|
Garrand posted:IIRC in the commentary for one of the early seasons Groening talked about how Smithers wasn't really meant to be specifically gay or not but just attracted to Mr. Burns. I've never seen anything past season 20 and only have passing familiarity with stuff after 12 so I don't know how he gets treated later on. The delivery made that gag. 'I LIKE BOOBIES!' Smithers was very uneven in basically being the only regular gay character (til Patty came out of the closest, but that's its own bundle of issues) and thus having all the stereotypes lumped onto him. That's the problem with token minorities in general. Wheat Loaf posted:I never really watched that show but I once went to a movie (I can't even remember which movie it was) which played half an episode or a 15 minute segment during the advertisements before the trailers, and when you looked around you could see people getting increasingly pissed off at it and particularly how irritating the blue one with his annoying voice was. It's kinda weird since Foster's Home had some really good episodes, but they really, really leaned too hard on turning Bloo into a total rear end in a top hat as episodes went on. Like a faster version of Jerkass Homer syndrome. Goo wasn't much better, either. Speaking of tokens, reminded that Daria had what seemed to be a pretty nuanced and self-aware take on race, with the character of Jodie Landon being one of the only people Daria can get along with. Most of Jodie's focus episodes and moments emphasise that between parental and societal pressure she needs to be seen as an overachieving model minority (and that she and her boyfriend get elected Homecoming King and Queen every drat year to appear diverse) and she can't afford to be as cynical and apathetic as Daria often is. The finale even has Jodie insist on going to a majority black college so she can relax and study without having to be a role model as well. Was also the episode where they and Upchuck were competing for a scholarship sponsored by a tech company with a very poor track record for diversity (History really does repeat itself). Dealing with minority, feminist and LGBT issues seems fraught in general, between what the censors/executives will let you get away with, exploring the issue with sufficient nuance, not having it derail characters or have them act suddenly sexist/bigoted out of nowhere, and so on... let alone with how quickly the discourse surrounding them can change. You can usually tell when the writers are trying to be respectful and informed about an issue even if they don't necessarily have the right approach in retrospect, vs an ignorant, fumbling take on it.
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 12:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 21:31 |
|
|
Besesoth posted:Clip shows are pretty stale at this point, yeah. "Clerks" and "Community" had the only fresh takes on it I've seen in a while ("Clerks" did it as the second episode, so all their flashbacks were to the first episode; "Community"'s clips were all new footage of adventures the characters had but which were never actually episodes). South Park had a pretty good take on it back in one of the early seasons; the punchline was that the kids remembered everything wrong and every flashback also ended up with everyone getting ice cream. Of course that episode itself is probably about old enough to vote now so you can't exactly call it "fresh" anymore.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 12:31
|
|
|
We laugh at them now, but to be fair, I can see why clip shows could be more appreciated when everything you wanted to watch wasn't a click away, or a quick drive to the rental store.londonarbuckle posted:Just re-watched Mission Hill and there's a handful of dated things in it (corporations hiring hip Gen X-ers to do nothing, ahahahaha), but the thing that maybe aged the weirdest was that episode with the big vague international crisis going on in the background that Andy spends the whole episode ignoring. One of the few details we learn about it is that it somehow heavily involves Dennis Rodman. That kind of struck me.  Timeless. The Real World episode suffered, though, since now it just comes off as pretentious wanking over something everyone already knows by now(reality tv is bad, wow, hot take in the year of our lord 2017). TenCentFang has a new favorite as of 14:40 on Sep 7, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 12:55
|
|
|
TenCentFang posted:
If anyone can sort things out, it's WCW superstar Dennis Rodman.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 12:58
|
|
|
