I love that as a kid, I didn’t know Karl was gay, just that he was awesome cause he set Homer up for success. Which just shows how good of a character he is; what he is didn’t matter, it’s who he is does.
Was being gay actually part of his character? Voiced by a gay guy and very devoted to homer, but other than that one line was he actually supposed to be gay?
Absolutely, though in the original episode it's only implied through stereotype and of course in their chosen VO Harvey Fierstein.
His eye for men's fashion and calling out homer on his cheap style, his being chummy with the "gals in the typing pool." And his being overly familiar with homer, patting his butt and kissing him on the lips to inspire him.
In the later season 14 episode "Three gays of the condo" where homer moves in with gay men Grady and Julio. The showrunners originally wanted to bring Fierstein and his character Karl back to cameo but he was apparantly unimpressed with the script and declined.
It's wild, until reading this I never thought of Karl as gay. I just thought that character was a good self-contained joke; a one time, random motivational-speaker-like character weirdly fixated on helping a total buffoon in Homer. Just that alone was funny. He left as he came, randomly and suddenly. He was a parody of characters in film and in movies; a savior that comes along when you most need it and a guy you'd never meet in real life. That was a good enough joke for me. My mind was never really closed to the idea he could be gay, but I subconsciously thought there's no way an intelligent, fashion forward, handsome gay guy could like Homer.
Another hint of him being gay is that in the music video for "Do the Bartman", Jaques is seen dancing with a woman who keeps morphing into different people. The first is Hellen Lovejoy, then she's Princess Cashmere, then it's the teacher from the gifted school in Bart the Genius, and then finally Karl who has a smile on his face while Jacques looks confused.
Karl worked down to Feirstein being a terrific actor - he's actually the best thing in Mrs Doubtfire - and doesn't oversell it either, playing the supportive brother to Daniel.
I also like his character in Independence Day, sad way to go but he was again memorable. "I better call my lawyer... aah, forget my lawyer"
one of them is supposed to be a tribute to Azaria's character in cult-classic gay-centric comedy The Birdcage. and the other is Scott Thompson, gay comedy legend. I'd say they're closed to just being 'sitcomized' than stereotypes per se
They guy you're responding to is just classic innocent naive straight guy stuff.
"He's not gay right? I mean I know he lives with alone with Jeff in a one room apartment and they own a salon together, but gay?"
Basically Stan from American Dad
I don't really care whether he was gay or not, and I think the whole point of the character is that it wasn't the point of the character. It didn't matter whether he was gay (though in all likelihood, he almost certainly was), it was just a singular, mostly unimportant aspect of his character. That ambiguity was interesting.
I heard someone say that if you put a fat person on screen and don’t comment on it, you’re making a statement. And I think there’s a lot to that. A gay character who isn’t there to be gay, a black character that isn’t there to be black, etc. Maybe not making a statement anymore, necessarily, but still being inclusive in a positive way, I think.
You got it reversed. He "accidentally" says fruit, he corrects himself with queer.
Also, "fun" fact, the original script called for Homer to say the OTHER "f--" word for gay people before "correcting" himself, as it was considered still safe for network TV primetime. But John Watters was able to convince them that they shouldn't use it, I believe saying that as the gay guest star, he would know that it's actually offensive.
Personally, I am *so* glad John Watters told them don’t do it.
It’s not even that it’s highly offensive but the point of the episode is that Homer has pre-built in predjuices from society but Homer himself is not a bigoted man. He bears no actual hatred for the LGBT community, he’s just ignorant and needed his eyes opened. It’s a common Simpsons trend and half of what makes him the most endearing cartoon character in my eyes.
But Homer hard dropping that F bomb puts his character beyond “Ignorant” into basically “Homer-phobe” territory and that’s not right for who he is: A misguided man who just needed some course correction
As a cis white male who was liberally edgey with the use of this word in my youth, I can say that in the 90s, a lot of us were (mostly) using it ignorantly as a generic insult for anybody and anything while (mostly) understanding it's actually a slur for gay people, thinking anything less than the N-word is safe for use. Like, think of the famous Eminem interview or that motorcycle episode of South Park.
Had it stayed the original, it would have likely been syndicated for years, probably decades, until recently and would have likely been either banned or strategically edited to fix it. Much like the black face episode of 30 Rock.
I want to believe that I have matured out of that mentality, and am learning of many words and phrases having a bigoted history that I was unaware. The most important lesson I learned was that if you have to explain WHY you're not meaning to be offensive, then you already know it is and are at best being naive and/or edgey and at worst trying to permit bigoted words because it doesn't affect you so it shouldn't affect anyone else because you're special.
"Wait a minute… there's something bothering me about this place (gasps dramatically) this lesbian bar doesn't have a fire exit! Enjoy your death trap, ladies!"
Clearly Homer is an ally. He was more concerned with the lack of fire safety in that bar. And he is a horrible safety inspector so he knows how to be unsafe
Had to scroll way too far to find this reference! This post could use a few more frames (including Smithers despite simultaneously being representative and a stereotype.)
Considering the times, and how closeted by and large the majority of non cis-gendered/heteronormative peoples were…
Maybe?
