Trigger Warning: fatphobia, mention of sexual assault
How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is a popular American sitcom that came out in 2005 and continued through 2014. Set in the New York City, it follows the story of a group of friends and their romantic relationships. The main character, Ted, is the narrator, and tells his children the story of how he met their mother, while also including the stories of all of his friends in the process. Barney, one of his best friends and our main focus today, is known for sleeping with a lot of women, inappropriate jokes, and, unfortunately, fatphobia.
“Over 200 women, spanning six continents, 17 nationalities, 74 sexual positions, and not a single fatty. It’s impressive.” (Season 5, Episode 14)
Barney’s idea of “success,” which involves sleeping with a variety of women from different backgrounds, emphasizes not one of them being fat. He presents sleeping with a fat woman as something to be ashamed of and avoid at all costs, expressing it as success if being able to avoid it.
“Let’s say the young lady you’re bringing home is dressed for winter. Under those layers, an unwelcome surprise could await you. The scale with body fat calculator I’ve hidden under the welcome mat makes sure you never have banger’s remorse.” (Season 8, Episode 19)
By going through so many measures to ensure he doesn’t sleep with a fat woman he shows the audience that they themselves should avoid it at all costs. Additionally, he points out that winter layers can make it impossible to assess whether someone is fat or not; it implies that any form of fat is unacceptable, even if not seen at first. I believe that, unfortunately, Barney is generally a liked character, meant to make the audience laugh and, perhaps, copy some of his behaviors. For example, his famous line “It’s gonna be LEGEN… wait for it… DARY. It’s gonna be LEGENDARY” is catchy and can easily be used by everyone to “spice up” what they’re saying. What if Barney’s other behaviors are copied like that as well?
The constant mockery of fat people, and especially fat women, is a big part of the show. The audience may laugh, but through those not-so-subtle jokes, they are subconsciously impacted. Barney’s comments can create problems that go way beyond a joke – it can lead to extensive weight bias or violence. Barney even made up a commandment, which is defined as “a divine rule” called “no fat chicks.” It is also catchy, like his famous saying mentioned earlier, and is incredibly harmful to others.
Marshall: He’s rich? Please tell me he wrote you a big, fat check. A check so fat, it doesn’t take its shirt off when it goes swimming.
Barney: That is a big, fat check. A check so fat, after you have sex with it, you don’t tell your buddies about it.
Robin: A check so fat, when it sits next to you on an airplane, you ask yourself if it should have bought two seats.
(Season 4, Episode 23)
Fat people are dismissed, mocked, laughed at, and excluded from any spaces in the show. Every male and female character in the show is skinny, besides one – Patrice. She is one of the main character’s, Robin’s, coworkers. She is a very kind person, and whenever she opens her mouth to say anything, she is met with frustration and something that can be described as a demonic scream from Robin.
As we can see, no matter what she says or does, she is verbally attacked. She can compliment Robin, bake her cookies, try to help her, or simply exist – she will be yelled at for all of those things. Some might blame it on Robin’s intense character, her upbringing, or many other things… but is it a coincidence that the only person in the show who is fat is also treated like that? Let that sink in.
Another very prevalent issue in the show is constant lack of consent. We all love FRIES – acronym for consent (Freely given, Reversible, Informed, Enthusiastic, and Specific). Barney fails to follow one of the most important aspects of it – consent being informed. He had created an entire “Playbook” with different schemes on how to get women to sleep with him; most of those scenarios include him changing his identity.
Women are sexually assaulted, objectified, disrespected, and presented as dumb in the show for falling for it. All of those schemes are meant to be funny, but instead are countless examples of sexual assault, which the show does not acknowledge whatsoever as anything else besides a joke.
