Adult animation and gender representation A case study on The Simpsons.pdf

Running Head: ADULT ANIMATION & GENDER REPRESENTATION: THE SIMPSONS
Adult animation and gender representation – A case study on The Simpsons
Pedro A. González, Jr.
Saint Thomas University
July 30, 2014

ADULT ANIMATION & GENDER REPRESENTATION: THE SIMPSONS 2
Abstract
From its creation The Simpsons proved different, but how the irreverence of a show can be enough
for the American public to select this sitcom as it preferred primetime watching time? How the
show confronts capital issues of our decadent society as race, gender, religion sex and first, family
and marriage. It’s not all in the humor or the quality of color or maybe selecting aggressive topics
like the environment of corruption. How the gender representation in topics like homosexuality in
majority of male characters on the show affect the way the audience react to them. Multiple recog-
nitions around the world, but also critics about their political agenda and controversy. This show
create a momentum for success on television for shows oriented to social aspect and adult anima-
tion, awakening also a wave of copycats around the world. The success of the sitcom resides in
big part in how the show presents actual social topics that make them attractive for all. Now society
is moving on, moral decay is all around and a family show, with a very dysfunctional family, agree,
it’s getting behind. Are we seeing the last of them or the team have more surprises under their hat?
Will see. That’s the reason of the few ideas put together in this paper.
Key words: The Simpsons, Adult Animation, Gender Representation, Humor, Prime Time TV,
Television, American Media.
229 words.

Introduction
Have to confess that since watched The Simpsons with my son in the 1990’s was hooked
on this bright yellow dysfunctional paragon of an American family, with their contradictions, but
and the end they all love each other –in their own way (Free Northerner, 2014). Maybe because
also like cookies, or beer or just appreciating an excellent job in design and concept? Don’t know
for sure, let me try to explain.
In the history of the show, since its debut on December 17, 1989 becomes now the longest-
running American sitcom1
and animated program2
, beating Gunsmoke3
with 26 seasons and a film.
Created by Matt Groening4
named the members of the Simpson’s family after his own parents and
sisters (Ortved, 2010, p. 5), he design the show for the Fox Broadcasting Company5
, after being
asked from producer and screenwriter James L. Brooks6
to create a series.
As Groening said in an interview with Claudia de la Roca of Smithsonian Magazine in
2012:
“I had been drawing my weekly comic strip, “Life in Hell,” for about five years
1
A sitcom is a situation comedy, sitcom for short.
2
Animated cartoon is a film made using sequential drawings, others may include clay, puppet and other
means for the animation.
3
Others are the radio and TV Western drama series Gunsmoke , aired from 1955 to 1975 (Archive, 2007)
–initially Gun Law in England- and Law & Order SVU -special victims unit-, a police and legal drama tele-
vision series who investigate sexually related crimes, premiered on 1990 (IMDb, 2014).
4
Matthew Abram Groening, Cartoonist, screenwriter, producer, animator, author, musician, comedian,
voice actor. The Simpsons, Futurama, Olive, The Other Reindeer, Life in Hell, The Simpsons Movie.
5
Fox or Fox Network is an American broadcasting television network, founded by Rupert Murdoch and
Barry Diller in October 1985. Belongs to 21st
Century Fox Corporation of New York, NY, who owns dozens
of media outlets (CJR, 2014).
6
James Lawrence "Jim" Brooks, who co-write the acclaimed Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970 and then Taxi
and others awarded movies and television shows. He has received 47 Emmys nominations, winning 20 of
them (Cyclopaedia, 2014).

