HIMYM - Cultural Artifact

How I Met Your Mother is a comedy about "a love story in reverse." The main character, Ted Mosby is determined to find his "the one" after his two best friends since college, Marshall Eriksen and Lily Aldrin, get engaged. Ted meets Robin Scherbatsky at McClaren's (the bar the TV show mainly takes place in - like the Central Perk of Friends) and believes her to be "the one" but destiny has something different in mind. Lastly, the womanizer character Barney Stinson, completely disagrees with Ted's goal of finding his perfect woman and wants to keep Ted single so that they could be each other's wingman and have many one night stands.

In the episode "Showdown", Barney fulfills his lifelong dream of appearing on The Price is Right to meet his father, Bob Barker. The reason he believed that all his life (and continues to believe) is because when he was a child and he asked his mother who his father was, his mother just point

ed at the TV and said "that guy." Barney practiced so that he would be able to get the exact price of every item correct and end up on the showcase showdown so that he could confront Bob Barker about being his son. However, at the end, Barney does not tell Bob Barker he is his son because he says, "If you've lived your whole life thinking one thing, it would be pretty devastating to find out that wasn't true." (He was actually referring to Bob Barker.)

Through this episode, it was obvious about how us humans choose to believe what we want to believe. Also, even though these five characters are the best of friends, the other four do not say anything about how Bob Barker could not be Barney's father, because they don't want to ruin anything for him. This reveals the blindness of the empire and how the empire blinds us.

Discussion Questions:

1. In what ways are we blinded by the contents of the empire?

2. Do we ever refrain from promoting the Kingdom of God to prevent hurting friendships/relationships?