History UnintentionallyUnsympathetic / TheSimpsons

** And then "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS14E6TheGreatLouseDetective The Great Louse Detective]]" revealed a possible explanation why he's always struggling to make ends meet: Frank routinely engages with sex workers and got at least one of them pregnant. His near-PerpetualPoverty is likely from either paying child support, continuing to pay for sex or both. Kind of hard to pity a man whose screw-ups were self-inflicted. What's more, contrast Frank with Homer, who did the honorable thing when he found out he'd impregnated Marge and does a job he hates to provide for his third child (and the second unplanned one).

* Frank Grimes from "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E23HomersEnemy Homer's Enemy]]" [[{{Deconstruction}} was supposed to be what happens when a normal person exists in the]] ''[[{{Deconstruction}} Simpsons]]'' [[{{Deconstruction}} universe]], but as his episode played out, Frank was far from normal. Not only did Frank go out in a jealous rage in front of Homer and his family even though he tries to reconcile with him, he was also portrayed as a pompous, selfish, self-pitying, and uptight jerk that expected everything to fall into his lap, and was a pathetic dreg of a person who refused to stand up for himself and instead played by the rules, when all throughout his life, said rules screwed him over. Furthermore, Frank is far from a "real" person in that [[DeusAngstMachina his life is just exaggerated misery after misery]], such as his parents abandoning him and waving goodbye all the way to losing a sweet position in the power plant to a ''dog''. And Homer's [[JerkassBall annoying tendencies]] and [[IdiotBall]] stupidity were cranked up well past their usual levels, as if the writers were specifically trying to make Homer so obnoxious the viewers would have no choice but to sympathize with Frank (and even then Homer, like almost every other character except Mr. Burns, [[PetTheDog is sympathetic towards Frank]], it's just that [[ComicallyMissingThePoint his frustration towards Homer goes over their heads]]). But it's hard to feel sympathy when Frank is overly wound up already. Also, despite Homer's increased stupidity and obnoxious behavior, he was the only one who cared about Frank's well-being.

* The trope is [[ParodiedTrope parodied]] InUniverse with ''JustForFun/TheItchyAndScratchyShow'' due to the tendency of this trope to happen with [[RoadRunnerVsCoyote chase cartoons]] such as ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' and ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes''. In ''Itchy and Scratchy", the supposed KarmicTrickster Itchy is actually a full-blown [[TheSociopath psychotic]] killer who kills any other non-mouse animal without anything resembling provocation or a motive, yet the cartoon treats Itchy like he's supposed to be rooted for. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Homer:

* Pretty much every member of the Simpsons family (except Bart and Maggie) has come across as this at some point or another.

*** As of some other episodes, despite supposedly trying to make the world a better place, she shows a complete lack of care towards anyone else. She overlooked Sideshow Bob's crimes as he only tried to kill Bart (which isn't true), merely handwaved over 30 people dying in a crash caused by her website, let Sherri/Terri drown in a botched magic trick despite supervising the stage show and in the ''WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror'' segment "BFF R.I.P.", her biggest takeaway from Janey's horrific demise was that it'd make for a great college essay, later asking why nobody real likes her as much as a {{Yandere}} NotSoImaginaryFriend who's killing people over her. She's also AllTakeAndNoGive - the three kids mentioned before have supported her at times, yet she has never done anything for the other female members of the family and it seems like she doesn't value any of their lives at all outside of what they can do for her.
** Along the same lines, Marge often [[TookALevelInJerkass becomes a]] [[ItsAllAboutMe self-righteous jackass]] even when she is presented as a put-upon mother dealing with two bickering children and an idiotic husband (as seen in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E13SimpsoncalifragilisticexpialaAnnoyedGruntcious Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious]]"). This has gotten to the point [[{{Flanderization}} later episodes]] portray her as [[FanHater a belligerent nag]] who actively seeks to destroy anything the rest of Springfield (''especially'' her family) find fun, simply because she can't find it fun herself (the fact that she likes to pull the "[[MoralGuardians it is morally unwholesome]]" card is portrayed, at best, as being RightForTheWrongReasons).

*** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS17E20RegardingMargie Regarding Margie]]" she gets EasyAmnesia and the only thing she doesn't recall within five minutes of being diagnosed as an amnesiac is the fact that she was even married to (let alone ''loves'') Homer. She kicks him out of the house that they have lived in together for many years, gleefully accepts Patty and Selma's offer to meet other men (and would have been perfectly content to run away with the man she met if not for the fact that, yeah, [[ChildHater having three kids completely killed the romance for him]]), makes '''zero''' attempt to try to recall Homer on her own (Homer has to constantly chase her throughout the whole episode, to no avail -- it's only a DeusExMachina that brings her memory back), and her politeness towards him just comes across as CondescendingCompassion in light of the circumstances.
*** Her nagging has reached such levels that it's become one of the things pointed out about her most often, in one way or another. The conflict of most of "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E7BartsInnerChild Bart's Inner Child]]" occurs because Homer points out to Marge that she is nothing but a killjoy. When it is suggested that Springfield could get a loosening of gambling laws and have a casino built to obtain more money in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E10Springfield Springfield]]", ''everybody else in the meeting'', including other MoralGuardians-types like the Lovejoys, instantly turns towards Marge expecting her to be the only one against it, and on "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS23E14AtLongLastLeave At Long Last Leave]]" her nagging ([[DoubleStandard and white knighting her family]]) is explicitly pointed out as a reason the rest of town wants her gone (Bart and Homer are just plain destructive, Maggie is creepy, and Lisa's SoapboxSadie antics have caused a lot of grief).
*** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS21E3TheGreatWifeHope The Great Wife Hope]]" is a perfect example of the "RightForTheWrongReasons" bullet point. The whole conflict of the episode happens because Marge absolutely detests Mixed Martial Arts and thus gets militant, forming a MoralGuardians group that spends all of its time in front of the local arena protesting, with Marge '''explicitly saying''' that if ''[[FanHater she]]'' hates this then ''nobody'' should be able to see it, and eventually she accepts a challenge from the MMA tournament's chairman that if she manages to beat him in a fight, the man will shut the whole thing down. And then it turns out that the chairman is a colossal asshole that cheats, milks the spectacle of the upcoming (apparent) CurbStompBattle for all its worth, casually mentions at one point to be a {{domestic abuse}}r and also allows absurd amounts of brutality on the ring ForTheEvulz (and that [[WouldHitAGirl nearly knocks out]] Marge ''and'' [[WouldHurtAChild beats up Bart]] when he tries to make him stop, causing Marge to get a HeroicSecondWind via MamaBear rage and defeat him... after which she jumps on the soapbox again to continue to decry the sport, only to find out everybody left to see some drunken brawl on the parking lot).
** Many of the recent episodes that focus on Homer and Bart’s antagonistic relationship try to present Homer in a sympathetic light. The problem with this is that throughout the show it is repeatedly shown that their antagonism is the result of Homer’s abuse and neglect so it’s kind of hard to feel sorry for him. For example in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS28E8DadBehavior Dad Behavior]]", Homer hires a handyman to take over father-son catch duties with Bart only to become jealous and start hanging out with Milhouse. The problem with this is that Bart generally did want to hang out with Homer, he only had a great time with Matt the handyman until he found out that everything was all part of a business transaction and tries to hang out with Homer again only to be rebuffed. Homer claims that he likes hanging out with Milhouse because he’s hurt over the fact that Bart keeps calling him by his name instead of dad. But for someone who repeatedly tells his son he’s an unloved accident, pawns him off on someone else at the quickest opportunity only to get jealous at seeing how happy his son is and start hanging out with another child as some kind of childish revenge just makes Homer come across as a petty jerkass.
* Frank Grimes from "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E23HomersEnemy Homer's Enemy]]" [[{{Deconstruction was supposed to be what happens when a normal person exists in the Simpsons universe]], but as his episode played out, Frank was far from normal. Not only did Frank go out in a jealous rage in front of Homer and his family even though he tries to reconcile with him, he was also portrayed as a pompous, selfish, self-pitying, and uptight jerk that expected everything to fall into his lap, and was a pathetic dreg of a person who refused to stand up for himself and instead played by the rules, when all throughout his life, said rules screwed him over. Furthermore, Frank is far from a "real" person in that [[DeusAngstMachina his life is just exaggerated misery after misery]], such as his parents abandoning him and waving goodbye all the way to losing a sweet position in the power plant to a ''dog''. [[{{Flanderization}} And Homer's annoying tendencies and stupidity were amped up a lot more than he usually was]] as if the writers were specifically trying to make Homer so obnoxious the viewers would have no choice but to sympathize with Frank (and even then Homer, and almost every other character except Mr Burns [[PetTheDog is sympathetic towards Frank]], [[ComicallyMissingThePoint just his frustration towards Homer goes over their heads]]). But it's hard to feel sympathy when Frank is overly wound up already. Also, despite Homer's increased stupidity and obnoxious behavior, he was the only one who cared about Frank's well-being.