when I got a call from Jim Brooks, who was developing “The Tracey Ullman
Show” for the brand-new Fox network. He wanted me to come in and pitch an idea
for doing little cartoons on that show. I soon realized that whatever I pitched would
not be owned by me, but would be owned by Fox, so I decided to keep my rabbits
in “Life in Hell” and come up with something new.
“While I was waiting—I believe they kept me waiting for over an hour—I very
quickly drew the Simpsons family. I basically drew my own family. My father’s
name is Homer. My mother’s name is Margaret. I have a sister Lisa and another
sister Maggie, so I drew all of them. I was going to name the main character Matt,
but I didn’t think it would go over well in a pitch meeting, so I changed the name
to Bart (De La Roca, 2012, parra. 3-4).
To make a short description, the series is set in a fictional town –Springfield- and depicts
a not very typical middle class American family: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and little Maggie,
becoming part of The Tracey Ullman Show7
on April 19, 1987 and after a three-season run, grows
into his own half-hour prime time show, with 26 seasons now, ranked as the number one enter-
tainment program of the night among adults between 18 and 49 years old (Bibel, 2013, parra. 3).
Recognitions and awards all over the board
Time magazine included them in 2007 as one of the All-Time 100 TV Shows, as contributor
James Poniewozik said:
“The Simpsons is the TV equivalent of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
(once parodied in the opening “couch gag”). After it came along, nothing was the
same, and it established a generation’s cultural references and sensibility. (Is there
7
TV variety show, from 1987-1990, hosted by comedian UK comedian Tracey Ullman (IMDb, 2014 a).

any situation without a suitable Simpsons quote?) Starting out as a family cartoon,
it grew a cast of hundreds that spanned celebrity (Ranier Wolfcastle), religion (the
de-diddly-vout Flanders family), business (C. Montgomery Burns) and immigra-
tion (Apu). But maybe its best and favorite subject has been television itself—
”Teacher, mother, secret lover!”—which it has lampooned through Krusty the
Clown, Kent Brockman and the Laramie Cigarette sponsorship of Radioactive
Man. It even embodies its own critique in the person of crabby superfan Comic
Book Guy, but for all the long-lived series’ ups and downs, it remains the Best. TV
Show. Ever” (Poniewozik, 2007, parra. 1)
They also has their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame8
, something that really awards
Homer's exclamatory catchphrase “D'oh!”9
–by the way, adopted into the English language-, other
honors for this “family” were 30 Primetime Emmy Awards10
, 30 Annie Awards11
and a Peabody
Award12
for 123 wins and 184 nominations (IMDb, 2014 b).
Also a movie
The Simpsons Movie premiered in July 30, 2007 and makes more than $171.9 million USD
in tickets around the world at the opening and the days after (Barnes, 2007, parra. 1), earning $527
8
The Hollywood Walk of Fame was created by E. M. Stuart in what he proposed that the Walk become a
mean to "maintain the glory of a community whose name means glamour and excitement in the four corners
of the world" (Chamber, 2014, parra. 2).
9
Others are: D'oh!; Woo Hoo!; Why you little!; Mmm... (with some food); Aaargh!
10
Presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, recognizing excellence in American primetime
television programming. Since 1949, was known as the "Emmy Awards" until the first 1970, when the Day-
time Emmy Award ceremonies were held.
11
Award for achievements in animation of International Animated Film Association, ASIFA since 1972.
Originally for lifetime or career contributions to animation, since 1992 to individual films.
12
The George Foster Peabody Awards, named for philanthropist George Peabody, recognizes since 1040
meritorious public service by media, producing organizations, and individuals.

million USD till the end of that year (Statistic Brain, 2014), directed by David Silverman, who
was also in charge of numerous episodes of the series.
Writer Al Jean13
described the message of the film as “that a man should listen to his wife”
(Martin, 2007, parra. 3), but in reality the film centered in global society’s two biggest actual
issues: religion and environment, with a strong satire against the George W. Bush14
Administration
disastrous reaction to the relief in New Orleans after devastating Hurricane Katrina15
, poking fun
at the Government, even with a Dick Cheney16
shotgun reference17
.
Accusations about the level of governmental satire (González, 2007), or how the focus
gave the film an “overt political agenda… [which] border[s] on polemic” (Nathan, 2006, parra. 4),
focusing on the environmental issues, like Professor James D. Bloom of Muhlenberg College18
commented in his book Hollywood Intellect:
13
Alfred Ernest "Al" Jean III, writer and producer work as screenwriter for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny
Carson, ALF and It's Garry Shandling's Show.
14
George Walker Bush was born July 6, 1946 and is an American politician and businessman who served
as the 43rd
President of the US from 2001 to 2009. Is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush.
15
Katrina was an extraordinarily powerful and deadly hurricane causing catastrophic damage and inflicted
large loss of life. It was the costliest and one of the five deadliest hurricanes to ever strike the United States.
The damage and loss of life inflicted by this massive hurricane in Louisiana and Mississippi were staggering,
with significant effects extending into the Florida panhandle, Georgia, and Alabama. Considering the scope
of its impacts, Katrina was one of the most devastating natural disasters in United States history (Knabb,
2005, p. 1).
16
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney, born January 30, 1941. Was the 46th
Vice President of the U.S. from 2001
to 2009, under President George W. Bush.
17
The “hunting accidents” of Cheney are frequent, but the one in question was when he nearly killed his
hunting partner in 2006 in a shooting accident, seriously injuring Harry Whittington, in the face, neck and
chest. Whittington, a Texas lawyer and contributor to the Bush-Cheney campaign, suffered a heart attack
during the incident but ultimately survived (Edelman, 2013).
18
Private college in Allentown, Pennsylvania, founded in 1848. Named for the patriarch of the Lutheran
Church in America Henry Melchior Muhlenberg.

