If Homer was the smarter, calmer, saner parent most of the time and Marge was the dumber, short-tempered, crazy parent most of the time, The Simpsons would get slammed for attacking women. Same if Bart was the smart, obedient, respectful child and Lisa that less smart, rebellious child.
Similar if Lenny and Carl's roles were reversed. The Simpsons would be slammed for making the black guy the dumber one.
It's simply safer to make it so white (well, yellow in The Simpsons universe...) males are the ones who are dumb, impulsive, try out hare-brained schemes, and so on, and since it is out of those things that most of the comedy arises, those characters are going to get the most words.
Do you have any evidence for this or is it pure speculation? One counter-example I can think of is Modern Family, which was a less smart, rebellious child who is female -- the Haley character -- and has not to my knowledge received any criticism for "attacking women".
Modern Family though also has Hailey's sister who is smarter than the lot of them and a much younger wife married to the patriarch without falling into a gold-digger/mail-order bride stereotype. Other than Haily and stereotyped mom(s) they're OK on the whole.
I wouldn't say "other than Haily". Even with that character in mind, I don't consider the show to be sexist. My point is that having a flawed female character doesn't imply that the show will be perceived as "attacking women" as tzs seems to be suggesting.
I'm not sure it would be criticised for making the female characters dumb. Because there are definitely quite a few shows that do this, and there hasn't been too much criticism of them stemming from that.
Then again, maybe it's a weird age demographic thing. Cause it seems like quite a few shows aimed at adults tend to make the male characters the dumb ones (like The Simpsons and Family Guy), but then a few more shows aimed at kids will let the female characters be the idiots (like say, Dexter's Laboratory).
Or if you want an example where both parents are dumb, any of Butch Hartman's shows seem to quality. The Fairly Odd Parents has both of the Timmy Turner's parents being about as dumb as Homer Simpson, and Danny Phantom could be similar in how it portrayed Danny's parents.
It blows my mind that even The Simpsons has become a target of gender bias accusations.
The Simpsons is probably one of the tamest, least hostile television shows I can imagine at this point. Comparing The Simpsons to the rest of TV, without bringing the broader premium cable, internet and subscriber systems into the mix, The Simpsons displays fairly mild jabs at so many tropes, and usually does so in ways that are at least a little more interesting than the rest of TV.
Beyond all of this, Matt Groening is fairly progressive in his humor. And even though, he's long since had much direct influence on the content of the show, his initial creativity still brought forward more unique themes in the 90's than what was previously common at that time. So many topics found a voice in The Simpsons' animation than ever before, and previously simply had no voice at all.
At this point, I'm pretty fatigued at this endless death march of character assassination wherever character may be found.
People who constantly look for a fight in anything at this point instantly lose my respect.
It's fair to point out that Simpsons dialogue is 75% male and 9 out of 10 of their most prolific writers are male. That's a significant data finding.
There is a gender imbalance in The Simpsons. There's also a gender imbalance in film (1). That doesn't indicate ill-intent but it may be reflective of society and media as a whole.
1. The Simpsons, as a microcosm (an individual show among a broad selection of shows) is not required to adhere to distributions and averages or promote any particular reality. To point out that it deviates from a pre-supposed preference for "normal" represents a needling criticism of an invalid detail.
2. As a property of a larger organization, and indeed The World At Large, the show is an individual offering available within a selection of many other offerings that cater to a broad array of tastes and preferences. That it's being attacked for "not being average and normalized" seems to be part of an effort silence anything which is not gruel.
3. In what way does the enduring popularity of a single show, one that has outlasted so many others, reflect poorly on society? Shows like The Simpsons do well, not because of artificial constraints preserved by some gender bias conspiracy. That the authors are male for THIS show, and that males write male characters well, is not a symbol of malevolence, when there were thousands of other shows which had just as much budget and opportunity, and have aged even worse than The Simpsons, despite having perhaps more preferable themes that cater to a different audience.
4. Why not shine a light on the horrific gender bias of other shows? If we're picking out targets, I have my own. Are those also perfectly fair, valid and sensible? Want to hear them?
pyronite didn't criticize the simpsons for it and as you say, an individual show should not be criticized for this.
It is fair to say though, that there are more movies that fail the bechdel test¹ than there should be. If you compare it to the reverse of the bechdel test you can see there is a bias so large, it can't be founded in the preference of movie viewers alone.
