How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy (32 page)

While Giddens sees the reflexive project of the self as a way to diminish uncertainties that we experience as temporal beings, our new social structures seem to only increase them,
because
of reflexivity. Our possibilities are endless and we are fully accountable for past accomplishments, since we are the only ones that give form to our identities. Reflexivity refers to self-awareness and the having of a self-image. Adding to this, ‘reflexibility' is about having a self-image and being highly aware of the fact we can construct, alter and design ourselves. More than ever we are conscious about the ‘construction' of ourselves that comes about with the stories we tell about who we are, what we do, what we like, what we want and acting upon them (or not as may be the case).

Our narrative identity is a fiction, but can't be understood as only being an abstract idea. It affects the choices we make or the way we act. Our narrative identity can be described as ‘virtual', because it exists outside of reality, but can have an effect on this reality nonetheless. It is, as philosopher Michael Heims (1944) aptly expresses, not real in fact, but in effect.

Eating a Sandwich

Past Ted and Marshall enjoyed some casual weed from time to time when attending college, but future Ted (now being a dad and wanting to be a good one) replaces these parts of the story of his life by telling his children he was eating a sandwich. As a viewer you see the visual presentation of Ted's narrative, in which the joint indeed has been replaced by a sandwich. Leaving the rest of the memory unaltered, this leads to some funny scenes.

The viewer knows, as does future Ted, what is being censored, and because of this everybody is experiencing past (college) and future (father) Ted simultaneously. Self-censoring or polishing while telling a story is a recurring theme in
How I Met Your Mother
, varying from saying another person cried while it was actually you (“Slapsgiving 2”), to making the plot of
Dirty Dancing
seem to be your first sexual experience (“First Time in New York”). Sometimes this ‘polishing' is a group activity. This happens when Lily and Marshall go to Atlantic City for an unplanned wedding and Ted hesitates to go with them. They tell him that they “are all going to tell this story for the
rest of our lives. Don't you want to be a part of that?” Ted decides to join them, but asks: “When we tell the story, can we leave the part out where I hesitate?” (“Atlantic City”).

While this is a rather innocent form of reflexibility, we already saw that memories and future possibilities get in the way of Ted and his friends from time to time. Doubts about the self-formation reflect on the way they act in the present. An example of this is the reflexibility Ted experiences during his first day as an architect professor. He has major problems deciding what kind of professor he will be—formal, funny, or laid-back. As a result he ends up being all of these versions of Professor Ted at the same time (“Definitions”).

The previous examples of Lily leaving Marshall or Robin breaking up with Ted can be seen as an ongoing conversation and debate with different versions of their selves; a reflexibility concerning the way they want to see themselves. But the two examples above show that the ‘other' can play an important role in the reflexibility of the self as well.

You Are
Not
Pulling Them Off

While the narrative model of identity as introduced by Ricoeur gives us an interesting insight into the way we construct our own identities, it can also shed some light on the social dimension of human identities. After all it is not only the stories we tell about ourselves that give form to who we are, but also the way in which these stories are received by others. And others will always play an important role in our own life story, as the story of Ted's life evidently illustrates, and we will play an important role in theirs. Just as you might act differently among different people and have various relationships with various people, they might as well. This results in a multiplicity of stories being told about yourself and others. All these narrative relationships form a web of stories in which our identities take shape. Our self is always a ‘multiple self', consisting of many stories about how we see ourselves and others see us.

The sociologist Erving Goffman (1922–1982) tries to explain the way social constructions and the presentation of the self in everyday life work by comparing them with theater. In Goffman's view our lives are like the production of
How I Met
Your Mother
, including scenes, scripts, front stages, back stages, and performances. While the script (given form in rituals in our daily interactions, like greeting people on the street, interacting with co-workers or family members, or paying for groceries) is important in the way we present ourselves, Goffman emphasizes that a great deal of improvisation is involved.

When you throw yourself on stage while wearing, let's say, red cowboy boots and with your own pre-imagined subtext saying that you are “totally pulling them off,” this presentation of the self (because it indirectly states that you have a bold and original identity) will stand or fail with the opinion of those around you. When your best friends laugh in your face, telling you that you are most definitely
not
pulling them off, they redefine your identity regardless of your own ideas. Just like your actions, your stories can be doubted as well. Many times Ted will recount stories told by his friends in the course of his narration, but he can be quite cynical about them. We see for example Marshall and Lily jump out of their apartment from a ridiculous height (“Okay Awesome”) and see Robin make a double flip over traffic on a little girl's bike (“I Heart NJ”). They told Ted it happened exactly like that, but Ted expresses his doubts about it in the act of recounting.

Who Are You?

Goffman's use of theatrical terms when analyzing self-presentation is more than just metaphor. We rely on the appearance and presentation of other persons when getting to know them, just as we represent ourselves to others. It doesn't really matter if these self-presentations are intentional or unintentional, honest or dishonest; they are a form of performance nonetheless.

According to Goffman, we will try to get to know the people that surround us not only out of interest, but also, because we want to know what we can expect of them, and how to act around them. This is why Barney is such a conundrum for his friends (as well as female strangers). He won't admit much about his daily activities, like his job, or about his past. The others see these parts of Barney's story as fundamental to understanding who he is. At one point Ted even blurts out: “I actually don't know where you went to college. Who
are
you?” (“The Drunk Train”).