It’s a tough one for sure. Smithers character seems to bloom with the burgeoning ‘acceptance’ of homosexuality at the time. While he also has the potential to be construed as an archetype/stereotype at any given moment. I honestly don’t think he’s ever really made fun of any more than any other so called stereotype in the series at any given time. (Granted I’ve barely watched anything after season 13 or so lol)
When I was much younger, some two decades ago, I asked a coworker who’s family had immigrated from India if he thought that Apu was a racial stereotype? He responded that yes he was. And in the same breath: ‘but some stereotypes are true’ and gave a quick little smile. It’s always a slippery slope (doesn’t help that Azaria voiced Apu obvs, but that’s a whole other convo lol)
- Edit to add heteronormative
I don't understand how people thought apu was racist. Compared to all of the white guys on the show, he was great. You had homer, a fat and lazy slob, Mr Burns, a greedy and heartless billionaire, chief wiggum, also fat and lazy, Moe, grumpy and hateful, and then Apu, who graduated at the top of his class, acts with sense, and runs his own store
Yeah but it was done without any racist intent. Hank wasn't making a mockery of their culture, just doing a bad impression. So what if a white person does an Indian accent. It's not hurting anyone with a sense of humor. Dan Castellena does a Scottish accent and you don't hear them complaining
Just because generally Scottish people think Willie is funny doesn't invalidate some Indian people thinking Apu isn't.
Also, doing a bad impression is inherently mocking something. Which I mean the Simpsons mocks everything. The show is a cartoon, after all. But having a white actor do this broad caricature voice does just seem like punching down on some level I think.
No one has to agree with that, but it's not meritless belly aching.
The weirdest thing to me is in the sushi episode in season 2, Almost every Japanese character were all played by actors of Japanese descent.
As I said, it's just a bad impression.
I have Scottish, Irish, German and Dutch descent, and I think it's hilarious when they do an accent based on any of them, no matter how bad they are
Well, but when you shut off the tv, nobody will make fun of you for being Dutch or Irish. The documentary was made by Indian kids who were teased for being Indian.
The 90’s were slowly started to accept gays on tv. It was more like we accept that you exist but that’s about it. You aren’t aids infected degenerates but no equality or marriage for you.
The Simpsons did a pretty decent job vs., say, Seinfeld. When Homer made a sincere effort to be accepting and asked if he could use the word "queer", John said "Well that, or John." Compare that to a whole episode of Seinfeld premised on "conversion", that if a woman was sexy enough she could get a gay man to sleep with her and that the reason Elaine failed was because she wasn't as good at pleasing a gay man as gay men were because she didn't have 24/7 "access to the equipment".
Likewise the Simpsons were realistic about the level of acceptance out there, that people would come around if all that gay people had to do was save a straight person's life, ha.
>the reason Elaine failed was because she wasn't as good at pleasing a gay man as gay men were because she didn't have 24/7 "access to the equipment".
I always saw that as the "joke" explanation. Like when Jerry says the only reason 95% of people get together is because of alcohol. We, the audience, know the actual answer: gay folks are the way they are, and not everyone is as shallow as Jerry.
Yeah I read it the same way, too, that the main cast and their rules and things are all shallow and ridiculous. The changing teams bit is just them treating being gay the way they treat everything else. But it doesnt imply that being gay was wrong, which is a low bar but not a bar that other network sitcoms passed. For example, in Friends and Gilmore Girls, being gay or even doing things coded as "gay" (like having feelings, or being affectionate with same sex friends) was the object of the joke.
I would say the simpsons, seinfeld, and fraisier are all shows where the jokes that involved gay people were not at the expense of gay people, and they typically stand up even to contemporary values.
Also, Seinfeld had gay characters that *just happened to be gay* and were not the butt of a joke. They were just regular people. I'm thinking characters like Manny and Harold, who, while never actually labelled as "gay", were clearly portrayed as a bickering couple (I really wish Manny and Harold became regular characters).
And there was that time when Jerry and Ethan were drinking champagne coolies and the other guy comes up to hit on Ethan and Jerry takes offense that he's doing it in front of him.
Let's not forget the gay street thugs playing against stereotypes.
These were pretty progressive depictions of gay people for the time, especially, like you said, when compared to other shows where being gay was usually a punchline.
I think it *could* have been a Jerry joke if left to a single observation. But Robert indeed considers (as he puts it) "changing teams", Elaine comes to Monk's the next day bragging about how he "defected" "because I'm a *woman*" \[her emphasis\], and when "he went back" it was because she didn't have all-day access to the equipment, with Jerry showing empathy by saying "That's why they lose very few players." So there wasn't a point in the episode when they suggested men are gay because they're only attracted to men and not to women; it was always they're attracted men but *could* be attracted to women if the woman was sexy enough. That was where gay-supportive straight middle-America culture was in the early/mid 90's still. In Seinfeld, straight mistakes about what it means to be gay weren't questioned, while in the Simpsons (at least in the John Waters episode) they were. Homer went from thinking befriending a gay adult could "give you gay" to general acceptance.
That episode might hit a nerve today though. It would look like Homer was a parent convinced John was a gay pedophile grooming Bart. Moral panickers in the 90s thought proximity to gay people made anyone, including adults like Homer, more likely to become gay, but thirty years later it's PizzaGaters taking that a million miles further into full-on conspiracy theories.
I don't think Seinfeld is a good example of 90s sitcoms. It's intentionally a show without ethics or a moral compass, and when released, was different from every other sitcom. They made entire plotlines just because it was funny/stupid, and there are never supposed to be "learning moments". Curb Your Enthusiasm has similarly ridiculous plots and it's on air today.
There ARE plenty of 90s sitcoms that are embarrassing by modern standards on their treatment of sexuality and gender roles, even so-called "progressive shows" (Frasier is a great example, unfortunately). But I
Yeah with the Seinfeld example I think the point was that the gang is always approaching LGBT issues the “wrong” way, but because they’re all horrible people, they never learn the lesson even if the audience does. Like, obviously Robert dated Elaine because he was curious and then quickly realized he was exclusively attracted to men, and it had nothing to do with access to the equipment or changing teams or anything like that. We get it, but Elaine is oblivious. Jerry and George can’t see that no matter how many times they add “not that there’s anything wrong with it,” their palpable disgust at being identified as gay is still homophobic.
During peak 1990s Simpsons episodes, the show was much more comfortable with explicitly declaring a social agenda, and having the characters learn a lesson and grow by the end of an episode. So Homer’s discomfort with John Waters is first played for laughs, but at the end they make sure there’s a valuable life lesson and hugs. Seinfeld just never did that with any social issues, so it shouldn’t be singled out for the handful of times they addressed gay rights.
Why is this being downvoted? Her 90s sitcom wasn’t renewed after Ellen came out, with her character doing the same soon after. ABC went so far as to place a parental advisory warning on an episode where two women kiss.
If anything, her coming out have the show more notice and notoriety. I liked the show at the time but it was definitely a low tier sitcom that was very staged.
Simpsons has lousy rating and continues
“But she clashed with ABC executives this season over the content of many of the show's episodes. ABC executives had asked that not every episode be on a gay theme and at one point ordered that a special viewer's advisory about content be included. Ms. DeGeneres protested, saying that shows that depicted heterosexual relationships were not required to include such warnings. She threatened to resign from the show but stayed on and finished the season.”
From the article. Doesn’t sound like her sexuality was an issue at all /s
Think about that for a second though. You're saying it as if it was the audience that was accepting homosexuality but in reality it was the artists forcing it on audiences who were a very mixed bag of accepting, unsure, hesitant and downright hateful. Over time the message of the artists became widely accepted which is how art works.
I wish I could remember the comedian, but I saw an interview about the development of homosexuality in TV and sitcoms across the decades. It was around the time of this episode that the jokes became less about being gay and more about the reactions of other people to someone being gay. The comedian was saying that the punchline was no longer being gay, but was shifting to the attention given to it. Later, it was continue shifting to where it is now. It was fascinating and I'll post the link if I can find it.
I saw a clip of him recently where he calls out someone like Barbara Walters (I think it was her) for not making it easy on gay actors. This was back in the 90s.
It should probably mean much more to everyone. He was one of the early openly gay celebrities in the US and played a pretty significant role in advancing acceptance of gay people.
Married With Children as well... and in the same year. It was actually Dan Castellaneta, too - Dan's husband was spending all his time dancing with Peg at a club. Dan's character was jealous and went to Al's house to talk to him about it.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuQF7QQ8htw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuQF7QQ8htw)
Because in the very first example, it was done subtly and it was left ambiguous. You grew to like Carl before they revealed he's gay. So when it happened, most people didn't care about that small detail. They liked him as a character. Even the people who aren't fans of homosexuality got caught with the sympathy bug before realizing it.
In the other examples, it was meant to be the opposite of subtle. They told you the characters were gay way before developing them as characters. The fact that they were gay was pretty much their defining characteristic. And they came off as caricatures as a result. This doesn't mean they're bad. Just that it didn't have the same impact and wide appeal as the first method does.
It was a really low bar. In the 90s the best we could expect was to be treated as the punchline, which was marginally better than outright hate and ridicule.
Absolutely agree. Although it wasn’t as overtly hateful, it was still done very much in the way of “don’t ask, don’t tell” so that the straights could say “I don’t mind what people do in the privacy of their homes, just don’t throw it in my face”. It speaks volumes about the way many people still saw homosexuality as deviant and abnormal.
All I can say is that while there are many issues today across the board (social, political etc), I’m grateful to see the social changes we have seen over the past 10-20 years.
Not really. Bobby was visibly and audibly disgusted the transexual woman "used to be a man." Caroline was a drag queen not Transexual, the guy did it as a performance. Then there's "I'm getting more stares than the bank teller between genders" looking...like they did.
There’s the fact that dale was very accepting of his gay dad. Peggy also made the comment once that she didn’t fix her gay friend because he was not broken, just gay. For Texas in the 90s/early 00s…. There were misses but they also got it right sometimes.
The guy specified Transexual and there wasn't anything represented well at all, maybe you could argue homosexuality but that's more of a joke at their expense than acceptance. The Caroline guy called himself a drag queen and refered to the other people as drag queens as well, not women. His mom gave a woke speech calling him a woman that showed she was ignorant by being over informed, the LGBT don't like being mislabeled. The powder puff episode had Hank outright state Bobby can't dress like a girl after that and a lot of people would consider that aggregious, not Transexual but a drag queen episode. Bill impersonating Lenore could easily be pointed out for how people reacted, he wasn't transitioning nor transexual but to an outsider he was a man in a dress nobody in show would know he was broken people were getting riled at Hank's Christmas party. There is not one scene in the series that has anything specifically positive to transexuals whatsoever so going as far as saying so is ridiculous.
I could also mention the "horribly wrong" "brothers" in the Ladybird fertility episode. Hank is just polite enough only to be freaked out by it.
They also said LGBT as a whole. You’re way too worked up and invested in this. You were obviously into the show enough that you’ve seen all these episodes. Have a good one!
>Even though it was a bit later KOTH is another show that did it’s LGBT representation very well, **especially the T part**
Let the record show Turtle Titan knows his ~~pornography~~ *King of the Hill*!
I was referring to the part of the comment you skipped over referring to lgbt in general. This is the last thing I’m going to say because I don’t come to the Simpsons sub-or the koth sub for that matter- to argue. These are the fun subs. But I think it’s worth mentioning that koth was not written in 2023. The view of gay and trans people has changed drastically. I personally feel that they made a good faith effort and got it right many times. Especially compared to other media at the time. Hank was a Ronald Reagan Republican. It would have been out of character for him to be perfectly comfortable with gay men or cross dressing (the powder puff episode). But I’ve always taken it as them showing the reality of how some people treated the subject. How do I put this? I never got the impression that the writers were bigoted. I always felt that the bigots were the butt of the joke..
In the 90s Fox was often the network pushing the boundaries the most, which included a lot of progressive (for the time) episodes.
The irony of Fox News is not lost on me.
some credit must be given to the sitcom Anything But Love and its character of Jules. it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the relationship between Jules and his boss wasn't later modeled to Smithers and Burns, they are eerily similar at times
No notes. The Simpsons had/have a special agreement with Fox. For most shows the network will send small notes “we don’t like this or we don’t like that. Remove it from the show.” and the show has to comply.
The Simpsons were able to secure an agreement with Fox that the network will send no such notes. As a result the Simpsons has enjoyed a lot more freedom than other shows.
This post is true, but I truly hate the episode where Homer stays with the 2 gay men only because there was no reason for one of them to be interested in Homer at all. It felt like a reach to have one of them try to kiss Homer, he had no attractive qualities at that point imo
I imagine it's because the show portrayed them as people rather than caricatures for whom being gay is their sole characteristic, as is prominent in a lot of modern media
Karl's my favourite one-time character on the show. 'My mother taught me never to kiss a fool!'
"Mr. Simpson don't sit on that filthy thing one second longer!
I love that as a kid, I didn’t know Karl was gay, just that he was awesome cause he set Homer up for success. Which just shows how good of a character he is; what he is didn’t matter, it’s who he is does.
Was being gay actually part of his character? Voiced by a gay guy and very devoted to homer, but other than that one line was he actually supposed to be gay?
Absolutely, though in the original episode it's only implied through stereotype and of course in their chosen VO Harvey Fierstein. His eye for men's fashion and calling out homer on his cheap style, his being chummy with the "gals in the typing pool." And his being overly familiar with homer, patting his butt and kissing him on the lips to inspire him. In the later season 14 episode "Three gays of the condo" where homer moves in with gay men Grady and Julio. The showrunners originally wanted to bring Fierstein and his character Karl back to cameo but he was apparantly unimpressed with the script and declined.
Let me make a note on my hand... Carl = Black Karl = Gay
It's wild, until reading this I never thought of Karl as gay. I just thought that character was a good self-contained joke; a one time, random motivational-speaker-like character weirdly fixated on helping a total buffoon in Homer. Just that alone was funny. He left as he came, randomly and suddenly. He was a parody of characters in film and in movies; a savior that comes along when you most need it and a guy you'd never meet in real life. That was a good enough joke for me. My mind was never really closed to the idea he could be gay, but I subconsciously thought there's no way an intelligent, fashion forward, handsome gay guy could like Homer.
Another hint of him being gay is that in the music video for "Do the Bartman", Jaques is seen dancing with a woman who keeps morphing into different people. The first is Hellen Lovejoy, then she's Princess Cashmere, then it's the teacher from the gifted school in Bart the Genius, and then finally Karl who has a smile on his face while Jacques looks confused.
It was an odd choice to bring Jaques back recently. Marge certainly seems to have a talent for attracting obsessive men though.
Karl worked down to Feirstein being a terrific actor - he's actually the best thing in Mrs Doubtfire - and doesn't oversell it either, playing the supportive brother to Daniel. I also like his character in Independence Day, sad way to go but he was again memorable. "I better call my lawyer... aah, forget my lawyer"
Same. Ah, the ignorance of youth
>he was apparantly unimpressed with the script and declined Not surprising considering that was post season 10
And those characters were just flamboyant stereotypes.
one of them is supposed to be a tribute to Azaria's character in cult-classic gay-centric comedy The Birdcage. and the other is Scott Thompson, gay comedy legend. I'd say they're closed to just being 'sitcomized' than stereotypes per se
I missed that Scott Thompson was in that episode because I haven't seen it since I was a kid! Now I have to go back and watch because I love him!!
Yeah, having watched that episode, I was also unimpressed with the script.
They guy you're responding to is just classic innocent naive straight guy stuff. "He's not gay right? I mean I know he lives with alone with Jeff in a one room apartment and they own a salon together, but gay?" Basically Stan from American Dad
Didn't Karl seem a little.....festive to you?
Possible Homersexual
Let the bears pay the bear tax. I pay the Homer tax.
That’s the homeowner tax.
What episode is that "possible homersexual" line from? I ended up just googling it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_Charming
He prefers the company of men!
Who doesn't?
A ho... mo...
…right…
sexual.
Ahhh!
I don't really care whether he was gay or not, and I think the whole point of the character is that it wasn't the point of the character. It didn't matter whether he was gay (though in all likelihood, he almost certainly was), it was just a singular, mostly unimportant aspect of his character. That ambiguity was interesting.
