(upbeat music)
- (Michael) Hey Wisecrack, Michael here. Today we’re talking about the patriarch
of everyone’s favorite four-fingered family – master of annoyed grunts,
wacky schemes and questionable child-rearing methods, the one and only Homer Simpson.
- (Homer) Woohoo!
- (Michael) Homer is the centre of The Simpsons’ world, providing it
with many of its most meme-able moments, catchiest catchphrases:
- (Homer) I am so smart! I am so smart! S, M, R, T, I mean, S, M, A, R, T!
- (Michael) And sagest advice about the importance of not trying.
- (Homer) Kids, You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.
- (Michael) But something’s happened to Homer, something that turned him from a central figure in
pop culture to an afterthought for most television viewers. So, how exactly did Homer fall from grace
and take The Simpsons down with him? Let’s find out in this Wisecrack edition on Homer Simpson:
What Went Wrong? And spoiler alerts for a show that’s almost old enough to run for president.
- (Michael) Now, some background: The Simpsons first hit the airwaves all the way back in 1989.
Modeling itself on the wholesome family sitcoms which had dominated
the small screen over the preceding decade, it centered largely around the
father slash husband as he dealt with the trials and tribulations of everyday life.
- (Homer) Fit damn you fit! (grunts) There!
- (Michael) Despite being bright yellow cartoon characters, the Simpsons clan provided a more
honest look at the modern American family. They offered a sharp contrast
to the prettified version of domestic bliss which live-action sitcoms had been serving up.
They might have crazy hair but with their bickering, belching and couch-centric lifestyle,
The Simpsons were much more like you and me than any other family on TV. But who was Homer, anyway?
Even when he didn’t have his hands around his son’s throat, Homer made for a very different kind
of TV dad than his predecessors. You know, those kindly patriarchs of Growing Pains or Family Ties,
who were all patience and fatherly wisdom. Short-tempered, lazy and kind of dim,
Homer was made more in the “angry white male” mold of earlier shows. Think Archie
Bunker or The Honeymooner’s Ralph Kramden, except without the explicit bigotry or the
constant threat of spousal abuse. His flaws made him more accessible and thus more relatable
because he was basically just a regular guy who found himself constantly overwhelmed by life.
- (Homer) To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
- (Michael) Despite his shortcomings, he had managed to claw together the life which tv had
been teaching all Americans to aspire to since the 50s – a wife, two and a half kids, a house
in the suburbs and two cars in the driveway. But he was barely able to hold it together.
Each day saw him dragging himself into a job he hated, to pay off the mortgage he couldn’t afford,
before coming home to the family whose problems he didn’t really understand. All while, he would
rather just sit on the couch or go out for a few beers. This was in keeping with the ethos of the
show, which offered a more sceptical vision of the world than the wholesome likes of Family Ties or
Leave it to Beaver. It’s a world where most people are prone to selfishness and outright stupidity,
- (Chief Wiggum) But we're very very busy down here. Yessh! King me.
- (Michael) And where daily life is full of minor indignations that cause major outrage.
- (Homer) If it'll make you feel any better,
I've learned that life is just one crushing defeat after another until you just wish
Flanders was dead.
- (Michael) And while Homer may be sympathetic, the writers don’t let him off the hook - making
it clear that he’s responsible for a lot of his own problems. Take his perpetual
rivalry with his neighbour, Ned Flanders – a man who bends over backwards to be nice to
Homer only to receive a tirade of abusive, petty vengeance and unreturned belongings in response.
- (Homer) Past instances in which I professed to like you were fraudulent!
- (Flanders) Oh well, I'll just ave to try harder! Oh! Thanks for dropping by!
- (Michael) We get why Ned bothers Homer so much – he
makes living a happy, healthy life appear so easy.
- (Flanders) Hi-diddily-ho neighbor!
- (Homer) Get lost Flanders! - (Flanders) Okily dokily!
- (Michael) But Homer’s resentment doesn’t justify being a jerk, so his schemes almost always blow
up. Take that time he forces Ned to go through with a bet which will see them both mowing the
lawn in their wife’s Sunday finest, only to find Ned is completely unembarrassed while Homer
is mortified. But that doesn’t mean Homer wasn’t capable of mini-redemptions. When
he actually does succeed in seriously upsetting Flanders, he feels bad about
it and tries to put things right. Like his last minute effort to rescue the Leftorium.
