Curtis Hox wrote a guest post over at sciencefiction.com reflecting on the character of the lead protagonist, Dr Sheldon Cooper, of The Big Bang Theory. Here's how his piece starts:
"The multi award-winning show, at first glance, is about four university science researchers and their lives as supreme dorks. Sheldon, Leonard, Rajesh and Howard are character types: ultra educated techno-geeks. They fail to impress most women, and they couldn’t beat up a fly (even if they teamed up). They love science fiction and fantasy, computer games, comic books, collectibles, etc. Star Trek, Star Wars, The Flash, The Green Lantern, etc., all provide the language we must learn to understand them.
At their center is Sheldon Cooper, a theoretical physicist who hates mixing with the inferior Muggles he encounters in the real world. Sheldon cringes when someone tries to hug him, consistently fails to understand sarcasm, refuses to call Amy Farrah Fowler his girlfriend (until a very recent episode). He can’t stop obsessing about where he sits or how many times he knocks on a door. Sheldon’s character, though, is interesting beyond the expertly acted comic performance by Emmy award winner Jim Parsons because he challenges key categories of what we consider normal human behavior.
Sheldon, in essence, isn’t human."
Continue reading ...
I confess to being a closet fan of the series, tho' I only catch it from time to time: see my comment at the end.
