Leftists Just Don't Get The 'Working Class'

The Voters Progressives And Socialists Desparately Want Are Just Not That Into Them

The last 10-20 years of progressive politics have left the working class feeling like Homer Simpson in the gay steel mill in the 1997 The Simpsons episode “Homer’s Phobia.”

It’s become a standard canard that the older episodes of The Simpsons are better than the new ones. Looking back on the episodes from the 1990s and early 2000s, installments of the long-running animated series provide a lens into our culture and society, even today.

One of its many acclaimed episodes that does this premiered in February 1997. Titled “Homer’s Phobia,” it offered a humorous look into cultural shifts affecting traditional masculinity, focusing on LGBTQ people. At one point, the plot connects this cultural strife to working-class economics in a way relevant to the current political and social climate.

The episode title is a play off “homophobia” and the plot is…well, precisely that. The Simpsons befriended an antique collector named John (voiced by filmmaker and actor John Waters, who gave us Hairspray). While Marge knows he’s gay, Homer remains oblivious until Marge, nervously, outs him. Homer exhibits a level of homophobia that would be shocking today. The tension grows after Bart starts doing things, like wearing Hawaiian shirts and dancing around in Cher wigs, that are tied in with effeminacy and homosexuality. Homer thinks John’s influence is turning Bart gay.

Homer forces Bart to do things he believes will keep him straight. This includes looking at half-naked girls in a cigarette advertisement and a visit to a steel mill, only to discover that those things influence Bart to want to do queer-coded things. The scene where Homer finds out the steel mill’s workers are gay and the factory transitions into a gay nightclub is one of the funniest moments in the entire series¹. Afterwards, Homer speaks about the experience to Moe and Barney. Moe suggests they take Bart deer-hunting, because shooting something will make him a man. More hilarity ensues.

I recently saw the episode again and noted its current relevance, given the ongoing, often fruitless, discussions about men, primarily blue-collar working-class men, and their place in politics and culture in the second Donald Trump era they helped usher in.