FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON THE SERIES TWO AND HALF MEN.

Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS for twelve seasons from September 22, 2003, to February 19, 2015. Originally starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones, the series was about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper, his uptight brother, Alan, and Alan's troublesome son, Jake. After Alan divorces, he and Jake move into Charlie's beachfront Malibu house and complicate Charlie's freewheeling life. In the ninth-season premiere (after Charlie's death), the beach house is sold to Walden Schmidt an Internet billionaire going through a divorce from Bridget. Alan leaves to live with his mother Evelyn when the house is sold, but Walden invites both Alan and Jake back to live in the beach house. He needs friends and the three form a tight-knit surrogate family.

Two and a half men is one of my favorite shows with its sarcastic humor it’s guaranteed a few laughs but it is also hard to miss the show's highly sexist jokes and Misogyny portrayed Jokes like Alan: "When a boy becomes a man - and that's what you're becoming - he has to start protecting the women in his life from certain things”. Charlie: "Like the truth." Is hard to sit and watch.

Starting from the show’s title and the theme song which goes “Men men manly men...” The show implies that this is what men are or should be, especially “manly” men. One of the main characters Charlie Harper is a narcissistic rich guy who sleeps with every woman he comes across and never calls them. Still, throughout the show, he is the guy that everybody loves. His brother Alan is divorced and poor. He lives with Charlie in the beach house, he has a son called Jake (hence the title two and a half men). Alan is a nice guy who also does anything for money. He is the one who doesn’t get all the women. This brings out the stereotype that girls always love and go for the bad guys and they like men treating them without respect.

Throughout the show the objectification of women is clearly seen, in dialogues like Charlie: “Because we love them and want to protect them. A clueless woman is a happy woman” or Charlie: “No, as long as I got someone to clean my house and some action on a regular basis, I don’t need a wife.” Is hard to digest.

The show degrades women treating them like objects. The show also shows women in a very negative highlight. Charlie often brings girls to his house and the beach to show them how rich he is, so that the girls will sleep with him. There is also a dialogue in the series where Charlie Harper is going on a blind date, he is surprised to see the girl so beautiful (yummy was the word used in the series) as she is a Judge and a professor. This brings out stereotypes that girls are dumb enough to sleep with guys with only money and nothing else. And that smart girls are not beautiful.

There are very few women characters throughout the show one of them being Charlie and Alan’s mom Evelyn. She is criticized throughout the show for going after her career and not being a mother to her kids. The show shows that Evelyn’s dating life is very active and the brothers don’t like that. There are a lot of similarities in the dating methods of Charlie and his mother. But we can only see Charlie’s mother being slut shamed frequently. The show also gives out many dating advice for men like it is always better to date more than one woman as it is safe to have more options and There are many dialogues in the show where when Charlie goes to therapy the doctor asks What do you consider being truly intimate with a woman? And Charlie’s reply is Not using a condom.

Then, there is another character, Alan’s ex-wife who is shown as a bad person for taking all the money from Alan. Her character and also her motherhood are deeply questioned in the show where nothing is being said about Alan. Almost every woman in the show is shown in a bad light. There is a character called Rose who is a stalker of Charlie from the first episode who throughout the show is seen as a crazy person with no boundaries.

The show clearly shows how women are degraded, not respected, and treated in a male-dominated society. Women should not be silent when sexism is projected and encouraged in the name of jokes

The show has received multiple award nominations. It has been nominated for 46 Primetime Emmy Awards (winning six technical awards, as well as one for Kathy Bates for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series as The Ghost of Charlie Harper, and two for Jon Cryer as Alan Harper), and has also received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Charlie Sheen for Best Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy. The show won the award for Favourite TV Comedy at the 35th People's Choice Awards.