Once the geeks got the girls the show’s family-friendly comedy was smothered in cosiness
What’s the greatest sweeping gender generalisation you can think of? For men, that intelligence equates to social ineptitude? For women, that blond equals dumb? It’s amazing that The Big Bang Theory went on to become the biggest American sitcom since Friends. But a sitcom combining these two stereotyped groups in adjacent flats just so happened to work.
We are in Pasadena, Los Angeles County. In Apartment 4A (sorry, the lift is out of order, you’ll have to take the stairs), we have physicist Sheldon Cooper PhD, borderline obsessive-compulsive and utterly lacking in people skills, obviously thanks to his gargantuan IQ. There is physicist Leonard Hofstadter PhD, a self-aware nerd, therefore better with people and less awkward with the ladies. He was only allowed to move in with Sheldon after signing the Roommate Agreement (“Roommates must notify each other 12 hours in advance if they wish to have a house guest.” “If Sheldon turns into a zombie, Leonard cannot kill him.”). Round their gaff, we often find aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz, who loves the ladies but still lives with his mum (RIP), and Dr Raj Koothrappali, who physically can’t speak to women unless he’s utterly twatted. You can imagine what happens when Penny, a pretty blond waitress and wannabe actor, moves into Apartment 4B. You can almost smell the fear and pent-up testosterone through the TV screen.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2JhuZXt
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