The Simpsons, being such a Long Runner as well as an American cultural icon, has its fair share of moments that do not have the same reaction either among people outside North America or among those not old enough to remember the social mores prevalent at the time the older episodes were made (furthermore, there are certain occasions where the writers show their age, particularly in more recent seasons). Not to mention the many times the show has poked fun to the outdated values of yesteryear.
Between Countries
- In the 2000s, the show got an Arabic dub, but significant changes were made. Since drinking alcohol is forbidden in Islamic countries, most references to liquor were cut or changed to non-alcoholic beverages (Homer's precious Duff Beer was changed to Duff Soda) and references to pork chops and hot dogs (which aren't considered halalnote ) were changed to Egyptian beef sausages. Arabic fans of the show weren't impressed though with the "edited to conform to Islamic law" version, as they were used to seeing the series uncut with Arabic subtitles.
- In "Lost Our Lisa", Lenny and Carl call out Homer as a bad parent because he gave permission for Lisa, who is just eight years old, to use public transportation on her own. Public transport in Australia does not allow children under the age of 13 to ride alone, and will usually result in the police being contactednote . Bus drivers are also required to help people who are lost, and are only allowed to abandon disruptive passengers. However, in many other countries, kids taking public transportation to get around would be so commonplace and mundane that no one would bat an eye — Japan's urban areas in Tokyo have subway systems and other public transport where using them would not be seen as particularly odd for a child on their own.
- In "Team Homer", Springfield Elementary institutes school uniforms, which are shown to be soul-crushing and reduce the kids to listless and depressed zombies in a matter of days. Since in many countries outside North America almost all schools use uniforms, audiences in those countries found this puzzling as to why it was such a big deal.
- "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song":
- For a time, Ned Flanders replaces Skinner as the school principal. Flanders's lenient nature causes the school to descend into utter chaos which Superintendent Chalmers ignores... until he hears Flanders saying "let's thank the Lord for another beautiful school day" over the intercom, after which he immediately fires Flanders. Most nations do believe in separation of church and state, especially in regards to education. But in the United States, prayer of any sort of religion endorsed by a teacher of a public school is illegal. European viewers wondered what the deal was, or found it amusing that Flanders was fired over saying one word, of all things. That said, even in America, the joke was that Chalmers was overreacting to a relatively benign offense. So a non-American might see this as a joke about a Role-Ending Misdemeanor, but might not get the cultural aspect that was also being parodied.
- During his suspension, Principal Skinner spends time with Bart, who is a student, to the point of taking him to an Italian restaurant for dinner. Nowadays, with so many teachers both male and female being arrested and/or fired for having inappropriate relationships with underage students, teacher-student outings like this wouldn't be permitted without consent from the student's parent(s) or legal guardian(s).
- In "$pringfield": Was Homer teaching Maggie to gamble supposed to come as a shock? If so, it'd be lost on a British audience. British gambling laws allow minors to gamble, albeit on arcade games that dispense tokens and/or tickets to the winners. It's kind of like what America has with Chuck E. Cheese, Dave & Busters, and other "family fun center" places which combine a restaurant with an arcade. In fact, gambling with real money (albeit small stakes — with maximum stakes of £1 and maximum payouts of £20.00) is not only legal for under 18s in parts of the UK and Europe, but it's a normal part of growing up, teaching kids the valuable lesson of "Don't bet what you can't lose". In America, gambling on anything with real money has a hard minimum age of 18 years old; anyone caught gambling underage would be ejected and banned from the premises, at best. A parent teaching their kid to gamble in a casino could easily end up going to jail for it.
- Bart's rebellious attitude, on top of many episodes being from his perspective and that he gets away with most of the abuse he gives to his superiors, clashes strongly with the Japanese ideals of obedience, respect for one's elders, emotional stoicism, and the drive to work hard. Complaints about Bart from Japanese viewers prompted the localization team to downplay him for the second season and onwards. Compare this to his incredible popularity domestically, to where commercials for "Lisa's Substitute" discussed only the B-story revolving around Bart.
- Lisa, in comparison, is much beloved in Japan, but has amassed a dislike amongst a subset of American viewers (and, to a lesser extent, other Western nations). She started out as the intelligent, hard-working, "respectable" sibling, and those traits are why she is still beloved in Japan.
