before my political awakening I just took them at face value. But now they’re like time capsules of the fairly shallow and hardly biting political commentary of the era.
Specifically im talking about sitcoms that premiered in the late 90s (or early 2000s) and continued thru the 00s. Take Scrubs for example. There’s a few episodes where the hospital workers break into camps discussing the Iraq war. Elliott, played by Sarah Chalke, is revealed as a republican. I suppose this mirrors how actual conversations at the time played out but its somewhat endearing how it all seems so quaint looking back. I know watching at the time I was like wow it’s refreshing how they’re being so political lmao.
I think the cringiest when it comes to this is will and grace. There’s a few episodes with bush-targeted jokes delivered primarily by debra messing (yuck). And they all have to do with his intelligence.
I think the only exceptions are either the shows that did it smartly (for libs anyways) like the first three seasons of Arrested Development or ones that just focused on the domestic/life problems of the characters, like Malcolm in the middle (which is probably the last great working class sitcom) or everybody loves raymond.
Went on a bit of a Cheers clip binge on youtube some months back, and the standout for aging poorly for me was “The Boys in the Bar,” where Sam’s old teammate comes out as gay, and the regulars instantly go full homophobic when Dianne mentions that there are 2 gay men in the bar that day.
The regulars flip out and demand that they be identified so that sam can ban them, lest Cheers get too popular with the gays and make the place into a gay bar.
Dianne, the original Lisa Simpson, is the voice of reason, saying the whole time there’s nothing wrong with being gay.
Sam ultimately sides with Dianne for moral reasons (softening from his initial homophobia) and the regulars aren’t ever really chastised for this, hut rather left to be assumed openly homophpbic foe the rest if the series, even though the issue never again came up directly.
Another sitcom that comes to kind for ke is Just Shoot Me, when David Spade finds out his old bestie from back in the day is trans. He’s super shitty about it until he finds out his friend is smoking hot now, which sets him off on his usual womanizer routine. In the end, he comes around to respect his friend’s decision.
Unlike most queer-commebtary plots, this character guest-starred a few times after this. I remember it being pretty good for the time (I actually foubd the teans character relatable as one of very few sympathetic trans characters with agency for the time) but haven’t gone back to see it e the 90s.
Apparently, hving dudes be womanizers was the height of comedy for the time, because that seemed to run thrpugh from the 70s to the 2ks