7.18 The Mommy Observation

[Tuesday Pajamas]

I agree. We all know the main reasons behind infantilizing Sheldon: 1) to guarantee Leonard's place as the hero and as the mature one in the group. We can't have Sheldon outshine Leonard in any way. 2) to portray Amy as the long-suffering girlfriend and to justify her efforts to control and to change Sheldon.

BUT the degree and the frequency of this infantilization has made me wonder if there are other factors at work too. Occasional childish behavior is OK, but this is overdoing it. Also note that while Sheldon is the main victim of this infantilization, the writers have been doing it to other characters too. Amy back in season 5 acted like a teenager especially when it came to her friendship with Penny and Bernadette. She is the one that dreamt of Sheldon saying the 'mommies and daddies' line. In a recent episode, the 'girls' went out and Amy put on her tiara like a 5 year-old and even Penny talked about how she had problems with being an adult. I also remember that episode in season 6 when the guys were called to the office of the Human Resources lady, and the whole scene looked more like four schoolboys being called to the Principal’s office at a school and not four “scientists” visiting the Human Resource office at a “university”. (Now that I come to think of it, the wardrobe choice for the main four characters kind of makes sense. Maybe the writers and the creators of the show always saw these characters more as schoolboys rather than adults and scientists?)

So I am beginning to wonder: can it be that these writers indeed have a thing for grown-up men and women acting like little kids? Or maybe they have deep-rooted growing up/mommies/daddies issues themselves and they are expressing those issues through the characters? Or maybe as Tuesday Pajamas once said, they are conducting a social experiment on the audience to see how many people, and for how long, will go along with and approve of such creepy characterizations and relationships!!

I remember a couple of years on the TBBT fansite there was talk about that the show being dumbed down. This caused a lot of arguments but the process which the shamy supporters denied is now complete.

The clever dialogue has all but gone. Sheldon threw in a science rant in 'Table', which was quickly ridiculed by Leonard, to drive home the fact that this shows mocks intelligence now. It makes the average feel safe in the knowledge that the characters are beneath them, stupid, childish and undeveloped. It's sickening. I loved the characters being smarter than I am. My ego is not that fragile that it threatened me.

The average viewer is being insulted and they don't even seem to notice. *sigh*