Tiggum posted:I heard Babylon 5 was really good and watched about five episodes before giving up. I guess I'll give it another look at some point if the second season is as big an improvement as that. It breaks my heart to say this, but I'm not sure how easy it would be for someone with today's sensibilities to enjoy Babylon 5. The quality of acting and production values you would expect from a multi-season epic, much less a science fiction one, are not really there. I'd say Battlestar Galactica is what I'd tell people to watch now. But B5 will always be special for me.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 13:02
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:It breaks my heart to say this, but I'm not sure how easy it would be for someone with today's sensibilities to enjoy Babylon 5. The quality of acting and production values you would expect from a multi-season epic, much less a science fiction one, are not really there. I'd say Battlestar Galactica is what I'd tell people to watch now. But B5 will always be special for me. That reminds me, I enjoyed Deep Space Nine, and its portrayal of space realpolitik and... very different pre-9/11 attitude to terrorism might make it... interesting to a modern viewer. Not to mention the episode that's one big convoluted setup to get away with a same-sex kiss.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 13:04
|
|
|
Wheat Loaf posted:From the first decade of the show, there's bits here and there but it's mostly implicit. There's the one where Mr Burns makes him take a vacation and he's shown staying at an all-male resort, or the one where John Waters guest-starred which had a scene which implied his character was going out with him, or the X-Files crossover where he panics when Mr Burns asks him if he's going to spend his weekend doing "something gay". Probably other examples, but those are the only ones that immediately occur to me. HELLO SMITHERS YOU ARE QUITE GOOD AT TURNING ME ON https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7jOzQC3XOw it's, um, not ever subtle well why not has a new favorite as of 14:21 on Sep 7, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 14:17
|
|
|
I really miss the days when the joke was "Smithers is creepily obsessed with his 120 year old boss" and not "Smithers is gay"
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 14:33
|
|
|
well why not posted:it's, um, not ever subtle I was trying to think of examples of Smithers's sexuality that weren't just "Smithers just really really really really likes his boss" (or however that "138th Episode Spectacular" one put it).
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 14:34
|
|
|
well why not posted:HELLO SMITHERS What's with the shot about Jolly Ranchers at 3:12? I don't get that one.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 14:41
|
|
|
138th Episode Spectacular is also one of the best clip shows ever made.
Dragonstoned has a new favorite as of 14:52 on Sep 7, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 14:47
|
|
|
Smithers is Burnsexual.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 14:51
|
|
|
The Missing Link posted:What's with the shot about Jolly Ranchers at 3:12? I don't get that one. I think it's a play on words saying he likes ranch owners who are "happy" wow, that doesn't age well lol
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 14:52
|
|
|
I always thought that was a "gay cowboy" joke but it lands so poorly and is such a stretch I've never been 100% sure
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 15:12
|
|
|
Most reality shows age badly but that's mostly because they're a flash in the pan type of entertainment.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 15:16
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:It breaks my heart to say this, but I'm not sure how easy it would be for someone with today's sensibilities to enjoy Babylon 5. The quality of acting and production values you would expect from a multi-season epic, much less a science fiction one, are not really there. I'd say Battlestar Galactica is what I'd tell people to watch now. But B5 will always be special for me. If you want to see insanely cheap production on a scifi show, Nickelodeon did an attempt at kids "traditional" science fiction in the 90s (people flying around in spaceships in the future, I'm not a big scifi guy so I don't know exactly what you call it. I just mean not stuff like The Tomorrow People, The Secret World of Alex Mack, and certain episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark that are a different kind of scifi). It was called "Space Cases" and it ruled so much. I went back and watched it a few weeks ago, I still like watching it because of nostalgia and an appreciation for campy things. But damnnnn, the things you didn't notice as a kid. It's like they made a "futuristic spaceship" with crap they dug out of the kitchen/junkyard/the sets of other 90s Nickelodeon shows. It only lasted two seasons so they never resolved the main plot. Do the kids ever make it home!? 
