I'm the newest contributor to The Nerds of Color, a website community "not afraid to look at nerd/geek fandom with a culturally critical eye."
"If I had a Horcux, it'd probably be my Terminator boxset." by Christelle G.
I'm really excited to cover some of the "many things" I enjoy, specifically the nerdy things. I'm even more excited to utilise my voice as a Filipino-American. I was nervous about writing and nervous about being such a public representative for Asian-American nerds, Filipino-American nerds, and Female nerds.... but then I realised that I am ALWAYS all of those things. No matter what I do, I am an ambassador to those cultural identities.
So thank you for listening and making me feel heard.
Now is it terrible to admit how often I forget that I’m a “nerd of color?” I mean, I know I’m a nerd: it’s the “of color” bit that I don’t usually remember right away.
I remember being really excited about Lana Lang on Smallville because the actress was half-Asian, and she had hair like mine! And her last name was “Lang!” That meant the TV version of her was now Asian, right? Eeeeeee, not really. That was kind of a bummer. Oh, and then Lucy Liu was one of Charlie’s Angels! She was the smartest angel and worked the best slow-mo hair and had those rare Asian freckles and got to hang out with the beautiful, cool white girls!Read more.....
DISCLAIMER: This is not a rant about the show. This is not about what I thought of HIMYM's series finale or Barney/Robin or the underappreciation of Jason Segel. This is about my favorite character on the show, Ted Evelyn Mosby. That being said...
If you were to pry my personal journal from my cold, dead fingers and flip through the different entries, you'd find out that many of them reference CBS's How I Met Your Mother. No, not in that Barney Stinson Catchphrase kind-of-way that seems to have completely pervaded the colloquial lexicon of every adult male with Netflix(Christelle note: Please stop using the word "Legendary!", you are not and will never be Neil Patrick Harris. And stop telling me to 'wait for it'!), but in the Every Time Ted Mosby, Heart of Gold, Realises How Hopelessly Lonely He Is Waiting for His Future Wife I Cry in Pathetic Self-Reflection kind-of-way.
It gets pretty tough.
Before I wax poetic on the unicorn that is Ted Mosby, however, I would just like to point out the phenomenal popularity of HIMYM despite it being, essentially, a TV romcom series (SitRomCom? Romantic Sitcomedy? Situational Romance? Whatever, I love it.) This is important because I guess it means that America still roots for love stories, right? Maybe. So let me pose this question: would a show featuring afemale Ted Mosby (How I Met Your Dad) hold the attention of HIMYM fans? My guess: probably not. Some chick looking for The One? Shpff,allgirls are looking for the one, yadadaimsayin yadadamean bro? Hardy har har.
As sad as it is, I don't think the premise would work if a woman was the main (love)storyteller, but the unwavering Romantic, Ted Mosby, managed to keep us captivated for ten flipping years (No seriously, every time Ted revealed a little clue about The Mother, I would flip my proverbial lid. "She sings to her breakfast y'all!" "She went to Columbia, so she's smart!!!! SHE LIKES PABLO NERUDA I'M GONNA DIE!!!" All of these are actual tweets.) as he told "his children" how he met the Girl of His Dreamsafter banging an almost way too high amount of NYC strangers. The obliteration of this character binary is one of the reasons Ted is my favorite: although an obviously heterosexual male, Ted Mosby defies "traditional" leading man characterization by possessing the qualities usually reserved for the female leads in a Nora Ephron film a.k.a. bent on finding their soulmate. Ted makes this okay, likeable, and generally accepted by a wider range of audiences utilising the way-too-easy RomCom Leading Man advantage ofsimply being a heterosexual male.
Sure, there were times when you'd want Ted to stop whining. You yelled at your TV for him to stop being a doofus. You cringed every time he second-guessed his painful relationship with Robinunless that was just me. But if you were honest with yourself and truly a fan of the show, deep down you were rooting for Teddy Westside to meet his awesomeso so so awesomely perfect tropical bird of awife.
Ten years waiting for this rainy day, train station Meetcute was worth it. Best Meetcute ever.
So, suffice to say, I heart Ted Mosby— I volunteered to be The Mother on a weekly basis— and at the risk of getting too Buzzfeed-y, here are some reasons why:
Ted Mosby is unwilling to settle. He is hopeful and incredibly resolute in his romantic beliefs. (Also, I just used thesaurus.com to find the perfect word "resolute". So here are a few more words that I like which describe Ted's optimism concerning The One: steadfast, unyielding, inexorable, obstinate, rigid, unwavering, uncompromising..) His blind faith in waiting for that person— a person he doesn't even know yet who is supposed to not only fulfill his expectations, but also blast through them completely— gets emotionally difficult to watch... but I can't look away. I want it, too, Ted.
Ted Mosby is a good friend. Many times throughout the series, Ted falls into the sidekick role (to Barney, Marshall, Lilly, and Robin) and doesn't seem to mind at all because he truly loves the people he calls his best friends. And in the end, Ted knows (just like we know) he is the star of his own story. He is loyal to a fault... even when this means having to dish out some harsh truths or listening to some harsh truths told to him. He will always lick the Liberty Bell.
Sleepless in Seattle is totally one of Ted's favorite movies. He reenacted the entire movie using the model Empire State Building that he built because HE'S AN ARCHITECT.. Tom Hanks' profession in the movie. Oh, you know that was at least 33.3% of the reason Ted decided to become an architect— because it was a romantic career. And it allows for his poetic soul to "listen to the buildings."
Even when his life gets really, really, really shitty, he doesn't lose hope for his happy ending. Yeah, he questions it sometimes. He wonders (just as we wonder) if he's being a complete idiot, but he picks himself up. Remember when he got fired and got left at the alter and his ex and his best friend hooked up and his architecture firm failed and he got beaten up by a goat? Ted Mosby remembers. But he's happy about all of those shitty, shitty things because he knew that journeys towards yellow umbrellas and train stations are full of homicidal goats.
Ted Mosby is a freaking nerd. Remember his Before-I-Leave-New-York To Do list to "fix" the graffiti he hates so much? So much about this moment makes me want to mother his Mosby babies.
He's so pleased with himself.
Ted Mosby says the most insightful things ever.And it is damn sexy.
"That's the funny thing about destiny: it happens whether you planned it or not."
"Kids, you can't cling to the past because no matter how tightly you hold on, it's already gone."
"You may think your only choices are to swallow your anger or throw it in someone's face. There's a third option: you can just let it go, and only when you do that is it really gone, and you can move forward."
"A word in defense of making an ass out of yourself: it's underrated."
"I think for the most part, if you're really honest with yourself about what you want out of life, life gives it to you."
Ted Mosby's Speech to The Mother before he even knew her. This is probably one of my favorite things to happen on this show. It's on a night when he finds himself alone. And sad. So in his imagination, he runs through New York City to where his future wife lives:
