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I watched the Simpsons for the first time recently and their were a few episodes that didn't sit right, related to this topic.
The early one with Michael Jackson as a guest star (not playing himself), and the one where Lisa is crushing on her teacher at school (they treat it in a mildly sus fashion).
There was a lot more bigoted and misogynist humor in sitcoms in the 90's and early 00's. I grew up on The Simpsons, Friends, Married... with Children, Southpark, and a lot of stuff like those. After I grew into the leftist I am, it's hard going back and trying to watch those shows.
I just try to mark it up as them being a product of their time, which isn't really a justification or anything but now I just don't even watch them.
Truly! I have a lot of respect for the great writing & characters on Seinfeld, but occaisionally a joke hinges on something a bit... problematic. Fortunately if I remember from recent rewatches, those moments don't show up much, instead show suffers simply from being 30 years old. We've changed a lot culturally.
Everyone should watch the episode where Elaine is dating a communist (S6E10 - The Race).
As for the Simpsons, Homer treats Marge like absolute shit a lot of the time and she just takes it, or forgives him waaayyyyyy too easily. Her sister's Patty & Selma are the butt of jokes a lot for not... being attractive I guess? e.g. they don't shave their legs. They're (rightfully) constantly talking shit about Homer.
The moment I figured out that Seinfield was only funny when I was stoned was when I started to see the real problems with it. But like stoned, it can be downright fucking hilarious at times. Same phenomenon happened with Full House but for a different reason.
I'm curious about what I'd feel if I went back and watched those shows now but also sober.
One thing about The Simpsons that never really made sense to me was that I identified with Lisa and Milhouse the most and thought I was supposed to be Bart. In hindsight it makes sense because Milhouse seems like he Autistic-coded and Lisa is a little lefty.
But yeah even Homer being a dumb jerk most of the time didn't do great for an already misogynistic masculine-forward culture that was so prevalent even back then. Men can be masculine without being toxic, can be amazing parental and spousal figures, and also not be bumbling oafs.
As for Patty and Selma, I think I need to reanalyze that because I wonder if that is what formed my early idea of what a woman was supposed to be. My wife almost never shaved her legs and such and for the longest of time I let that previous notion of "womanhood" get in the way. Took me a long time and a lot of self reflection but I'm over that road bump now but still feel like shit trying to dictate her having to shave or whatever. Which is weird because I'm not a "girls should wear makeup" person. I guess I was a shitty person all this time lol.
The Simpsons is such a long-running show that it’s hard to make blanket characterizations about how it portrayed characters. I would say they should make a term for characters changing over the course of a show, but Simpsons did it.
Homer was originally supposed to be Average Joe incarnate. It was only later that he became dumb and rude.
Not a Simpsons expert but I think even Milhouse was portrayed more sympathetically at the start.
Lisa isn’t really supposed to be a lefty, more like a specifically liberal busybody. One who the viewer is supposed to understand is technically correct but a buzzkill.
Flanderization is what I've also loosely called "caricaturization" actually. Think of how Kevin in the office started out but then look at how he changed because of the cookie monster bit. It was a definite, noticeable shift in his character.
I agree with the rest too. I can concede to the Lisa analysis. I'm really recalling watching the show back when I identified as a Dem so was probably conflating what I thought "the left" was at that time.
caricaturization?
Oh right, I figured I would spell it wrong.
Spellcheck doesn't like it with an s or a z. Language is dumb sometimes.
it's all good I just wanted to make sure I knew what you were getting at
Yeah no thanks for asking. I have a history of typos and even using words incorrectly and I'm always going back and editing my stuff when I catch it.
I appreciate it lol.
my theory is that in the first season, homer was explicitly written to be abusive, a bad father and a bad husband. the part of the punchline of the first of many save-the-marriage episodes is that homer is incapable of changing, but marge is prevented from finding anything better by her own self-doubt and societal pressure. by the third season, they had realized that audiences would connect with homer no matter what, so they might as well make him a loveable oaf. it's why fan complaints about "jerkass homer" in the post-golden era never really made sense to me. like, he used to strangle his son! it's not subtext, it's just text!
