American_Culture

In the increasingly popular CBS sit-com, "How I Met Your Mother," represents much of what an average person wants in their desired partner. Although they are all good friends, the main characters of the show each, respectively, represent what different people want in different relationships. The show cleverly and intelligently brings up the social rules and faux-pas of the dating scene. "How I Met Your Mother" points out the different stereotypes that are present in much of today's Americans. Ted Mosby, the hopeless romantic, believes that every girl he meets just might be "the one." In these terms, "the one" signifies a person's soul mate or spouse. Each girl he meets in each different episode, he assumes that she will be his wife. Because Ted is a male who wants to be the settled down man with a wife and kids, he provides much of the comedy in the show. If this was a woman character, she might be found as annoying or, put into casual context, "insane" or "psycho." This is why Ted makes the audience laugh so much; he is not even close to what the public and the media outlets view as a socially acceptable role of a male looking for a relationship. After carefully analyzing his character, it almost seems as if his character is mocking the stereotypical woman's approach to dating. In the first few episodes, he quickly falls for a girl he saw at a party he threw and somehow knew that he was going to marry her. This girl turns out to be one of the other main characters in the show, Robin, who ends up dating Ted many times in the first four seasons of the show. Robin, a reporter for a local news channel, is one of the five friends in this show. She is not quite as romantic as Ted is. While Ted will do whatever it takes to please or woo a woman, Robin is much more of an independent person. While mostly men are characterized to be the gender that is more independent and not looking for a serious relationship, the writers of this show made this character a woman, obviously, for comedic purposes, but also to show the point that the stereotypical female is not supposed to be in this relationship role. Much like Ted's character, Robin is the opposite of what is supposed to be the ideal role for their given gender. Barney Stinson is the only single by choice character on "How I Met Your Mother." If this were a real setting, Barney would be considered to be the "ladies man," as he attempts, and succeeds, at having sexual relations with as many different women as possible. He is the character that never wants to settle down into a monogamous relationship. Being in a monogamous relationship is what the United States has practiced and believed as a majority since its origin. Even most religions practiced here deeply look down upon what Barney Stinson practices in relationships. Although this is all true, many males are searching for their desired partner this way and even though their short-term partner is not necessarily what they want in the long term, this lifestyle is still being portrayed as evil in the media. In this context, a potential partner vastly differs from a potential spouse. A partner would be compared to a fling, a purely sexual relationship, while a spouse involves a more emotional relationship. Although this show does give many examples of Barney succeeding in this lifestyle, and his friends looking down on him, this show suggests that this character's lifestyle is morally wrong. It is trying to set an example, through the means of a counter example, that living a life of sexual promiscuity is wrong and that the only acceptable way of living is through a monogamous relationship. The characters that are never looked down upon, except by Barney of course, are Marshall and Lily Eriksen. This is the happily married couple that many media outlets support whole heartedly. Early in the show's existence, Marshall and Lily were just a couple, but then broke up midway through the show. The entire fan-base of the show was crushed when this was revealed. After they parted ways, it only took a matter of time before the writers made them get back together, and that shows that the media knows, and is taking advantage of the fact, that the widely accepted role of a woman is to be in a relationship and to be happy while in one. In the television sit-com "How I Met Your Mother," it is obvious that the main theme of the show is finding love and keeping it. Four out of the five characters do support the idea of, and are in search for, a long term relationship. While this is true, this idea is on the more feminine side of the show even though Ted is considered to be one of these romantics. Even though Barney Stinson is not among these four, he serves as more of the counter argument in the contrasting lifestyles. In every good persuasion there is a counter argument or example. When the media portrays the constant, unfazed, and unwavering search for a relationship as a good thing, the message will get across to the general public. Although relationships and marriage are perfectly natural and widely accepted, Barney is still widely held as the show's favorite character. Would he still be the favorite character if the famed actor turned into an actress though' In today's society in regards to relationships, if a woman is sexually active with multiple men at one time they are the victim of many derogatory statements that demean the names of women. While this is true, Barney is hailed as one of the best television characters of this decade. Because he is a man he can get away with and at the same time, be praised for being sexually active. Barney, one of many examples from the media, is the extreme stereotypical version of male representations. There is evidence abound supporting that the media favors relationships, which in turn favors females. Most romantic comedies support the idea that every potential relationship is a logical and morally right thing to get into, which is again a feminine appeal because of the fact that the media provides women with the propaganda telling them so, and in this case the word "feminine" is defined as appealing to the gender based roles that females have been stereotyped into. This is true in most movies for any genre in that the media stereotypes men as not wanting a relationship, even though many men are actually looking for exactly that. A recent movie called "He's Just Not That Into You" was just released into theaters, which was a movie based on a novel released a few years ago. It conveys the same message that "How I Met Your Mother" does; both of them have similar ideas to what men and women are stereotypically looking for in the dating scene. In this movie, there were approximately 3 or 4 men who were living the 'Barney' lifestyle. Each of these men was portrayed as awful people just because they were all men. Many women take this same approach to dating as men, yet the entire movie was based on the idea that men are the only people that do this. While this is going on for the men, women get stereotyped as being in a frantic search for a guy. While this might be true for women, it certainly is not definitive. Many men are looking for one special mate too, but movies such as this are not generating any movement toward the media to acknowledge this. A naysayer might say that the media is actually correctly portraying what is going on in our society. Males in this society have been correctly depicted as being sex hungry "animals" as many one night stands occur by the doing of men. The woman is then left brokenhearted and violated. On the other hand, women are all, in fact, looking for a long-term relationship with a man. There is an ample amount of evidence supporting this, especially in the music industry. In the mainstream music scene, many male musicians are overwhelming the industry with songs that demean women. Mainstream artists such as Soulja Boy, 50 Cent, Akon, Nickelback, among others, all fit into this category. On the other hand, women have been making songs based on both successful and failed relationships instead of making songs with sexual themes. Popular women artists such as Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Kelly Clarkson all base the majority of their songs on relationships. The naysayer would say this supports the idea that women are more interested in emotional and long-term relationships than men are because the mainstream music scene is an accurate portrayal of what the media views as what their audience wants to hear. The media makes these differing themes based on what will be marketable and because of this the listeners are buying into what mainstream music is influencing them to do. Many different men and women have differing agendas in life. After analyzing the television show "How I Met Your Mother," it seems that to fit with what the media is portraying, because one is able to do only one thing, depending on gender, in order to be accepted by society's values and morals. Women, according to the media, are destined to be erratically spending all of their free time searching for their storied soul mate. In the eyes of the media, males are looked down upon stereotypically as not respecting women and doing what is wrong in the dating scene, while women are still doing what is considered correct in the dating scene. Whether it is completely true is not quite known, but the media does influence people's decisions and lifestyles in more than just what is seen at first glance. The media blows this out of proportion and though men might be looking for more of a purely sexual relationship with a woman and women might be looking strictly for an emotional relationship, the media unfairly magnifies this and takes it to the ultimate extreme.