How I Met Your Mother: The Best And Worst Parts

what were the good bad and ugly takeaways of How I Met Your Mother almost a decade after its series finale the series is still very popular it's spin-off how I met your father was recently renewed for a second season and while how I met your father has tried to distance itself from the original series in some ways like avoiding the problematic misogyny of Barney and Ted it mostly tries to copy the first Show's formula highly aware of the show's enduring resonance when I get sad I stop being sad and be awesome instead so it's worth asking what are we still holding on to from the original show and what are we trying to let go of deep down lots of us still crave the tight-knit sitcom friend Circle and as cheesy as it sounds lots of us still believe in true love you feel it throughout your body in your hands in your heart still while Ted's pursuit of true love was often warm and appealing the journey also included plenty of bad behavior and perfect examples of what not to do in dating in relationships let's dig into the meaningful messages and toxic takeaways of How I Met Your Mother if you're new here be sure to subscribe and click the Bell to get notified about all our new videos meaningful message time passes whether we like it or not Ted's quest to meet the mother of his children takes nine whole seasons over the course of the series he and the other characters grow up Ted goes from being in his mid-20s to being in his mid-30s Marshall and Lily have children Robin finally makes her journalism career dreams come true and Barney goes from being a relentlessly single womanizer to someone capable of marrying Robin and becoming a doting father but all of that is because time passes eventually we're all gonna move on it's called growing up though there are several points where the gang tries to cling to their youthful habits I am never leaving this apartment they eventually realize that time moves on with or without them it's a helpful reminder that as much as like future Ted we may enjoy reminiscing about the past we all end up in the future eventually the future is scary but you can't just run back to the past because it's familiar yes it's tempting but it's a mistake toxic takeaway adulthood means giving up I'm sorry dude this corporate thing it's just it's not for me on the other hand How I Met Your Mother doesn't always have the best ideas about how to respond to the passage of time where many sitcoms ignore the character's work lives How I Met Your Mother spends a lot of time on the gang's careers and the ways in which those careers didn't play out the way they expected Marshall goes to law school to become an environmental lawyer but ends up working for a series of evil corporations I became a lawyer to save the environment and now I'm working for the bad guys instead though Ted has a romantic nerdy interest in architectural history he ends up supporting the destruction of the historic Arcadian so that he can design his own building the characters repeatedly justify these decisions because of their need to provide for their families and maintain a certain standard of living this ends up suggesting that it's okay to compromise all your ideals because making money for your loved ones is what really matters most will you still be okay if I make a lot of money and I spent all of it spoiling you and our kids crimes implies that success money and more idealistic no fulfillment but we have a mortgage and we're trying to have kids we're grown-ups now Lily Lily's work as a kindergarten teacher is rarely presented as gratifying but more often framed as her not doing anything special with her talents I asked a kindergarten teacher and yes I have a degree in art history and I was meant to do something with it but I didn't and when Marshall finally briefly gets to work at an environmental law firm he still doesn't get to make the impact he wanted and it's kind of a letdown robin's dream of being an international journalist isn't really compatible with her long-term friendships or relationships which is why for a long time she takes professional steps back and then to truly make it eventually has to sacrifice her personal relationships including her marriage to Barney at least for a time I know I'm always traveling we both hate it when I'm gone we both hate it when I drag you with me neither of us is happy is this just not working anymore meaningful message don't settle it's okay to wait for the right person How I Met Your Mother believes in fairy tale love stories while Marshall and Lily are lucky enough to find each other early in life Ted spends nine whole Seasons looking for the perfect woman one big problem Ted is very picky and annoying you know I actually sound kind of douchey God oh man I'm at a roll lessons of the show is that Ted needed to find someone who actually liked the somewhat grating things about him maybe there's some girls who wouldn't like it that I called them right away or said things too soon but guess what those aren't the right girls for me Ted does need to change in some ways especially being less terrible towards women but he doesn't need to give up on his interests or the core of his personality Ted does eventually find the right person without compromising his core values so How I Met Your Mother makes a case against settling toxic takeaway it's okay to just wait for the right person on the other hand Ted's approach to romance is frequently passive I know that odds are the love of my life isn't going to magically walk through that door it seems as nice a spot as any to just you know sit and wait Ted suffers from main character syndrome imagining himself as the protagonist of his own story as is clear from his narrating to his uninterested kids this lengthy roundabout tale about how the universe revolves around his love life you see the universe has a plan kids and that plan is always in motion but the story Ted tells himself requires someone else