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!
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!