“The twenty-five-year sequence of populist toxic-waste investigation narratives,
from Silkwood in 1983 to Erin Brockovich seventeen years later, to the 2007 The
Simpsons Movie, pointedly illustrates Hollywood’s long-established role in cultural
agenda-setting…Cartoonist Matt Groening’s phenomenally durable and profitable
prime-time cartoon series has done similar intellectual work, more diffusely and
more durably, over the course of its nineteen-year run. The differences in impact
between The Simpsons, and other headline-ripping movies, though, rests in part on
the looser way in which Groening and his collaborators drew “on the news,” box-
office results, and the explicitness of The Simpsons Movie’s intellectual agenda”
(Bloom, 2009, VI(VII) p. 173).
Professors Bloom focus on this issue, calling the movie “a milestone in the agenda-setting
role of Hollywood intellect” (p. 174) shown through the character of Lisa, “the precociously intel-
lectual, artistic and reflective older daughter”, the one that in the film's opening narrative scene
"sets in motion a plot expressly built around cultural agenda-setting, reflection on timely 'issues',
and intellectual discussion as central to the ensuing narrative…”.
Political controversy and fun or religion
Not only was the show the centre or controversy for some of the “liberal” ideas, religion
also, as Kim Lawton from NPR19
in Orlando said: “They're silly, often irreverent, and sometimes
downright wicked. But The Simpsons also may be one of the most interesting examinations of
religion in pop culture today” (Lawton, 2007, parra. 2), or in the words of the own Homer in an
“interview” with USA Today, explaining theology this way: “Every time I see my sweet girl Lisa,
I believe in God. Every time I see Bart, I believe in the devil” (as cited in Pinsky, 2007 a, parra.
19
National Public Radio.

1).
Like in the film when Grampa's20
momentary “prophetic trance” in the Church, and
Marge21
believing that was message from God. Mark I. Pinsky, author of The Gospel According
to The Simpsons, said about the film:
“The Simpsons Movie treats genuine faith with respect, while keeping a sharp eye
out for religious pretension and hypocrisy of all kinds—including Homer’s odd
brand of wised-up cynicism. Late to a memorial service at the First Church of
Springfield for the rock group “Green Day,” Homer tells his family their entrance
is unlikely to be noticed, since “Those pious morons are too busy praying to their
phony-baloney God.” He explains that his practical Plan B for personal salvation,
a version of Pascal’s wager, is to “pray like hell when I’m on my deathbed” (parra.
4).
The Simpsons Movie won different awards internationally, like Best Comedy Film at the
British Comedy Awards22
, and Best Movie at the UK Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards23
(IMDb,
2014 b), beating other children’s movies like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates
20
Abraham Jay-Jedediah “Abe” Simpson, voiced by Daniel Louis “Dan” Castellaneta, he is the father of
Homer Simpson, and the grandfather of Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson. Castellaneta also give voice to
other characters of the show, like Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby
and Hans Moleman. He has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance
for his work on the show as well as an Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in the Field of
Animation in 1993. Castellaneta has co-written four episodes of The Simpsons with his wife Deb Lacusta
(Warner, 2014).
21
Voice of Julie Deborah Kavner, actress and comedian. She received a Supporting Actress in a Comedy
Series Primetime Emmy Award, in 1978). For her work as Marge, Kavner received a Primetime Emmy
Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, in 1992.
22
Annual awards ceremony in the UK of comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.
23
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards UK, KCAs, is similar to American and Australian versions.

