I'm rewatching season one. Despite the left-liberal slant, it's still more edgy than anything I've seen in what I suspect is the comedy scene of current year. Not that I've really bothered to check things out. Is there anything really worth checking out?
Since the 'Summer Of Love' of 2020 the streaming services (Big Tech) have pulled many episodes featuring blackface as a gag. Most of them from shows of the same time period.
Apparently, even 'Golden Girls' did it at one point. Imagine that. 'Golden Girls' being more edgy than current year.
Even the '10 Jokes From 30 Rock That Have Already Aged Poorly' article on Screenrant, predictably written by a female blogger, is more a promotional ad than anything else. (Although, those tranny episodes were truly cringe. How could they not be?)
Social media, Big Tech and the Democrats really did a number on society.
I know gamers and nerds like to buck against it, but The Big Bang Theory seems positively based compared to "current day" shows. They made jokes about trannies, that soy makes men feminine, was anti-Women Studies and more. This even continued after the series tipped into the woke era.
As I understand it, Jim Parsons also shocked everyone at the show when he announced he would no longer continue after season 12, citing a desire to do other things. The decision came out of nowhere and he could easily have piling up the dough for years playing Cooper. (He makes $10m just from reruns, and purportedly over $150m directly from the role.) I'm wondering if he faced pressure to wokify his character (or the show more broadly) and decided to nope-out before the character and series was ruined by it. He went on to become Executive Producer of Young Sheldon, which I haven't seen, but I understand that it also avoided virtually all of the woke carnage that infiltrated elsewhere.
TBBT became all about the women making the boy's lives better. The women were always shown to be smarter, more capable, and domineering than the boys. They even made Penny the higher paid partner with Leonard.
And Young Sheldon is the usual anti-Christian of modern tv.
Leonard IS a beta who still managed to get the hot chick. Sheldon even mocks him for being a soy-drinking beta. That's all part of the ongoing joke. Leonard should never be portrayed as an alpha, dominant male, but you're still expecting him to be. You're completely missing the mark.
And the women DO make the boys' lives better. Trying to find and manage good male/female relationships is part of the arc to the entire series for all characters. Frankly, it's also often done with a good message -- a man is better with a woman and vice versa. Raj and Stewart often serve as foils to that message.
However, the women are not shown to be smarter and more capable. Penny is portrayed as dumb throughout the entire series. She's an incompetent waitress and failed actress until, much later, she's given a long-shot opportunity to become a sales rep. She almost bombs at the interview until she bond's with the boss over their bitchy associate, Bernadine, which is just enough to rationalize her getting the job. Penny succeeds as a rep because she uses her sex appeal, not because she's a talented sales person, something she's fully cognizant about.
While Bernadine is competent and intelligent, she's never portrayed as smarter than Howard or the males. Amy is the only one who rivals their intelligence, and she's even more awkward and socially inept than the boys.
Bernadette is portrayed as smarter than Howard. She even mocks him for not having a PHD like she does. She tells him verbatim she is smarter than him, and he agrees.
While Amy is socially awkward she mellowed over time. They had whole episodes dedicated to how awesome the girls were. And Penny gets a job as a manager and excels at it.
Okay, I'll concede that point, but having no PHD is an element of mockery Howard receives from everyone. Despite this, he's a highly successful engineer and astronaut, which arguably outshines pretty much anything Berny is shown to accomplish.
This is true too, but it's also an acknowledged part of her personal character arc. She attributes Penny to making her "cooler" and more down to earth, but for most of the series, she's a very submissive and awkward character which also makes her vulnerable and entertaining.
There are comparable episodes for the boys, but I'd still point out that this approaches nothing when measured against the current era of girl boss media. It's not even in the same league.
All this is to say, again, that compared to this era of media, TBBT has some positively based moments. The series started by them cracking jokes about the tranny who used to live across the hall. Good luck starting with that today!