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 15:19
|
|
|
Inescapable Duck posted:Speaking of tokens, reminded that Daria had what seemed to be a pretty nuanced and self-aware take on race, with the character of Jodie Landon being one of the only people Daria can get along with. Most of Jodie's focus episodes and moments emphasise that between parental and societal pressure she needs to be seen as an overachieving model minority (and that she and her boyfriend get elected Homecoming King and Queen every drat year to appear diverse) and she can't afford to be as cynical and apathetic as Daria often is. The finale even has Jodie insist on going to a majority black college so she can relax and study without having to be a role model as well. Was also the episode where they and Upchuck were competing for a scholarship sponsored by a tech company with a very poor track record for diversity (History really does repeat itself). I also like that the writers never actually got around to fleshing her boyfriend Mack out much--which meant that the most token character wound up being the most utterly average, normal, and generally realistic kid on the show. It helps that he's the only recurring character who's actually from a regular middle class family; I suspect for a lot of people who didn't grow up in McMansion suburbs Mack was one of the show's more relatable characters even if they weren't black.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 15:30
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:It breaks my heart to say this, but I'm not sure how easy it would be for someone with today's sensibilities to enjoy Babylon 5. The quality of acting and production values you would expect from a multi-season epic, much less a science fiction one, are not really there. I'd say Battlestar Galactica is what I'd tell people to watch now. But B5 will always be special for me.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 15:34
|
|
|
BrainDance posted:It was called "Space Cases" and it ruled so much. I went back and watched it a few weeks ago, I still like watching it because of nostalgia and an appreciation for campy things. But damnnnn, the things you didn't notice as a kid. It's like they made a "futuristic spaceship" with crap they dug out of the kitchen/junkyard/the sets of other 90s Nickelodeon shows. The first season even had Jewel Staite, cementing her as the "quirky space girl" for decades. And I don't think they did? I don't remember much about it, other than in the second season they ditched Jewel Staite's character and replaced her with Susie, who was Jewel's imaginary friend everyone assumed wasn't real but WAS, she was just from another dimension and they shared a brain wave, or something, so they could communicate.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 15:41
|
|
|
Straight White Shark posted:I also like that the writers never actually got around to fleshing her boyfriend Mack out much--which meant that the most token character wound up being the most utterly average, normal, and generally realistic kid on the show. It helps that he's the only recurring character who's actually from a regular middle class family; I suspect for a lot of people who didn't grow up in McMansion suburbs Mack was one of the show's more relatable characters even if they weren't black. Probably helps that Mack was the one always telling Kevin to stop being such a loving dumbass.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 15:59
|
|
|
On Ally McBeal chat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ally_McBeal quote:Ally (1999) I'm just barely old enough to remember Ally McBeal being a huge phenomenon and I still can't wrap my head around this.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 16:34
|
|
|
BrainDance posted:It was called "Space Cases" and it ruled so much. I went back and watched it a few weeks ago, I still like watching it because of nostalgia and an appreciation for campy things. But damnnnn, the things you didn't notice as a kid. It's like they made a "futuristic spaceship" with crap they dug out of the kitchen/junkyard/the sets of other 90s Nickelodeon shows. I LOVED Space Cases when it came on, haven't thought about it in forever though. Crazy show. How are you still watching it? I'd love to check it out again. I also really liked how unlike a show like Star Trek, which usually has a bunch of regular humans with only a few aliens, only the main kid in Space Cases was a regular human from Earth. Every other character (well maybe not the boring adults) was an alien with some kind of quirk or ability.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 17:25
|
|
|
King of Foolians posted:I LOVED Space Cases when it came on, haven't thought about it in forever though. Crazy show. How are you still watching it? I'd love to check it out again. I liked space cases too but I remember it pissing me off that all the other kids had super powers of some kind and the earthlings power is "he's good at technical stuff". It's the future why couldn't he have been like a cyborg or something
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:05
|
|
|
