How i met your mother and arbitrary signs

When you first watch How I Met Your Mother, you will think that you are going to see a sitcom which simply shows the life of “normal” New-Yorkers.  But when you analyze the show a little bit more, you see that it’s more representative of the American culture than you expected at first.

In fact in developed countries, during a long time the women, men and family roles where separated. In the different situations we had to act in a certain way. Now the roles between men and women tend to be equal. And even if some people think that women and men are considered differently than in the 70’s, it’s not the case, and How I Met Your Mother is the perfect representation of the fact that arbitrary signs about genders are still current.

This show is really relevant of gender representation in our civilization.

With Barney, you have the illustration of the active single-men. He has a great job: he earns a lot of money by doing nothing (well nobody really know what he does). He has a nice apartment. And he doesn’t have a durable relationship with a woman. He prefers having sex with thousands of girls (more than 200) than having a stable relationship with somebody. His career and himself are the only things he takes care of.

In the show Robin is the representation of the women side: the dynamic woman who takes care of her career first but when a guy comes into her life, her arbitrary “women job” starts. You see that she refuses job opportunities to be with the one she loves when the men decide to take the job. You can also see that when she is with a guy she likes, she can’t help to become silly. It’s seems like a woman can’t use her brain when she is with a man.

 Then you have the representation of the “new generation” family with Marshall and Lilly. Even if the roles in the life seem to be equal, some stereotypes persist. Marshall doesn’t know how to cook well, because it’s “Lilly’s job”. And when they have a baby, Marshal is more a support than a real helper for Lilly. One more time the woman has to take care of the baby.

When you look at these characters, it represents our culture well. We think that women and men are equal but arbitrary signs are still there. Finally even if the role changed as we associate black with evil, they are still standards to represent men and women. And it will take a long time to change that.