- (Flanders) Homer, affordable tract housing made us neighbors, but you made us friends.
- (Michael) The point is:
In the earlier seasons, Homer’s bad behaviour basically always catches up with him.
- (Moe) Hey Homer, I brought you- - (Homer) (screams)
Quick it's Mo! I gotta hide the mugs!
- (Michael)
He gets super mad about something and refuses to back down, or becomes so bored with his daily life
that he goes on some ill-fated adventure. He might destroy the whole town to avoid
taking out the trash or gain 61 pounds to avoid work or randomly switch careers on a lark..
- (Homer) That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!
- (Michael) But the consequences are most serious when Homer’s selfishness hurts his own family.
- (Marge) we have some great plans for that money. - (Homer) (laughs) Well I'm afraid I had some
great plans too. - (Marge) What
do you mean? - (Homer) I spent it on beer.
- (Michael) Because, although he might be a slobbish partner
and emotionally-unavailable father, Homer really does love his wife and children. So
how do the early Simpson’s seasons reconcile Homer’s buffoonery with his real emotional stakes?
By being genuine. Many of The Simpsons’ sweetest moments come when Homer realizes he’s messed
up and then tries his best to fix it. Like the classic scene at the end of “Lisa’s Substitute”
when Homer goes from room to room listening to his family’s problems and trying to cheer them
up. His chat with Lisa has become especially beloved because of the way Homer owns up to
all of his shortcomings and admits how lucky he is to have his family. It’s a perfect demonstration
of the softer, sweeter side of Homer which balances out his angrier, more oafish behavior.
- (Homer) Maybe I can’t explain all this. But I can fix your doll house for you.
- (Michael) Because, while Homer might represent a more cynical take on what an
“everyman” really looks like, he was never just the butt of the joke. The show isn’t saying
“wow, look how lazy and ridiculous” everybody is but something more like
“we’re all kind of goofy, but we might be okay if we look out for each other.”
- (Lisa) How's your marriage? - (Homer) Same as ever, perfectomundo!
- (Michael) The Simpsons had a lot of fun highlighting the various hypocrisies and
inadequacies of modern-day America, and how far it all felt from the
idealized vision of classic sitcoms. But it always did so from a place of
genuine warmth. It always came back to the decency beneath the bullshit.
- (Homer) There are pictures. I keep them where I need the most cheering up.
- (Michael) But as the show went on, the quality gradually began to drop off and fans have pointed to
any number of culprits. Some blame certain showrunners for misunderstanding the series while
others believe it was more of a “too many cooks” scenario as the writing staff expanded. Whatever
the reason, something had happened to the show, and specifically, to Homer. The issue isn’t
that he became dumber or wackier, though he did. It’s that he became more cruel.
- (Homer) Your grandfather is super lame! I mean,
if he wasn't a terrible father what's my excuse for this?!
- (Michael) Any time a sitcom runs for season after season,
the characters gradually become more exaggerated versions of themselves.
Frasier Crane goes from pretentious, suave socialite to pompous buffoon. On Friends,
Joey Tribbiani goes from slightly vapid pretty boy to a Zoolander-esque parody of himself. And
Community’s Britta Perry goes from impassioned student activist to, simply, “the worst.”
- (Jeff) You seemed smarter than me when I met you - (Britta) Thank you.
- (Michael) We see the same thing happen to Homer. He becomes a caricature of himself - both
visually and emotionally. His IQ dwindles, his temper shortens. And he goes from a
put-upon shmuck to an all-out buffoon, getting himself into increasingly outrageous scrapes.
And the show matched Homer’s gradual drift towards absurdity, focusing less on real-life
domestic troubles in favor of zanier plotlines and globetrotting adventures.
This wasn’t necessarily a dealbreaker. For a long time,
Homer retained enough self-awareness to make this new iteration of the character work.
- (Homer) Even I think this is crazy.
- (Michael) But eventually, Homer’s worst tendencies began to take over.
Remember how Homer used to make amends after hurting his family? Compare that to this
slightly later example, when he’s caught on camera bemoaning his familial burdens.
- (Homer) Marriage is a coffin and each kid is another nail!
