One of How I Met Your Mother’s longest-running gags was Barney Stinson’s Playbook, and but one play was worse than all the rest. The character, played by Neil Patrick Harris, served as one of the core characters in the popular CBS sitcom, and had no qualms regarding his womanizing ways. The Playbook was a key part of that, a leatherbound book which housed various plays to win over women.
Barney didn’t have the ideal childhood. His father wasn’t around and even though he had a loving mother, she often fed him white lies while growing up. Barney eventually found love later in love but the woman left him for another man. This sent Barney in a spiral before he transformed himself into a “suit,” with plans for revenge on the man who stole her. Around this time, Barney’s views toward women became skewed since he would rather have a one-night stand than finding a meaningful relationship. Although Barney presented a few redeemable qualities as the series went on, much of his behavior when it came to women could be described as cringeworthy (or worse).
Over the course of How I Met Your Mother, a number of Barney’s scams from The Playbook were described in detail. In fact, a season 5 episode, appropriately called “The Playbook,” featured Barney’s published book as he shared various strategies in how to successfully pick up women. Out of all of the plays mentioned, “The Don’t Drink That” could be considered the worst. As shown through a scene at McLaren’s Pub, Barney would go up to a woman sitting alone at the bar and claim that a man slipped something in her drink. In this case, when the woman asked who tried to drug her, Barney pointed to Ted and he was subsequently tackled by the bartender. The woman would supposedly view Barney as her savior and, in turn, spend the night with him.
How Barney’s Playbook Would Be Viewed Differently Today
As was the case with The Don’t Drink That play, Barney would rely on lies and falsified information to win over women. Most of the plays were comedic and innocent in nature but claiming that a man attempted to slip something in a drink as a way to win over her trust was bad, even for Barney. Many of his other plays or theories weren’t much better, but at least they didn’t use elements that threatened women in real life.
Lily was the voice of reason for much of the series and often called out Barney for his behavior. Had How I Met Your Mother aired today, more viewers would most likely take Lily’s side in her perception of Barney’s actions. The series made Barney into a womanizer but he was still shown with a likable quality which allowed him to get away with a lot. With today’s standards, a character with Barney’s behavior, especially when it came to the opposite sex, probably wouldn’t be well-received by viewers. It’s important to note that How I Met Your Mother aired from 2005 until 2014. Even though the series didn’t air that long ago, the views of dating and the treatment of women has evolved immensely.
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