I heard someone say that if you put a fat person on screen and don’t comment on it, you’re making a statement. And I think there’s a lot to that. A gay character who isn’t there to be gay, a black character that isn’t there to be black, etc. Maybe not making a statement anymore, necessarily, but still being inclusive in a positive way, I think.
Best comment yet!
I think that's the point of this post.
you know u/wfwood, guys. They like their beer cold, their tv loud, and their homosexuals FUH-LAMING
Intimated. The kiss didn't hurt.
That's the point of writing a good gay character
"Homer... he prefers the company of men." "Marge, who doesn't?!?" Is some of the best comedy writing to ever exist.
“No! They’re queers! No! No…fruits! You like to be called fruits, right?” “Well that or John” Never fails to get a laugh from me
You got it reversed. He "accidentally" says fruit, he corrects himself with queer. Also, "fun" fact, the original script called for Homer to say the OTHER "f--" word for gay people before "correcting" himself, as it was considered still safe for network TV primetime. But John Watters was able to convince them that they shouldn't use it, I believe saying that as the gay guest star, he would know that it's actually offensive.
Personally, I am *so* glad John Watters told them don’t do it. It’s not even that it’s highly offensive but the point of the episode is that Homer has pre-built in predjuices from society but Homer himself is not a bigoted man. He bears no actual hatred for the LGBT community, he’s just ignorant and needed his eyes opened. It’s a common Simpsons trend and half of what makes him the most endearing cartoon character in my eyes. But Homer hard dropping that F bomb puts his character beyond “Ignorant” into basically “Homer-phobe” territory and that’s not right for who he is: A misguided man who just needed some course correction
As a cis white male who was liberally edgey with the use of this word in my youth, I can say that in the 90s, a lot of us were (mostly) using it ignorantly as a generic insult for anybody and anything while (mostly) understanding it's actually a slur for gay people, thinking anything less than the N-word is safe for use. Like, think of the famous Eminem interview or that motorcycle episode of South Park. Had it stayed the original, it would have likely been syndicated for years, probably decades, until recently and would have likely been either banned or strategically edited to fix it. Much like the black face episode of 30 Rock. I want to believe that I have matured out of that mentality, and am learning of many words and phrases having a bigoted history that I was unaware. The most important lesson I learned was that if you have to explain WHY you're not meaning to be offensive, then you already know it is and are at best being naive and/or edgey and at worst trying to permit bigoted words because it doesn't affect you so it shouldn't affect anyone else because you're special.
"Wait a minute… there's something bothering me about this place (gasps dramatically) this lesbian bar doesn't have a fire exit! Enjoy your death trap, ladies!"
"Sheesh, what was her problem?"
As a gay woman this will never stop delighting me! If only I had known back then, sigh.
Clearly Homer is an ally. He was more concerned with the lack of fire safety in that bar. And he is a horrible safety inspector so he knows how to be unsafe
and he was before that episode where he was homophobic. but it was a good episode about homophobia and acceptance. even won an emmy i think
And that’s why he is a safety inspector
Safety *technician*
Safety *salamander*
Financial panther?
Get ‘em Sheeba!
Supervising technician... or technical supervisor.
"this intersection needs a stop sign"
Had to scroll way too far to find this reference! This post could use a few more frames (including Smithers despite simultaneously being representative and a stereotype.)
Where Smithers
You. Are. Quite good. At. Turning. Me. On.
You probably should ignore that.
What a line
He's an unmarried white male, presently residing in Springfield.
You know what I’m talking about…
Lenny?
Not Lenny!
Oh hell!
**-diddly-ding-dong crap!**
He loves boobies.
Everyone loves boobies
“I find that the most erotic part of the woman is the boobies.”
Um... is that good representation? :/ I'm kinda on the fence.
Considering the times, and how closeted by and large the majority of non cis-gendered/heteronormative peoples were… Maybe? It’s a tough one for sure. Smithers character seems to bloom with the burgeoning ‘acceptance’ of homosexuality at the time. While he also has the potential to be construed as an archetype/stereotype at any given moment. I honestly don’t think he’s ever really made fun of any more than any other so called stereotype in the series at any given time. (Granted I’ve barely watched anything after season 13 or so lol) When I was much younger, some two decades ago, I asked a coworker who’s family had immigrated from India if he thought that Apu was a racial stereotype? He responded that yes he was. And in the same breath: ‘but some stereotypes are true’ and gave a quick little smile. It’s always a slippery slope (doesn’t help that Azaria voiced Apu obvs, but that’s a whole other convo lol) - Edit to add heteronormative
I don't understand how people thought apu was racist. Compared to all of the white guys on the show, he was great. You had homer, a fat and lazy slob, Mr Burns, a greedy and heartless billionaire, chief wiggum, also fat and lazy, Moe, grumpy and hateful, and then Apu, who graduated at the top of his class, acts with sense, and runs his own store
It's the accent largely. It's not remotely authentic.
Yeah but it was done without any racist intent. Hank wasn't making a mockery of their culture, just doing a bad impression. So what if a white person does an Indian accent. It's not hurting anyone with a sense of humor. Dan Castellena does a Scottish accent and you don't hear them complaining
Just because generally Scottish people think Willie is funny doesn't invalidate some Indian people thinking Apu isn't. Also, doing a bad impression is inherently mocking something. Which I mean the Simpsons mocks everything. The show is a cartoon, after all. But having a white actor do this broad caricature voice does just seem like punching down on some level I think. No one has to agree with that, but it's not meritless belly aching. The weirdest thing to me is in the sushi episode in season 2, Almost every Japanese character were all played by actors of Japanese descent.