of the Caribbean: At World's End and Shrek the Third.
The appreciation for the film goes so far, that the promotional trailer24
won a Golden
Trailer Award25
in the category Best Animated/Family Film Trailer at the 8th Annual Golden
Trailer Awards in 2007 (Douglas, 2007). Forbes magazine named the film the third best of the
year (Burman, 2008).
Merchandise, comic books and other paraphernalia
One of the most important component of modern merchandising of any product or brand,
includes many gizmos to attract consumers and improve profits and The Simpsons are not estrange
to that. Considering is a “serious” comedy series, the release of comic books, like the ones pub-
lished by Bongo Comics26
since 1993 (Gomes, 2014). The shows catchphrases, like Bart's “¡Ay,
caramba!”, “Don't have a cow, man!” and “Eat my shorts!” appeared on t-shirts (Stefan, 2010,
parra. 30).
The first comic strips27
of The Simpsons appeared in 1991 in the magazine Simpsons Illus-
trated, which was a companion magazine to the show (Meyers, 1991). They were so popular that
a comic book titled Simpsons Comics and Stories was released in 1993, continuing the saga that
means $12.33 billion USD for the whole franchise (Gebert, 2013, parra. 7), that includes rides in
24
A trailer, “preview” or “previews of coming attractions” is an advertisement for a film that will be exhibited.
The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a feature film screening, not
at the beginning, because people have a tendency to leave when the film ends (Zotti, 2007).
25
Show that honors achievements in media marketing, including film trailers, posters and TV ads.
26
Comic book publishing company founded in 1993 by Steve and Cindy Vance, Bill Morrison, and The
Simpsons and Futurama creator Matt Groening (Sisu, n. d.). Also provides distribution for the SpongeBob
SquarePants comic; along with original material. The company was named after Bongo, a rabbit character
in Groening's comic strip Life in Hell (Weldon, 2012). Zongo Comics, also created by Groening, was Bongo
Comics' counterpart oriented to older audiences (Comicbookdb, n. d.).
27
“Sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often
serialized, with text in balloons and captions…” (Wikipedia, 2012, parra. 1).

Universal studios in Hollywood, video games and merchandise, transforming the series saga into
collectors issues.
Why such huge success? Maybe because of the comic frame28
where, they maintain a care-
ful balance between the criticism of American institutions and our glutton consumerism: “The
comic frame inherently bypasses the extremes of the bureaucratic mindset… Further, the comic
frame allows observation of oneself, recognizing one’s own failures and limitations” (Madsen,
1993, p. 171).
What now? Merchandising it’s the word:
“Stamps. Last week The Simpsons became the first TV characters to be represented
on U.S. postage stamps while the show's still in production. The U.S. Postal Service
will print about 1 billion stamps at 44 cents apiece — the just-raised price for a
first-class letter.
"It's the biggest deal ever," Groening says. "But it's a little odd. I feel like, wait a
minute: I'm not Dr. Seuss. I'm still alive."
“Museums. In January, Fox will launch a museum tour featuring original art and
other artifacts that illustrate how the show developed and its impact on pop culture.
"Instead of commercializing it, we're doing it from within the museum community,"
Dekel [Elie Dekel, 20th
Century Fox’s Vicepresident] says. "It would start at a ma-
jor museum and then potentially tour the world."
“Guitars. Fox also is working with an undisclosed partner to develop a limited-
28
“Not all comic strategies have been treated equally, however, with concepts like [Kenneth] Burke’s ‘‘comic
frame’’ dominating communication research. While Burke’s understanding of a comic frame is more about
an overarching orientation to life’s events than the production of humor… [A. Cheree] Carlson’s analysis of
Gandhi revealed how social movements can enact comedy to achieve political goals” (Becker, 2013, p. 4).

edition line of guitars inspired by musicians who have appeared on the show”
(Lieberman, para. 16-20).
A success in Television
Breaking the tradition that animated shows only were appropriate for children, The Simp-
sons success proved to the industry that the expense was worth it for an animated into prime-time
television and contracting cheaper Korean29
animation studios for tweening30
, coloring, and film-
ing make it possible, encouraging US television networks to change their views.
As Dr. Anne Marie Todd from San José State University said:
“On April 19, 1987, America was introduced to the Simpsons, the title family of
the first animated prime-time television series since the 1960s. Described by its
creator and executive producer, Matt Groening as “a celebration of the American
family at its wildest” (Steiger, 1999, p. 1), The Simpsons offered a critical view of
mainstream social and cultural norms. In a television world dominated by upper-
middle class storybook families like the Huxtables of The Cosby Show31
, The Simp-
sons presented a satirical documentary of a more complex family whose characters
and plots were more directly relevant to the familial experience of America’s tele-
vision audience … assuming a revolutionary position toward mainstream television
and the network establishment. The series exhibited a realism that appealed to a
29
Companies like AKOM, who exclusively produced the first 2 seasons and Anivision (World Wizzy, 2007).
30
“Inbetweening or tweening is the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give
the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image. Inbetweens are the drawings
between the key frames which help to create the illusion of motion. Inbetweening is a key process in all
types of animation, including computer animation” (Wikipedia, 2012 a, parra. 1).
31
That sitcom starring Bill Cosby, aired for eight seasons on NBC from 1984 until 1992, featuring an upper
middle-class African-American family in Brooklyn, NY, the Huxtables.

wildly diverse audience and established The Simpsons as a fixture of American
prime-time” (Todd, 2002, p. 1).
Apart from the mentioned companies, into the several studios that animate The Simpsons
we can mention: Klasky Csupo, USAnimation, and Toonzone Entertainment and the North Korean
SEK studio as a subcontractor connection, as Asia Times report:
“North Korea is well known for its nuclear ambitions. But it is relatively little-
known fact that the country is a hidden outsourcing mecca for the international
animation industry, producing such well-known movies as The Lion King. Even
while North Korea has been under US-led sanctions that include a ban on commer-
cial trade, several US animated films have allegedly been outsourced to the coun-
try… (Lee, 2007, parra. 1-2).
The boom of The Simpsons created a momentum for American producers to launch a num-
ber of new, animated prime-time shows, such as South Park, Family Guy, King of the Hill and Fu-
turama, just to mention a few. As the creator of the show Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane32
, said in
an interview with the magazine Vanity Fair in 2007:
“It's like what sci-fi fans say about Star Trek: it created an audience for that genre…
I think The Simpsons created an audience for prime-time animation that had not
been there for many, many years. As far as I'm concerned, they basically re-in-
vented the wheel. They created what is in many ways—you could classify it as—a
wholly new medium. It's just wholly original” (as cited in Ortved, 2007, parra. 6).
We can say adult animation before and after The Simpsons, because not only they “led the
32
Seth Woodbury MacFarlane, American actor, animator, comedian, writer, producer, director, and singer.
Creator of Family Guy (1999–2003, 2005–present) and co-creator of American Dad! (2005–present) and
The Cleveland Show (2009–2013). Also voices many various characters on the show (Wikipedia, 2014 a).

