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bloodunderthebridge · 6 years

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The Magic of Postmodernism in How I Met Your Mother

We all know (and if you don’t, you should know) that How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is a comical t.v series that went off the air after its ninth and final season in 2014. But, for those of you who have not enjoyed the future storytelling plot that is HIMYM, here is a quick recap of what takes place in the t.v show composed of nine amusing seasons. The first main character is Ted. Ted is the guy who narrates the entire story to his teenage kids of how he met their mother. Ted tells the story of his journey to finding a wife in 2030 and each season takes the audience through another year of Ted trying to find his wife with his best friends/sidekicks adding to the drama prior to 2030. For the second, third, fourth and fifth characters, you’ve got Lily and Marshall who have been together since college, but have their ups and downs that result in marriage and a baby. You have Barney who has a sketchy job that makes an absurd amount of money and spends most of his time dating as many girls as possible while asking them out in extreme, impossible ways and then you have Robin. Robin brings her daddy issues, t.v broadcasting skills and rough Canadian lifestyle to the streets of New York City. Combined, these characters date each other, date an uncountable number of other people, succeed along with tons of failure and in the end, create a t.v show that reaches a large audience with its sarcastic tone and unrealistic, but relatable circumstances.

So now that I’ve throughly discussed the characters and their role in HIMYM (for those of you who have watched HIMYM and for those of you who's my detailed description is good enough), what comes to mind when we think of the show? Perhaps how uneventful and upsetting the end of the series was or how Barney and Robin should have never broken up and like why did Tracy have to die? Whatever the reason, it probably wasn’t the postmodern aspects of the t.v show. In-between Barney’s multiple conquests, Robin’s foreign Canadian phrases, Lily and Marshall’s never ending relationship and Ted’s seemingly forever lasting search for love are techniques typically used in postmodern works of literature and in this case, good t.v. But since there is a handful of ways in which HIMYM can be looked at through a postmodern lens, I’m going to focus on three specific techniques, metafiction, magical realism and intertextuality. Now although metafiction and intertextuality may sound boring in comparison to watching t.v and even though magical realism seems to entail more fun, each technique adds a level of depth to HIMYM.

T.V, I’m pretty sure everyone has watched it at least once, but what happens when we’ve watched all the shows that interest us, do we exit our box and try a new show or do we watch a series over again? I’m voting for the latter. Whenever I watch something for a second or third and sometimes a fourth time, I notice different things about the show or whatever episode I’ve re-watched. “I could have sworn that storm trooper wasn’t there before”, I notice the smaller details when I re-watch shows and that’s why looking at HIMYM while keeping the postmodern techniques in the back of my mind, helps understand the t.v series more accurately. It’s an underlying layer that you don’t notice at first, but contributes to how the show is perceived by the audience. Imagine HIMYM having modern aspects, rather than postmodern, would more or less people watch it? Would the meaning and perception change? My guess is yes, of course it would change because even though it’s only a small number of aspects that I am looking at, those small parts are what make up the whole and changing enough of those small parts will eventually change the whole.

Okay, so now that I’ve convinced you that looking at HIMYM through a postmodern lens is important, what specifically does metafiction, magical realism and intertextuality mean? Meta fiction is the act of writing about writing or making readers aware of the fictional nature of the very fiction they're reading, or in the case of HIMYM, when the characters know they are in a t.v show. This is commonly know as “breaking the fourth wall”. Magical realism is the introduction of impossible or unrealistic events into a narrative that is otherwise realistic which is pretty explanatory and an easy definition. And lastly, intertextuality is the acknowledgment of previous literary works within another literary work or when a t.v show references a movie or book or vice versa. Each of these three techniques are actively used in HIMYM and now that you know what they mean, time to dive into a close viewing of HIMYM.

Metafiction, breaking the fourth wall, if you will, is not something I am typically a fan of. I think some shows use it well, like Jane the Virgin, but than shows like House of Cards, I can’t stand, but then again, the majority of people I know like House of Cards, so maybe thats just me. Anyways, Jane the Virgin and House of Cards use metafiction many times throughout each episode, but that’s not the case in HIMYM. There are only a number of instances in the entire series of HIMYM where metafiction is used, it is a technique that is used in addition to many other techniques, but not alone. Okay so to give an example so everyone can see what I'm blabbing on about, I’ve looked at season eight, episode four titled “Who Wants to be a Godparent?”. In this episode, Lily and Marshal, now married and pregnant, are hosting a game-show-like competition between Ted, Barney and Robin to see who should be the Godparent of their first child. Towards the end of the scene, when the game is almost over, Marshall looks directly at the screen and says “we will be right back after a message from our sponsors” (00:11:40 - 00:11:50). This was a clear cut, easy example of meta fiction. Another example just for good measure, but not as obvious as my first example is in season seven, episode six, “Mystery vs. History”. Barney, Ted and Robin are all sitting on the couch in Ted’s apartment and Ted is rambling on about breaking the fourth wall in Annie Hall (this is also intertextuality, but that’s for later) and then, out of nowhere, Robin turns to the camera and says “can you believe this guy?” and motions her thumb in Ted’s direction. Personally, Robin breaking the fourth wall is my favourite out of the two just because it was less expected in that scene than in the other one, you know. Okay well, I think that’s enough about metafiction for now… on to magic……al realism!

