HIMYM - M&N

Kids, as you know, “How I met your mother” is a story about how people of New York live in our times, which Ted Mosby is going to recite to his kids in 2030. Now along with being the most popular sitcom series among the Indian youth of today, it is also a narration of his life i.e. autobiography by Ted Mosby. Now there are several points which make this particular series a fascinating study on Narratives.
Now taking about the narrative, how will you tell your kids about how you met with your spouse? Here Ted Mosby of future goes back in his memory and tells them small incidents which happened to him which led to his meeting with his wife. Though he could have told the chronicles of events that happened on the very day of the meeting and could have done with the story but instead he sees the need to put the very day in a context which would validate/approve/account for the actions he took on that particular day. Though you can argue that how can he be sure that little snippets of his life that he is narrating are enough to give context to the day, or how in the first is choosing, what is important and what’s not? It’s a very valid point because narratives are endless they can’t have a specific start or ending, but whatever little that he tells at least provides an understanding.

Superhero vs. Sidekick

during our discussions in class, we also came upon the question that when we are telling a narrative about ourselves do we ever see ourselves as side-kicks or is it always us who are saving the world? To put the question in this context, we see that story revolves around each of the characters where all five of them have their fair share of playing the hero and narrator just a side kick. Examples could be the situations where the story revolves around Barney and Robin’s affair or Lilly or Marshall’s encounters with Marshall’s family. There Ted Mosby is just somebody in background. Here once again you can argue that it was so because of the medium of narration. Instead of it being filmed if it were a book or if Ted was telling the story face to face then may be the portrayal of the characters would have been different. A video might allow each character an almost fair share but a book or speech provides a perspective of who is telling the story and also how the story is being told.

The True Narrator

Then there is the concept of how truthful narrator is while telling a story he knows best as it happens to him. Here Ted Mosby wants to tell his children about his story because he wants them to understand their father better. Even though here he is trying his children to take his story forward with them, he chooses to amend a few facts here and there for them. As no parent want to tell their children that they use abusive as the part of their speech. For precisely this reason Ted changes the word in the narrative while telling the story. In a second case, Ted and his friends Marshall and Lilly used to smoke weed during their college days, but as again this will be a fact no parent would ever like to mention to their children, as they want them to stay away from them, therefore every time when a story reaches to a scene where they are smoking pot, to hide this fact, Ted and his friends instead are shown eating “a very large sandwich”. Here the most interesting part is, as the medium is of video it could have been possible that Ted can replace the word “weed” only in his speech as “sandwich”, but in this series even in the shoot they are shown eating a sandwich. Therefore, the truth about our true story depends too much on who are the listeners of the story.
This manipulation of truth could be done in two ways, one as mentioned above, by representing the act by some other “acceptable” act. Or by not describing the act at all, as if it never happened so is not the part of the story. Like in the first four seasons of the show none of characters was even shown smoking. But it was sometime very late in the season 5 that Ted confesses to his children that he and his friends were all chain smokers.

Myth of a Nation

As per the story, Robin Scherbatsky is from Canada who came to New York for her career. She is shown to be in constant battle between her loyalty to her old country and her acceptance by a new one. Though she is not in her own country but even then the constructs of her identity makes her a Canadian. She likes to get into fights, loves hockey, and hangs out at this favorite Canadian bar where she along with other Canadians in New York often sings songs of Canadian glory.
In the Season 5, episode 5 “Dual Citizenship”, Barney trains Robin to be an American because she needs to give a test for American Citizenship the next day. Though she learns all the rules to be an American by heart and gets her American citizenship, even then to celebrate it we find her back in the Canadian Bar having a heart to heart. She goes for the dual citizenship A Canadian who is an American as well. Now how will you measure what is she more of? What part of her belongs to which country even without the stamp of dual citizenship on her name?
As Scherbatsky is a true to her roots, therefore, many a time the Americans in the series are seen establishing their nation. We know America is comparatively new country whose history and myths are still in the making. Therefore, several a times we find the rest of them bend-on on making their myths to create the identity of an American. This is something which is repeated several times in the series. Like in the above mentioned episode itself Barney demonstrates the various habits of an American. Let it be the chant of USA or Shrimp Fried Rice, or how Robin’s answers for American citizenship test are not “American” even though they are correct. Along with that they are also making a new myth of a New Yorker. Like in “Subway wars” in season 6 the gang declares 5 things you would have done if you are a New Yorker.
Here we the construction of the concept of nation. Every day we are into making little myths of our own to provide ourselves a distinct identity and at the same time giving proof of our affiliation to a set of people so that we are not alone. Human has mysterious need to be different, but then he is aware of the fact that everyone is seeking for something similar in others to get associate with. So to overcome this fear of being left alone, we tend to make smaller group of people who are different from everyone else but similar within themselves. IF only we get ready to accept everyone else with their complete uniqueness we all could be ourselves and live together with fear.

The Disowned Culture

If we see narration of the show, then it is a narrative of American culture to the Indian audiences. It being a series set in city of New York, where the culture is very different from the Indian Culture. We have a very common debate going on, on whether it is the media which affects the culture/society or vice-versa. Having said that, it is very interesting to note that several actions regarding number of sexual partners for both male and females, smoking and drinking, use of curse words etc, which are otherwise unacceptable to an Indian youth as per the cultural norms, becomes almost alright when shown in the series because there acts are acceptable as per the culture of the country the series is set in. All most like being in a fantasy world where the reader/viewer can actually free one’s self from the clutches of norms and laws of reality and don the cape of possibility and get lured by the mirage of freedom in fantasy.
And Narratives gives one freedom to get in and out of text, add/subtract from it any element and make an attempt to make sense out of the vastness of the intricacies of the world.