DataNinja's Scintillating Digital Random Banter #231

[Rater202]

Its the weird thing about ignorance isn't it?

also, the Simpsons quickly became a cultural icon because they were more relatable than the happy family sitcoms they had at the time, so Homer quickly became the protagonist and stand in for the Average American Person because he is imperfect (whether thats good thing or bad thing depends on your point of view) so....one can see why that might provoke a reaction to him using that.

I learned about the Simpsons significance when watching a youtube video about how there will never be episode like the Frank Grimes episode ever again. whats really alien is that Frank Grimes is supposed to represent the classic hard-working american hero in contrast to Homer's lazy slacker dumb life, and I'd say that Frank Grimes could be just as relatable and predictive of some people today, when he was made to be a villain and demonstration of someone who cares too much about fairness living in an unfair world.....cut to today, where arguably people care more about fairness than Frank Grimes ever did and live in conditions closer to what he does. but then the video said the Simpsons went downhill after that, as that episode the last hurrah by anyone connected to the original creators.

I've seen a video that argues that Frank Grimes is a perfect example of someone who's been brainwashed into following "The Cult of Work."

In short, the idea that hard work in and of itself is meaningful and in a just world would be rewarded and that if you're not rewarded t's becuase someone else is parasitizing your efforts and metaphorically taking the food from your mouth... Which is not true and has never been true.

The truth is that effort has no intrinsic relationship to success or failure. Whether you succeed or fail and whether or not the effort you put in gets proportionate results depends on a number of factors, some of which are forever outside your control.

There are details that I really can't go into here for a number of reasons, but the gist of it is that neither Frank Grimes nor Homer Simpson are the "bad guy."

The true antagonist of the episode is Mr. Burns.

Homer is somewhat insensitive to Frank, yes, but he means well and just wanted to be friends with the new guy, and Frank isn't exactly wrong to think that Homer just stumbles into good fortune, becuase he doesn't see just how much Homer's life sucks in between the big adventures that outrage Frank. Frank's own misfortune also skews his perception of what's normal.

Homer can't be blamed, however, for accepting good fortune that stumbles into his lap, especially when he has a wife and three kids to support and his job provides more than enough money to do so. Especially when you consider that later episodes establish that his job is 1: completely redundant and 2: Not something Burns gives a damn about beyond having enough to keep the government off his back, so, despite what Frank asserts, Homer is essentially being paid to sleep. You can't blame someone for taking such a position when they desperately need money.

Frank, meanwhile, can't be blamed for being bitter, given his cartoonishly tragic life, and especially the fact that he was scouted out and promised a job as the Vice President of the plant only to be immediatly replaced with a literal Dog the second he showed up for work, just shoving Frank into a completly meaningless seat filler job... Nor can he be blamed for being angry when he say, gets punished for saving a man's life.

The instigator of the conflict between Frank and Homer is Mr. Burns. He's the one who hired a dangerously underqualified man for a position that would be vitally important in any other power plant. He's the one that promised Frank a cushy, high-paying executive job due to being impressed with Frank's determination and work ethic—an affirmation of everything that Frank had ever worked for—only to screw him over a whim. Mister Burns is the one who chastises Frank for "wasting precious acid" when Frank saves Homer's life.

But Frank is so deluded by the belief of the intrinsic value of work that instead of blaming the man actually responsible for his recent misfortune he lashes out at a convenient scapegoat who conforms to all of Frank's biases about what's wrong with the world. When that fails to solve his problems he suffers a psychiatric break and ultimately destroys himself...

...And it's ambiguous if his death was an accident or deliberate suicide.

And odds are that none of that was intentional. The writers are pretty clear on their intent was to show that a "normal" man couldn't survive in a place like Springfield.