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Wow just watched a s2 ep of Married with Children and a s1 ep of the Simpsons, what a time capsule. I grew up watching both these shows, but only now does it strike me that Married& #39;s sense humor is conservative aligned and Simpson& #39;s is liberal aligned.
I don& #39;t even mean this in a political sense, just as in a pure cultural sense. They& #39;re both so close in a lot of ways that their differences contrast better and it& #39;s a great pop culture case study in a way. Even more interesting that they were both early edgy fox shows.
Both are cartoonish in how far they push things, but Married& #39;s humor is strikingly aggressive full of put downs to the tune of "it& #39;s funny & #39;cause it& #39;s true". Meanwhile the Simpsons, while plenty rude when it wants to be, plays more on irony than meanness.
Similarly, both say the world is terrible and offer commiseration, but Married has a very everyone for themselves attitude (coupled w/ people being terrible by default) while Simpsons focuses more on systems (coupled w/ people being generally neutral or even wanting to be good).
I really love the Simpsons so much and certainly find it the more enduring show, but a piece of me still loves how completely nihilistic Married is in spite of it& #39;s laugh track. It& #39;s a family sitcom where everyone is chaotic evil and it revels in it& #39;s trashiness.
I& #39;m not sure if I& #39;m noticing this because I grew up or because the 2010& #39;s happened (though I suspect it& #39;s the former) but these two shows really encapsulate the humor sensibilities of these cultural alignments, at least from my perspective of experiencing them.
I& #39;ve been thinking about the qualities of conservative humor more after growing up alongside a lot of it and then being away from it in College and LA this past decade. Going home to Florida and conservative relatives is always a shock, but it makes it easier to notice things.
I wonder if I& #39;m conflating political culture an class culture somewhat here too... sometimes it can be a little hard to separate given my points of reference. The people in my Florida life trend lower middle class, while the people in my LA life trend upper middle class.
