OK, so let me see if I got this.
Leonard, Howard, and--
I'm sorry.
What was your name again?
Raj Koothrappali, the Rango of The Big Bang Theory
cast of characters.
But the character's third wheel status
is certainly not the fault of actor Kunal Nayyar,
who did the best he could with the shoddy material he
was given week in and week out.
The problem with Raj goes beyond just a lack of interest
in the character on the part of the writers.
They seem to at times almost be resentful
that they have to include him in the show at all.
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
I have three brothers and two sisters, Sheldon.
I can do this all day.
First premiering in 2007, The Big Bang Theory
was a huge ratings success.
And while the show certainly had many critics,
it's impossible to deny its impact
for the majority of its run.
The show premiered exactly at the correct time
in the cultural zeitgeist as the geek takeover of Hollywood
was truly about to begin.
With Iron Man marking the start of the MCU and Christopher
Nolan's The Dark Knight only a year
away, a true change in the popular conception
of what it meant to be a geek was about to occur.
The show's seemingly unstoppable popularity
became a perfect illustration of the way geek culture
had become mainstream.
The show even went as far as to hire scientific consultants
to make sure the scientific jargon
and mathematical formulas in the set decorations were accurate.
However, despite this seeming fealty
to the types of people the show is portraying,
it can be hard to tell if the series reached
such a massive audience in part because it seemed to want
to play its comedy both ways.
Is the comedy of The Big Bang Theory
laughing with the characters or is the humor
meant to be at their expense?
Hey, Sheldon, what do you say we go outside
and throw around the old pigskin?
This is a Jewish house.
I don't have pigskin.
This apathy towards Raj in particular shows
up time and time again.
And not only becomes detrimental to the way
we feel about him with his cartoonish mannerisms becoming
so unrealistic even for a sitcom,
it completely shatters the investment audiences
had in him.
But before we look at the wreckage of Raj's character,
don't forget to subscribe to Nerdstalgic so you never
miss a video.
And hey, thanks to everyone who requested
for us to cover this topic.
Despite the show's massive success,
it nearly never made it to air in the first place.
The show initially had two pilots, the first of which
only featured Sheldon and Leonard
as the primary characters.
How exactly do you get distracted
making a sperm deposit?
Did you find something more interesting in your pants?
The poor test audience reception of the first pilot
led to a general overhaul of the series.
The only part of the show that remained the same
were the characters of Sheldon and Leonard,
who received the most praise from the initial test audience.
The reshot version of the pilot recast the role of Penny
and added the remaining male leads of Howard and Raj.
Bill Prady, the show's co-creator,
commented, "the idea was if they like these first two guys,
let's give them two more."
This quote speaks to the fact that
Raj, and to a lesser extent, Howard,
were both afterthoughts in the creation of the series.
Raj often feels like a redundancy
to the other characters, and once you
know his creation came from an attempt
to simply give the audience more of what they seem to want,
you understand why the character was never given his proper due.
In theory, Raj should exist in an important space
within the sitcom ecosystem-- the scene
stealing side character.
Let me ask you something.
Would a passive guy barge in here to look you in the eye
and say--
hey, dew-kissed flower, what's up?
Characters such as Cosmo Kramer, Ned Flanders, or the Fonz
himself may not get as much screen
time as the central characters, but their comedic energy
brings something to the table that
keeps the audiences laughing.
I sure like the cut of your gibberish.
Cohen-dodilly.
Diddly-oodily.
Diddily-doddily.
Oodley.
Loodey-oodily.
Noodily-doddily diddily-doddily.
Looney-oodily.
While these characters often can't carry a show entirely
on their own, they are vital to expanding the world
within a sitcom while also injecting fresh comedic
takes into each scene.
Instead, Raj exists as a human punching bag.
He is often portrayed as being the butt of the jokes
rather than the source of genuine comedy.
