That Time The Simpons Didn’t Know a Super Offensive Word Was Offensive

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During the 25 or so years it has been on the air the Simpsons has addressed nearly every social issue there including most pertinently to this article, homosexuality. While the episode has been lauded for its representation of gay people, early in production the writers inexplicably included one of the worst homosexual slurs there is and didn’t realise its offence until an actual gay man told them to maybe cut that shit out. 

That gay man was John Waters, the only known man in the world with a moustache you need to draw with a ruler straighter than a giraffe’s neck brace.

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That’s not a joke by the way, according to Simpsons animators, Waters’ iconic pencil moustache proved to be so difficult to draw without it looking like a mistake that they had to alter it slightly for his appearance in the episode.

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Speaking of which, Waters was apparently thrilled to appear on the show and reportedly signed on to appear without hearing what the episode was about, only knowing that it explored the theme of homosexuality.

It was an episode praised or its subtlety.
It was an episode praised for its subtlety.

If you’ve never seen the episode, basically it centres around Homer’s rather blatant homophobia (hence the name of the episode) when he unknowingly befriends a gay man, played by Waters. Homer becomes paranoid that Bart will somehow become gay by interacting with Waters’ character and makes an earnest attempt to quite literally set him straight. Suffice to say, shenanigans are had.

Before Homer is redeemed at the end of the episode after being rescued by a robotic Santa owned by Waters’ character, he’s kind of, well, he’s a total dick to Waters’ character. Along with calling him “a sneak” for hiding the fact he’s gay, asking him to stay away from his family and referring to homosexuality as not “usual“, he also acts as if homosexuality is somehow contagious. An unusual statement to hear coming from a guy with four fingers and yellow skin.

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Of course this is supposed to lampoon the actual people who think like this and make the ideas seem outdated and stupid by making them come out of the mouth of TV’s most famous idiot, which is fine. However, early in the episode’s production the script called for Homer to call John a fag. We don’t have access to this script so we’ve no idea what the context for this line was, but it’s difficult to imagine any forgivable reason to ever call a gay man that in any context.

The line stayed in the script right up until Waters came in to record his lines and was asked for his opinion, as a gay man and a well-known figure in the gay community, if there was anything gay people may take offence to. Waters read through the script and singled out the “fag” comment, apparently being the only person to do this except for Fox censors. Though to be fair about that last part, Fox pretty much wanted to shit-can the entire episode because they were worried people would complain about it. Nobody did and the censors let the episode go to air with no changes because they all got fired.

But just for a second think about what this means, for months nobody in the Simpsons writing team had any idea that this word was offensive and thought nothing of putting it into the middle of one of the most popular and quotable sitcoms of all fucking time until an actual gay man told them how offensive it was.