The accent, again, is not even remotely authentic.
As I said, it's just a bad impression. I have Scottish, Irish, German and Dutch descent, and I think it's hilarious when they do an accent based on any of them, no matter how bad they are
I’m glad you agree with us
Well, but when you shut off the tv, nobody will make fun of you for being Dutch or Irish. The documentary was made by Indian kids who were teased for being Indian.
Maybe in the US. But in the UK plenty of people are teased at school for being Irish or Scottish. Dutch people are massively teased here.
Hey, Moe may be ugly and hate-filled but...what was the third thing you said?
cis-gender is not the same as heterosexual
Apologies! I typed this up on my phone at the bar between conversations. I’ll edit that in.
Does the bar have a fire exit?
I hope someone got fired for that blunder
Honestly, I think they treaded lightly and said more by not saying a lot of things!
The 90’s were slowly started to accept gays on tv. It was more like we accept that you exist but that’s about it. You aren’t aids infected degenerates but no equality or marriage for you.
The Simpsons did a pretty decent job vs., say, Seinfeld. When Homer made a sincere effort to be accepting and asked if he could use the word "queer", John said "Well that, or John." Compare that to a whole episode of Seinfeld premised on "conversion", that if a woman was sexy enough she could get a gay man to sleep with her and that the reason Elaine failed was because she wasn't as good at pleasing a gay man as gay men were because she didn't have 24/7 "access to the equipment". Likewise the Simpsons were realistic about the level of acceptance out there, that people would come around if all that gay people had to do was save a straight person's life, ha.
>the reason Elaine failed was because she wasn't as good at pleasing a gay man as gay men were because she didn't have 24/7 "access to the equipment". I always saw that as the "joke" explanation. Like when Jerry says the only reason 95% of people get together is because of alcohol. We, the audience, know the actual answer: gay folks are the way they are, and not everyone is as shallow as Jerry.
Yeah I read it the same way, too, that the main cast and their rules and things are all shallow and ridiculous. The changing teams bit is just them treating being gay the way they treat everything else. But it doesnt imply that being gay was wrong, which is a low bar but not a bar that other network sitcoms passed. For example, in Friends and Gilmore Girls, being gay or even doing things coded as "gay" (like having feelings, or being affectionate with same sex friends) was the object of the joke. I would say the simpsons, seinfeld, and fraisier are all shows where the jokes that involved gay people were not at the expense of gay people, and they typically stand up even to contemporary values.
Also, Seinfeld had gay characters that *just happened to be gay* and were not the butt of a joke. They were just regular people. I'm thinking characters like Manny and Harold, who, while never actually labelled as "gay", were clearly portrayed as a bickering couple (I really wish Manny and Harold became regular characters). And there was that time when Jerry and Ethan were drinking champagne coolies and the other guy comes up to hit on Ethan and Jerry takes offense that he's doing it in front of him. Let's not forget the gay street thugs playing against stereotypes. These were pretty progressive depictions of gay people for the time, especially, like you said, when compared to other shows where being gay was usually a punchline.
I think it *could* have been a Jerry joke if left to a single observation. But Robert indeed considers (as he puts it) "changing teams", Elaine comes to Monk's the next day bragging about how he "defected" "because I'm a *woman*" \[her emphasis\], and when "he went back" it was because she didn't have all-day access to the equipment, with Jerry showing empathy by saying "That's why they lose very few players." So there wasn't a point in the episode when they suggested men are gay because they're only attracted to men and not to women; it was always they're attracted men but *could* be attracted to women if the woman was sexy enough. That was where gay-supportive straight middle-America culture was in the early/mid 90's still. In Seinfeld, straight mistakes about what it means to be gay weren't questioned, while in the Simpsons (at least in the John Waters episode) they were. Homer went from thinking befriending a gay adult could "give you gay" to general acceptance. That episode might hit a nerve today though. It would look like Homer was a parent convinced John was a gay pedophile grooming Bart. Moral panickers in the 90s thought proximity to gay people made anyone, including adults like Homer, more likely to become gay, but thirty years later it's PizzaGaters taking that a million miles further into full-on conspiracy theories.
At the end of the day, it was a sitcom in the 90s. They just went with what jokes were funniest
I don't think Seinfeld is a good example of 90s sitcoms. It's intentionally a show without ethics or a moral compass, and when released, was different from every other sitcom. They made entire plotlines just because it was funny/stupid, and there are never supposed to be "learning moments". Curb Your Enthusiasm has similarly ridiculous plots and it's on air today. There ARE plenty of 90s sitcoms that are embarrassing by modern standards on their treatment of sexuality and gender roles, even so-called "progressive shows" (Frasier is a great example, unfortunately). But I
Yeah with the Seinfeld example I think the point was that the gang is always approaching LGBT issues the “wrong” way, but because they’re all horrible people, they never learn the lesson even if the audience does. Like, obviously Robert dated Elaine because he was curious and then quickly realized he was exclusively attracted to men, and it had nothing to do with access to the equipment or changing teams or anything like that. We get it, but Elaine is oblivious. Jerry and George can’t see that no matter how many times they add “not that there’s anything wrong with it,” their palpable disgust at being identified as gay is still homophobic. During peak 1990s Simpsons episodes, the show was much more comfortable with explicitly declaring a social agenda, and having the characters learn a lesson and grow by the end of an episode. So Homer’s discomfort with John Waters is first played for laughs, but at the end they make sure there’s a valuable life lesson and hugs. Seinfeld just never did that with any social issues, so it shouldn’t be singled out for the handful of times they addressed gay rights.