When I first heard of magical realism, I thought, yes finally some magic being taught in university. This is not the case, but also it sort of is the case. Let me explain. Magical realism is when events and stuff happening in a t.v show or movie or whatever are unrealistic, but they are shown in a realistic setting, therefore making it somewhat believable to some people (maybe?). Now, magical realism is so important that even Oprah talked about in her book club. On Oprah’s website an article is posted saying “magical realism sets magical events in realistic contexts, thus requiring us to question what is "real," and how we can tell” (Parkinson Zamora), which is my opinion, nicely summarises why magical realism is like magic. So thank you Oprah for also seeing the importance of magical realism and talking about it, but now to bring the magic to life in HIMYM, we need to look at season seven, episode seven titled “Noretta”. I know I’ve already explained a bit about Barney’s role in the t.v show and if you’ve watched HIMYM, you already know for yourself, but Barney is addicted to asking as many women out as possible. Like I’m pretty sure that’s all he does, it is his life mission to sleep with a record number of people. Not the most attractive quality in a person/character, but it does make for good t.v. “Noretta” is a prime example of far Barney will go and magical realism all in one! Background: Barney is on a date with an attractive British women he has been dating. They have not slept together yet, but in episode seven, Barney was determined to change that. While skating, Barney’s date fell down on the ice and completely lost a tooth, but somehow Barney managed to convince his date to not give up on the night. After his date fell, Barney also looked up to the roof (aka the sky, aka God, aka magic) and said “I can turn this around” (00:05:40 - 00:06:11). Magical realism? Yes, an extreme example of it? No, but the saga continues, finally back at Barney’s apartment, they go on the balcony where Barney and his date witness a man jumping from a roof committing suicide. Barney again says, “I can turn this around” and despite his date crying “I want to go home”, he manages to win her over (00:09:30 - 00:10:12). What makes this magical realism, if it isn’t clear enough, is that Barney still managed to sleep with his date despite her losing a tooth (which must have been insanely painful and ugly to look at) and that she witnessed death. Those two things happening don’t really set the mood for most people. That is one example of an episode of HIMYM where there is magical realism, but you could find magical realism in probably more than half of the episodes of HIMYM because the technique is used too often when it comes to Barney’s character.

Now finally, we get to discuss intertextuality, my personal favourite. You may be thinking, why is intertextuality my favourite? Especially compared to a technique that is magic adjacent, but when I understand a reference to another movie or book, I just feel like I know more, you know. The important thing to note about intertextuality though is that “much of the show’s humour relies on the reader’s recognition of common tropes” (Levine 67). This directly relates to HIMYM because if the viewer doesn’t understand the reference, they may also miss the humour which would be unfortunate and HIMYM uses intertextuality as humour more often than not. To illustrate intertextuality in HIMYM, I am going to use Star Wars as an example. Star Wars is my all time favourite movie series and therefore I like to take every opportunity to force my obsession upon everyone else and lucky for me, it seems that the characters of HIMYM love Star Wars the same as me!! So here we go, example number one, season nine, episode seventeen, “Sunrise”, Ted argues with his fiancé about what CP30 is made of and he also mocks her by saying “You know what’s weird? Not seeing Star Wars until you’re thirty” (00:03:15 - 00:03:47). Example number two, season nine, episode fifteen, “Unpause”, Barney gets so drunk the night before his wedding he mimics Jabba the Hutt. Example number three, season nine, episode two, “Coming Back”, Barney speaks like Yoda to Marshall, “there is no try” (00:16:18 - 00:16:26). Example number four, just kidding, I won’t keep going with the Star Wars intertextuality references because if you don’t get the point by now, you probably won’t ever get it. That was rude, if you didn’t get the point though, its that if you don’t understand or know Star Wars, HIMYM won’t make any sense. Just kidding, but it definitely won’t be as funny.

We all know now that How I Met Your Mother is a comical t.v series that went off the air after its ninth season and that the producers of this t.v show employ the use of the postmodern techniques metafiction, magical realism and intertextuality. So if anyone ever asks you for examples of magical realism in HIMYM, hopefully now you will be able to give them at least one answer. But in all seriousness, looking at pop culture or anything with a certain lens in mind (in my case, postmodernism) helps read between the lines of whats going on. I find that closely viewing movies and t.v shows or even literature gives a different perspective and shows the layers that can be hidden and I encourage everyone to stop watching HIMYM for a good laugh, but to really learn from the show.

#himym

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bloodunderthebridge · 7 years

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