a magical Dream Woman to just appear out of nowhere and fit perfectly with Ted the love story of how Ted met the mother of his children is all about coincidences and fate being in the right place at the right time in this way it sends a message that viewers can't exactly follow or simply supposed to hope there's a soul mate out there for us and wait for the universe to provide our happy ending destined aren't you tired of waiting for Destiny Ted isn't it time to make your own destiny and in Ted's case the universe provides twice giving him the perfect family he always wanted with Tracy and then getting her out of the way so he can conveniently also end up with the one he always pined for Robin toxic takeaway emotional manipulation means you care more still Ted's romantic nice guy facade allows him to be an arguably even worse guy than Barney Barney lies to plenty of women over the course of the series but he minimizes the amount of emotional damage he does by simply leaving after one encounter and apart from in these one-night stands he's pretty honest about who he is Ted on the other hand uses his nice guy persona and romantic values to justify hurting people he claims to care about like when his attempt to be honest with a girlfriend leads him to break up with her on her birthday it's my birthday and you're telling me I'm not the one for you it's really not such a big deal I mean it's the odds it's like you lost the lottery Ted's pursuit of true love is Noble in some ways but it also gives him a convenient excuse for being cruel to anyone he doesn't deem the one throughout the series Ted tells the story of how he met the mother of his children as if it's fate something the universe wanted to happen sometimes when you're about to give up on your love life forever for the 17th time Destiny intervenes Ted's habit of framing behavior in his dating life as part of Destiny makes it easier for him to avoid responsibility for his own actions since they're simply part of the universe's plan for him if he does something terrible to a woman he's dating who are they to argue against Destiny nowhere is this more apparent than in Ted's relationship with Robin from the beginning Ted treats his infatuation with Robin as an epic Love Story it was like something from an old movie which makes it easier to justify his creepy behavior and his ceaseless Pursuit carries on even when Robin has repeatedly told him she isn't interested in the kind of relationship he wants and even though he's so obsessed with her his self-involvement can lead to treating her badly too you lied and said you were broken up with Victoria before you actually were so you can try to nail Robin and you wound up losing both girls in one night meaningful message a breakup isn't the end of the world sitcoms love to position love stories as being faded inevitable pairings that simply have to happen we need Jim to end up with Pam or for Ross to end up with Rachel though How I Met Your Mother loves the idea of this kind of relationship the show also acknowledges that sometimes relationships just don't work out though Victoria and Ted have a strong relationship Ted and Victoria break up because of his clear feelings for Robin something that isn't anybody's fault and doesn't have to be melodramatic Robin and I'm exhausted I am I'm exhausted from pretending I'm not in love with her meanwhile Robin and Ted are extremely compatible when they date for the first time but eventually they realize they shouldn't be together not because one of them is evil or malicious but because they want different things out of life we have an expiration date don't we after they break up they remain friends for years even roommates for a while their eventual reunion only happening much later and when Robin gets together with Barney their marriage eventually ends in divorce but they still try to maintain their friendship as part of the group this isn't a failed marriage it's a very successful marriage that happened to only last three years most of the relationships on How I Met Your Mother don't work out but they're still important with both Stella and Victoria despite the hurt cause in the relationships or breakups Ted finally walks away in a place where everyone understands the other's motives and wishes each other the best [Music] meaningful message friendships are true love too really How I Met Your Mother reminds us that friendship can be just as important as romantic relationships maybe this isn't a breakup maybe this is two friends Getting Back Together Ted even values being friends with Robin over his relationship with Victoria and there are several moments throughout the series where the characters indicate that they value their gang over pretty much any partner and like romantic relationships friendships also go through rough patches but even when friends disappear for a while they can still come back into your life in a meaningful way I have a question what happened to the building that used to be here it was way nicer oh my God toxic takeaway women are disposable like Seinfeld and friends before the characters on How I Met Your Mother date a lot as we witness Barney's seemingly endless string of sexual conquests Ted also blows through relationships in the process he frequently adopts Barney's casual dismissive approach towards women excuse me are the girls in there hotter than our dates I don't know if they're hotter but they're drunker Barney formulates an entire system of rules to justify the cruel way he uses and discards women and the show largely laughs at this code whether it's comparing women to inhuman creatures the rules for girls are the same as the rules for Gremlins or reducing their value to physical attractiveness a girl is allowed to be crazy as long as she is equally hot thus if she's this crazy she has to be this hot though the other characters are frequently disgusted by Barney's behavior and provide a veneer of plausible deniability the series still ultimately