When requested in a 2019 interview with TV Line if “Household Man” was actually phasing out the homosexual jokes, government producer Alec Sulkin answered, “Type of, sure. For those who have a look at a present from 2005 or 2006 and put it facet by facet with a present from 2018 or 2019, they will have just a few variations. Among the issues we felt comfy saying and joking about again then, we now perceive will not be acceptable.”
Govt producer Wealthy Appel added, “It isn’t us reacting and pondering, ‘They will not allow us to [say certain things].’ No, we have modified too. The local weather is completely different, the tradition is completely different, and our views are completely different. They have been formed by the fact round us, so I believe the present has to shift and evolve in loads of alternative ways.”
Positive sufficient, the homosexual jokes of later-season “Household Man” are a bit much less crass than the homosexual jokes of early “Household Man.” In an episode like “Buyer of the Week” in season 19, the homosexual joke of the episode is that an increasingly-out-of-control Lois is stunned that one of many guys she’s kidnapped is homosexual however the different one is not, though they stay collectively. (“Effective, you win along with your homosexual stuff!” she says.) The joke right here is usually that Lois sucks, and in addition that it is ridiculous she’d be quibbling over this difficulty given the stakes of the state of affairs.
In the meantime, there’s the 2009 episode “Household Homosexual,” the place Peter turns homosexual for an episode. One of many jokes right here entails a conversion remedy camp counselor giving the campers baseball bats to beat up “Harry the Gay.” With the homosexual campers taking the bats and strolling off-screen in the direction of Harry, the counselor yells, “No, do not use the bats like that! No, do not use the bats like that both!” The entire episode is a crass, cartoonish depiction of homosexual males, so it is no shock that it did not win any GLAAD awards that 12 months.
And but, it is arduous to get too mad at “Household Homosexual.” Not solely is the episode’s central message that homosexual individuals needs to be absolutely accepted for who they’re, a place that wasn’t thought of a secure one on the time by any stretch, however all of the crass homosexual jokes are achieved with a heavy quantity of irony. The episode is aware of that the majority homosexual males aren’t really having 11-ways more often than not, and it trusts its viewers to know the identical. For probably the most half “Household Homosexual” depicts homosexual individuals as foolish however innocent, whereas the conversion camp counselor is depicted with real scorn. When the counselor yells on the homosexual campers to cease utilizing the bats in that method, it isn’t only a low-cost homosexual joke; it is also a scene the place the gays triumph within the face of hatred, rubbing the counselor’s face within the futility of his mission. (At the very least, that is my optimistic tackle the scene’s subtext.)
You would additionally argue that every one the homosexual jokes helped make the episode extra persuasive to homophobic viewers, lulling them right into a false sense of safety earlier than hitting them with the pro-gay rights closing message. Lots of people will outright reject an episode’s social commentary if it feels an excessive amount of like a lecture, however for many of its runtime “Household Homosexual” undoubtedly does not really feel like one.