charge” (Evans, 2013, parra. 1) bringing cartoons back to primetime for adult audiences, gaining
an overwhelming number of followers for that reason and their irreverent way of confronting social
situations. Not only rated for the general public –more than twelve years old- but also for the
content and graphic expressions about sex, life and other social issues.
Crossover of characters
Just a few days ago Fox Network announce in the Comic-Con convention in San Diego the
realization of a crossover episode of The Simpsons and Family Guy set to air this fall (Canadian
Press, 2014). In the nearly five minutes the “teaser” presented the Griffins suck in Springfield,
where Peter cautions his family not to drink the water: “Everybody around here looks like they
have hepatitis” (as cited in Coleman, 2014, parra. 1).
This crossovers, some times and homage and some others just a way to promote a lesser
popular show happened in the past when characters from The Critic33
and Futurama participated in
episodes of The Simpsons and they with Family Guy. The episode “Simpsons Already Did It”,
could be an example of South Park paid homage to them.
Some critics expressed that shows like Family Guy −who have many of the same previous
writers or animators as The Simpsons- repeat jokes and maybe some bits or concepts could be
considered as stolen (Dudak, 2013) and also some The Simpsons “seemingly using a ‘Family Guy’
joke, in what that exchange could be because The Simpsons was around long before and have an
influence on other shows (para. 1). Just to mention Malcolm in the Middle, The Office and British
sitcom Spaced, live comedy with reactions from an audience, not “canned laughs”.
33
Prime time animated series of the life of New York film critic Jay Sherman - actor Jon Lovitz-, created by
Al Jean and Mike Reiss, previously writers The Simpsons. With 23 episodes from the first broadcast on
ABC in 1994, closed on Fox in 1995.

Like character Roger Myers, Jr.34
once said:
“Animation is built on plagiarism. If it weren’t for someone plagiarizing ‘The Hon-
eymooners’, we wouldn’t have ‘The Flintstones’. If someone hadn’t ripped off ‘Sgt.
Bilko’, there’d be no ‘Top Cat.’ Huckleberry Hound, Chief Wiggum, Yogi Bear?
Hah! Andy Griffith, Edward G. Robinson, Art Carney. Your honor, you take away
our right to steal ideas, where are they gonna come from?” (as cited in Kurp, 2011,
parra. 2).
Not so subtle imitations with foreign shows like The Samsonadzes, of the ex-soviet republic
of Georgia, launched in November 2009, by Shalva Ramishvili as The Independent of the UK said:
“They are a yellow-skinned cartoon family, consisting of a dopey husband and his lavishly coiffed
wife, who live in a made-up city with their children. But this isn't The Simpsons – it's The Sam-
sonadzes…” (Walker, 2009, parra. 1).
Characters and gender representation
This atypical ageless family living in this floating timeline35
in a fictional All American
town of Springfield –maybe one of the dozens with the same name in the US-, have an also dys-
functional father, the primary character, Homer, who works, in total contradiction with his irre-
sponsible personality as a “safety inspector” at the local Nuclear Power Plant.
He is married to Marge Simpson, housewife and mother with three children: Bart, the trou-
blemaker; Lisa, the activist; and Maggie, the baby with the pacifier. We don’t want to miss the
dog, Santa's Little Helper, and a cat, Snowball, with their own occasionally starring roles. Let’s
34
Roger Myers, Jr., current Chairman of I&S Studios, is the son of Roger Meyers, Sr. He distributes the
cartoon, frequently criticized by parents because of its violent nature (Simpsons Wiki, 2014).
35
A floating timeline or sliding timescale, is used in fiction, particularly in comics and animation, to explain
why characters age little or not at all over a period of time (Wikipedia, 2014).

include the supporting characters of co-workers, teachers, family friends, extended relatives,
townspeople and local celebrities.
As a conversation between Homer and Marge in Season 8:
“Homer: That John is the greatest guy in the world. We've gotta have him and his
wife over for drinks sometime.
Marge: Mmm, I don't think he's married, Homer.
Homer: Oh, a swinging bachelor, eh? Well, there's lots of foxy ladies out there.
Marge: Homer, didn't John seem a little... festive to you?
Homer: Couldn't agree more. Happy as a clam!
Marge: He prefers the company of men!
Homer: Who doesn't!
Marge: Homer, listen carefully. John is a ho... mo...” (Marge, 2014, Season 8, parra.
13).
This setup of sitcom creates a hilarious satirical parody about a “run-of-the-mill” middle-
class American family life (Miller, 2001, parra. 1), with an ample universe a “wonderfully con-
gested cosmos” (Steiger, 1999, parra. 26), where the characters can explore controversial issues in
our society today, like the environment, education, and religion –of course (Turner, 2004). One of
the writers of the show, Al Jean, said that: “we [the show] are of liberal bent” (as cited in Hombach,
2012, p. 326).
One of the gains of the show is the way the threat homosexuality and want to refer to the
study published in a book, Behind the Gay Jokes- Homosexuality in ‘The Simpsons’, of German
scholar Erwin In het Panhuis, a librarian based in Cologne, Germany, who devoted years of his
life researching close to 500 gay parts from the animated series. He said:

