05-31-2015, 06:01 AM
(05-31-2015, 04:50 AM)ricardo shillyshally Wrote: Okay presuming we're still animals, normally mammals stay with their parents for about a third of their life. It took that long to learn everything. I think the way the mothers in BB treat their sons is appalling, it's as though they had no independence. As if they were still boys, and that slows down their development, and confidence. Is adolescence increasing with life expectancy. Is culture stuck, recycling the culture of past decades. I think it's good to be cynical of corporations who monopolises programme production, but optimistic that independent producers will be challenged into maybe making online shows. Who knows!
Nobody is arguing that the parent-child dynamics on this show are stellar. They're flawed. Beverly may be an amusing character, but the way she treated Leonard is chilling. That may not excuse his later antics, but I doubt any BBT viewer would choose *her* as their mother. Howard and Mrs.W are kinda codependent and enmeshed, that's pretty clear.
The real question is, *if* the guys were given the chance to be more independent, would they rise to the occasion, or fall apart? Would they welcome that opportunity, or refuse it? New!BBT would have us believe that Howard is searching for a mother-substitute and expects women to take care of him, and that's demonstrably a retcon, as is the idea that Sheldon learned everything he knows from Amy.
The guys' flawed upbringings have indeed caused some emotional damage, or at least some questionable outcomes. But they're not incapable of learning or adapting, which is what New!BBT would have us believe. They'd have us believe that the guys are incapable of learning or adapting without being yelled-at and threatened and emotionally blackmailed by their "girlfriends." That's the objectionable part. These are smart, creative, resourceful people. They're not going to roll over and play dead. "The guys are socially awkward" has become "the guys are utterly useless at everyday life."
You can comb through S1 and S2 and you will not find examples of Howard being *this* helpless. I know he's my fave character and I admit to being biased in his favor, but I'm giving specific examples from the show which back-up my argument, here. Howard did not ask Leslie or Stephanie or Christie to cut his pancakes or do his laundry or dust his room. For that matter, we never specifically hear him ask his Mother to do those things, either, although I'm sure she did some of it. He doesn't seem reluctant to go places and be away from his mother's care for a period of time. He's not in the Arctic asking L, S, or R to do things for him. It's objectively, demonstrably true that New!Howard does things which Old!Howard didn't. Vintage Sheldon is very self-sufficient, saves money, etc, and finds workarounds for his limitations. He doesn't let his tics and phobias cripple him.
You're correct that the parents on this show perhaps caused their sons to be more sheltered than most, and that they often don't treat them with the dignity an adult deserves. And people behave according to how you treat them, so it's a vicious cycle. Mrs.W tells Christie that Howard is not a man, which is pretty cringe-worthy.
But there is no plausible universe in which the characters from S1 refuse to feed and clothe themselves without a woman holding a gun to their head, psychologically. A person with that attitude doesn't graduate from college, or work at Cal-Tech, or accomplish much of anything.
Watching the guys become more independent would be *real* character development, not this phony-ass character development we've been presented with, which is actually character *atrophy.* It would be funny and cute and meaningful, and a very natural direction to take, instead of this "Pair the Spares" crap. IMO *all* these people needed to get away from their parents for a little while and maybe have a few sessions with a sympathetic counselor. Replicating the parent-child dynamic was the furthest thing from what they needed, but TPTB think that's hi-freaking-larious. But the ships are actually much *more* toxic than the parent-child relationships, IMO. They make the parent-child relationships look good, by comparison.
TPTB apparently believe that "learning and adapting" means surrendering your personhood, when really it means coming more fully into your personhood and understanding yourself better. I'm about the same age as the BBT characters, and I think I've changed massively over the past six or seven years, but my interests and tastes and preferences haven't changed.