Selma’s Choice Hit Me Harder at 35 Even Though I Don’t Want Kids
Having seen the show as a child when it was still fresh and edgy in the 1990s, this episode smarts differently in my thirties at the dawn of the 2020s.
Like many people who grew up in America in the 1990s, The Simpsons had a major role in my upbringing.
To say that America in 1993 was an entirely different planet than the one we inhabit in 2020 would be an understatement.
The Clinton era was an interesting time to grow up, not necessarily a better one depending on which context we’re talking about, although I witnessed many things that were simply a product of their time. In the early 1990s, the concept of an animated TV show that was meant for adults was a fresh and edgy concept. Or in the case of The Simpsons, it met somewhere in the middle between cartoonish antics and obvious fiction for children while there was plenty of realism and mature themes for adults. Today, “adult cartoons” are a genre that stands alone and many even think that modern cartoons meant for kids like Steven Universe are doing a better job with complexity and mature themes than their counterparts that allow swear words.