indeed and while it could be argued that the show's depiction of this kind of behavior is a critique it mostly falls short of explicitly calling out this kind of objectification of women ending instead with a laugh track girls whose names end in l y are always dirty for Holly Kelly Carly Lily hey there's even merchandise revolving around Barney's various schemes ironically the most disposable woman on How I Met Your Mother is also the Title Character Tracy Ted's future wife and the mother of his children isn't fully introduced until the final season of the show and while this brief Glimpse at her would make sense if the series ended with Ted meeting the mother and living happily ever after the series finale reveals that Tracy has died of an unnamed illness leaving teda widower who is then free to pursue Robin again I just just call her up on the phone and ask her out on a date yes nope that's something you guys would want yeah the entire story of How I Met Your Mother treats Tracy as if she's not so much a real person as a fantasy someone who exists as an object to give birth to Ted's children so that he can get back together with the woman he always wanted after having conveniently solved the biggest obstacle to that relationship the fact that Robin never wanted kids meaningful message love requires work How I Met Your Mother believes in a storybook version of true love but the series still acknowledges it happily ever after is never really the ending through Marshall and Lily it shows that even the most picture-perfect couples still need to do work to maintain their relationships then I've had to keep updating them as we go because one set of valves it can't cover a lifetime of growing and changing with you when Marshall and Lily the closest thing the show has to a perfect couple briefly break up in the show's second season they come back together stronger than ever with a sense of who they are as individuals and what they want out of their relationship being in a couple is hard and committing making sacrifices it's hard but if it's the right person then it's easy toxic takeaway Embrace extreme insularity sitcoms by their nature are focused on a small group of people we spend so much time with those people that we naturally come to think that that group of friends is the only group of people who matter in the show's Universe How I Met Your Mother takes this to an extreme where the choice to serve your family and friends to the exclusion of all else is presented as the right thing Marshall even shames Barney for not practicing nepotism and choosing Ted for a job over an Architecture Firm Barney thought had a better design how could you do this to Ted after everything he's been through with Stella you're just being selfish in the end Ted couldn't live happily ever after with Tracy because Robin is the person he's known for longest and the person who was family in the sitcom's eyes as Megan Garber wrote for the Atlantic because the mother was a relative stranger in the end she was quote ultimately just as Expendable as everyone else it's nice to put friends and family first but it's a little disconcerting when this is taken to such an extreme that it leaves no room for anything else like putting your principles first or letting new people into your life toxic takeaway the one must be white CIS enabled How I Met Your Mother featured overwhelmingly white heterosexual cisgendered physically abled characters in both its starring and its small guest roles even within the endless series of women Barney and Ted date strikingly few of them stray from White eurocentric standards of beauty when Barney alludes to dating women of color it's often framed as a punchline hey so you know how I've always had a thing for half asian girls well now I've got a new favorite Lebanese girls viewers called out the show's racism when three characters played by white actors dressed in stereotypical Asian attire as part of what the creators called an homage to Kung Fu films there were several homophobic and transphobic jokes throughout the series including Barney's trying to pick up a lesbian by styling himself as a woman and copying various lesbian stereotypes tonight I pick up a lesbian Robin I need your lipstick and a running transphobic joke hey Barney there's a bunch of models in the lobby and the gossip is one of them is really a dude you want to play who's hot and who's Scott it's always the one in the turtleneck kid Robin and the Gang also endlessly fat shame her co-worker Patrice while Barney derides repugnant women you see every woman no matter how initially repugnant has a room the time it takes for you to realize you want to Bone her like friends Happy Endings and all other sitcoms that track groups of friends in a big city How I Met Your Mother is about the process of figuring out what you want from life and learning how to pursue it be it love friendship or professional success how I met your father has corrected at least some of the most toxic takeaways from the original show like not shaming or belittling women for being open to sex are you not a sure thing yeah I am this friend of yours better be even hotter and dumber than this one I'm gonna get with a whole bunch of dues before I wind up with Dad but overall it's aiming for similar emotional lessons and it's clear that the central meaningful message of How I Met Your Mother remains as appealing today as ever that's the take click here to watch a video we think you'll love or here to check out a whole playlist of awesome content don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications

Channel: The Take

Views: 94,414

Keywords: himym, how i met your mother, marshall eriksen, the take, josh radnor, ted mosby, neil patrick harris, barney stinson, cobie smulders, robin scherbatsky, alyson hannigan, lily aldrin, jason segel, cristin milioti, the mother, bob saget

Id: Nj8GrLXCErU

Length: 16min 26sec (986 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 04 2023