The Existential Angst of Stuart Bloom

[ricardo shillyshally]

Cliches, characters, stereotypes, something, something, seems to be a lot of self referencing in the fictional world. Stuart having fun, and the sound of 'existential angst'!

[ricardo shillyshally]

I think Stuart's main problem is that he doesn't have any friends, and I don't think any of the four guys would have had any other friends, if they hadn't found each other. That's why we get such a concentration of nerd/geekery, every -ism(narcisism to mutism), quirks and psychological eccentricities, in Pasadena. Stuart is actually charming, and thats why he dated both Penny and Amy. But without a friend group, he's a bit of a lost soul!

[ricardo shillyshally]

I like this little speech from Stuart; essentially that if we start to question the world of comic books, super heroes, and surrounding merchandise,etc,'all of our lives have no meaning'. I also think that when Penny invited him in for coffee after their date, that he would have known what she meant, he's not as naive as say Sheldon.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

God I miss that old comic book store the boys haven. It's so typical the writers took it away. And yes i love that line.

"If you're going to question the importance of an actors signature on a plastic helmet from a movie based on a comic book, then all of our lives have no meaning" SOOO clever and funny. They used to support the nerds in their geekiness while still making us laugh, now they just pick away at them mercilessly. *sigh*

[ricardo shillyshally]

Just what I read on here puts me off S8+. I don't watch much Tv but old episodes are a fun place to visit, late evening. Watching them is more interesting, with hindsight, and after all our insights.

[wellplayedpenny]

Kinda on/off topic but that's why Amy's comment really burned me about Sheldon's comic book hobby being 'lame-o'. Where it really counts she just doesn't 'get' him. Stuart's store was his haven, his and Lonely Larry and all the other souls who showed up on new comic book night. It was a place where they could be themselves, where they could let their imaginations free. Perhaps the destruction of the store and its (seeming) rebuilding is symbolic of the show as what was is being replaced by what is. We don't even get a death and funeral and a chance to mourn and find peace but instead are faced with a zombie rise from the earth that shuffles its way through the episodes.

[Tuesday Pajamas]

Kinda on/off topic but that's why Amy's comment really burned me about Sheldon's comic book hobby being 'lame-o'. Where it really counts she just doesn't 'get' him. Stuart's store was his haven, his and Lonely Larry and all the other souls who showed up on new comic book night. It was a place where they could be themselves, where they could let their imaginations free. Perhaps the destruction of the store and its (seeming) rebuilding is symbolic of the show as what was is being replaced by what is. We don't even get a death and funeral and a chance to mourn and find peace but instead are faced with a zombie rise from the earth that shuffles its way through the episodes.

That's because Amy has a complete lack of imagination. Unless of course it's all about HER. She's happy to indulge her own fantasies of being a 'princess' and wearing a tiara, or having a prom night, or being a grown woman in a Disney costume but she turns into an absolute hypocrite whenever Sheldon mentions his own hobbies. She has no empathy at all. And worse of all, Sheldon never calls her out on it which is completely OOC.

Do you guys remember what happened in 'The Nerdvana Annihilation' when Penny criticized the guys hobbies:

Penny: "My God, you are grown men, how could you waste your lives with these stupid toys and costumes and comic books and… and now that… that…"

Sheldon: Again, time machine.

Penny: Oh please, it’s not a time machine, if anything it looks like something Elton John would drive through the Everglades.

Sheldon: It only moves in time. It would be worse than useless in a swamp.

Penny: Pathetic. All of you, completely pathetic.

THEN LATER:

Sheldon: You hypocrite!

Penny: What?

Sheldon: Little Miss “grown ups don’t play with toys”. If I were to go into that apartment right now, would I find Beanie Babies? Are you not an accumulator of Care Bears and My Little Ponies? And who is that Japanese feline I see frolicking on your shorts? Hello, Hello Kitty!

____________________

Can you imagine if Sheldon said that to Amy about her childish dress-up games? That would be pure joy!

[wellplayedpenny]

*le sigh* And then I think of vintage Amy circa s4's 'Justice League Recombination':

Penny: Okay, what about your friend Amy (being Wonder Woman)?

Sheldon: Amy Farrah Fowler doesn’t believe in wearing costumes. She isn’t the free spirit I am.

All of Amy's 'princess' costumes, etc, I just chalk up to the horrible writing on the show as they do their best to write a coming of age story for her. She is not what she was. She's now an agenda. A prod for moving Sheldon along towards the inevitable coital conclusion. And you're right, PJ, it's frustrating that Sheldon isn't really fighting, but then again he's only as strong-willed as the writers make him. Such a horrible fate.

[ricardo shillyshally]

Yes there are a lot of anomalies, even hypocrisies. Amy does represent old world; harp, medieval music, grandma's clothes. But also has childish fantasies of being a princess and sleeping beauty(vomit!). Creative people (incl: theoretical physicists like Einstein) talk of the need to do something fun(play like the guys did; games), and concepts will appear. Sheldon has these moments some times. Modern popular culture is more important, because it's what we are living in. If an alien came here, and heard us talk of Spock (and all rest of our favourite characters), they would assume them to have been real. Just taking Star Trek; it was packed with latest concept ideas of the future, lots of ideas(some moral), a whole existence that we believe is possible. Stuart's philosophy is dangerous, once you start to question, our lives have no meaning, (ie: you have to find new meaning).

[wellplayedpenny]

And what I hate is that all of the characters have been forced into new context, new paradigms which, as constructs, they cannot properly 'see' for themselves but are obvious to the audience as we've seen them 'change' as the seasons go on. There is no logic as to why they do what they do (or don't); continuity is tossed to the side as alien agendas ram their way in and distort history even as they reorder the current season. What meaning is there when everything that held meaning--for characters, for the viewer--have been altered, destroyed or just plain tossed to the side?