The Big Bang Theory and cultural appropriation
I started watching The Big Bang Theory in my last year of university. A friend introduced me to it via the tried-and-true method of pressing some torrents on burned DVDs into my hand. (We were such rebels!) I quickly devoured, what, three seasons? Then I started watching it on TV. And, for a time, I really enjoyed it.
But eventually that enjoyment dulled into a vague sense of ennui, which then sharpened into a more sour distaste for the entire enterprise. Unfortunately, the pressure of carrying on for 9 years has understandably diluted the quality of the writing. What I had once thought of as a “sitcom for nerds” now seems more to my eyes like “another sitcom about how nerds are socially awkward.” So I stopped watching.
Yet it’s still around. And lately I’ve seen a couple of articles hating on the series—yes, still wildly popular, it’s now popular enough that hating on the series is nearly as mainstream as liking it. Counterculture is so confusing!
We can debate whether or not the show’s “jokes” are funny and the degrees to which they seem original. But I feel like that’s ignoring a whole dimension of the issue, which is …