some-triangles:

thecolossalennui:

bogleech:

this is long but very reasonably brutal

@some-triangles

Unfortunately incoherent.  The conceit that it establishes in the opening paragraphs (that the Golden Age was better because it was gag-based rather than character-based) has no bearing on the subsequent argument and is also pretty clearly incorrect.  Everything the author cites about the transition between the golden age and the subsequent period works against their own thesis.  The decline sets in when concept trumps character – when characters are maneuvered into positions based on their archetypal functions that would not have flown when they were still (vestigially) human.

The punchline is that none of what the author has subjected themselves to here in watching 20 seasons of awful TV was particularly necessary to glean this.  You don’t have to look beyond the first ten seasons to establish that the show is incredibly cruel to Lisa.  The difference is that this cruelty was originally balanced by empathy and a human scale to the storytelling.  Springfield’s self-satisfied banality was the target of the show’s satire.  That was lost later, as the balance between the show’s affection for its main characters and its criticism of their lack of vision was forgotten.  Like everything else in the show the plot structures where Lisa gets nothing lost their initial intent and became sui generis as repetition eroded meaning and easier stories edged out harder ones.

The absence of that sense of humanity and weight is what makes the latter seasons feel so alienating, not some imagined shift to character comedy.

It’s a shame because the stuff about anti-intellectualism and misogyny is spot on.  The picture isn’t complete without acknowledging that those elements were initially intentional and considered, but the core criticism is legit – the creators of the Simpsons didn’t in the end have the imagination or the courage to allow Lisa to escape, which is why she’s still there, still eight, and still suffering.

I Watched All 629 Episodes of The Simpsons in a Month. Here’s What I Learned.