“[The Simpsons] treats homosexuality as something normal in a media environ-
ment which can usually be very hostile to the point of view,” which is written in
his book, Behind the Gay Jokes - Homosexuality in 'The Simpsons,'
Homer Simpson also has shown some traits which show a deeper side to him.
“Homer has kissed other men on the lips more than 50 times throughout the series
but despite that he's happily married to his wife,
“He is sometimes heterosexual, sometimes gay and sometimes homophobic” (as
cited in Sieczkowski, parra. 2-3).
The series, has dealt with homosexuality frequently, and was the first mainstream cartoon
series to feature an entire episode about equal marriage (McCormick, 2013, parra. 8), with gay
references in others, like when Lisa make her family march in gay pride with Homer chanting
“we’re here, we’re queer”, and another in which he is kissed by his gay roommate.
Other interesting detail about Panhuis study is that mention 70 characters he portrayed as
gay in The Simpsons, including Homer’s boss, Mr Burns, and his relationship with his assistant
Smithers. He wrote: “It is a very complicated relationship full of fear and unrequited love and
moments of real tenderness … It set the standard for cartoon series … and I believe it’ll always be
a trailblazer.” (as cited in McCormick, 2013, parra. 11-12).
Are they or are they not?
Plus others right on the top to be liberals or maybe as Tony Sokol call them in an article
“equal opportunity offender” (Sokol, 2013): “people are very clingy when it comes to The Simp-
sons. Conservatives claim them for their own. Liberals say they speak for them. Communists sing
their praises. Anarchists quote them. Everyone wants The Simpsons on their team. The Simpsons
is an equal opportunity offender. Conservatives who hear that say I’m being naïve” (parra. 2).

Humor can be a rhetorical strategy for challenging gender stereotypes (Robson, 2000), or
as professor Limor Shifman said: “‘humor hubs’ −large, dynamic, web sites containing verbal and
visual humor” of varying types evidences how ‘‘globally oriented topics such as sex, gender and
animals are [becoming] much more popular than locally oriented topics such as ethnicity and pol-
itics” (as cited in Becker, 2013, p.5).
But as professors Limor Shifman and Dafna Lemish clarify:
“There are four key components of sexist humor identified in this literature. First,
such humor tends to target and ridicule women, emphasizing their inferiority in
comparison to men. Second, the targeting of women can be direct and explicit, but
in many cases is implicit (i.e. uses stereotypical feminine prototypes such as
‘blonde’ or ‘wife’ without signifying explicitly that the joke deals with gender.
Third, sexist humor employs traditional stereotypes in which women are portrayed
as stupid, dependent, illogical, and nagging sexual objects. Finally, sexist humor
not only emphasizes that men and women have different features, in doing so it
indicates that there is a clear hierarchy positioning women as inferior to men”
(Shifman, 2010, p. 3).
But are the Simpsons gender baized? They could be: Homer works outside the home, with
a male boss by the way, the store and bar owners, bus driver, including local criminals are male
“consistent with traditional gender roles” (Brown, 2006, p. 150) with a “vast over-representation
of males among the recurring roles on the show”, we can count 28.
As the creator of the show, Matt Groening said in an interview with The Onion’s A.V.
Club:
“The characters were created with the idea that they would become a TV series. It