As we can see, How I Met Your Mother is problematic for a plethora of reasons, including prevalent fatphobia and lack of consent. The media can impact individuals in a variety of ways, including indirectly, which makes the show incredibly harmful. Weight bias is seen as funny and met with no consequences. The show is currently, best to my knowledge, not easily accessible on streaming platforms, which might slightly limit the impact. The issues in the show should be addressed, and everyone should be aware of its problematic nature.
quotes from: https://knowmediaorg.tumblr.com/post/123573154453/how-i-met-your-mother-fatphobia
It’s crazy how a show so well-known and popular can get away with fat-phobic and oppressive comments. I like how you addressed the presence of fatphobia. I feel like when media is critiqued, if critiqued at all, it usually revolves around misogynistic comments or female oppression. Personally, I feel like fatphobia is never really addressed or commented upon and often goes unnoticed, especially by those who are more petite or skinnier. Thank you for bringing light to these comments!
I started watching “How I Met Your Mother” sometime last year, and it is astonishing how some of these examples go unnoticed while watching the show. The fatphobia and issues surrounding consent, I think, go unnoticed by many viewers because of the lighthearted guise of the show. These jokes (that aren’t jokes), actions, and situations in the show can cause a lot of harm because, as viewers, we are unaware of the ideals being embedded into us through these subtle avenues. Thank you for showcasing these examples that may be hard for viewers to see.
I tried to watch this show a few months ago. I think I only got four episodes in. It was just so problematic on so many levels. It is crazy how quickly societal standards have changed in just a few years, a show could never get away with such overt problems today (at least I hope).
Fat-phobia is very prevalent in 2000s sitcoms. Think of all the shows where fat characters are the butt of the joke: Howard’s Mother in Big Bang Theory, Kevin in The Office, Jake in Two and a Half Men. I have never seen How I Met Your Mother, but I wonder if there are any examples of fat men in the show. If there are, are they treated any differently?
I have never seen the show, but these comments really are very off-putting. I know so many people who love this show, and it shocks me how they are able to make these comments so casual by turning it into a joke. I hope the show gets called out for the comments made and more people realize that they are not ok.
I hate the social media standard that in order to be considered sexually attractive to the opposite sex, you must be fit and lean. I recently saw a TikTok that was quite funny to me that contradicted this idea. The TikTok stated that real men are attracted to all women because they are actually strong enough to “throw them around”. Although I don’t recommend fighting fire with fire, it was refreshing that for once it was the person fat shaming to be attacked for their opinion.
I really enjoyed reading this. Especially historically, fat people are always the butt of the jokes and are painted as dumb or gluttonous. We grow up watching these shows and they can subconsciously frame our opinions towards certain groups of people. I’d be interested to know, what level of fat-phobia exist within the industry, are actresses/actors expected to lose weight for gigs? or did they know they wont get gigs if they don’t? What is the correct path for equitable weight representation on tv?
I have never watched this show completely, and only seen bits and pieces. It’s crazy how such as well known show has never been called out for its direct fatphobia! Before reading your post, I had never read or heard anything about the fatphobia promoted through these dialogues! I think there is a similar pattern of fatphobia in the show FRIENDS. It’s one of my favourite shows, but I have to admit, the portrayal of ‘Fat Monica’ was really sad. Flashbacks to when Monica was fat in highschool are used for comedic purposes. She was always shown overeating, or munching on junk food, promoting the idea that all fat people are unhealthy. She also indirectly implies that she starved herself to become skinny, which is a very unhealthy idea to promote among young girls!
Honestly, I have never watched these type of shows – I always found them so boring and, in some way, unhinged. This analysis reinforced my assumption – especially with the fatphobia lines. I’m really glad you addressed it as well – I genuinely don’t understand how shaming people is funny to any extent. For what it seems, mostly everything about the show, in some way, seems very…off putting; I get this was “humor” back then, but the jokes alone aren’t even amusing
Great post! I first watched How I Met Your Mother when I was in middle school and I remember finding it so funny. I rewatched it a few years ago and I had a completely different perception of the show. I think a lot of the jokes and comments went over my head when I watched it the first time as I was quite young. I was shocked upon the rewatch about Barney’s treatment of women and his various other problematic characteristics, but I never fully registered the fat-phobia that was present so thank you for bring it to be attention.