It also depends on who the particular writers were on any given episode. You've got some certified cranks like John Swartzwelder, and some people we might think of as decent (for harvard dorks) like Bill Oakley.
OH, speaking of Epstein what up Matt Groening
Groening and George Lucas both...
Gonna toss my tinfoil hat on but this list is straight up fucking sanatised. I sort of wanna make a post about this but others probably came to the same conclusions.
It's not a complete list. It has both Clinton and Trump on there at the top and I think it's just to keep the Dems and Reps fighting over their champs and "well Clinton was there too so take that" type shit. I almost never heard of Alan Dershowits until the day leading up to the release. I think it's an attempt to throw him under the bus to detract from the rest of the list. It makes sense to throw a few dead people on there since the dead can't speak so it just create cold trials or whatever.
But like if this list is this short with some of the big bad rich people, who was cut before it was released? This is an attempt to brush it under the rug like the Panama and Paradise Papers imo. Make it seem like a not so bad thing but still drop a few big names for the public to go mediabrain over.
Ok, tinfoil hat off. lol
picks up your tinfoil hat and firmly rests it on head
Also a problem with Epstein allegations is it's difficult to know who was enlisting him as a bag man, who was part of his little transhumanist cult, and who were the pedos (of course, there's overlap between the categories.)
I would not be surprised if they run through the list of names and gosh golly it seems a disproportionate amount end up neatly falling into the first two categories after cursory examination.
I'm absolutely curious to see where this goes but damn it if the real story wouldn't make for some juicy lib drama. Like I almost wanna say this is the threshold of what the rightoids keep calling "the cabal" but it's right in front of their face and they are still clutching pearls over pizza restaurants instead.
Actually curious to see what both Dem and Rep spins on this are gonna be. I mean outside of pointing their fingers at Clinton and Trump arguing over who was worse.
I re-watched a lot of old Simpsons episodes recently, and I agree that there were a lot of problematic elements. But there are also a lot of strikingly insightful episodes, such as "Last Exit to Springfield," which was one of the most engaging depictions of union/labour dynamics in popular media at the time. The union workers are depicted as lazy, incompetent, disorganized, and greedy, but they're contrasted with Burns, who is explicitly shown to be downright evil.
A lot of it probably depended on who was writing a particular episode and what they could get past the producers, but there are episodes which I believe are worth defending.
Oh yeah for sure.
I'd have to rewatch to try and catch the different writing styles and such since it's been a while.
Depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, I'd recommend the Talking Simpsons podcast. The hosts are quite based, and each of the Chapo boys has guested at least once.
I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with it:
oof
The early one with Michael Jackson as a guest star (not playing himself)
The "Lisa, it's your birthday. Happy Birthday, Lisa" episode?
He did play himself, he just wasn't credited for weird legal reasons.
Debatable that he played "himself" in this episode: https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Leon_Kompowsky
I believe the creators said it was him on the DVD commentaries, but those aren't "official" and the show has since gone out of its way to distance itself from Jackson.
You misunderstand. Jackson voiced Leon Kompowsky. But Michael Jackson did not appear as a character in the episode. It was a neurodivergent character who thought he was Michael Jackson.
Ah, pardon me, thanks for the correction.
He also didn't sing the song even though he wrote it, it was an impersonator because of record label contacts
i really loved that character. he was just vibin.
Oh, I didn't know that!
I always thought whoever did it sounded just like him.
Yeah, that's the one.
EDIT: Lisa's Substitute is the other one.
Lisa's Substitite is weird, for sure.
But what's wrong with the Michael Jackson one? Is it because he wasn't credited?
I think there's nothing wrong with the content of the episode, but knowing that Jackson groomed and abused young boys made it a bit uncomfortable to watch as this guy befriends Bart and they're spending time together in private.
Oh, true. I honestly don't know how I missed that.
the one where Lisa is crushing on her teacher at school (they treat it in a mildly sus fashion).
Can you flesh this out? In my memory Lisa gets a crush on her teacher and he generally just gives her positive reinforcement?
I can't, it was just vibes based on a few moments in the episode.