- (Michael) Once again, Homer has acted callously towards his loved ones. But this time he shows
no remorse and is rewarded for his dickishness with a trip to Rock Camp. The viewer is no longer
being asked to care about how crappily he’s treated his family. His selfish claim that they
ruined his life basically goes unchallenged and the episode moves on. This incident is typical of
the “new” Homer, known to fans as “Jerkass Homer”. And they’re not wrong – he becomes
increasingly obnoxious, destructive and just plain mean-spirited. At the same time, the
show seems increasingly less interested in having him face any consequences for his behavior. Later
episodes revolve around Homer pulling crap like pretending to kill Principal Skinner’s mother,
scamming the town with a fake parking meter and even wiping out Springfield with an EMP. In season
one, Homer was so devastated by his own failures that he almost killed himself. For all his flaws
and goofball antics, the show made certain that his actions and choices mattered. Jerkass Homer
is more of an all-purpose rodeo clown, ready to do whatever outrageous thing might raise a laugh,
up to and including framing Marge for a DUI. Clearly, the show has significantly changed the
way it views its leading man and how it wants to use him. As Homer moves from hapless but
kind-hearted oaf to rampaging bully, The Simpsons starts playing for a notably different sort
of laughs. Rather than depicting the flaws and foibles of everyday life with both skepticism and
optimism like in its early days, the show descends into a detached kind of cynicism.
- (Homer) Now if you would be so kind as to start my car for me, I'm going to Moe's!
- (Michael)
So how did this happen? To make sense of Homer’s transformation, it helps to look at the broader
cultural landscape, and how it’s changed over the course of the Simpsons run. When the show
first arrived, it was a real trailblazer, not just because it was a prime-time adult
animated series, but because it provided a much rougher-round-the-edges picture of family life
than we’d seen before. And in the process, it ushered in a new generation of adult-animation
that took things a step further. You know, shows like South Park and Family Guy which
trade in a shock-and-awe style of comedy where the absolute lack of empathy is largely the point.
- (Peter) Hey Joe come here. Come here! Say hi to Meg. She's right in there, right there!
- (Michael) While these shows had sentimental moments, their comedy was mostly pretty cynical,–
disavowing everyone and everything in favor of the next punchline. To enjoy the malevolent
antics of Eric Cartman and early Stewie Griffin, you had to treat their worlds as total sandboxes,
not places with real emotional stakes. This opened up all kinds of new comedic avenues,
while basically precluding any potential for sincerity.
- (Lois) Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only
hope. Now, what do I click? - (R2) Click preferences.
- (Michael) Fundamentally,
this humour relies on you not really caring about the characters too much.
- (Homer) Why do my actions have consequences?
- (Michael) Whether
it was intentionally aping rival shows or not, The Simpsons has gradually followed this
path by turning Homer into a much more cynical character. All his earthly attachments are pretty
much gone. Gross-out jokes about bed-wetting or ‘outrageous’ gags about demonic threesomes
- (Demon) Threeway! - (Homer) You, me and Marge?
- (Demon) Hmm... demon, demon, you. - (Homer) Ahh.
- (Michael) Are now par for the course. It’s like the writers are hoping that the sheer
absurdity or edginess of what he’s doing will be enough to get a laugh. This new iteration of the
Simpsons keeps everything at a kind of ironic distance, telling the audience to emotionally
disengage so it can crack another “edgy” joke. But this all comes at the cost of the sweet,
moving moments we got from classic Homer. He still has his trademark annoyed grunt and
love of Duff beer, but beyond that there’s not really much of the old Homer left.
We’re not saying that sitcoms like The Simpsons need to be preachy or to end every episode with an
“I learned something today” speech. But there is a real cost to removing the emotional anchors
from their characters. While Homer might now be able to go toe to toe with Peter Griffin in a
brutal fistfight, it’s harder to care about it because it’s harder to care about him.
If there is a lesson to be learned from Homer’s fall from grace it might be that selling your
character’s soul for easier, quicker gags is a pathway of diminishing returns. Of course,
some recent cartoons are remarkable for their refusal to descend into full-blown cynicism.
While Bojack Horseman is dark, even nihilistic, the characters are earnestly trying to become
better. And then there’s Bob’s Burgers which keeps the Belcher family’s love for each other front
and center, no matter how crazy things get. But what do you think, Wisecrack? Is adult animation
best when drowned in booze and cynicism? Or do you miss the good-natured buffoonery of classic Homer?
Let us know in the comments. Big thanks to our patrons for your support. Smash that subscribe
button like Homer shotgunning a cold can of Duff, and, as always, thanks for watching. Later.