How I Met Your Mother,
the 1986 Challenger explosion,
& WWII Stragglers.

HIMYM

I was genuinely surprised while watching this episode of How I Met Your Mother, a television series that my little sister is quite fond of watching. I’ve only seen a few episodes prior to this, mostly while also on my laptop, but it seemed an appealing enough show from what I could tell. Jokes were rarely done in poor taste, and if they were characters would occasionally say that it was inappropriate, and the characters were rather realistic. That’s part of why it was so bizarre when I watched the episode and saw just how poorly handled it all was.

The episode starts to get bad after just three minutes. When Marshall is denied teaching but a teacher, a young boy some out and offers him information on how to find a master to teach him the slap of a thousand suns, and he offers “much gold” in return. This could be overlooked if they hadn’t kept up the charade for the rest of the episode. The “much gold” issue continues to pop up over the course of the episode, and not only did they have several of the main characters dress up in yellow face, but they did poor accent imitations. It also perpetuated the stereotype of Asian women looking young.

The only real upside to the episode was Barney Stinson’s complete and utter disbelief of the whole thing.

The Challenger

In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger launched. It remained in the air for about 73 seconds before a huge fireball erupted in the sky. Every member of the crew died. The entire thing was tragic, but perhaps one of the most tragic aspects was the loss of Ellison Onizuka. At the age of 39 when the Challenger took off, Ellison became the first Asian American to enter space. Instantly he became a role model for all Asian Americans, and anyone else, really. People might be bigoted and cruel, but it doesn’t mean you are any less capable for being who you are. Unfortunately, the very same mission also ended up taking his life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I took the liberty of locating a video of the Challenger’s launch. It’s not terribly graphic, but I wouldn’t recommend watching it if you have issues with explosions.

WWII Stragglers

During class last quarter, I recall a story of a mother who was in denial about WWII being over. She insisted for years to come that the war had not ended yet, and she still resented the people who were responsible for the concentration camps. I do not feel that a reaction such as that was unwarranted, especially in light of the travesties that were committed against Asian Americans at the time. It seems to me that the Stragglers had a very similar issue. Despite the war having ended in 1945, some soldiers continued to fight into the 70s.