Tiggum posted:I watched two-and-a-half seasons of Battlestar Galactica because everyone kept going on about how great it was. It's poo poo. No, that's what you are! Battlestar Galactica was an odd show that I liked very much until I didn't. I need to go back and rewatch to see how it held up. I remember listening to Ron Moore's podcast about how he really wanted to give viewers a sense of scarcity. Like how in Star Trek they could lose landing shuttles and crew members and no one seemed the worse for it. In Battlestar Galactica, when things went wrong there were real consequences. Of course they then kind of wrote themselves into a corner and a decade later I still can't really explain the ending. Dean Stockwell shooting himself in the head during the finale really captured my feelings. But the first 3 seasons were top notch. I think things started going sideways when they revealed Cylon attack ships were actually flying space suits for some kind of jelly space slave.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:10
|
|
|
The Missing Link posted:What's with the shot about Jolly Ranchers at 3:12? I don't get that one. purple death ray posted:I always thought that was a "gay cowboy" joke but it lands so poorly and is such a stretch I've never been 100% sure It was 100% this.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:14
|
|
|
I remember Smithers was black at first and then he wasn't.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:21
|
|
|
oldpainless posted:I remember Smithers was black at first and then he wasn't. In the arcade game he's a suicide bomber.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:29
|
|
|
food court bailiff posted:In the arcade game he's a suicide bomber. That game was great but clearly designed by an insane person. Marge still has the rabbit ears under her hair from when Groening was planning to reveal she was one of the rabbit creatures from Life in Hell
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:31
|
|
|
Aesop Poprock posted:I liked space cases too but I remember it pissing me off that all the other kids had super powers of some kind and the earthlings power is "he's good at technical stuff". It's the future why couldn't he have been like a cyborg or something Because in science fiction and the like humanity's skill is always their resourcefulness and adaptability while aliens get magical psychic or physical stuff
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:33
|
|
|
Calaveron posted:Because in science fiction and the like humanity's skill is always their resourcefulness and adaptability while aliens get magical psychic or physical stuff He could have resourced and adapted himself into being a cyborg or something cool as opposed to just the kid who's good at tools. The other aliens had to have thought he was such a loser
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:35
|
|
|
This thread got me thinking: what will people think of the current societal trends in media 20 years from now. A lot of things right now are caught up in the current push for acceptance of different sexuality, gender, culture, and race. This isn't a bad thing (I am not against it), but in the future when these things are finally normalized to society and people become far more relaxed to these things, will people see today's media as silly and trying too hard? For example Steven Universe is heavily focused on "irregular" relationships and gender stuff, and it does a good job of not being too on the nose with it most of he time, but would people in the future give it points for that or just not care and find it too pushy? I remember the aids episode of Captain Planet and how hilarious it is because of how on the nose it is and how ridiculous it seems now. It was probably ridiculous back then too, I'm sure. It's captain loving planet. In fact, I find that many people now just laugh at how unenlightened people were in the past. Gay panic becomes funny to some people because it some would now consider it comical that a person would panic over someone being homosexual ( I understand that this is not always the case and many people may disagree with me very strongly and I understand why you would disagree and I respect your opinion, please do not take this the wrong way). Please know that I probably have no idea what I am talking about and I don't feel strongly about this stuff either way. Sorry if I am backpedaling a lot. I get scared when talking about current social hot button stuff because people tend to overreact like crazy to this stuff.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:36
|
|
|
oldpainless posted:I remember Smithers was black at first and then he wasn't. The black manservant thing might have played even worse to modern audiences.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 18:38
|
|
|
Garrand posted:IIRC in the commentary for one of the early seasons Groening talked about how Smithers wasn't really meant to be specifically gay or not but just attracted to Mr. Burns. I've never seen anything past season 20 and only have passing familiarity with stuff after 12 so I don't know how he gets treated later on. i always got the impression from the early seasons that smithers was a caricature of a corporate brown-noser who, in exaggeration of the idea, pretty much willed himself into falling in love with his boss - whether or not he was also attracted to men before then isn't really important but i think he used to be in a relationship but his weird relationship with his boss got in the way? anyway i have no idea why i thought that, i guess it was more like an overall impression than any one scene spelling it out
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 19:15
|
|
|
Aesop Poprock posted:He could have resourced and adapted himself into being a cyborg or something cool as opposed to just the kid who's good at tools. The other aliens had to have thought he was such a loser Are you saying he's a C-Lister? Just because he has no powers, that makes him a C-Lister? Is BATMAN a C-Lister!?
