before my political awakening I just took them at face value. But now they're like time capsules of the fairly shallow and hardly biting political commentary of the era.
Specifically im talking about sitcoms that premiered in the late 90s (or early 2000s) and continued thru the 00s. Take Scrubs for example. There's a few episodes where the hospital workers break into camps discussing the Iraq war. Elliott, played by Sarah Chalke, is revealed as a republican. I suppose this mirrors how actual conversations at the time played out but its somewhat endearing how it all seems so quaint looking back. I know watching at the time I was like wow it's refreshing how they're being so political lmao.
I think the cringiest when it comes to this is will and grace. There's a few episodes with bush-targeted jokes delivered primarily by debra messing (yuck). And they all have to do with his intelligence.
I think the only exceptions are either the shows that did it smartly (for libs anyways) like the first three seasons of Arrested Development or ones that just focused on the domestic/life problems of the characters, like Malcolm in the middle (which is probably the last great working class sitcom) or everybody loves raymond.
lol, I think the conceit was mostly that his job was demeaning, like he worked in retail at a mall selling shoes to women and I think his boss was younger than him and a shithead. also his car broke down on the way home all the time, so he had to push it for the last miles, but he refused to buy anything not American madr haha. I also think there were multiple episodes that threatened the house and various appliances being repo'd.
I mean it's quaint by many standards today, but back when there were still some decent paying trade union jobs around Chicago, some guy having to grovel on the floor to put shoes on Karens for shit pay was not where anyone wanted to be at mid 40.
also, one of the themes of the show was that the family were all shitty to each other until any one of them was threatened by outside forces, then they rallied together to defeat the threat and protect each other.
it wasn't really supposed to be a nightmare life, just the sort of substandard one that could be waiting for anyone. that show caught a lot of flack at the time for not presenting some leave it beaver family.
The Simpsons got the same kind of treatment in the 90s / late 80s too. I remember it being a big deal when the Barbara Bush talked shit about the Simpsons, which prompted the show writers to pen her a letter on behalf of Marge Simpson:
Which then prompted a response from Barbara Bush:
And then we got Two Bad Neighbors out of it
The yikes level of this phrase is astronomical.