Eventually Barney's highly imaginative personality become part of his identity. That's why, when he suddenly presents himself differently, he receives an equally confused reaction from his friends. When Barney takes Robin on a date, for example, and treats her like a gentleman while she keeps trying to provoke him without success, she too, yells out “Who
are
you?” (“Do I Know You?”). Robin has a rather closed personality as well, especially when it comes to expressing her feelings. It's because of this that her friends have no clue she is devastated about her breakup with Barney and they act pretty rude in her proximity without realizing it. They make up a song about Barney “banging” other girls, dancing around Robin singing “Bang, bang, bangity, bang!” (“Of Course”). When they find out that she's heartbroken, they all feel really bad about their behavior.

All participants in a daily ‘scene' contribute together to a definition of a given situation. This definition has, just like our narrative identities, a ‘virtual' character to it, because it does not exactly concern what really exists, but rather concerns agreements as to whose claims will be temporarily accepted. Take for example the debate whether Marshall is Ted's best friend. Settling this discussion normally (that is to say when you're not Barney) would generally be a simple matter, because human beings are usually concerned with avoiding possible conflicts.

Games and Masquerades

In the social life of a group of friends, however, disruption can play an important role in relationships and humor. You can think of retelling embarrassing anecdotes of the time your friend got mugged by a monkey (“Zoo or False”), or forgot to bring his pants to work (“Sorry, Bro”). Or you can ridicule long lost footage of a friend performing in an embarrassing video clip or sobbingly singing love songs to a lost girlfriend (“Game Night”). Or you can play social games based on embarrassment and fear, like Slap Bet (“Slap Bet”). Disruption can also take place by undermining the self-presentation of the other person, as we saw with the case of Ted's red cowboy boots. Here the performer (Ted) is fully taken in by his own act, he
believes
that he can pull the boots off. In other words, he thinks the scene he's staging (which is part of his ‘virtual identity') is part of reality.
If the others had agreed with him it could have become part of reality, but instead they ridicule him. With that Ted's performance comes to an end (or should come to an end; Ted is not easily convinced). In another case, as Ted illustrates at his first day of teaching, the performer might not be all that convinced about his acting himself. In this case Ted is still sincere in his acting though, because all he wants to be is a good professor for his students, he just doesn't know how to act upon it.

Someone may also present himself insincerely. Goffman gives the example of a doctor who prescribes a placebo. Although the doctor might not believe in what he's doing, it can have real results for a patient believing in the doctor's sincerity and the power of medicine. Goffman calls this sort of performance a masquerade, a term that fits Barney's daily activities. In his performances towards women he is not in the least sincere with respect to the personas he represents or the things he promises them. On the other hand Barney does very much believe in his acts, since he knows they work to get women into bed. He even writes a book about it (“The Playbook”).

From time to time a performance will crumble because of the actions and reaction of others. Barney's belief in his performance as a womanizer is fundamentally shaped by the first sexual experience of past Barney. The story he built around his identity stems from his assumption that the woman who took his virginity had the best sex of her life while doing so. When he encounters her later and she tells him this is not true at all, suddenly all his stories about his life as a womanizer lose their meaning. He loses faith in his performance as a lover. His memories become altered and they affect the way he acts in the present; he has a bad case of the yips and suddenly doesn't know how to approach women at all (“The Yips”).

Barney's mother shows the same characteristics as her son by lying to her children all the time. She doesn't do this out of self-interest, but because she wants to protect her sons. She tells a young Barney that no kids have shown up for his birthday because the Postmaster General lost his invitations (“Cleaning House”), and that Bob Barker is his dad. While Barney at times seems really naive and retells his mother's stories as though they were real, he's not always sincere when recounting them as being part of his life story. He admits to his friends that (despite his efforts to get on
The Price Is
Right
) he's well aware of the fact that Bob Barker is not his father. He just thought this made him more interesting (“Cleaning House”).

Umbrella, Fungus,
Crocodile Dundee 3

We started with the question of how to tell your life story. When looking at
How I Met Your Mother
, a series formed in a modern society of which reflexibility is an important feature, we could say it doesn't really matter where you begin and where you end. Our identities have a very fragmented, flexible, and temporal character, with various ‘selves' existing next to each other simultaneously.

While we still might strive for a linear narrative to sum up our own identify or life, or that of our loved ones, we can ask ourselves if this is necessary or even fruitful. When Marshall's father dies, Marshall feverishly tries to recall the last words his father ever spoke to him. Retracing his last conversations with his father, his last words vary from a remark about an umbrella, to an observation about foot fungus or
Crocodile Dundee 3
(“Last Words”). This makes Marshall extremely sad, because he really wants the last words to mean something. He feels like his dad's life story (at least the version including him) did not end in a perfect manner. Rethinking this, he finally concludes that he has many beautiful memories of his father, and in a way he will always be present in Marshall's own life story. While life itself is a linear affair, a life story proves to be missing a clear beginning, middle, or end.

How I Met Your Mother
presents us with a fun-house mirror reflection of our contemporary identity construction. We exist in our own changing stories as well in those of others. We can maintain several different identities at once (a possibility Barney demonstrates perfectly) and we have many possible roads to walk.
How I Met Your Mother
playfully elucidates our fragmented, self-aware, narrative identities and by playing with different types of storytelling—voice-overs, different perspectives, and visuals—the show not only makes clear that self-construction is a never-ending and self-reflecting process, but also that identity has multiple and paradoxical features all existing next to each other simultaneously.