I believe very much that everyone falls prey to biases, stereotypes or even outside factors like a possible gender imbalance in voice acting. I would not criticize anyone for this, because if you fall prey to something it is never ill intend. I do however also believe that these biases are harmful to society at large and in many cases could be easily avoided by more awareness of content creators.
I'm not against stereotypes, they are even valuable to get a story across, but you should be aware of how you are utilizing them.
The Bechdel test can be failed by a movie which simply only had one woman in it, or was about a genderless robot, or was mostly about a heterosexual romance, or any number of other possibilities that have nothing to do with misogyny or any other form of gender bias.
As said, no individual movie should be criticized based on it.
It is however very relevant when half of all movies have no real female characters in it, while something like 95% do have strong male characters in them. It's really sad when disneys "Frozen" becomes the positive outlier.
Where do you read "character assassination"? I see only statistics, totally provable.
And citing it (in my other post) doesn't mean that I consider that some specific series "must" be male or female dominated, it's just an interesting tidbit. Its meaning would be even clearer if the similar statistics would be made on other works too.
I personally see it as an explanation as why I more responded to the Simpsons than my girlfriends, who were less interested. At least I remember more stories where Lisa turned out to be much smarter than anybody else there, so that statistics is not everything, but it's interesting nevertheless.
Such as? Can you please share your observations, for us other readers to see if we can agree that they actually exist, and if they do, if they are actually as "charged" as you seem to experience them?
"a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family" and also
"a society or community organized on patriarchal lines."
and Homer really has the most words in the series, and that fact can be summarized with that word. The word was used in the lede, which is good to be short. Why is that a "provocation" to anybody? And how is it "non-sensical" and why and by whom is it considered a "buzzword"?
Sure, and Google will tell you that by the dictionary definition racism isn't about positions of privilege or power.
These words have acquired specific meanings in contexts like these that carry other connotations than the mere dictionary definition.
In feminism patriarchy is not just about familial structures, it's about power and privilege. It's not about dominance in the metaphorical sense (Homer dominates the show by having more lines) but about social struggle (men dominate the show by minoritizing women).
Yes, this is nonsense, but that's the context in which pop-sociology articles (anywhere from universities to popular websites) exist these days. Whether the author intended the article to be understood that way is another question, but I think it's fair to think that the article might be intended to be read this way.
I find your reasoning wrong, sorry. Actually, not less absurd than those of Muslims who started the worldwide violence after the publication of the caricature of Muhammad with the bomb on his head in the Danish paper.
The whole point of studies like this is to show that this not a new issue, it's been happening all along. The only reason it feels like "fomenting" to you is that you didn't notice it, and now that you do, you realize you liked it that way.
> Isolation on all sides is really all that's derived from exercises like this.
Helping fellow humans participate more fully in society is the opposite of isolation.
"Two! Four! Six! Eight! Homer's crime was very great!"
"Great, meaning large or immense!"
"We use it in the pejorative sense!"
Not only has it been happening for years, Simpsons writers have already mined the comic self-seriousness of self-appointed "helpers" who think it's a problem...
I don't the author is trying to "look for a fight". It's hardly the worst offender as far as these issues go either, it's just a lot more lopsided than a lot of us realized and is interesting to point out.
I think it says more about our society at large than it does about the Simpsons, anyway.
> The Simpsons is probably one of the tamest, least hostile television shows I can imagine at this point.
Interesting to read this. I agree, but I do remember when The Simpsons was first shown on local Australian TV 25+ years ago, there was a massive backlash from conservative groups that the show was a den of iniquity. Bart for example, was touted as coercing kids to talk back to their parents and even (gasp) responsible for a new generation of kids calling their fathers by their first name. Homer was castigated for being a bad role model parent/human being.
If memory serves me correctly, it was even discussed in parliament here when they considered banning it from local TV stations. How times have changed.
Regarding gender imbalance, it's also true that the women on the Simpsons usually represent the voice of reason, leaving it to the men to bring the idiocy. Presumably giving women more air time on the show would require them to create dumber women characters.
So it's possible that the imbalance in "words spoken" can be partly laid down to a conscious decision that "it's just funnier that way."
There's no reason why you couldn't have a male and female character acting out some zany scheme together, with the voice of reason provided by another male or female character.
