How I Met Your Mother Show and the Sexist Ideology
The television show, How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) was first aired on CBS television in the year 2005. Its airing continued until March 2014 with its different episodes eliciting a lot of public attention and curiosity partly because of the unique way in which its core theme was being passed to the audience. Throughout the TV show, Ted Mosby emerges as an unmatched main character. It is through the activities of Ted and his group of close friends that live in Manhattan that Ted manages to articulate to his daughter and son the various issues, activities, and challenges that he addresses as he falls in love with their mother – Ted’s wife. In this paper, I argue that the show has a sexist ideology that emphasizes the fact that women are easy to manipulate and can be used in any way that a man desires (Matterhorn 4-13; Capps 1-3).
The sexist or feminist ideology is very dominant in the show. The relationship between Ted Mosby and other characters plays an important role in communicating critical love relationships in a comic way. The use of comedy greatly helps the film writers and actors to incorporate vital messages in a rather jovial manner. Issues that would otherwise be considered sensitive are therefore portrayed in a keen and very peculiar manner that also addresses the challenges and good experiences that people in relationships often experience. Indeed, Ted is a character in the CBS television show that is over focused on appeasing women and ensuring that he gets a soul mate at all costs and in a timely manner (Dalton and Linder 216).
When HIMYM began in the year that is said to be 2030, Ted is 27 years old and an architect. He opts to tell his son and daughter how he and his wife met. At this point, a sexist ideology emerges. Prior to their meeting, Marshall’s marriage proposal to Lily triggered Ted to think of the need to find a life-long lover. The idea is however opposed by Ted’s best friend, Barney Stinson (Dalton and Linder 216). The show highly encourages men to adhere to Barney’s rules relationship and behavioral tendencies while men seem to be informed that promiscuity and leaving one intimate relationship for another is tolerable. The sexist ideology is highly propagated by Barney who constantly engages in sexual relationships in which he has no intention to be committed (Matterhorn 1-3). These developments help to reinforce the sexism ideology, which in turn undermines the role of women in society and the show in particular.
In relation to the feminist ideology, the challenges of male-female relationships emerge as a major challenge. In the feminist ideology, Ted fails to prove to be a person who can exercise delayed gratification and instead focuses on ensuring that his desire for a soul mate is fulfilled in a short span of time. It is however interesting to see how Ted deals with Robin who emerges to be a very ambitious young lady reporter from Canada. In Season 1 of HIMYM, the feminist ideology is reflected in the circumstances that provoked love and how he quickly falls in love with the reporter, Robin Scherbatsky. Ted’s reference to Robin as “Aunt Ted” is meant to reveal Ted’s desire to think about a lot of women and sexual engagement (Lassen, Strunck, and Vestergaard 3-7). Before long, Ted starts to date Victoria after meeting her at Claudia and Stu9art’s wedding only for Robin to prove that she was jealous of the revelation. Victoria’s long-distance relationship with Ted is used to reveal two ideologies – feminist and friendship (Dalton and Linder 216). Indeed, it is through these relationships that Ted engages in that strong feminism and friendship thoughts are born.
While the stories in the HIMYM are being communicated in humorous ways, the ideology of feminism emerges to be very dominant. The ideology helps to convey crucial gender based issues on CBS. Indeed, the concept of feminism and people’s inability to be effective in bed strongly emerges to be an issue of great concern. The fact that HIMYM deals with the search for a wife is proof that women play an important role in society and that love, friendship, and relationships are interrelated issues that can never be handled in isolation. When Victoria and Ted break up, Ted reconciles with Ron albeit after restrained engagement. Ted’s search for a soul mate reveals unique and continuous engagement in a language that could be said to be vulgar and feminist in nature (Dalton and Linder 216; Capps 2-8). This is because hardly does Ted focus on men. An example can be derived from his reference to believe in moral decadence. The love triangle within and outside the family setting is extensively exploited with emphasis being put on the diverse ways in which love defines women’s way of relating to their men counterparts. Feminism is also revealed in the fact that most of the actors highly pursue new friendships and relationships. The new friendships are pursued with serious emphasis being put on women and the need to forge.
The narrative is told in a third-person perspective through a non-diegetic voice-over, making the viewer have a relatively more independent view of the happenings and the way in which women and relationships are perceived to be a means of entertainment. To a greater extent, fellowships are not only used as catching up with friends but also as avenues of engaging in feminist activities. To some extent, women are devalued and people who are pursued in order to make life better. By contrast, Lily who is already in a relationship opts to get out of it in order to assess the love and friendship opportunities that she might have missed by having quickly getting into a relationship with Marshall.
Barney’s character traits mean that the show was meant to attract viewers who have masculinity tendencies. Both Lily and Barney reveal this argument by constantly exploiting feminism and relating satisfaction to exploitative relationships without paying attention on how their sexual exploits reflects on their morality. The show is therefore focused on attracting men who cherish attracting women and having casual sexual relationships with them without any form of commitment. Still, both men and women are inspired to adhere to their respective gender roles. As the elites in the film, men have legitimized their selfish interests and succeeded in portraying women as tools of sex and entertainment. This is revealed that women are only allocated simple roles. An example of this development is the minor role that Barley plays in revealing the uniqueness of purpose and the minor contribution of Lily and other women in shaping the scope and floe of relationships (Lassen, Strunck, and Vestergaard 2-9).
It is evident from the above television show analysis that eccentric humor and uniqueness of the narrative play an important role in ensuring that the feminist ideology is communicated to the audience in an effectual, and focused manner. The show mainly spreads popularized stereotypes on gender and the role of women in society. To a greater extent, the show reveals women as being unintelligent, tools of sex, and very emotional beings while men’s abilities and attributes are over-exaggerated to be people who are in positions of power, leaders, and in control of their situations. Allocating women minor roles and ensuring that they are used as mere beauty-tools and not people with a substantial and controlled role does this. The many jokes used in the show are therefore intended to divert viewers’ attention from the well-manifested sexist ideology that favors men at the expense of the womenfolk.

Works Cited Capps, Anthony. On TV: The legacy of 'How I Met Your Mother'. McClatchy - Tribune Business News, Washington, 2014. Web. Dalton, Mary and Linder Laura. Teacher TV: Sixty Years of Teachers on Television. New York: Peter Lang, Inc., 2008. Web. Lassen Inger, Strunck Jeanne, and Vestergaard ‎Torben. Mediating Ideology in Text and Image: Ten Critical Studies. John Benjamins Publishing, Co., 2006. Web. Matterhorn, Lorenzo. How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy: Being and Awesomeness. Popular Culture and Philosophy. Carus Publishing Company, 2013. Web. Mittell, Jason. "Chapter 7." Television and American Culture. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2010. N. pag. Web.