How I Met Your Mother is the story of 5 friends who live in New York. Lily and Marshall are high school sweethearts, due to be married soon. Ted was in college with Lily and Marshall and now they all live together. Barney and Robin are later entrants to the group. Ted has a thing for Robin, who marries Barney and eventually is divorced. This might be quite a spoiler if you haven't managed to watch the show in the last 2 decades since its release.
The series premiered in 2005 - and this piece of information seems sorta relevant for the plot point I want to discuss today. At the end of season 1 - that's 2005 - Lily breaks up with Marshall, calls off their wedding to pursue an art program in San Francisco. And she faces a lot of hatred for this from the male characters(esp ) and the fandom. There are a few supporting voices but most of them call her the B word for doing that. Let's look at it all again, shall we?
Right from the start, Marshall and Lily are projected as this perfect couple - aspirational for people like Ted and Robin who are looking for their partners. In fact, through out the series, they are made fun of for being joined at the hip as this cloyingly in-love couple of the group. It's like this is their identity and function in the show. But We are all humans! And Lily was just being that when she panics about marriage.
It's a scary prospect
To settle down with the first guy you dated in college is indeed a scary prospect. If you ask me, Lily is as scared of that as she is of being boxed into matrimony. She feels the walls closing in and she reacts. Maybe going for the art program was her way of not wanting to commit to her college sweetheart. And if she doesn't have the answer to whether she'll be back in 3 months, that's an answer too. No one can force her to make a decision or marry except be there to support her and talk to her about what's up!
What's wrong in exploring?
As the D-day comes closer, Lily feels like she's going to get trapped in - married with a kinder garden job forever! She wants to explore before she is tied down to one person for a lifetime. Job at Barney's company is exploring for more money was Marshall's art program. He deviated from his plans too. And wouldn't she have been miserable at some point in her life with the "what if" rankling at the back of her mind. She could have acted out after years of marriage and filed for divorce - would that have been better? But her wanting to try something for herself unencumbered by the commitments of a wife is made to seem like the ultimate act of betrayal.
Was break up the only way?
Since Lily was also revolting against settling down with one person, I'd say that's what she wanted to do and accepting an art degree in the opposite corner of the country was an excuse to get out. And I am only happy that Lily asserted herself and saw the world a bit on her own. Do I think that she gave up too fast? yes! For everything that she sacrificed she should have stuck it out a bit. But she was so used to being a part of a couple that she settled right back into the complacence without trying what else is out there. However, sometimes we have to try other things out to know what we were or did suits us the best. And she got to do it.
How the guys reacted
I have a problem Marshall acting like a dick. And they aren't even married yet. He could have sat he down and calmed her nervous breakdown. He only focusses on her leaving - not on the "why" of it. They are merely 2 weeks (a week?) away from marriage and that kind of insensitivity doesn't look good on a husband.
Ted is a very bad friend because he already knew Lily was going through something and he did nothing to support her. He is an an a**hole about it because he is stuck with Marshall when he just started going out with Robin. When Lily calls him before and tells him about the interview, he dissuades her from going! She tries telling him why this is so important for her - because she hasn't made any mistakes ever. And sometimes one has to make mistakes to know that, in hindsight, that was a mistake. Words of wisdom for life! Instead of trying to understand her, Ted tries to stop her from exploring her real self. No wonder she couldn't talk to anyone else about it.
When I rewatched it recently, I actually had to check the year the sitcom was made. Why is there so much of hatred for a woman wanting to pursue her dreams. From her fiancé to her friend, everyone wants her to go back to being the one-half of a perfect couple. It's like she's already been labelled and people have a problem dealing when she wants to move away from that identity.
Could she be married and paint?
Some people in the fandom wonder if her dreams couldn't be fulfilled after she got married. Well! Every woman who's been married knows the answer to that question. Like it would have been a piece of cake to get Marshall and the gang's blessings to take off for an art internship after they are married and committed running a household together!
Lily has an existential side to her
While choosing the art program gets a lot of flak, no one seems to have noticed that Lily does have an existential side to her. When her baby is very young, she tells Marshall - thankfully they have matured as a couple by then and can talk to each other - at some point, the best years of one's life are behind us. She still regrets not pursuing painting and with being a mum, painting full time is an even more remote possibility. So while we all consider Marshall and Lily to be the perfect couple, Lily does go through moments of pensiveness pondering about where her life went - as any woman is wont to do at different points in her life.
Just 2 decades later, I feel Lily should have been given the non-judgemental freedom to explore who she is. I was surprised at the hatred she got from the characters in the show and how she justifies herself constantly when she comes back from SF.
Ironically most of the people who judge her in the fandom are women! And I'd like to believe that if this same situation were to arise today, we'd give her character and ambition a more positive connotation. That it'll be natural for her to be a person on her own without being defined by her relationship. That she can choose to marry and paint or not marry and paint and she won't be called the B word by her own college friend for that. That she deserves a fiancé who'll understand that while she supported him through his law school debts, it's okay for him to be there for her dreams.
And that it's almost 20 fucking 25 and women should be allowed to just be who they want to be!
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