Between Eras
- An unusual example of this trope's relation to The Simpsons is that it's directly responsible for Bart's Menace Decay. In the 90s, Bart was a legitimately nasty kid most of the time, with things like repeated vandalization (spray-painting "El Barto" everywhere), truancy, pranks, and so forth, even if he did have some moral limits (like his shame after having stolen a video game or running away from home after burning Lisa's Thanksgiving centerpiece). However, as the '90s rolled on, Black Comedy animated shows became increasingly mainstream and later seasons had to use flanderization to keep Bart "menacing". This is perfectly lampshaded in the crossover with Family Guy, where Bart finds Stewie's behavior horrifying and far too hardcore for him to handle. Ironically, Bart was partly created as a parody about how Matt Groening didn't think Dennis the Menace (US) was all that troublesome, and that he came across as outright benign to late-'80s audiences.
- Though it was never portrayed as acceptable on the show (since he's an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist), Homer's frequent throttling of Bart, and Marge and Lisa doing nothing to stop it (with Lisa even joining in sometimes), would be far less likely to be Played for Laughs today, in an era when awareness of abusive parenting and child abuse is higher than it's ever been. Even in recent episodes, there are still some scenes where Homer strangles Bart, albeit not as frequently as in the early-to-mid seasons (and the show's likely still doing this because it's been a staple of the series since Season 1). It's also gotten a lot more cartoonish, example being the first time he did to Bart as a baby, complete with moon-landing music and slow-motion. This is likely to alleviate the uncomfortable subtext.
- Apu has caught flak from some contemporary viewers for being an Ethnic Scrappy whose entire character is deeply rooted in Indian stereotypes (especially the "dishonest shopkeeper" part). One major point of contention is that he's voiced by a white man doing a broad, exaggerated Indian accent, and while the show is known for having a cast full of stereotypes, these stereotypes mostly come from different parts of European and/or white American culture (like Scotland, Italy, and the Deep South) or make fun of archetypes such as the rich white businessman. The problem is that, with a mostly white cast and very few minority characters, it can feel to some viewers like the show is punching down when mocking Apu, and by extension, Indian Americans as a wholenote . His stereotypical nature is highlighted in "Team Homer" where his bowling team loses to another one called "The Stereotypes", made up of Cletus, Luigi, The Sea Captain, and Groundskeeper Willie. In 2019, Azaria announced he would stop voicing the character (though the creators of the show had already recognized his problematic nature by phasing Apu out of speaking roles, with "Much Apu About Something" being his final speaking role and essentially addressing his stereotypical natural head on) and that he was supportive of the idea of a Hindu actor taking over as several non-white characters, not only on The Simpsons, had their voice artists changednote , though the show later decided to just have Apu stop making appearances altogether as his reputation became so radioactive that there weren't any actors willing to become his new voice.
- While it always bordered on edgy, the Running Gag of Moe attempting to kill himself via hanging is more likely to make modern viewers feel uncomfortable rather than laugh now that suicide is being taken FAR more seriously and jokes about it are now much less common and tend to be restricted to TV-MA adult animated shows.
- In "The Canine Mutiny" when it's revealed that the blind guy who got Santa's Little Helper is carrying marijuana and Wiggum, Lou and Eddie deciding not to arrest him for it on the grounds that it might be "medicinal" so they can smoke it with him and party is treated as blatant police corruption as at the time of the episodes airing only two U.S. states allowed marijuana and only for medical issues (and the Clinton Administration was vocally opposed to even that). In the following decades many states have since legalized Marijuana and people being arrested over merely smoking a joint is now largely seen as an example of abuse of authority and institutional racism (as the vast majority of people put in jail over possession of pot were black) so in today's climate the Springfield P.D. electing not to arrest someone over mere possession of weed now looks downright reasonable.
- While the Barbaric Bully antics of Nelson, Dolph, Kearney and Jimbo veered straight into Fiction Isn't Fair territory even in the '90s, the wave of suicides on the news linked to school bullying in the 2010s make it hard to believe that even a Sucky School like Springfield Elementary would tolerate such brutal bullying due to a fear of the school becoming the latest news scandal or getting a lawsuit, forcing these bullies to move to more subtle methods lest they risk getting a quick ticket to juvenile hall.
- "Bart Gets An F" is seen as Values Resonance for its depiction of Bart struggling with his studies mirroring those with a learning disability; later episodes would reveal that he has inattentive-type ADHD. Where it falls back into Dissonance are his attempts to get help from the school or his family falling on deaf ears (which is sadly Truth in Television far more than it should be, but the episode views this as potential Laser-Guided Karma considering how Bart typically acts). The Hard Truth Aesop of the episode is supposed to be "sometimes you try your hardest and still fail," which is not something you tell a child with a medical condition that isn't being treated...
