Comic Strips

Currently rewatching Gilmore Girls with my fiancée and we have the same reaction when there's a hint of homophobia or fat jokes in some of the jokes. We usually just give each other a look and roll our eyes but yea, it was just a different time

I had a similar reaction to seeing brown face in Ben Hur (1959). The character itself was a positive depiction, so there's that I guess. It could have easily ruined the whole movie.

I'm surprised how many people seem offended by this comic. I found it pretty relatable. That doesn't mean I "don't understand context", or think the writers were bad people, or that the shows aren't worth watching. It just means I find it personally unpleasant to find these jokes in a work I'm otherwise enjoying.

When kids study older literature and media in school, generally when there's a slur or racist reference or joke, the teacher will stop and explain the context and get the kids to reflect on it and why it's probably not acceptable today. Even though I understand this and know it going in, I'm still kind of doing an abridged version of that in my head when something like this comes up in a show -- I've been following along, laughing with the writers, and then suddenly I'm backing up and distancing myself from one joke or idea. It's jarring, it pulls me out of the show, and it's just not fun.

In some cases it also comes across as incredibly lazy and unoriginal. So many sitcoms from that era have "the trans episode", "the gay episode", "the lecherous character" -- and they all make the same unfunny jokes, and it's a reminder than a lot of these shows, even in their time, were just not that creative. Plenty of modern shows have the same problem, but they don't draw attention to it by having large classes of "stock jokes" that simply do not land today.

The one that still gets me, and mostly because in this day and age of 2026 it still doesn't get as much homophobic backlash as I feel it clearly deserves is the pejorative: cocksucker.

In my anecdotal experience, 99.55% of the time, it's leveraged against men and used as a homophobic slur.

But even so, is sucking cock really that terrible of a thing to do? The vast majority of people with a cock enjoy the service. We literally celebrate the people who do it well for us personally, in most cases.

Why is it used as a slur?

Anyway, I'm off to suck some cock, see ya'll later.

90s? I went into my rewatch of How I Met Your Mother knowing it was problematic, but the entire show is basically just one long sexist joke with a disappointing ending.