You can tell a lot more celebrities are out now, because I no longer feel that dumb compulsion to automatically respect their work because of their identity. The Big Bang Theory is lowest common denominator trash that relies on stereotypes for cheap laughs, and I won’t suddenly like it just because its star came out as gay. If you want a less sexist version of the same concept, the British show The IT Crowd is much more self-conscious about the sexist overtones of its subject matter and portrays women as normal people who don’t look like supermodels, and male geeks as normal people who didn’t just barely escape being locked permanently in the dungeon of their parents’ basement.
I think the difference between The Big Bang Theory and IT Crowd is really the difference between British comedy and American comedy: subtlety. Moss and Roy don’t know more about computers than Jen because she’s a woman: they know more about computers than her because they’re the only people on the show who know anything about computers. The show is basically about the frustration of an IT department in a professional setting. Furthermore, Jen is depicted as a fairly down-to-earth, intelligent person. She is perhaps nearly as quirky as her male subordinates, but she’s hardly brainless. If you want an unintelligent character in the show, you’re going to have to look at the company’s (male) bosses.
The Big Bang Theory is a show that, in order to show the “great divide” between geeks and non-geeks, falls back on the age old wisdom that men and women live on completely different planets, and seldom visit each other on equal terms. We’ve seen this formula in many popular American sitcoms in dramatically different contexts (Everybody Loves Raymond, Home Improvement, Modern Family). Though the formula is generally for a bumbling husband and an intelligent wife, obviously the “nerdcore” version calls for a technically inept but socially proficient female and technically proficient but socially inept male (or males.)
Or you could go the British/It Crowd approach and recognize that men and women are essentially people, recognize that your concept has some sexist overtones, be self-conscious about it, and just keep that in mind while writing great comedy that doesn’t require its audiences to leave their brains at the door.
