Sitcoms Should Retire Their Annoying Obsession With the ‘Redeemable Douchebag’
One of the first-established and longest-running bits on the sitcom New Girl was the Douchebag Jar. Ya see, instead of a swear jar, Schmidt needed this for whenever he said something douchey. Like when he said his body was LLS: Ladies Love Schmidt. I’m very aware that that descriptor doesn’t any make sense. I’m just giving you direct dialogue from the pilot episode of the beloved sitcom New Girl right now. If anything, have it out with Elizabeth Meriwether about this.
By season 5, it was time to retire the jar once and for all. For Schmidt’s wedding day, it seemed only right to use that old Douchebag Jar as the glass for him to stomp out. And with that, he was a fully grown and mature person who is perfect now. The moment was charming, and it fit fine enough from a storytelling perspective, but did Schmidt deserve that much celebration?
If anyone were to look back at his actions throughout those 5 seasons, they’d say no. Schmidt was a mess. He cheated on the woman who eventually became his wife. He tried sabotaging her first wedding, as well as each of the other relationships she had after they started dating. And, to cap it all off, he’s a Republican. This is not a person who people would like in real life. He’s a womanizing finance-bro with an ‘I used to be a fat kid’ complex. Those guys are never cool. I would know; I used to be a fat kid, and I’m the least cool, most annoying person you’ll ever meet. So for anybody root for Schmidt is beyond me.
Unfortunately, this is pretty common for sitcoms. Writers of these shows feel the need to shoehorn a detestable character into their ensemble cast so they can break the viewer down and get them to eventually like them through repetition. Dramas do this, too, most notably with Jamie Lannister, the sister-rapist on Game of Thrones. The big difference in having these characters on a sitcom, however, is that putting them in a comedic environment is far more deceptive. There’s an inherent warmth in comedy that glosses over the ugliness. Characters are allowed to do so much in this environment. They’re then immediately saved as long as they do a 5 episode arc of them trying to, and immediately succeeding in, becoming a better person or whatever.
Schmidt, who’s more-or-less just a cuddlier version of How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson, is an extreme example of this. There are instances where shows execute the douchebag redemption well. Parks and Recreation put a lot of time and care into their two douchebags, which eventually made both Tom Haverford and Andy Dwyer became genuinely more likable by the end of the show’s run. But still, maybe Dwyer, a Dave Matthews Band-loving idiot who’s obsessed with becoming a cop, shouldn’t be the template for a lovable character. I’ve met about 60 Andy Dwyer’s in my life and let me tell you: they’re not as cuddly as Chriss Pratt makes them out to be.
Another noteworthy aspect of this trope is that the unlikeable people selected for redemption are almost exclusively men. It’s challenging to find an example of a female sitcom character who was able to go from being considered a nightmare of a person to being loved unconditionally over the course of a show’s run. The first two that come to mind are Fran from The Nanny and Janice from Friends. Interestingly enough, the reason why both are considered to be so heinous at first is that they were loud women who dressed kinda garishly. That’s basically it.
As the main character of The Nanny, Fran was able to show she was more than just a loud (and therefore annoying) woman. The kids she looked after loved her, as did Mr. Sheffield, who eventually followed the age-old scuzzy rich guy tradition of marrying his nanny. Janice’s redemption, however, was limited to less than one season. And after her brief stint in humanization, she was relegated back to being a punchline for the rest of Friends' 9000 episodes.
Other than that, I’m coming up blank. To be clear, this isn’t a call for more asshole women characters in shows. It’s just further evidence that these characters conduits for making general shitty male behavior appear more cuddly. The saccharine lighting and the snappy dialogue don’t make them seem as bad. It’s definitely still bad, though.
Writers jump through hoops and create convoluted scenarios all for the sake of painting their inherently unlikeable character as the good guy. It is not a testament to the actor’s or writer’s ability to ‘trick’ the viewer into rooting for someone who’s done terrible things. It’s actually a crutch since whoever’s on the screen is considered to be the good guy. By exploiting this and allowing douchebags to go unchecked, sitcom writers take the easy way out and make their shows worse as a result.