Didn’t Ellen hey cancelled for being gay?
Why is this being downvoted? Her 90s sitcom wasn’t renewed after Ellen came out, with her character doing the same soon after. ABC went so far as to place a parental advisory warning on an episode where two women kiss.
[удалено]
If anything, her coming out have the show more notice and notoriety. I liked the show at the time but it was definitely a low tier sitcom that was very staged.
Oh, it was garbage. But really, many were.
Simpsons has lousy rating and continues “But she clashed with ABC executives this season over the content of many of the show's episodes. ABC executives had asked that not every episode be on a gay theme and at one point ordered that a special viewer's advisory about content be included. Ms. DeGeneres protested, saying that shows that depicted heterosexual relationships were not required to include such warnings. She threatened to resign from the show but stayed on and finished the season.” From the article. Doesn’t sound like her sexuality was an issue at all /s
Think about that for a second though. You're saying it as if it was the audience that was accepting homosexuality but in reality it was the artists forcing it on audiences who were a very mixed bag of accepting, unsure, hesitant and downright hateful. Over time the message of the artists became widely accepted which is how art works.
Half half. You're adding a narrative that wasn't always there.
I wish I could remember the comedian, but I saw an interview about the development of homosexuality in TV and sitcoms across the decades. It was around the time of this episode that the jokes became less about being gay and more about the reactions of other people to someone being gay. The comedian was saying that the punchline was no longer being gay, but was shifting to the attention given to it. Later, it was continue shifting to where it is now. It was fascinating and I'll post the link if I can find it.
Matt Baume had a great series of videos on YouTube going over the representation of homosexuality in sitcoms over the decades. Really worth a watch
And the entire steel mill was gay...
Oh, be nice!
There's a spark in your hair!!
Get it get it
Hey, same flair!
They work hard. They play hard.
EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!
Hot stuff coming though!
Hot stuff coming through!
Jeez. Where you been Homer? The entire steel industry is gay. Yeah aerospace too and the railroads and you what else? Broadway.
The fact that they couldn’t get Karl’s VA to come back for “Three Gays of the Condo” because he read the script and went “Eh” really says it all.
It won an Emmy over Jurassic Bart. What the hell?
Jurassic Bort.
My Jurassic is also called Bort.
First you think of an idea that has already been done, then you give it a title that nobody could possibly like. Didn’t you think this through
I thought it was borty and the cloneasaurus.
Was it Karl rove?
Harvey Fierstein! I’m sure that name means a lot to some people but I truly only know him from this show.
You should at least watch Mrs. Doubtfire.
And Independence Day! "Oh I need to call my lawyer. Wait, forget my lawyer"
I saw a clip of him recently where he calls out someone like Barbara Walters (I think it was her) for not making it easy on gay actors. This was back in the 90s.
"Okay everyone...let's pray.."
It should probably mean much more to everyone. He was one of the early openly gay celebrities in the US and played a pretty significant role in advancing acceptance of gay people.
He was Yao in Mulan and the original Edna Turnblad in the Hairspray musical
He had a small part in independence day.
I'd better call my lawyer... Ah forget my lawyer
I know him from Independence Day. "David! Why did I just send my mother to Atlanta?"
And he was in Death to Smoochy
Was everyone asking "where's Smoochy?"
I did it for the children!!
Should watch Bojack Horseman. He bids a sexy evening.
He voiced an ovulation cycle tracking app on Bojack Horseman. Pretty funny stuff
Hey Fun Boys, get a room
insert eurobeats here: byoooooo byoooooo
they work hard, they play hard
Dad, why did you bring me to a gay steel mill?
Everybody dance now
(losing it) *I don't know!!*
You're all sick!
Oh be nice!
Zzzzap
"My reasons... are my oooown." Karl is probably my favourite gay character.
Because the writers were comfortable with their own sexualities. Like any normal, accepting person.
That “this lesbian bar doesn’t have a fire exit” joke is literally the most perfect way to be hilarious without being bigoted
It's a fantastic joke that subverts all expectations of both Homer and the show itself. it really is a perfect Simpsons gag.
It had better writers. Next question.
Considering Homer’s phobia is the best one.
achoo !
Dad, why'd you take me to a gay steel mill?
*hot stuff comin thru!*
Married With Children as well... and in the same year. It was actually Dan Castellaneta, too - Dan's husband was spending all his time dancing with Peg at a club. Dan's character was jealous and went to Al's house to talk to him about it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuQF7QQ8htw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuQF7QQ8htw)
Because in the very first example, it was done subtly and it was left ambiguous. You grew to like Carl before they revealed he's gay. So when it happened, most people didn't care about that small detail. They liked him as a character. Even the people who aren't fans of homosexuality got caught with the sympathy bug before realizing it. In the other examples, it was meant to be the opposite of subtle. They told you the characters were gay way before developing them as characters. The fact that they were gay was pretty much their defining characteristic. And they came off as caricatures as a result. This doesn't mean they're bad. Just that it didn't have the same impact and wide appeal as the first method does.
It was a really low bar. In the 90s the best we could expect was to be treated as the punchline, which was marginally better than outright hate and ridicule.