was on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years. The very first season, I just kept
the characters in the house and tried to figure out how to do quick sight gags in the
15 seconds I had for each segment. Then I gradually moved them outside in the
second season; then I added more characters in the last season before it went on the
air as a series. Krusty The Clown and Itchy & Scratchy were all part of the Tracey
Ullman shorts. That was very much inspired by SCTV, with all the characters in
Melonville interacting. And I thought that with an animated show, we could not
only show our main characters, but also show the products they were consuming
and the TV shows they were watching and all their various neighbours and co-
workers. It turned out to have gone beyond even my expectations, to where we have
300 or so regular secondary characters” (as cited in Rabin, 2006, parra. 44).
Humor as tool for political raid
Humor on American television goes more than technological and economic, to the social
“openness” of the country, with the possibility to cover a bigger spectrum of society, not only in
texture, but also in substance and that attracts all generations to the show. Today’s comedies are
highly “quotational” into popular culture and also “hyper-ironic” (Matheson, 2001, parra. 2).
As Jean-Pierre Hombach, mentioned in his book 50 Cent:
“The animators also regularly add jokes or sight gags into the show's background
via humorous or incongruous bits of text in signs, newspapers, and elsewhere. The
audience may often not notice the visual jokes in a single viewing. Some are so
fleeting that they become apparent only by pausing a video recording of the
show. Kristin [Kristen] Thompson argues that The Simpsons uses a “flurry of cul-
tural references, intentionally inconsistent characterization, and considerable self-

reflexivity about television conventions and the status of the programme as a tele-
vision show” (Hombach, 2012, p. 327).
The good part of the Simpsons is their perfect symbiosis of comedy and politics, more than
irony or simple caricature to a broader perspective of believes and hopes of our society, or as
professors Amy B. Becker and Don J. Waisanen said: “political ‘‘comedy’’ as broadly encompass-
ing of a range of traditional and evolving practices humor can take through, for example, explicit
satirical rants against a public figure or more implicit, ironic jokes that mean the opposite of what
is said” (Becker, 2013, p. 2).
Losing perspective?
But not everybody like them and also some talk about the “declining quality” (Shaikh,
2012) of the show, from calling them “Toon Terrific” (Tucker, 1993). Why? One of the arguments
reflects that with developing technology they more “gimmicky and computer generated” (Shaikh,
2012, parra. 4) and maybe loosing creativity, making it boring.
In the column Who turned America's best TV show into a cartoon? Chris Suellentrop said:
“There's still greatness there, and you get to see a home run now and then, but mostly it's a halo of
reflected glory…” (Suellentrop, 2003, parra. 1). Writer Mike Reiss admitted as much to the New
York Times Magazine, conceding that "much of the humanity has leached out of the show over the
years. … It hurts to watch it, even if I helped do it.” (as cited in parra. 5).
Others, like Jim Schembri, of the Australian Sidney Morning Herald called three years ago
the show “desperate” and that lost his “dignity”:
“The central tragedy of The Simpsons is that it has gone from commanding atten-
tion to merely being attention seeking. It began by proving that cartoon characters
don't have to be caricatures; they can be invested with real emotions. Now the show

has in essence fermented into a limp parody of itself. Memorable story arcs have
been sacrificed for the sake of celebrity walk-ons and punchline-hungry dialogue”
(Schembri, 2011, parra. 7).
Or as the same Matt Groening declared a few months ago to USA Today: "We had a great
template in the beginning with really strong characters. Now the struggle is to keep amusing and
surprising the audience with stories and characters that they've seen for a couple of decades. It's
hard" (Lieberman, 2009, parra. 10).
Conclusion
Running out of ideas? Focusing in merchandising and marketing the show? Too establish-
ment for our taste? Could be a lot of reasons, but maybe the show from controversial become old,
with a dysfunctional, but a family of sorts as the center and a husband, a Homer I agree, but a
husband, is the center.
The Simpsons is a family show, and now that the moral decay of the American society is
all around us, not only on the media, but on our streets, schools, government halls and our daily
lives, the show becomes outdated in how present a critic of something that everybody knows and
must don’t care about it anymore.
The theme of this paper, adult animation, demonstrates their success on the media, but ,
with the advances on technology could be also a downfall for traditional concepts in how creativity
must go with the times, maybe no son disgusting as some examples and recent cartoons and sit-
coms, but more open in the way of taking care in the black box of what everyone comments in
social media.
Gender representation in a traditional family show like this, that could be look irreverent
on the outside, but definitely still respect the norms of society, is so evident that sometimes hurt

the concept of political satire and confrontation that the writers try to produce, making the show
more “yellow” if it that can be possible.
Maybe society is moving too fast for the series.
7,525 words (including references).

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