this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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chapotraphouse
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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).
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 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.
caricaturization?
it's all good I just wanted to make sure I knew what you were getting at
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
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 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.
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:
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/jeffrey-epstein-documents-simpsons-creator-matt-groening-allegedly-received-foot-massage-from-16-year-old-girl-178079.html
oof
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.
He also didn't sing the song even though he wrote it, it was an impersonator because of record label contacts
Ah, pardon me, thanks for the correction.
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.
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.