• Abracadaniel [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    43·
    10 months ago

    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).

    • roux [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      38·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • Abracadaniel [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        23·
        10 months ago

        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.

        • roux [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          11·
          10 months ago

          The moment I figured out that Seinfield was only funny when I was stoned was when I started to see the real problems with it. But like stoned, it can be downright fucking hilarious at times. Same phenomenon happened with Full House but for a different reason.

          I’m curious about what I’d feel if I went back and watched those shows now but also sober.

          One thing about The Simpsons that never really made sense to me was that I identified with Lisa and Milhouse the most and thought I was supposed to be Bart. In hindsight it makes sense because Milhouse seems like he Autistic-coded and Lisa is a little lefty.

          But yeah even Homer being a dumb jerk most of the time didn’t do great for an already misogynistic masculine-forward culture that was so prevalent even back then. Men can be masculine without being toxic, can be amazing parental and spousal figures, and also not be bumbling oafs.

          As for Patty and Selma, I think I need to reanalyze that because I wonder if that is what formed my early idea of what a woman was supposed to be. My wife almost never shaved her legs and such and for the longest of time I let that previous notion of “womanhood” get in the way. Took me a long time and a lot of self reflection but I’m over that road bump now but still feel like shit trying to dictate her having to shave or whatever. Which is weird because I’m not a “girls should wear makeup” person. I guess I was a shitty person all this time lol.

          • quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            8·
            10 months ago

            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.

            • roux [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              7·
              10 months ago

              Flanderization is what I’ve also loosely called “caricaturization” actually. Think of how Kevin in the office started out but then look at how he changed because of the cookie monster bit. It was a definite, noticeable shift in his character.

              I agree with the rest too. I can concede to the Lisa analysis. I’m really recalling watching the show back when I identified as a Dem so was probably conflating what I thought “the left” was at that time.

        • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]@hexbear.netEnglish
          9·
          10 months ago

          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!

      • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        15·
        10 months ago

        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

        • roux [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          10·
          10 months ago

          Groening and George Lucas both…

          Gonna toss my tinfoil hat on but this list is straight up fucking sanatised. I sort of wanna make a post about this but others probably came to the same conclusions.

          It’s not a complete list. It has both Clinton and Trump on there at the top and I think it’s just to keep the Dems and Reps fighting over their champs and “well Clinton was there too so take that” type shit. I almost never heard of Alan Dershowits until the day leading up to the release. I think it’s an attempt to throw him under the bus to detract from the rest of the list. It makes sense to throw a few dead people on there since the dead can’t speak so it just create cold trials or whatever.

          But like if this list is this short with some of the big bad rich people, who was cut before it was released? This is an attempt to brush it under the rug like the Panama and Paradise Papers imo. Make it seem like a not so bad thing but still drop a few big names for the public to go mediabrain over.

          Ok, tinfoil hat off. lol

          • Leon_Grotsky [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            9·
            10 months ago

            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.

            • roux [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              8·
              10 months ago

              I’m absolutely curious to see where this goes but damn it if the real story wouldn’t make for some juicy lib drama. Like I almost wanna say this is the threshold of what the rightoids keep calling “the cabal” but it’s right in front of their face and they are still clutching pearls over pizza restaurants instead.

              Actually curious to see what both Dem and Rep spins on this are gonna be. I mean outside of pointing their fingers at Clinton and Trump arguing over who was worse.

      • AFineWayToDie [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        10·
        10 months ago

        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.

          • AFineWayToDie [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            10 months ago

            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.

    • MF_COOM [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      14·
      10 months ago

      the one where Lisa is crushing on her teacher at school (they treat it in a mildly sus fashion).

      Can you flesh this out? In my memory Lisa gets a crush on her teacher and he generally just gives her positive reinforcement?

          • quarrk [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            66·
            10 months ago

            Note: being on this list does not imply wrongdoing. It includes victims and accusers as well.

