The animated series "The Simpsons" was born in December 1989 and has been on the air for 35 seasons, but it is still very popular with audiences around the world. The play tells the daily life of the Homer family living in the fictional town of Springfield. It often makes penetrating and to-the-point criticisms of the lifestyle of ordinary Americans and the overall style of American society, and is therefore known as the spirit of the American times. Some kind of microcosm.
Of course, over the past thirty years, American social atmosphere has experienced various tremendous changes, and "The Simpsons" must keep up with the pulse of the times, advance with the times, and be constantly updated in order to win the support of mainstream audiences. Three years ago, the show was criticized by a large number of young viewers for using a white voice actor to dub the Indian character Apu. Afterwards, the film studio announced that it had changed its tune and would in the future find voice actors from ethnic minorities or disadvantaged groups corresponding to the characters to perform dubbing performances that meet the requirements of political correctness.
Now, three years later, "The Simpsons" has made another major change that is suspected to be in line with political correctness standards, which has once again triggered a big discussion among American audiences. However, the outcome of how things developed was different from what it was three years ago.
Choking is a classic Simpsons gag
Things will start from the 3rd episode of Season 35, which aired on October 22. In the episode, Homer meets a new neighbor for the first time. When they shake hands and exchange greetings, Homer's strong hand surprises the neighbor. In response, Homer laughed to his wife Marge and said that this was all thanks to their precious son always making him angry, so he always pinched his neck to develop his hand strength. However, Homer quickly added: "I was kidding, I don't do that anymore. Times have changed."
Indeed, in many episodes in the past, the protagonist Homer would always reprimand his son Bart after he got into trouble, while squeezing his neck with both hands, making little Bart's eyes widen, his tongue lolling, and he gasped for air. And this kind of plot has become one of the famous scenes in "The Simpsons", and it always serves as some kind of cheap joke.
On November 2, social media Gee, this is finally the end of life. However, the producer’s response was really slow.”
Soon, someone traced back to the source and carefully worked backwards, and found that Homer had never strangled his son's neck since the 31st season in 2020. Specifically, it has been more than three years.
As soon as this article came out, it quickly attracted a lot of discussion among netizens. Some praised the producers for their good practices, and they fully affirmed their good practice of keeping pace with the times, and concluded that Homer's chokehold was actually a crude patriarchal behavior and a wrong example of domestic violence. However, there are also many people who feel sorry for this and lament that in this sensitive age, no jokes can be made and everything is put online. It is no wonder that comedy works are becoming more and more boring. In short, there are both pros and cons, and no one can convince anyone.
Recently, "The Simpsons" producer James L. Brooks officially stated in an interview with the American "People" magazine that nothing has changed and that the so-called producer has suddenly woken up is pure nonsense. "He will continue to strangle him." In fact, in the producer's view, Simpson's father's behavior is not domestic violence at all, but some kind of "special way of fatherly love."
Earlier, the official social media account of "The Simpsons" also posted a cartoon of Homer's "domestic violence" son, with the text saying, "Homer Simpson has no time to respond because he is too busy strangling Bart." ". It seems that this Simpsons meme will appear again in the near future.
The producer posted a response on official social media