The Barney Scene From How I Met Your Mother That Went Too Far

Barney Stinson's entire personality consisted of lying to women, objectifying women, sleeping with women, and (horrifyingly) filming them having sex without their consent. His conquests were always treated as the butt of the joke, as foolish women for falling for Barney's charades and getting hurt, rather than rightfully blaming him for being deceitful.

Apart from his general misogyny, though, Barney had many schemes and tricks to get a woman into bed, which he outlined in his infamous "Playbook." While many of these schemes were quite funny, thanks largely to Neil Patrick Harris' showmanship, in retrospect, many of them are just creepy.

Barney often used his Playbook when he was trying to score a certain type of women. In Season 4, Episode 3, Barney takes this to a new level, deciding to "dress up" as a lesbian so he could "conquer" sleeping with a gay woman. Not only is this an offensive characterization of what gay women are assumed to look like, but it also reinforces the idea that lesbians are just going through a phase and that the "right" man will make them heterosexual again.

"How I Met Your Mother" never treated LGBTQ+ people very well, and it's disappointing to revisit a beloved show and see how problematic it truly was. While the series is still wholly entertaining and comforting in many ways, we're glad these kind of harmful jokes have less of a place on television today.