            • Andrew Albert Christian Edwards, Prince Andrew, second son of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain
            • Bill Clinton, former US president
            • Donald Trump, businessman and former US president
            • David Copperfield, American stage magician
            • John Connelly, New York police detective turned investigative journalist who investigated Epstein
            • Alan Dershowitz, prolific lawyer and pundit who represented Epstein in 2006
            • Leonardo DiCaprio, actor and film producer famous or his roles in Titanic and Inception
            • Al Gore, former US vice president under Bill Clinton
            • Stephen Hawking, British physicist and science author
            • Ehud Barak, former Israeli prime minister
            • Michael Jackson, famed musician known as the “King of Pop”
            • Marvin Minksy, artificial intelligence pioneer
            • Kevin Spacey, actor known for his roles in Se7en and House of Cards, found not guilty of sexual assault in 2023
            • George Lucas, American film director and creator of the Star Wars saga
            • Jean Luc Brunel, French model agency boss and alleged Epstein co-conspirator who died in an apparent suicide while awaiting trial
            • Cate Blanchett, Australian actor who starred in The Lord of the Rings and Tár
            • Naomi Campbell, British model
            • Sharon Churcher, British journalist
            • Bruce Willis, actor famous for his roles in Die Hard and The Sixth Sense
            • Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico
            • Cameron Diaz, actor who starred in Shrek and There’s Something About Mary
            • Eva Andersson-Dubin, former Miss Sweden who once dated Epstein, and her husband
            • Glenn Dubin, an American hedge fund manager
            • Noam Chomsky, linguist and political philosopher
            • Tom Pritzker, American tycoon and philanthropist
            • James Michael Austrich
            • Juan and Maria Alessi, husband and wife working at Epstein’s home in Florida
            • Janusz Banasiak, served as Epstein’s Palm Beach house manager
            • Victoria Bean
            • Rebecca Boylan
            • Dana Burns
            • Dr Mona Devansean, treated Virginia Roberts
            • Dr Chris Donahue, treated Virginia Roberts
            • Ron Eppinger, sex trafficker
            • Daniel Estes
            • Annie Farmer, accused Epstein of sexual assault
            • Louis Freeh, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
            • Fredrick Fekkai, celebrity hairstylist
            • Alexandra Fekkai, son of celebrity hairstylist
            • Jo Jo Fontanella, Epstein’s butler
            • Crystal Figueroa, sister of Anthony Figueroa who dated Virginia Roberts in the early 2000s
            • Anthony Figueroa, Virginia Robert’s former boyfriend
            • Eric Gany
            • Meg Garvin, represented Virginia Roberts
            • Sheridan Gibson-Butte,
            • Ross Gow, Maxwell’s press agent
            • Fred Graff
            • Robert Giuffre
            • Philip Guderyon
            • Alexandra Hall
            • Dr Carol Hayek, treated Virginia Roberts
            • Dr John Harris, treated Virginia Roberts
            • Joanna Harrison
            • Shannon Harrison
            • Victoria Hazel
            • Brittany Henderson
            • Brett Jaffe
            • Forest Jones
            • Sarah Kellen, Epstein’s former assistant
            • Carol Kess
            • Dr Karen Kutikoff, treated Virginia Roberts
            • Paul Lavery
            • Dr Steven Olson
            • Stephen Kaufmann
            • Wendy Leigh, author
            • Dr Judith Lightfoot, treated Virginia Roberts
            • Peter Listerman
            • Tom Lyons
            • Dr Darshanee Majaliyana, treated Virginia Roberts
            • Nadia Marcinkova, alleged friend of Epstein’s
            • Bob Meister
            • Jamie Melanson
            • Lynn Miller, mother of Virginia Roberts
            • Donald Morrell
            • David Mullen
            • David Norr
            • Joe Pagano
            • May Paluga
            • Stanley Pottinger
            • Detective Joe Recarey, investigated reports of sexual abuse against children by Epstein
            • Chief Michael Reiter, responsible for investigation of sexual abuse against children by Epstein
            • Rinaldo and Debra Rizzo
            • Sky Roberts
            • Kimblerley Roberts
            • Lynn Roberts
            • Virginia Roberts, now known as Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault
            • Haley Robson, named as a “teen recruiter” for Epstein in police documents
            • Dave Rodgers, private jet pilot for Epstein
            • Alfredo Rodriquez, butler at Epstein’s Florida home
            • Scott Rothinson
            • Forest Sawyer
            • Dough Schoetlle, investigator
            • Johanna Sjoberg, claims she was sexually abused while underage by Epstein. Also claimed Prince Andrew touched her breast
            • Cecilia Stein
            • Marianne Strong
            • Mark Tafoya
            • Emmy Taylor, Maxwell’s ex-personal assistant
            • Brent Tindall
            • Kevin Thompson
            • Ed Tuttle
            • Les Wexner, founder of L Brands and a former business partner of Epstein
            • Cresenda Valdes
            • Emma Vaghan
            • Anthony Valladares
            • Christina Venero, licensed massage therapist
            • Maritza Vazquez
            • Dr Wah Wah, treated Virginia Roberts
            • Vicky Ward, investigative journalist and author
            • Jarred Weisfield
            • Sharon White
            • Courtney Wild
            • Daniel Wilson
            • Mark Zeff, New York decorator
            • Rom [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              33·
              10 months ago

              Leonardo DiCaprio, actor and film producer famous or his roles in Titanic and Inception

              Least surprising name on this list tbh.

              • ElChapoDeChapo [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                2·
                10 months ago

                Eyes Wide Shut is great but this is the movie that’s been breaking my brain even more since I saw it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Stranger_(film)

                The movie began production right around the time he went to jail in Florida and for some reason they were allowed to film in the new world trade center before it opened

                Bruce Willis (happens to be on the list) is playing a character who is clearly meant to be Epstein, his wife is even a dead ringer for Ghislaine, she owns an art gallery in the movie, he makes a long rambling speach in the middle of the movie thanking Victoria’s Secret at an event of their’s in the movie (so they were officially a part of this movie’s production) and his ad company’s name is H2A with the H standing for his last name Hill not that different from Epstein’s modeling agency being named MC² and that’s just the shit I can remember but there’s way too many similarities for this to be a coincidence

                Eyes Wide Shut was made by Kubrick to expose Epstein, Perfect Stranger was made to whitewash and cover up Epstein while sending a hidden message to the ruling class, that message being: “it’s ok, he’s not going down for this and neither are any of you” while the surface level message for the masses is that women who survived CSA are the real bad guys thanks to the twist ending

                It isn’t a good movie but the production values are genuinely good and watching it will drive you as mad as I am

  • TraumaDumpling@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    10 months ago
    (CW: relvant topics)

    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.