Amy From Big Bang Theory Was Dubbed The Worst-Dressed Character, But Her Wardrobe Served A Purpose

While Mayim Bialik's style transformation over the years and after "The Big Bang Theory" hasn't gone unnoticed, there's actually a very cool reason why the character Amy Farrah Fowler became the butt of the joke over her supposed bad taste in fashion. Other characters on the show, like Penny and Bernadette, loved nothing more than to give her a hard time because she preferred stacked cardigans and thick skirts to anything trendy. Amy stayed true to her character throughout the show's long run, and that always meant dressing for the lab as a neuroscientist, not for the runway or a girls' night at the bar. Bialik herself gets a lot of unsolicited comments on her body and modesty, so it's worth bearing in mind that the conversation never really stopped when the laugh tracks did.

What the audience was never explicitly let in on is that Amy's closet wasn't a writer's room running gag or a personality flaw manifested in flannel. It was, according to Bialik herself, a quiet accommodation for her faith as an observant Jewish woman. As she explained it to Jew in the City in a May 2019 interview, one of the first things she had to explain to the production crew was the wardrobe. "They presented some pants, and I was like, 'So yeah, here's the thing. I don't wear pants,'" she explained. "And she said, 'What do you mean?' And said I don't wear pants, I'm like a Jewish lady that doesn't wear pants. She kind of looked at me like, 'What are you talking about?'" Bialik also maintained that the show went out of its way to "cover parts of me that I don't want to show." Which, you'll have to admit, is a rare accommodation in this industry.

Mayim Bialik's faith definitely played a part in Amy's character development. The producers took the actor's conservatism and ran with it, adding more bits and pieces to what would become not just the show's most iconic female character, but also a complementary force to Sheldon Cooper's unhinged neurodivergence. "They dress her frumpily and in layers because they want her very asexual, so my curves are protected," Bialik explained to Jewish Journal in 2011. "It's an interesting bind as a woman in Hollywood, where being classically attractive is still very valued."

That might be an understatement, even in Bialik's own experience. In 2014, the actor wrote a blog post for Kveller talking about her experience with season 8, episode 8, "The Prom Equivalency." She talked about how the prom dress, which was more body-hugging than she was used to, left her feeling somewhat vulnerable. "I felt a bit... ervah is the word in Hebrew. Exposed a bit," she revealed. "Because I'm not used to Amy being revealing with her body. It was a salient and important reminder that being tznius (modest) isn't about fear of sexuality or repression; as I have argued here time and again, it is about protection and value."

Mayim Bialik has undergone quite the stunning transformation in her career despite her unyielding religious boundaries. So, the next time you catch "The Big Bang Theory" and the gang trading smirks over Amy's sweater sets, read them as the rare moment a set bent around a woman's boundaries instead of the other way around.