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.
Usually when I watch old media I'm most disgusted by the blatant sexism that's just accepted as normal and skipped over as if it didn't happen at all.
Not a sitcom, but watched Chinatown for the first time recently. The protagonist literally assaults a woman when she's trying to tell him about her being raped as a child. He hits her several times, and then the scene continues as if it was justified and normal.
Instead of her grabbing a bat to defend herself or even saying one word indicating that maybe he crossed a line, she hugs him and they continue to be friends as if he didn't just assault her?
not surprising considering the director of that film