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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32334 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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I remember hearing a review of “Turning Red” as “yet another movie where evil parents apologize to their heroic children,” which was just about the inverse of most media I consumed: parents were wiser than children.

My dad said The Simpsons would be the downfall of civilization. I wish I’d recognized his wisdom at the time.

I was born in '89, so I remember my very conservative mother forbidding our family from watching The Simpsons while growing up (and she still seems to think it's terrible as of a few months ago) but I never understood what her objection was to the show specifically. Is there a primer on why the show was seen as liberal or controversial when it debuted? Was it just edgy humor or was there something more objectionable to conservatives specifically about the show?

It's the trope codifier of the father figure as a completely retarded and negligent/malevolent manchild, with just enough of a veneer of a lesson learned at the end of the episode to avoid outright parody.

The Simpsons is incredibly conservative, if you think about it; Homer and Marge are married to each other, they have three kids none of which were born out of wedlock, this is their first marriage for both of them, they haven't had affairs (even if tempted/opportunity put in their way), so far as we know Bart, Lisa and Maggie are straight and cis, Homer is the breadwinner while Marge is the homemaker - extremely old-fashioned.

From "The Simpsons and Cultural Decline" by Free Northerner:

I’ve been watching the first two seasons of the Simpsons the last couple weeks. It’s been years since I’ve watched the show, but I still remember the first ten seasons or so as some of the best TV yet produced.

The first season came out in 1989-90, just 25 years ago, and I remember the show being controversial when it came out; I wasn’t allowed to watch it until some time in high school, about a decade after it first started showing. It was controversial enough that Bush actually used the Simpsons as a negative example of a family. Yet, re-watching now, it’s amazing how tame and traditional it is compared to media offerings today.

Obviously the ‘offensive’ humour in the Simpsons is nothing compared to stuff like Family Guy or South Park, but that’s not the whole of it or even the most important part. It’s not the stated messages, but the basic assumptions in the show.

The Simpsons family is intact and stable, if slightly dysfunctional, and hold to functional, almost traditional, family values. They all love each other, however much they might bicker. Homer is a flawed man, often selfish or stupid, but still loving and caring towards his family. Marge is shown to love and respect Homer, despite her occasional anger at his flaws. Bart disrespects Homer occasionally, but it is shown as a clear deviancy for laughs; it also clearly shown that he does look up to and admire Homer. The kids fight, but at heart care for each other.

...

The Simpsons has a subtext of Homer as patriarch. A few times in the first couple of seasons Homer makes a family decision, whether it is selling the TV to attend counseling, buying a new TV, or choosing a camping spot, to name a few examples. The rest of the family complains or looks unhappy, yet it is not even questioned that, however flawed he or his decision may be, it is Homer’s place to decide these things. The show just assumes the father makes the major family decisions.

...

The episode Homer’s Night Out, centres around a picture of Homer dancing with a belly dancer at a bachelor party. The (non-nude) picture creates a town-wide scandal, brands Homer as a ‘swinger’, and is seen as something fundamentally deviant and abnormal.

...

The show assumes that normal people go to church on Sundays and say grace at mealtime. Prayer is a casually accepted part of the show, as is religion.

...

Other, less remarkable, moral lessons are also included. The pro-family/loyalty message of Life on the Fast Lane. How Marge’s sisters constant denigration of Homer is shown as negative, destructive behaviour. In one episode, Marge is casually referred to as Mrs. Homer Simpson.

All this is not to say the Simpsons is a font of traditional values, it is a liberal show, it does have some fem-centrism, and is rather subversive, but it is a good example of just how fast our culture is collapsing. Just a couple decades ago, the Simpsons was a controversial show that was held up by the president as an example of family dysfunction. Yet compared to today’s cultural wasteland, where broken families are common, disrespect and degeneracy are the norm, and the husband as the head of the family is, at best, a joke, it is very tame, almost traditional.

I remember the comments on EmpLemon's video about "Homer's Enemy" (which also analyzes Homer Simpson as a flawed human being still capable of good, and how he's arguably the Modern American Hero) pointed out how Homer Simpson actually has it good compared to millennials, being that he has a house, a car, a family, and a decent job with a decent salary.

Just a couple decades ago, the Simpsons was a controversial show that was held up by the president as an example of family dysfunction

That was widely ridiculed contemperaneously. GHW Bush compared "The Waltons" to "The Simpsons"... but the joke immediately (probably before Groening's response of "We're praying for the end of the Depression too") became that the Simpsons were much less dysfunctional than the Waltons.

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