Picking genders to be "the good ones" or "the bad ones" is lazy writing, no matter which side it ends up flattering.
On the other hand, it was hilarious when Lisa was down because all the Simpsons were idiots and then it turned out that all the Simpson men were idiots but the women were quite successful. Very unexpected, which leads to great humor.
Though there was more male dialogue than female on the show, the men were constantly portrayed as stupid, weak, aggressive, drunk, selfish, not responsible...
There are some flattering male characters, too. Smithers is loyal, smart, ultra-competent, and his only real (albeit gigantic) flaw is being utterly blinded by love. Doctor Hibbert finds humor in unfortunate situations and is sometimes a bit of a mercenary, but he's highly competent and generally kind. Apu is a successful and extremely hard-working businessman whose catchphrase involves being polite to his customers, although he also tends to screw them over.
Most of the male (and female) characters are ridiculous, because the show is fundamentally about ridiculous people. But that's not the only kind of character they have.
I don't think that's true. A sycophant is motivated by the desire for advancement, and is typically insincere. Smithers is sincere and motivated by love, which makes him much more interesting.
Apu is a stereotype. Now granted, he's on a show filled with stereotypes, and he's not always portrayed negatively, but he is still a stereotype. (In all honesty, sitcoms are all filled with stereotypes.)
Smithers in the archetypical yes-man.
Dr. Hibbert isn't so much a stereotype as much as a parody of Dr Huxtable.
I guess so? Marge and Lisa both have major ticks/obsessions that kick in, just like the other two.
When the plot is about Home and Bart, the other two play counterpoint. But the opposite is true. Homer just ends up getting the main role so often that we assume that to be the default state of the universe.
Not to mention the voice cast is mostly male, made even more lopsided by the fact that the female voice actresses mostly do only one voice, whereas the male voice actors do TONS.
Which is just how it goes. It's unfortunate but you can't strike a 50/50 balance. Even for side-characters written as female in the script, they're going to become male during production because you don't have female voice actresses who can make a "different" voice; it would just sound like Lisa or Marge. Really only Bart's voice actress can do it (she does Nelson, too, who sounds very different).
curious, is it a biological neccesity that female voice actresses can't do as many voices as a mail voice actress, or is there something else going on?
Interesting. This depends on the expected audience of the anime, and whether most of the characters are young, right? I'm not an anime fan, but the movies I've watched (Ghost in the Shell, Jin-Roh, Mononoke Hime) have very distinct male voices. I've even heard from one reviewer that the Japanese love deep bass male voices in their anime, an observation which is true in my experience. They go as far as using deep male voices for characters who are visually or nominally female, such as the Puppet Master in Ghost in the Shell (pre the awful 2.0 remastered Blu Ray edition) or Moro in Mononoke Hime.
I don't think it's biological. I think maybe the industry was just bigger for males.
Take Tara Strong. Sure, lots of her voices sound a little similar (you might hear Timmy Turner, then hear the girl in Batman, and think "oh yeah, they do sound similar" once you knew they were the same voice). But she can definitely "transform" her voice.
The male voice actors on The Simpsons have incredibly transformative voices, which I think comes from lots of practice in the industry. The first time I saw a chart of all the voices for each character they play, I couldn't believe it. After paying very VERY close attention, I can kind of hear Mr. Burns in Moe, but just barely.
This study assumes that Simpsons characters are manufactured purely for the use of the show. It ignores the possibility that the characters are created for the cast, not the audience.
Every TV show is a creation of a team. That team has certain members. You have to use these people. Absent special circumstances, such as one actor wanting to play at being a director or do a solo piece (Alan Alda, MASH) the work has to be balanced across the cast. Sometimes this is even dictated by contract. Recent seasons of TheBigBangTheory seem to follow contract math regarding screen time. Many episodes seem to alternate between male and female groupings. Friends did this, but TBBT seems more mathematical. One could probably reverse-engineer everyone's contracts from screen time alone.
So perhaps TheSimpsons' gender bias is based on the writers creating characters for the voice actors they have available, a cast setup long ago. Maybe they even are writing characters specifically for voices created by that cast. That would also create a gender bias.
I was just shy of 4 when "Bart Get's an F" aired and I'm a little jealous of all the folks who were the right age to experience that Simpsons era as the episodes aired. It's still fun to go back and watch them, but I remember seeing adults in stitches with laughter as they told Simpsons jokes.
