve appropriate credit because the various minds viewing the actions discredit the meaning and value based on gender.
Indeed, Penny is constantly treated as ‘less than’ or ‘sub’ based not on intellegence, the ability to learn, but knowledge. And from what I have seen of the show (2 seasons..part of 3), it is the gang of four guys who seem to constantly engage in activities whose outcome is either a repeat or can be forseen, a sign of lack of applied intellegence in non-theory applications. However, that is the nature of a sitcom, to return to a infinate state of status quo. It just seems that in this show, the marketing matches up with the Eisner nominations of late, which are about the 30’s entering 40s, aging nerd or the aging of the icons from their youth (old man logan, Distant Neighborhood).
Beyond the theory of gender, the socialization of gender in North America and the experiences of males in growing up are the parameters of this show – and the following of it seems to indicate that secret or open, there is a large grouping who would rather have an action figure of han solo and see gaming, comics and other hobbies as important as careers, and females falling into ‘mothers’ or ‘mystery objects of desire’. This group is largely male. The group which would rather read slash fiction of han solo and luke or han and chewie (anthro slash), more oft female. And since most of the female academics I know like some sexual fantasy related reading as part of the down time, or are sex positive and researching or living it – they are ‘intellectual’ but not static.
The one thing that interests me is that women will almost never use ‘Dr. xxxxxx’ even when the hold a doctorate, or two or three, if the joy they do right then doesn’t require it. Nor would that make any difference who they befriend in the university lunchtime jogging club (open to all, whether support, temps, or professors). So a mix of someone working two jobs including waiting tables and someone working particle collider is normal. Yes, the movement between grading in support staff has been shown to be based on ‘mentoring’ and females high up in Academia find they spend large amounts of time on hiring panels simply because there are no other females to be on the panels due to what the higher education study determined was a male-centric bias so strong it would take multiple generations to change. But is the evaluation of the self based on academic level true for the majority of females? I have not found it so. One woman, whose degree and level of publishing, in a field so sought after she could immediately get a job, Visa and movement toward citizenship for her and her family left due to boredom, and was more interested in her job at uni helping disability accomodation, and most of all, her semi-pro hockey playing.
I guess I want to know, is the show really any representation of those I saw at comi-con, and the ‘male nerd’ — or is there the standard level of complexity where the show fails, leaving the people several years still fairly static. Or is the female test pilot who writes novels in Klingon for amusement the genuine ‘new wave’ of nerd?
Hey Elizabeth. As to why HU’s comments section skews male…I don’t know exactly. I try pretty consciously to get women writers for the site, and have been at least somewhat successful…though again, there are definitely more men than women who write here. American mainstream comics skew male pretty thoroughly, though of course that isn’t the only thing we write about…I don’t know. Wish I did.
Not sure I can respond to everything, but:
“no one has a problem with a girl who dresses up as batman, encourages it, but when a young boy dresses as Daphne ala Scooby Doo, he and the family get kicked out of the preschool.”
I think people have much more nervousness around femininity in men than around masculinity in girls. Which is probably part of a general devaluation of femininity, which is part of misogyny. Julia Serano’s “Whipping Girl” is a great explanation/discussion of this.
Also…I think Penny is treated as lesser because she’s supposed to be stupid — not just in what she knows, but in her ability to learn various things. She’s supposed to have practical knowledge the guys lack, on the other hand…which is a fairly common/stereotypical gender breakdown.
I don’t think Big Bang Theory is any more realistic than most sit-coms. Like I said, I think it’s handling of class is largely idiotic and unrealistic…so, yeah, I wouldn’t see it as a particularly accurate representation of anything.
to: “you all” ……..dec-08-2012……………………..
from: mr. ivey, and G.O.D. aka, good-olde-dean………….
……Noah..please, watch T.V. have some entertainment…….
……you are not reading the plans for an Atlas V Saturn….
……manual. Spend your time about the O-rings on the ….
……booster assembly,if you like to express small details..
……respectfully: …g.o.d.
I love that you’re commenting on a two-year old article with a largely expired comments thread in order to tell us all to stop caring so much. Who says god doesn’t do irony?
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