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