
The Simpsons by the Data - lil_tee
http://toddwschneider.com/posts/the-simpsons-by-the-data/
======
tzs
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.

~~~
sdml
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".

~~~
akiselev
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.

~~~
sdml
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.

------
antonyrn
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.

~~~
pyronite
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\. [http://polygraph.cool/films/](http://polygraph.cool/films/)

~~~
antonyrn
Servere fallacies detected in your argument.

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?

~~~
anotheryou
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.

¹
[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bechdel_test](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bechdel_test)

~~~
pekk
Why is the Bechdel test morally important?

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.

~~~
anotheryou
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.

------
dmlorenzetti
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."

~~~
Vaskivo
This is actually true for most comedy shows. Like you said, men do idiot stuff
and women pull them back on track / are the voice of reason.

I believe this comes from two reasons:

\- We are more inclined to believe men try and do dumb stuff. And we're more
receptive, culturally, to men having "bad traits".

\- TV's main demographic is women. Therefore, the "relatable character" ends
up being a woman.

[EDIT] Why is the parent being downvoted? The imbalance may be bad, and the
first step in fighting it is to understand why it happens.

~~~
MollyR
In one of my college marketing classes, I've heard something similar as the
reasoning for commercials as well.

~~~
Vaskivo
Yep.

But, there is one thing in TV that is totally men dominated. Sports.

I'm not an expert on the matter, but it's what I've read somewhere.

Funilly, I don't know how the demographics for News Channel are, but I'd
expect it to be pretty even.

------
eanzenberg
Though there was more male dialogue than female on the show, the men were
constantly portrayed as stupid, weak, aggressive, drunk, selfish, not
responsible...

~~~
Frondo
And the women were also weak, whiny, indifferent or overzealous--

Everyone is flawed on that show, even ol' Painty Can Ned.

~~~
nerfhammer
Even if they had their own flaws, Lisa and Marge being morally superior to
Homer and Bart is a long-running premise of the show.

~~~
acqq
> morally superior

I'd say, totally superior, this was in 2000:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_to_the_Future](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_to_the_Future)

"Lisa has become the (first female) President of the United States and tries
to get the country out of financial trouble."

And I don't consider that "morality" was the major aspect of Lisa's
superiority.

~~~
SerpentJoe
Bart becomes chief justice of the Supreme Court in the episode "Itchy &
Scratchy: The Movie".

------
sandworm101
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.

------
nattaylor
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.

~~~
larrik
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.

~~~
yolesaber
>and there is basically no sarcasm on the show

My sarcasm detector is exploding.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNGXoHQ0mps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNGXoHQ0mps)

~~~
acomjean
A sarcasm detector.. That's useful. (An actual invention on the show)

[https://frinkiac.com/caption/S10E22/1040572](https://frinkiac.com/caption/S10E22/1040572)

------
agmcleod
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.

~~~
fullshark
He was the focus of the marketing for sure. I remember Bart Simpson t shirts
everywhere, video games starring Bart Simpson. "Do the Bartman" etc.

------
smegel
Culturally we don't laugh at women in the way we laugh at male buffoons. It's
exactly the same reason there are far fewer female comedians.

------
justinhj
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.

~~~
system16
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.

------
acqq
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."

~~~
namewithhe1d
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.

------
jorgecastillo
>a pattern of patriarchy

Americans and their political correctness, 'nuff said.

------
nolostpuppy
The Simpsons are just stupid.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

We detached this one from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12599045](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12599045)
and marked it off-topic.