I also think that humor doesn't age well, it's largely generational. The Simpsons is better than most humor, because their jokes are generally stronger. They rarely go for the obvious joke (throw away the first 2-3 jokes you come up with, because they are too easy), and there is basically no sarcasm on the show (ever notice how all sitcoms are just sarcastic barbs for 22 minutes, and have been for decades?).
That said, it can be hard to appreciate just how excellent it was for its time, since it changed the way a lot of series to follow write their humor.
Which is interesting because what originally turned me off Futurama when it first aired (and I was the right age to watch it at that time) was that it seemed like they went for the easy jokes a little too quickly, and not only that, they shoved them in your face by referencing the fact that they made a joke right then and there.
It took a few viewings before I understood there were also jokes at a deeper level, but at first blush it's the anti-Simpsons.
It's also rough if you're a time traveler from the early eighties, hanging out with other time travelers.
"Near as I can tell, all of popular culture and most of the English language gets taken over sometime in the early nineties by something called The Simpsons. I know this because nobody from that time or later seems to be able to put a sentence together without quoting them, then everybody giggles like idiots, and if I ask them to explain, all anybody ever does is laugh and ask me a condescending question about Bananarama!" -- Scott Meyer, Off to Be the Wizard
I was about 8-9, but now I can appreciate watching the old episodes again because while I found them funny as a kid, there are so many more "adult" jokes I now notice as an adult that make me laugh at how naive I was as a kid :-D
This is the beauty of the show...I would watch the shows over and over again on tape as a child without getting 80% of the jokes. Now I watch the old ones with my fiancé and I laugh louder and more frequently in my late 20s.
Yep I'm indeedly the right age and the show broke the humor barrier to get a pop culture mind framework that provided quotes forever while chatting with friends.
I was Bart's age when the show started. I'll be Homer's age in two years.
I had seen some of the shorts on the Tracey Ullman Show and the Butterfinger ads. I knew enough to make sure to watch "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" when it first aired.
I'd argue bart was more the main character in the first few seasons. Even though dialogue count doesnt support it. There were a number of key episodes about him. Though others existed around the other simpsons too. Like homer becoming the safety inspector, lisa meeting bleeding gums murphy.
Lisa was an inspiring character. We all laughed at Homer and Bart but we wanted to be Lisa, with her diligence and smarts and musical ability. I think that counts for more than how many words she said.
Maybe for you, but growing up my friends and I all wanted to be cool and rebellious Bart. I found Lisa to be one of the most dull characters in the series, and most episodes that focus on her to be on the boring side.
Never thought about this, good that it's completely provable:
"If we look at the supporting cast, the 14 most prominent characters are all male before we get to the first woman, Mrs. Krabappel, and only 5 of the top 50 supporting cast members are women.
Women account for 25% of the dialogue on The Simpsons, including Marge and Lisa, two of the show’s main characters. If we remove the Simpson nuclear family, things look even more lopsided: women account for less than 10% of the supporting cast’s dialogue.
A look at the show’s list of writers reveals that 9 of the top 10 writers are male."
How about taking a look at the voice talent to understand why the characters are largely male dominated? Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer account for the largest majority of characters on the show. They have incredible flexibility and range. Nancy Cartwright voices Bart (not accounted for in the male/female numbers) and several other male characters, and thus expands the male repertoire. Yeardley Smith (Lisa) and Julie Kavner (Marge) have pretty distinct voices, and while incredibly talented, don't contribute many more characters to the show outside of "soundalikes" like Marge's sisters, etc.
Never thought about that either, but definitely seems like a sign of the times. The writers grew up in the 80s(?) and were writing in the 90s. Many of those occupations (CEO, bartender, principal, clown, police chief, news anchor, etc) were predominantly male. [citation needed]
Edit: Not so sure about my conclusions, as it seems that women made up about ~40% of the US Labor Force by 1990 [0] That article doesn't go into women's roles/titles though.
Similar if Lenny and Carl's roles were reversed. The Simpsons would be slammed for making the black guy the dumber one.
It's simply safer to make it so white (well, yellow in The Simpsons universe...) males are the ones who are dumb, impulsive, try out hare-brained schemes, and so on, and since it is out of those things that most of the comedy arises, those characters are going to get the most words.