- In "New Kid on the Block", Marge is visibly uncomfortable around her new neighbor, a divorced single mother. This attitude was almost quaint when it was first aired, but now it makes Marge look rather closed-minded.
- In "Treehouse of Horror II", Lisa dresses up as a Native American totem pole as a way of showing appreciation for indigenous people. If anything, Lisa would protest against that sort of thing come the 2010s because it would be seen as cultural appropriation.
- Taken further in Little Big Girl, where Lisa pretends to be an Indigenous person from the "Hitachi tribe", using her mother's corn-patterned curtains to make a "traditional" dress and sticking feathers in her hair. She's more worried about getting found out as a liar than anything else, even though modern Lisa would cite this as cultural appropriation and race faking and be horrified by it.
- In "Burns Baby Burns", the Simpson family discusses the awful things Mr. Burns has done to them (i.e. sexual harassment, injuries, and other actions done for the sake of evil), with Homer finishing by saying that Burns made fun of his weight. In 1996, this was meant to be a case of Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking, with the latter offense being ridiculously benign compared to the others. While it's definitely still seen as less egregious than some of Burns' other actions, nowadays fat-shaming is taken far more seriously than it used to be. As such, many modern viewers won't find the contrast between that offense and the others to be nearly as ridiculous as it was intended to be.
- In "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming", Lisa wants to meet the first female stealth bomber pilot, casually (and gleefully) mentioning that the pilot (also named Lisa) dropped bombs on 70 mosques. If this episode was made today, Lisa either wouldn't have mentioned it at all or would only have mentioned it in a What the Hell, Hero? fashion.
- In "Summer of 4 Ft. 2", a depressed Lisa sighs that her only friends are writers like Gore Vidal, "and even he's kissed more boys than I ever will." Marge quickly tells her that boys kiss girls. When the episode first aired in 1996, it was common to portray a character uncomfortable with mentioning homosexuality as just slightly behind the times or clueless (or both — part of the joke is that Marge has no idea who Vidal isnote ). To a modern viewer, it is quite startling to hear such a homophobic comment from someone like Marge, even more so to have it go unchallenged. Stranger still, less than one year later, the episode "Homer's Phobia" had Marge have no problem with homosexuality at all, though she would somewhat revert back to her original characterization in "There's Something About Marrying" where she's shown to be initially somewhat uncomfortable with her sister Patty's homosexuality.
- In "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy", the family at one point expresses exhaustion with Lisa's endless moral crusades. In particular, Bart cites the fact that she made them all march in a gay pride parade (with a clueless Bart ending up on the newspaper's front page), which is presented as a fairly extreme thing to subject her family to. Today, not only is it common for non-LGBT+ families to attend Pride, later episodes show the Simpsons doing so without any discomfort.
- Similarly, the plot of "Jaws Wired Shut" starts with the family going to the movies to avoid the Pride parade marching through Evergreen Terrace, having no problem with it until Santa's Little Helper seems to take a shine to the "gay dogs" dressed in leather. Such a joke would nowadays come across as an (unintended) attempt to relate homosexuality with bestiality.
- In "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" Homer has the family savings robbed at an internet cafe, so he and Marge attend a seminar about extreme money-saving. One example that host Chuck Garabedian gives is a yacht with beautiful women, saying the yacht was cheap because "it smells like cat pee. And those beautiful women? They used to be men.", which squicks out the audience. Today, this comes off as horribly transphobic.
- In "I Love Lisa" Chief Wiggum gives Ralph some advice to get a girl that isn't interested in him (in this case Lisa), telling him he must insist until she gives in. Such a comment nowadays would be seen as encouraging stalking.
- The ending of "Homer the Heretic" (where Homer abandons organized religion for his own system of beliefs) comes off as rather insulting towards atheists, agnostics, or lapsed religious people, as it implies that people who abandon organized religion will be punished for it (as Homer is saved from a house fire by Flanders [a Christian], Krusty the Clown [a Jew], and Apu [a Hindu]). It doesn't help that Homer is put in danger not by God, but by his own arrogant hedonism (smoking a cigar while taking a nap). What's odd is that, outside of that ending, the episode actually has Values Resonance for the same people who think the ending is outdated.
