Female Character of the Week: Robin Scherbatsky

How I Met Your Mother returned last night, and my roommate finally got her hands on the season 5 DVDs, so now seems as good a time as any to make Robin Scherbatsky my second Female Character of the Week.

Name: Robin Charles Scherbatsky, Jr. (otherwise known as Robin Sparkles)

Why She Rocks: She’s Robin Sparkles.

I like Robin because she’s not the typical character you often see on TV, especially not sitcoms (or at least, not on the sitcoms I watch).  Female journalists are a dime a dozen in movies and TV, but not many of them were named after their fathers, raised as boys until puberty, became female pop stars as an overcompensation, own five dogs, and like guns to an almost obsessive degree.  Robin’s interesting to me because she’s a mass of oddly complementary contradictions.  She’s a Guy’s Girl who likes sports, guns, and beer, but she’s not one of those women who dislikes other women – she deeply values her female friendships, especially with Lily.  She seems to want love and companionship with a man, but values her independence.  She often doesn’t know how to “be a girlfriend” when she’s in relationships, an experience I think most women can relate to.  She struggles between finding the balance between life and work, between her values and her desire to get ahead in the world, between Relationship!George and Independent!George.  She doesn’t always get it right (and the show doesn’t always get it right, either), but she tries, and she learns, and she picks herself up every time, and I love it.

Now, I don’t have much in common with Robin.  In fact, the character I relate to most is Ted Mosby (the “I” in the How I Met Your Mother, the hopeless romantic who loves telling stories as much as he loves showing off his knowledge of the finer things in life and correcting people’s grammar.  But Robin amuses me and she’s pretty well-rounded, and she brings back fond memories of watching Bob and Doug McKenzie on The Great White North, eh?

Also, she’s Robin Sparkles.  The day “Let’s Go to the Mall” becomes available at karaoke bars everywhere (other than the Hoser Hut) is the day I can die happy.