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 19:16
|
|
|
Krispy Kareem posted:Dean Stockwell shooting himself in the head during the finale really captured my feelings. Adama vomiting all over himself in an alley behind a bar encapsulated it for me.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 19:29
|
|
|
I don't see where Smithers is some sort of horrible gay stereotype and, really, his portrayal strikes me as sort of ahead of its time. I've known gay men that behave exactly like him. One was even my boss for a while. Probably a lot of TV portrayals will age somewhat poorly though as we progress as a society, much like how even some legendary stand up comics' bits are no longer funny but were for their time. Even HAVING a gay character portrayed in a relatively reasonable light in the late 80's was progress in and of itself. See also, interracial dating/marriages. Nowadays we see Luke Cage drilling Jessica Jones or even a normal interracial gay couple on Six Feet Under (15 years ago) and nobody bats an eye. We're moving in the right direction with this stuff but TV will always lag a bit behind to some degree I think. Probably less so moving forward as content becomes decreasingly dependent on advertising and gets less and less network driven.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 19:34
|
|
|
On the subject of Capt. Planet, I've said before that a lot of that show would be seen as pretty problematic by today's standards no matter how you cut it. Either in how they present non-US characters/settings, how they try to bring up certain things, etc. even with the best of intentions. I didn't even realize how weird some of them were until about 10 years after they aired and I was watching a few early one morning. So you get something like the message at the end of the episode is literally this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNrxq9DubQ8 That I'm sure would be super controversial from just about every direction today with that message.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 19:40
|
|
|
imo it's mostly the fact that smithers being gay exists primarily as a punchline which is the problematic thing. like, it pretty much only gets brought up to go "haha, the gay man did a gay thing/made a double entendre" i dunno if i'd go so far as to call it offensive, but it's pretty lame
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 19:42
|
|
|
JediTalentAgent posted:On the subject of Capt. Planet, I've said before that a lot of that show would be seen as pretty problematic by today's standards no matter how you cut it. Either in how they present non-US characters/settings, how they try to bring up certain things, etc. even with the best of intentions. I didn't even realize how weird some of them were until about 10 years after they aired and I was watching a few early one morning. Yikes. This is only a small point-of-view away from turning into a Ra's al ghul-style "To save the planet we must exterminate most of the population". Somebody get Hollywood on the phone, I've got a great idea for a live action Captain Planet movie.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 20:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 21:31 |
|
|
BiggerBoat posted:I don't see where Smithers is some sort of horrible gay stereotype and, really, his portrayal strikes me as sort of ahead of its time. I've known gay men that behave exactly like him. One was even my boss for a while. Probably a lot of TV portrayals will age somewhat poorly though as we progress as a society, much like how even some legendary stand up comics' bits are no longer funny but were for their time. Like everything else on that show it started out much better and nuanced then it dropped into poo poo like him going fetal with terror when confronted with sexy ladies and the whole joke became "gay people, lol" A specific joke is so much better than a generalization, so like Smithers being heavily coded as gay even outside his obsession with Mr Burns isn't necessarily offensive because that's not the entire joke. The Screensaver thing isn't funny because Smithers wants to have sex with a man, it's funny because a) text to speech programs are inherently funny and b) because of his fixation on this one particular man who is horrible, old, desiccated and treats Smithers like a dog. It's a tough needle to thread but old Simpsons managed it more often than not imo.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2017 20:05
|
|