So just looking at the Golden Age* of The Simpsons:
Bart is gay, right? That was 'the' recurring joke with Smithers, but then they basically just did it all again with Bart.
* single digit seasons, keep it simple
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OP I can tell you’re a zoomer, back when I was growing up in the 90s the gays were inherently funny because the act of anal sex between two men was considered beyond the pale. People used to call things “gay” that people these days now call “cringe” because gay shit was undesirable.
I'm in my 30s. I'm also not American (for context) and I get why they would want to stay clear of writing gay kids in a cartoon show. There are nods that Bart is gay and, for contrast, nods that Lisa is straight.
Shut up. Quit being a moron on purpose.
Men acting feminine was considered peak comedy, in many places it still is.
cartoon drags are supposed to be mocking the idea but not a single fricker can understand this now
I just picked that as the OP image (classic Cinemaphile blunder etc). Bugs Bunny in a a dress, sure. Here, have another one. That's not what I'm talking about.
The dialogue presents him (and occasionally Martin) as a gay boy. You get jokes SURROUNDING it, like Marge's "Bart's gay?!" but Bart, as written (not just slapstick comedy wig stuff) comes across as a homosexual.
"Homer's Phobia" neither confirms nor denies this but it's also a pretty fricking weak episode. Harvey Fierstein had the right idea there.
He's had more (female) love interests than anyone else in the show. He's definitely straight.
If they joke otherwise its about as serious as Moe's various pasts or Burn's age. Done only for comedy.
>bisexual people don't real
He's also 10. Prepubescent children don't tend to have their sexual orientation figured out yet anon, although we can all look back on ourselves or others and see signs. Again, Lisa. Lisa is into dudes. Adult Lisa would likely have a boyfriend/husband. She was written that way. Bart was written gay.
Then why does Bart have a wife in the future episodes?
1. Broadcasting standards/American culture ("if it was made today" etc, and frankly it'd be worse off for it).
2. The same reason Smithers isn't walking around in a rainbow "I am a homosexual man" T-shirt telling other characters he is gay. He visits a burlesque house. Obviously they aren't going to write that sort of thing for a kid character.
You do know that Smithers is an out gay man who's had several episodes about his sexuality in recent years, right?
>So just looking at the Golden Age*
Writing team has shifted so many hands at this point. There's probably a series bible, Bart rides a skateboard and Nelson says 'ha, ha'.
Talking about when it was good, anon. Back when everything wasn't fixed to the ground (how many canonical colleges/universities does Springfield have now? what are Moe and Otto's full names? what ethnicity is that one judge? etc.)
So, you're ignoring everything from recent years simply because they contradict your theory?
No. For one I just haven't seen them. I get that it's a collective project, but in its early days it wasn't a FRANCHISE with set rules, right. "Snake is going to be our recurring criminal character", no, that's just something that stuck. We barely saw the Powers ever again. A few background appearances and I'm sure at this point they probably did something or other, got the voice actress back, wow.
As the team writing The Simpsons when I considered it to be good, I believe they wrote Bart as a gay character, and hinted at it with recurring jokes. There's no postmodernity about it: it's just like "Milhouse is a bit of a dweeb" except real-world social taboos got in the way.
Well whoopee.
The cast has been set in stone with their characterizations for over a decade now, and Bart is straight. Early Installment Weirdness does not apply.
Yeah there were general teething issues, they found their footing, all sorts of things changed. OG intro had lots more spiky hair. A lot of that went to Duckman.
Point is the team ESTABLISHED Bart and as much as it's a given that he's a RAMPAGING HELION it's also implied through innuendo that he is a gay boy. That was after the 'figuring it all out' phase.
Um, no. Men dressing in drag used to be purely for comedy purposes.
The Simpsons was always low key gay acceptance for the early 90's. You notice they don't crack hard jokes against homo's like they do against fathers. Imagine if Homer's gay assistant and Mr. Smithers had been chatting at the water cooler and Smithers said "You only get sick once you start going to the doctor!" and the gay assistant gave him a high five. The Simpsons would have been kicked off TV before that episode aired.
Wokesters of the past have more soul and talent than the wokesters of today.
They were white men back then
Yeah, and they were woke. They have always been woke, so I don't see why we have to pretend that we should treat the past as not woke.
They still are today, they just want people to pretend they're women
Yeah you see a not of gay Bart jokes
If it makes you feel better
Everybody dance now!