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!