- In a handful of episodes, specifically "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "Simpson and Delilah", "Deep Space Homer", "Lisa the Iconoclast", "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation", "Marge Simpson in: Screaming Yellow Honkers", "This Little Wiggy", "$pringfield", and "The Otto Show", variants of the term "gypped" (meaning "ripped off") are used. In modern times, the term has fallen into disuse nowadays due to it stemming from the word "Gypsy", an anti-Romani slur.
- In "Lisa's First Word", Marge expresses concern that Homer's plan to just have Bart sleep with them in the master bed in lieu of buying a new bed for the baby would warp Bart. Homer blows her off, stating his cousin Frank did it and turned out fine. When Marge presses, Homer casually and obliviously reveals that she's now Francine and joined a cult. While the line was meant to be a joke that Homer's cousin did not turn out fine, the implication that changing gender is the result of mental instability comes off as extremely insulting towards transgender people.
- In "Brother’s Little Helper", during the fire safety assembly, Bart gets a kick out of Principal Skinner saying the names of various firefighting implements. One of them was "Retardant," which Bart found funny because it sounded like "Retarded," which is now generally considered to be a very rude term for mentally disabled people (to the point where it’s no longer used in a medical term since 2010, using more PC terms), regardless of how funny that scene is.
- In "Much Apu About Nothing", at the end of his citizenship test, Apu is instructed to explain the causes of the Civil War and begins to give a long explanation before the examiner tells him to "just say slavery". The joke was originally intended to highlight Apu's breadth of knowledge about American history, and was based on an incident that happened to one of writer David X. Cohen's friends in a real citizenship test. However, in recent years, the school of historiography that tried to claim there were "multiple causes" has has been interpreted as white supremacist propaganda that tried to downplay the extent to which slavery was the primary driver of the Confederate rebellion. (For instance, The Confederate Declaration of Independence said that it was seceding because of the attempt to hinder the expansion of slavery). As a result, audiences nowadays are more likely to think that the examiner was the sensible one in this situation.
- In "Mayored to the Mob" the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con ad disparagingly calls R2D2 and C3PO "the gay robots from Star Wars". Borderline edgy at the time, but not seen as funny nowadays as the use of the term "gay" as an insult fell out of fashion in The New '10s with it being seen as homophobic.
- The 1991 episode "Stark Raving Dad," famous for starring Michael Jackson in an uncredited guest role (for which reason it's now a Missing Episode on streaming services), also features his character, a mental patient, rooming with Bart while staying at the Simpsons' house. The unlikeliness of such a scenario by the 2010s due to increasing awareness of child sexual abuse over the 90s and 00s—in no small part due to scandals such as the allegations against Jackson—got a Lampshade Hanging in the 2015 episode "Walking Big and Tall."Bart: Whoa. Thinking back, I'm kind of surprised Mom and Dad let a crazy man spend all night in my bedroom.Homer: Simpler time.
- The episode "There's Something About Marrying" from Season 16, Marge's sister Patty comes out as a lesbian and introduces the family to her fiancee Veronica. The ending reveals Veronica is a man named Leslie who dressed up as a woman to be allowed to play women's professional golf. When Leslie asks Patty to marry him anyway, Patty refuses, reaffirming her interest in women. While the episode was praised at the time, even getting a nod of approval from GLAAD, the plot of a man pretending to be a woman in order to be able to get into a relationship with a gay woman is seen as unintentionally promoting negative stereotypes about lesbians transwomen.
- The season 10 episode "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" from 1999, the people of Springfield are enamored by billionaire Arthur Fortune (a parody of Virgin Group founder and CEO Richard Branson), which frustrates Mr. Burns, who sets out to win Springfielders' hearts himself. By The New '10s and The New '20s, wealth inequality has grown so disproportionate that people are more likely to look at billionaires like Arthur Fortune with as much scorn as Mr. Burns, to the point where many wonder whether society should even allow people to become billionaires at all.
- Season 8's "Homer's Enemy" (1997): Audiences watching from The New '10s on have become less likely to agree with Frank Grimes's "The Reason You Suck" Speech about what a Lazy Bum Homer is, in particular the line "If you lived in any other country in the world, you'd have starved to death long ago", as it's become apparent that American workers are among the world's most overworked people, lacking basic benefits that exist in other prosperous nations, like paid time off.
