Futurama has accidentally become a fascinating document of social change
Futurama has accidentally become a fascinating document of social change
The acclaimed adult cartoon has been brought back from the dead – and not for the first time. It’s never going to recapture the brilliance of the original run, writes Louis Chilton, but the series’ stop-start history has made it a compelling record of changing cultural obsessions
I've just found this article about Futurama on The Independent, a UK newspaper. It comments on the changes in Futurama reflecting the changes in society in general.
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I don't usually shit on media articles because it is almost always a case of "Here is prompt X. Money goes to whatever contractor writes the most provocative version" but.. holy crap that is a bad article that is actually contributing toward the widespread media illiteracy of the current world.
No shit? Futurama is very much a "current events" commentary/borderline satire. That inherently is going to reflect current events. And if you go back a decade later, it is going to seem a bit different/"off". Same with Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, and so forth.
What most high school kids (and adults...) don't realize is that Shakespeare is very much in the same boat. So much of Billy's characters and even plot points are references or commentaries on contemporary events. We are just far enough out that nobody actually cares what some dipshit was rambling about when A Midsummer Night's Dream was written.
Hell, even something as banal as Call of Duty reflects this. Mostly along the lines of what western (mostly US) military propaganda is and is not cool with.
This is up there with the same stupidity that has led to any form of foreshadowing or implied plot points being "plot holes" or whatever the reaction channels call them this week.
So I understand what you are saying, but as somebody who has watched way too much Futurama then he would ever care to admit, I feel the need to make an important distinction about it that I think might help frame the objective of the article better.
Futurama is generally not a pop-culture/current events show. Any references they make to pop-culture are generally dated (intentionally)/or semi-timeless. Some episodes are the exception, like Proposition Infinity and Eye-Phone (whatever the ep is called), but these are not the norm and definitely don’t happen with as much frequency as you’d see in shows like The Simpsons or South Park. It’s part of what makes Futurama so damn good. What I find the show reflects over time is values changing. The way they stop making being gay a joke over time. The way they stop using masculinity as a joke (unless there’s a particular intent with it/commentary), things like that. The relationships between characters evolve and morph and show how society has changed. The things that bother them, even.
I’m on a plane about to take off so I need to stop there. But I think if you decouple the idea that Futurama is a current events/current pop culture show, which if you look at all of the episodes you will see is rarely the case, I think it will make the article seem less lazy and more thoughtful than it originally seemed. That being said I admit it emphasizes the current events episodes too much. But their observation about “The Gender Bender” for instance is more in line with what I’m saying.
Pretty much the only animated show that does real time commentary is south park and that is because their art style is "intentionally shitty" to allow for rapid turnaround... and even they have mostly shifted to trying to have a lot of episodes in the can. The rest tend to operate on often times an almost one year delay. And it is the same reason video games usually reference memes from three or four years before release.
Which, again, was the same with theatre. Sure there were playwrights who would make edits to scripts the morning of to reflect what the royal nonce was doing. Same as there are today. But it was always minor tweaks because you need to make sure your actors can learn their lines. The vast majority was written weeks, if not months, prior.
As for changing social values: Again, that is any media you look at. I recently rewatched The Venture Bros in preparation for the finale and was amused at how ridiculously racist, ableist, and homophobic the first season was... and that they were still using ableist slurs as of the last one (which, to be fair, was like 4 years ago). But, at the same time, being gay stopped being a joke and more just became a thing (except Shore Leave who is a treasure and more a joke about camp gay than just being gay... and is a straight up badass). And while 2/3 (probably 3/3 but she never has enough screen time) of them are complete monsters, it is kind of sweet that Action Man, Sean Connery, and Billy's Mom are heavily implied to have become a throuple with no jokes made about it at all.
You can see the same with The Simpsons in terms of what gags they think are safe or not. And even Family Guy and South Park in terms of what gags they think are "edgy" and not.
As an aside. The fantasy trope of "we need to put on a play to start a war or find our friend" maps much more to modern improv or even stand up comedy than theatre. The cliche talking puppets is basically The Daily Show or even Last Week Tonight. But having Dandelion get on stage and say "So what's the deal with airline food?"... would actually have been amazing. What was my point again?
South Park was not created to be "intentionally shitty" so that it can have "rapid turnaround". That's just patently false. It was like that because it was created by hand by Matt and Trey. And the aesthetic stuck. The fast turnaround was a result of the easy-to-make animation style.
Good comment. How was the flight?
Ha thanks! More time at the airport than on the plane but nothing to complain about. As good as you can hope for flying in the US lol
Nice!
I’m sitting in an airport myself right now ;-)
Safe travels/hope it was a good flight!
Before it was revived it was not a pop culture show at all.
There’s nothing fascinating about it since the first revival.
Just going off the titles and what I vaguely recall of the first season (time for a rewatch?!?!?!)
- The pilot, Space Pilot 3000, is about y2k
- I, Robot was about living with Bender and had a bunch of sitcom references, if memory serves
- Fear of a Bot Planet is about racism, but in the "fun" way that only the 90s would try to do
- I thought A Fishful of Dollars was one of the western episodes and was going to make jokes about spaghetti westerns, but I am glad I actually clicked the summary for that one. It is the anchovy episode where Fry buys a crapton of 20th century memorabilia. That is nothing BUT pop culture references
- A Big Piece of Garbage is a reference to all the acknowledgmets that pollution is bad and we should reduce, reuse, and recycle. And now I am depressed again. Also, the plot is one giant reference to Ben Afleck's Armageddon
- Hell Is Other Robots: Introduces robot hell, robot Jessie Jackson, mockery of scientology, etc.
- A Flight to Remember: Had to click again since I didn't remember and knew there was no way it could be a joke about the Mandy Moore movie. This is a Titanic spoof
- Mars University: Animal House/Revenge of the Nerds/all the 80s college movies before we acknowledged those movies were nothing but sexual assault. Oh the 90s
- When Aliens Attack: Ally McBeal, bitches
- Fry and the Slurm Factory: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory parody, references to how messed up it was that Bud Light had an animal mascot, and even reference to the efforts to get people to drink less toxic waste soda
So... I guess you consider the first revival to have been the first published episode?
Meh I thought they found their sea legs pretty well after a few swings and misses in the first revived season (7?) and I liked where it landed. Some strong episodes I really enjoyed. But I get it’s not for everyone!