YMMV / The Simpsons S 9 E 17 Lisa The Simpson

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The No Homers Club Forum surmises that this episode was a Creator Breakdown. Oakley and Weinstein used Lisa's worries that her best years were behind her and that her future looked bleak as a message to Scully about how to keep the show fresh and strong. Note that the episode was delayed from the eighth season, and thus was originally intended to air when the series was the same age as Lisa herself.
  Lisa: I've hit my mental and creative peak at the tender age of eight. What will my life be like after I descend into mediocrity?
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • There is no Simpson gene - the men in the family just keep getting hit on the head, suffering brain damage as a result. Homer has the added disadvantage of near-constant alcohol and tobacco consumption, working in a hazardous environment, and a crayon stuck in his brain. The female Simpsons were left as insecure as Lisa from the pattern that they exerted themselves into higher professions to try to defy it, and added onto the false theory that it doesn't affect females to make themselves feel better.
  • Alternatively, the Simpson gene isn't stupidity but laziness. Bart is Brilliant, but Lazy and Homer as mentioned could be a genius but couldn't take the social isolation so is wilfully stupid. The girls are more prideful and thus motivate themselves to disprove the gene.
  • With Bart receiving a more formal diagnosis in a later episode, it's fully possible the "Simpson gene" is just untreated ADHD, which men get diagonised more than women do. It wouldn't be inconsistent with Homer and Bart doing well in the first few grades of school before crumbling under a heavier workload, which is a problem commonly faced by people with autism and/or ADHD as they go through school (so common, in fact, that the phenomenon has been given the name "gifted kid burnout/syndrome").
• Broken Base: Lisa being genetically predisposed to be the one member of her family that isn't a loser. Some consider this Creator's Pet and Double Standard of the tallest order, and critics loathed this final reveal hard as a result, while the pathos leading to it was highly appreciated.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans seem to prefer the crayon explanation as to why Homer's an idiot, since, unlike the Simpsons gene, it doesn't necessarily doom Bart. It also doesn't contradict the fact that Homer has a smart half-brother, Herb, and a dumbass half-sister, Abbey. Possibly Canon Discontinuity as of "Holidays of Future Passed", which shows Bart's future sons as very intelligent.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Homer was brighter when he was a child, as evidenced by the fact that he won his first grade spelling bee at age 6. According to Abe, "his mind started getting lazy" as time went on. After Season 12's "HOMR," you have to wonder: was it the Simpson gene kicking in, or did he start to deteriorate after he shoved the crayon up his nose?
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In 2019, The BBC actually produced a documentary called When Bridges Collapse, which is somewhat more cerebral than the show Homer and Bart enjoy. It explores the causes of the collapse and how to avoid similar disasters with other bridges.
  • Jasper freezes himself inside the Kwik-E-Mart's freezer and becomes the "Frostillicus". Futurama would premiere about one year later.
• Memetic Mutation: "What a time to be alive," often used in reaction to good news or announcements (or used sarcastically if the news is bad).
• Unintentional Period Piece: Thanks to this episode being delayed for the longest time (it has a 4F production code, which is reserved for season eight episodes, but aired in season nine, when the production code was 5F), the joke about "Non-Stop FOX" airing disaster shows like When Buildings Collapse and When Surgery Goes Wrong comes off as dated for two reasons: 1) FOX only had their "Non-Stop FOX" marketing campaign from early 1996 to 1997, and 2) No one these days is going to remember that FOX used to air disaster reality shows (only the ones they aired were When Animals Attack and World's Wildest Police Chases).
• Values Dissonance: The episode 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.

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