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Lmao this is great... Yeah they're completely out of touch with who Homer is supposed to represent now.
Exactly. Homer would absolutely be pro-Trump and mindlessly repeat all the party lines. There was even an entire episode about Homer being a homophobe.
They had an episode where he acts like a weird asshole the entire time because he’s convinced himself Bart is gay. He goes from liking a guy to being completely cruel and awful to him just because he’s gay.
At the end the guy saves them and homer learns a bit.
Now it’s just “Donald bad”.
To be fair, having even that sort of shit politics, the voting for H.W. kind of shitty, is perfectly consistent with voting for Biden because the never-Trump neocons are part of Biden's target audience.
While we’re talking about cartoon protagonists’ politics, would Hank Hill vote for Trump?
He is staunchly conservative, values “hard work and responsibility” is a devout Methodist, looks down on “tree-hugging hippies”, and absolutely hates big liberal cities like New York and LA.
But I can’t see him getting fooled by Trump. Trump is the antithesis of Hank’s values. A loud, rich New Yorker who screws over everybody but himself and who flip flops on every issue until he settles on whatever the last thing he heard was.
I don’t think Hank could bring himself to vote for a Democrat, but I don’t think he would vote for someone like Trump. But not voting is one of the biggest sins an American can make, so he has to choose one of them.
That is a really good breakdown. I can see this in-episode with Hank in the polling booth, sweat dripping down his face as he hovers his pen over the Biden and Trump bubbles. He tells himself, "Just this once, Hank. You got this. One vote for a Democrat and then we'll never speak of this again."
Edit: And then he comes out of the booth, and Dale is there yelling, "Haha sissy! You voted for Biden didn't you?" And Hank sighs and replies with, "Shut up, Dale. Let's go back to the alley and drink some beers."
I get what you're saying here, but that seems way more complicated than what the show tries to do.
eventually it just became a hack cartoon mocking rednecks
This is true based on what [relatively little] I've seen. Though it was at its best for more seasons than you're claiming,
Dale spends Election Day in Mexico.
Hank would just say he’s voting for Biden because “The President is a jackass”
Hank Hill is Joe Biden's target demographic, a cartoon conservative with good reason at the end of the day
Now I’m thinking of Bill being angry horny at AOC lol
I think Hank would be fooled by Trump being a successful businessman but would have his illusions shattered pretty quick.
Your also overlooking that Trump was very pro coal and Hank loves natural gas.
Uncle Hank, I’m a communist now! Power to the people!
One of my favorite episodes lmao
Idk I love King of the Hill, but I just rewatched S1 and Hank was way more reactionary than I remember.
He’s supposed to be a reactionary fool. That’s pretty much the whole character,
You know how most people find themselves relating more to Squidward than SpongeBob as they age into adulthood and enter the workforce? The experience of Frank Grimes, an unlucky, almost-grimdark character with college-education and a strong background in nuclear physics, slowly going mad by witnessing the extremely incompetent HS-educated Homer disprove meritocracy by merely existing in the same work environment is that of every educated millennial entering the workforce. The Simpsons was arguably already starting to become aspirational just a few seasons in. Homer is every ignorant, complacent, and lucky HS-educated boomer who got in on the ground floor in the early 1980s with a small fraction of the skills needed for entry-level positions nowadays and who somehow actually made enough money to become homeowners in their twenties and save up enough to enjoy a petty-bourgie lifestyle even during the economic downturns. Grimes's rage at the lobster dinner scene still resonates with me.
Naw, Grimes is a chud and a loser. Homer is definitely a lucky idiot but he isn't exploiting anyone and isn't at all responsible for Grimey's lack of success. He never sees the system as anything but a meritocracy and blames the system failing him on a co-worker.
Naw, Grimes is a chud and a loser.
Does he ever express any kind of political opinion? He's basically just a stand-in for "Homer's Opposite". His whole schtick is being overqualified and unlucky.
Homer is definitely a lucky idiot but he isn’t exploiting anyone and isn’t at all responsible for Grimey’s lack of success.
The first two seasons of The Simpsons did a great job of illustrating who Homer was and why he was where he was. Strong unions and solidarity, a desire for public safety (mixed with the corporate need to cover ass), a strong family unit built on love rather than obsession with consumerism. With that in mind, Grimey's outrage seems misplaced.
But subsequent seasons turned Homer into a proxy for "Generic American Idiot Across All Economic And Social Strata". Especially in later seasons, Homer leveraged his privilege to deleterious effect. In Flaming Moe's, he screws over his friend to get famous with a drink. Homer's Barbershop Quartet kicks Chef Wiggum to the curb to get famous. In Much Apu About Nothing the town turned out against migrants as a scapegoat for rising taxes, a great example of Homer (among other townsfolk) exploiting neighbors in a quintessentially American way. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? involves Homer bankrupting a car company out of cavalier incompetence and neglect. You Only Move Twice has him taking a job at an explicitly villainous Bond Villain's corporation just to get a pay raise. Simpson and Delilah has him gleefully climbing the corporate ladder based entirely on having a full head of hair.
Homer's greedy and apathetic early on. He's prone to violent outbursts. In later seasons (particular after S10) he becomes overtly callous and cruel to the plight of others. He's happy enough to exploit people directly, given the opportunity. And he's - sometimes consciously sometimes not - routinely exploiting others near him through selfishness and neglect.
Moe steals the Flaming Homer. I also don't really consider how Homer is outside of the episode in question cause there isn't a ton of character consistency as far as how mean spirited he will be from episode to episode.
I got that backwards. Apologies.
there isn’t a ton of character consistency as far as how mean spirited he will be from episode to episode
He started as a dumbass with a heart of gold and metasticized into a cynical twit in later seasons.
Part of what killed the series.
Homer's Enemy is such a good episode because it lends itself so well to criticism. Like obviously Frank Grimes was in the wrong, but like he's wrong because his limited ideological framework that makes him unable to reconcile the idea of hard work being rewarded unconditionally with the very existence of Homer Simpson, and this contradiction drives him so brutally insane he kills himself. And it's such a perfect conclusion too, the show itself can't solve the contradiction and just chooses to dispose of Grimes so they don't have to deal with it anymore. It's so * muaaa * chef kissing italianly
*Oh and also like throughout the episode like it seemed to root for Grimes, but everyone was, like, laughing at Grimes? Like he's constantly points out that Homer is incompetent, but everyone is like "so?" It's a major self-own, the chud that wrote this thing doesn't realize that everyone is laughing at him, because he's hysterically pointing out that everyone is naked under their clothes. I honestly am so fascinated by this episode, it's intended to be a vehicle for meritocracy, but even the tiniest scrutiny deeply deeply undermines it.
I know Rosanne is a Chud, but honestly what was supposed to be a show about the barely-afloat working class precariat trying not to become the underclass now just looks like a normal middle class family.
Yeah, and stared their own mechanics business. And went to Disneyland.
Going to Disneyland was just a thing all shows were required to do after ABC got bought out.
It's really weird watching the simpsons after becoming a politically aware adult who is far left. There is a LOT of anti-communist and anti-russian sentiment in the show, especially the earlier seasons. Makes sense given it started right at the end of the cold war.
I think they've changed homer to be 39 or 40 now, he's aged a few times. Weird because the children always stay the same age
It’s always been a contradiction. He’s 40 but his son who was born right after high school is 10.
