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.

Early 2000s entertainment too. A good portion of the edgy jokes could be considered funny because they were made on the assumption that "We can laugh about this, because we all know racism and sexism is bad, right?".

And then 2015ish happened and it became obvious that a lot of people weren't laughing AT the -isms but rather WITH.

EDIT: Which slur did Ross use, BTW? I haven't watched that show in eons, and I don't remember any.

I’m gonna say something bold:

Surprisingly not a problem for some shows, good example is Simpson golden age.

There is a gay episode but it’s mostly about Homer overreacting.

A lot of the satire of Simpson is trying to be functional in a dysfunctional system, which has aged like the greatest wine that frank grimes can’t afford.

I feel like every time I tried watching Big Bang Theory, I got this vibe.

"haha that guy is such a fucking nerd!" was virtually every laugh-track riddled joke.

I wish I could get people to care about health care and wages as much as they care about mean words. So many seemingly don't mind being robbed blind as long as our ruling parties using the correct terminology.

I have collected so many of the movies I remember fondly as a Gen X’er. From the ‘70s to the ‘90s. Holy shit the stuff I’d forgotten that was in them. Rape-y stuff, comments about underage girls and basically leering at them with tbe camera, suicides, misogyny, women as sexual objects and nothing else, racism… It’s bad. I’d started a movie or two with my kids and had a “oh no” moment when a part started that I’d completely forgotten about. Some of that still exists, but it’s there as a narrative and plot point about the character doing the shitty things rather than the casual and institutional way it was played before. Just goes to show you how times and people (can; some don’t) change. Some of that stuff was not unusual in life for me back then, I wouldn’t dream of it today.

Seinfeld is in the top of my list. Kramer can show up in black face and they left the episode in but someone can't be a dark elf in Community.

They also had Kramer making the Native American noises and stomping the Puerto Rican flag. Basically anything racist, they had the racist guy do. And it was okay because he looked like he had mental health issues.

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.

The whole Futurama episode where bender medically transitions to win in the robot Olympics. Huge yikes