Where Are We Going, and Why Are We In a Handbasket?
Since my wife and I gave up cable tee-vee (story for another post), we’ve been getting our entertainment by watching TV shows on Netflix’s streaming service. One show we added to our queue is the well-written and well-acted How I Met Your Mother.
It can be quite a funny show at moments. Don’t believe me? If you’re a married couple check out the season 1 episode where Marshall and Lily trap themselves in the bathroom for the sake of Ted’s Big Night with his girlfriend Victoria. Which brings me to the part of this show that, when you stop and think about it, should creep you out as much as it does me.
The premise of the show is the Ted of 2030 is telling his son and daughter the story of how he came to meet their mother, not just the first meeting but everything that made him the man worthy of their mom. Sounds good, right? Until you watch the show and realize it should be called How I Had Sex With a Lot of Women Before I Met Your Mother. In the season one episode “Game Night”, older Ted actually confesses to his kids he’s told them a lot of inappropriate stories. I’m not going to get into the whole “is this or is this not abusive to the kids” question. The question I want to ask is…
Why do we as a society seem to think that the premise of this show is anything other than wildly inappropriate, twisted, and wrong?
No one responsible for this show—not the producers, the showrunners, the writers, the actors, the executives as CBS—has said, “You know, I think it’s a little sick that Dad is actually telling stories to his kids about having sex with their ‘Aunt Robin’.” Are we as a society that jaded, that uncaring, that not only did it not occur to us to be bothered by this but we actually derive some joy from the whole thing?
Am I making something out of nothing, or is this one of those times when I have to make the tough choice of ethics and integrity?
Mor Beal 