His primary running gag for the show's first six seasons
was to suddenly become unable to speak
whenever a woman was nearby unless he was intoxicated.
Bachelor, and the next I'm married and driving
a minivan to peewee cricket matches in suburban New Delhi.
Are you talking to me?
Is there another Penny here?
This would lead to gags where Raj is completely
left out of plans due to his inability to speak.
Jokes that feel needlessly mean spirited
in a show that doesn't really have that sort of tone.
This is to say nothing of the frequent jokes
at the expense of Raj about his cultural identity.
Suggesting Sheldon has more knowledge about Hindu language
than he does.
You really want to challenge yourself,
you could learn to speak Hindi.
[SPEAKING HINDI]
Can you say that in English?
I actually, I never learned Hindi.
All of these gags service characters like Sheldon,
but it constantly feels like punching down
on a character that doesn't really deserve that treatment.
Raj's inability to speak to women
finally started to change at the end of the show's sixth season.
Producer Steve Molaro commented on the change,
saying "it's not the greatest situation
to have a character who can only speak to women with alcohol
in his hand," which only further highlights just how
inconsequential the writers must have seen Raj if it took them
over 135 episodes to realize their error.
The moment of Raj's cure feels somewhat unsatisfying.
After being dumped by his girlfriend Lucy in the season
six finale, Raj is out of the blue suddenly
able to talk to women again.
It's just the booze talking.
No.
It's not.
I haven't had a drink since last night.
There really isn't a lesson learned for a moment of growth.
He simply seemed to get over it.
Once the writers freed Raj of his selective mutism,
the character was able to be actively involved
in the same type of romantic hijinx
as the rest of the show's characters.
Raj has a few distinct relationships
that finally give him at least some semblance
of a plotline within the show.
Unfortunately, the character feels
as if he's playing catch up with the established relationships
of the show at this point.
Any long term romantic prospects for Raj
typically end in failure.
Perhaps the most insulting version of this
comes in the final season where Raj enters a relationship
with Anu, an ambitious woman who actually proposes to Raj.
She seems like she would be the logical endgame
relationship for him.
To challenge each other in ways that make both characters more
compelling, and this ultimately helps
Raj to grow after being stagnant for most of the show's run.
This, however, is ultimately undone
in episode 22 of season 12, where
Anu gets a dream job in London and Raj
initially agrees to move.
They offered me a management position.
That's amazing!
That's your dream.
It's here in London.
Oh.
He is then convinced to stay by Howard
and breaks off the engagement completely.
Raj is, once again, made into an accessory to the friend group
rather than being made into a character
with his own sense of agency.
His romance ends with a whimper and a half hearted explanation
that his friends matter more than his relationship with Anu.
This need to keep Raj in America rather than allowing
him to be his own person feels like an even worse evolution
of the constant insults the character
received in the earlier seasons of the show.
Showrunner Steve Holland explained the decision
as "Anu started to feel like the person you didn't
want to see Raj end up with.
You want Raj to have that sort of fairy tale romance
that he's dreamed about all these years," which
is a perfectly fine perspective to have.
But the writers made no effort to set up
any tension in the relationship between Anu and Raj
to make Raj's decision to stay feel satisfying.
And there was certainly no attempt
to give Raj that fairytale ending,
since the breakup happened in the final episodes
of the show's last season.
While improvements were certainly
made in giving Raj the ability to actually speak to women,
Raj is the only central character
who doesn't get a satisfying romantic conclusion.
Sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory are often
bolstered by iconic performances from these side characters
to the point where it's the side characters who
are often remembered even more than the central ones.
As it is, the entire show is left with a Raj sized hole
where audiences are left wondering
why they became invested in the character's
journey in the first place.
If the writers don't seem to be invested in the character,
why should the audiences?
But what do you think?
Does Raj have more potential than we realize,
or was the character's potential squandered?
Let us know what you think, and don't forget to like, comment,
and subscribe to Nerdstalgic.