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.
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.
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.
i forget where, but i saw some kind of article saying something along the lines of 'hawking was obviously so disabled he couldn't possibly have [abused] anyone' and like, idk what exactly the dude did or didn't do on the island, but that's pretty fucking atrociously simpleminded, if not obvious cover for abusers. there's obviously situations of abuse where a disabled person could be in position to take advantage of a minor.