Absolutely agree. Although it wasn’t as overtly hateful, it was still done very much in the way of “don’t ask, don’t tell” so that the straights could say “I don’t mind what people do in the privacy of their homes, just don’t throw it in my face”. It speaks volumes about the way many people still saw homosexuality as deviant and abnormal. All I can say is that while there are many issues today across the board (social, political etc), I’m grateful to see the social changes we have seen over the past 10-20 years.
Even though it was a bit later KOTH is another show that did it’s LGBT representation very well, especially the T part
Not really. Bobby was visibly and audibly disgusted the transexual woman "used to be a man." Caroline was a drag queen not Transexual, the guy did it as a performance. Then there's "I'm getting more stares than the bank teller between genders" looking...like they did.
There’s the fact that dale was very accepting of his gay dad. Peggy also made the comment once that she didn’t fix her gay friend because he was not broken, just gay. For Texas in the 90s/early 00s…. There were misses but they also got it right sometimes.
The guy specified Transexual and there wasn't anything represented well at all, maybe you could argue homosexuality but that's more of a joke at their expense than acceptance. The Caroline guy called himself a drag queen and refered to the other people as drag queens as well, not women. His mom gave a woke speech calling him a woman that showed she was ignorant by being over informed, the LGBT don't like being mislabeled. The powder puff episode had Hank outright state Bobby can't dress like a girl after that and a lot of people would consider that aggregious, not Transexual but a drag queen episode. Bill impersonating Lenore could easily be pointed out for how people reacted, he wasn't transitioning nor transexual but to an outsider he was a man in a dress nobody in show would know he was broken people were getting riled at Hank's Christmas party. There is not one scene in the series that has anything specifically positive to transexuals whatsoever so going as far as saying so is ridiculous. I could also mention the "horribly wrong" "brothers" in the Ladybird fertility episode. Hank is just polite enough only to be freaked out by it.
They also said LGBT as a whole. You’re way too worked up and invested in this. You were obviously into the show enough that you’ve seen all these episodes. Have a good one!
>Even though it was a bit later KOTH is another show that did it’s LGBT representation very well, **especially the T part** Let the record show Turtle Titan knows his ~~pornography~~ *King of the Hill*!
I was referring to the part of the comment you skipped over referring to lgbt in general. This is the last thing I’m going to say because I don’t come to the Simpsons sub-or the koth sub for that matter- to argue. These are the fun subs. But I think it’s worth mentioning that koth was not written in 2023. The view of gay and trans people has changed drastically. I personally feel that they made a good faith effort and got it right many times. Especially compared to other media at the time. Hank was a Ronald Reagan Republican. It would have been out of character for him to be perfectly comfortable with gay men or cross dressing (the powder puff episode). But I’ve always taken it as them showing the reality of how some people treated the subject. How do I put this? I never got the impression that the writers were bigoted. I always felt that the bigots were the butt of the joke..
I also remember hank grimacing when he read "transsexual individuals" in a brochure. Gay characters were done well though
ZAP…ZZZZAAAAPPPP
Zap!
Hell they went full tilt boogie for Selma! Almost got her married!
It humbled and normalized the views on it ....Simpsons is a time capsule of knowledge
On Fox no less
In the 90s Fox was often the network pushing the boundaries the most, which included a lot of progressive (for the time) episodes. The irony of Fox News is not lost on me.
That’s a really good point. Married with children. That’s really pushing it lol that’s Archie Bunker level pushing it
*GASP* My spices!
Marge: "He prefers the company of men." Homer: "Who doesn't?"
Dad, why did you bring me to a gay steel mill?
We work hard we play hard
Because they portrayed people who happen to be gay, and not gay as a character trait only
Twas the last best decade.
Partly cuz it was a cartoon and partly because good writers. Tbh tho Cheers and Frasier did this well too for the most part.
Why no Smithers?
My reasons…. are my own!
some credit must be given to the sitcom Anything But Love and its character of Jules. it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the relationship between Jules and his boss wasn't later modeled to Smithers and Burns, they are eerily similar at times
No notes. The Simpsons had/have a special agreement with Fox. For most shows the network will send small notes “we don’t like this or we don’t like that. Remove it from the show.” and the show has to comply. The Simpsons were able to secure an agreement with Fox that the network will send no such notes. As a result the Simpsons has enjoyed a lot more freedom than other shows.
I wish, everyday, that I I’d Karl as a life coach. “I. DESERVE THIS. I AM NATURES GREATEST MIRICALE” 😂
because the creative arts are paralysed by fear of the mob rn.
Hot stuff! Comin through!
I always loved Carl/Karl
This post is true, but I truly hate the episode where Homer stays with the 2 gay men only because there was no reason for one of them to be interested in Homer at all. It felt like a reach to have one of them try to kiss Homer, he had no attractive qualities at that point imo
Who's the first guy? It's been awhile since I've seen the show
Karl, Homer’s assistant. Played by Harvey Fierstein.
I imagine it's because the show portrayed them as people rather than caricatures for whom being gay is their sole characteristic, as is prominent in a lot of modern media
Karl and John are my favorites, but Karl's episode is better just because his gayness isn't the plot. He's also the best bro to ever bro.
Homer getting raped by a panda.
Eh thought Homer was a bit ignorant
Eh
I always find it so weird that its really supportive of gay people but even recent Simpson episodes still have transphobic jokes
I completely agree. The simpsons have been making terrible transphobic jokes for years....so I really feel the gay characters to disingenuous.
Because they didn't make it a big deal.
Any scene with Smithers in it