More than 60 new “Simpsons” episodes have been seen by an audience of millions since 2019, and apparently no one ever seriously asked the question (which is disturbing for laypeople and only logical for those in the know): Why doesn’t Bart actually look like his father in the new episodes? Homer choked?
In previous years he did this with great regularity. Homer choked his son when he embarrassed him in front of his wife Marge. He choked him when he made jokes about him. And even when Bart, as a baby, preferred to address his father as “Homer” instead of “Daddy” as requested, it was already clear to the audience what would follow: the brutal grab on the neck, which had no consequences for victim and perpetrator alike stayed.
Now that’s over, because Homer Simpson articulated what gagging joke connoisseurs may have suspected since 2019. In an episode of the current 35th season, he gives his neighbor a firm handshake and then says to his wife: “You see, Marge, choking pays off.” Then it flashed again briefly, the old violent humor. But Homer added: “That was a joke. I don’t do that anymore. Times change.”
That’s good. Not because the series would then submit to the dictates of political correctness. But because the gag was one of the weak points of a series that is unfortunately becoming increasingly weak. Introduced in 1989, it still worked, when such violent humor was an ironic allusion to the cartoon pioneers from Popeye to Tom and Jerry, who hardly anyone knows anymore today. Now the choleric Homer Simpson has moderated himself, which could give him room for new, better gags. Or as the philosopher Raja Halwani wrote about him in 2001: “He is not a bad person.”
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