- The season 8 episode "Lisa's Date With Density" (1996):
- Jimbo says "That is so gay!" when commenting on Nelson kissing Lisa. Back in the 1990s, it didn't raise any problems. Contrast that with the season 20 "Treehouse of Horror XIX" story from 2008 that had a giant pumpkin attacking the schoolkids during a Halloween dance, Nelson's line "The Grand Pumpkin is super gay!" was met with backlash from anti-gay defamation groups who set out to stop people from using the word "gay" as an insult for something considered "weak" or "stupid". Of course, in this case, the use of the word as a generic insult is part of the joke in that there is nothing less gay than a heterosexual kiss.
- By the same token, Nelson giving Milhouse an unusually brutal walloping, necessitating an ambulance, because he thinks Milhouse sent him a love note that was actually from Lisa. This is far more likely to be seen as a Moral Event Horizon-crossing offense to a modern audience, verging on or constituting a hate crime, whereas at the time it was simply of a piece with Nelson's Bully Brutality elsewhere. Making this worse is that the setup of the scene is horrifyingly very similar to the 2008 murder of Lawrence King.
- Marge's speech about women working hard to change men is an awfully toxic message to send to her daughter, and more widely to the audience. Fortunately, neither Lisa or the episode takes it seriously.
- The season 9 "Lisa The Simpson" (1998) would have a harder time being made today since trans people entered the public consciousness since the episode aired. It would be harder selling the idea of Simpsons men being doomed to their gene due to their y chromosome as by that logic, trans women are doomed too whilst trans men are safe due to their x. Such a more convoluted but updated ending is at least partially the reason why the explanation of Homer being dumb due to a crayon in his brain is amusingly the more accepted answer these days.
- Back in the 1990s, a character being hinted to be gay was enough to constitute a joke, hence why so many jokes about Smithers consisted of him daydreaming about, flirting with, or otherwise indicating that he's in love with Mr. Burns. Now that gay people are a lot more normalized in today's society, some younger viewers interpret these scenes as genuine Ship Tease, rather than simple jokes, and see them as heartwarming or sexy instead of funny. This dissonance may have played a part in Burns/Smithers becoming the Simpsons fanbase's biggest Fan-Preferred Couple during The New '10s.
- An in-universe example happens in "The Lastest Gun in the West", where Buck McCoy shows the family his old work. In the 1950s, he had a daytime show sponsored by a liquor company. The gang is shocked, while Buck says the show was aimed at children who drank.
- One Duff Beer ad from the 1950s shown in "Duffless" carries a double bundle of this. The commercial has a cartoon doctor advising the viewers to drink the beverage because of its "goodness", but also indicates the company is also a "proud sponsor" of Amos 'n' Andy, a very popular radio show that ran between 1928 and 1960, which is mostly remembered nowadays for containing Blackface (in spite of being quite Fair for Its Day).
- Similarly, an episode of the Adventures of Radioactive Man TV show from the 1950s shown in "Three Men and a Comic Book" has an Enforced Plug for Laramie Cigarettes, with Fallout Boy wishing that he was old enough to smoke. The title character tells him to wait until he's sixteen (the legal age when the episode aired was 18 in most states, and in some states, it's now 21), with a wink at the audience.
- Also in "Three Men and a Comic Book" comes the debut of the character Mrs. Glick, an elderly widow and neighbor of the Simpsons. Her ways are archaic, her lifestyle and beliefs often being as though she is living in the 1950s (or before), such as paying Bart a "very generous" Depression-era 50 cents for a week's worth of backbreaking yardwork. She also reveals she enjoys soap operas (which were starting to fall out of favor in the 1990s), she had a brother killed in action during World War I, and shows her wedding dress that she dyed black for her husband's funeral years earlier.
- Another in-universe example: When Krusty runs for office in "Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington", his opponent attacks him by showing one of his sketches about the U.N., portraying obviously offensive characterizations of France, Jamaica, and San Francisco. Krusty justifies himself by mentioning it was a different time... 1998 (the episode first aired in 2003), even though it still would have been extremely offensive then.
- One interesting example occurred in the episode "Orange is the New Yellow", where Marge is arrested for letting Bart go to the park alone, mentioning that her parents let her stay outside all day back in the '60s, and Bart and Lisa (and even Maggie) have been featured roaming on their own in the '90s and 2000s (most notably in "Bart Gets Famous"note , "Lost Our Lisa"note and "Midnight Towboy"note ). However, this also doubles with Two Decades Behind, as since the 1980s, and particularly after the mid-2000s, allowing young children out alone has become increasingly frowned upon (especially in suburban and urban areas) due to fears that they will be kidnapped, injured, get lost, etc.
