REVIEW: [YABF10] Bart vs. Itchy & Scratchy

[Stretch_Dude]

Spoiler

Why. Just...why.

[Nidotamer]

Haven't seen yet but approximately nobody I've seen is remotely excited and/or happy they saw it. That's a good sign.

[Nidotamer]

Spoiler

Let me join you in the *why*

I mean people say Lisa goes Gaga was bad but it couldn't even get a fraction as obnoxious as this one and hearing Lisa rattle off every "hip" term and buzzword got physically painful. Like that kind when your innards feel like they're wringing? That sort. And y'know, last week's guest characters, "Detonator" and Sophie were actually pretty good, sure the latter didn't add too much overall but she already existed and was inoffensive while the instructor actually had some funny bits. I guess they decided to balance that out with Bossy Riot because they were about as likeable as lootboxes in a game you already paid $60 for.

There's so many ways this could have been way better. Liiiiiike if at the start Lisa and Bart become secret reboot buddies or whatever instead of Lisa skipping immediately to public humiliation... because how dare Bart not want to aggravate Nelson, Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney. Or say, Bart gets expelled from the boys but ends up befriending a group of girls (preferably NOT guests) that liked the newer one better but then the conflict is that Bart still liked the old one too and they had no tolerance for that. Heck, even the premise as it was might've been able to work but when most of the screentime is on wholly unlikeable asshats who get no comeuppance for how they treated Bart or considered anything other than heroic...

And please for the love of all that is holy stop writing Martin as a straw misogynist. The kid is so girly, the actual girls look like Wario by comparison. He's the one that *shouldn't* be like that if anything.

[Nidotamer]

So far responses have been the predictable tat from "GO WOKE GO BROKE", "virtue signalling!" (okay that one is kinda true but I'll get to that in a bit) and "grrr wimmins" to "MAYUL TEARZZZ" and heavily ironic cries of men having fragile egos and acting like the only possibly complaint is because of hating women. Because how dare men not like something that deliberately takes a hard, agressive hostility towards them? What next, Jewish people are fragile and pathetic for disliking Billy the Heretic? Feminists have no right to be upset at Frank Miller portraying Wonder Woman as an angry, man-hating lesbian who just needs a big strong man to tame her and set her right?

... I feel like I'm totally alone in thinking the episode sucks mainly because they didn't feminist right. In fact applying a feminist lens for the first time in a long while, it's actually worse than it is otherwise even from more male-sympathetic standpoints. Because at the end of the day, for all its grandstanding about feminism it's ultimately 100% hollow. The guest stars are not only flat, obnoxious and violent (yet still presented like they're in the right) but don't even have distinct personalities or names. And they take over the lion's share of the plot. Because when your plot revolves around guest characters that we'll never see again and have no reason to get invested in as protagonists, and not who it's meant to be about, that's not a good sign. Outside of them, only Lisa, Marge and Luann get any lines, and only Lisa is actually significant to the plot or gets more than one or two lines at all. And even then Luann's only moment is tied to Kirk.

Ultimately no changes happen, a huge chunk of the female side cast are just satellites to either their husbands or to Marge/Lisa and not their own character at all, like Kumiko is still basically an armpiece for CBG that rarely speaks, a huge chunk still didn't get any kind of development or good moments. Like this was a perfect time to bring in some of the girls that got thrown to the side outside of setting up "Lisa has no friends" plots, namely Janey, Sherri and Terri... hell Allison too, Pamela Hayden is always right there and she's voiced Allison before, or hell see if Winona isn't too busy to reprise if you need a celebrity voice that badly. Sure she's not some flash-in-the-pan nothingburger but I'm pretty sure she's relevant again thanks to Stranger Things. Like, this was a huge chance to give some of the ladies a huge push and prove that they're not just throwaways or unfunny nobodies by virtue of being girls. Ain't like there's not much to work with because apparently even an idiot like me can come up with entertaining things for them. So you'd think a professional would have no problem.

And then there's Bart actually liking the reboot... which was a potentially brilliant plot point had it been used at all. Even though he was the only thing that was especially intelligent he's thrown around and outright silenced during what could have been a saving grace to the episode. Heck, why not have Lisa side with Bart when he calls out the boys near the start? Instead of going on really grating tangents for five minutes straight (wanna know what made episodes like Lisa vs Malibu Stacey and Lisa the Vegetarian tolerable? We got breaks in between and usually it was only a few lines at a time because constantly yelling is one of the most unpleasant things to subject someone towards) but it's got no significance in the end, it's not just forgotten but explicitly not allowed to have a point because apparently that's "mansplaining". Who knew being reasonable was exclusive to men and also a bad thing instead of skipping straight to violence?

And yeah that's by a mile the worst thing, they didn't feminist right. Instead going for ego-stroking and manufactured outrage instead of doing anything that'd possibly breathe some new life into the show. The problem isn't that it was a feminist episode but that it went totally limp and wholly shallow on feministing. Oh and if you have to make half your cast out of character for a premise to work (did Nelson, Martin, Bart and Milhouse have the slightest problem with Sophie being part of their team last ep? No. Did they object when girls were part of the same sports team in Bart Star and There Will Be Buds? No. But in order to pretend there's a point they have to be twisted into he-man woman haters which is pretty much most of my beef with the forth F'rama movie too...) you have failed as a writer.

[missy_misery]

Spoiler

I'm severely behind (trying to catch up today) but hmm. Intrigued.