** And then "[[YMMV/TheSimpsonsS14E6TheGreatLouseDetective The Great Louse Detective]]" revealed a possible explanation why he's always struggling to make ends meet: Frank routinely engages with sex-workers and got at least one of them pregnant. His near-poverty is likely from either paying child support, continuing to pay for sex or both. Kind of hard to pity a man whose screw-ups were self-inflicted. What's more, contrast Frank with Homer, who did the honorable thing when he found out he'd impregnated Marge and does a job he hates to provide for his third unplanned child.
* Mona Simpson, a.k.a. Homer's mother. A sympathetic free spirit who forever is BlamingTheMan and his system, or a dirty hamfisted straw [[GranolaGirl hippie granny]] who shamelessly stars in any contrived "save the environment from Mr. Burns" scenario? We're supposed to feel sorry for her because one act of decency made her have to give up her life because Mr. Burns saw her face, but she did commit a lot of crimes in stopping his germ warfare lab regardless of her intentions, cheated on Abe several times (although he did the same to her and she only did it after he started it) and abandoned Homer, every and any time she comes back into his life. Further nailing the coffin, the last time she abandons him again, Mona finally dies, and uses her last will and testament to manipulate Homer into sabotaging a nuclear silo launch with her ashes (and considering the high amount of ContrivedCoincidence that happens throughout the act, it's easy to think that Burns uses that silo pretty often enough for Mona to devise a PlotTailoredToTheParty plan and have either wanted to swindle Homer into helping her (but death prevented her from doing so, so the will was Plan B) or ''[[MyDeathIsJustTheBeginning she actually always factored her death into the plan and have killed herself to make it happen]]''). There's a reason in there why a majority do not consider anything depicting her post "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E8MotherSimpson Mother Simpson]]" as canon.
** Mona is also given the excuse of GoodAdulteryBadAdultery for her cheating on Abe since he cheated on her first. However it is pointed out by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGdN6uQfjN4 TheRealJims]] that Abe never actually cheated on her. Herb was conceived before Mona and Abe were together proper, when he was still courting her. While she slept with the lifeguard around the time Homer was conceived, Abe also felt the need to spice up his marriage around this time. It’s pretty unfair for Mona to be so disappointed in Abe for having a child out of wedlock, when she herself had cheated on her marriage at this point.
* Homer's half-brother Herb, a wealthy car tycoon, hires Homer in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS2E15OhBrotherWhereArtThou Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?]]" to design a car that will save Powell Motors. The resulting car is such a disaster that it destroys Powell Motors overnight, and Herb blames Homer for the failure. This is continued in Herb's return in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E24BrotherCanYouSpareTwoDimes Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?]]" where we're expected to sympathize with Herb, who Homer supposedly owes a chance to rebuild his fortune. Unfortunately, the first episode clearly indicated that Powell Motors was in serious trouble long before Homer came along, Herb repeatedly blew off his engineers' warnings that Homer's ideas were unworkable, Herb never did his job as CEO in supervising the project that would make or break his company, and Homer himself wasn't sure he would be able to do it, until Herb, rather than planning or going indepth with his half brother's ideas, instead badgered him into doing it. Homer only ever did anything Herb asked him to. As a result, Herb blaming Homer for Powell Motors' downfall makes him look like a self-centered {{Jerkass}} who [[NeverMyFault refuses to accept responsibility for his own incompetence]], and makes it questionable as to whether he even ''deserves'' a chance to rebuild his fortune. Possibly admitted in a later gag, where it's suggested Herb has made a habit out of losing and regaining his fortune, seemingly without Homer's involvement. Those who still hated him because of this and that heard years later that [[spoiler:Herb became broke again, this time without anything involving Homer, saw this as LaserGuidedKarma for his unsympathetic act.]]
* Luanne van Houten following her divorce in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E6AMilhouseDivided A Milhouse Divided]]". The writers felt the need to make her ex-husband Kirk into as much of a deadbeat dad as they possibly could (which in their case meant making him [[StrawLoser the sorriest loser in the entire "Simpsons" universe]]... or one of the strongest contenders for the title, with the other being Gil), having Luanne espouse he was no good while going off to live a new and exciting life without him weighing her down. This is all despite the events which led to their divorce including that they were mutually unhappy with each other for a variety of reasons. So rather than making it look like Luanne is an unhappy woman reinventing herself from a failed marriage, she comes across as a callous and selfish bitch unwilling to admit she had an equal (or, hell, ''[[TheUnfairSex any]]'') role to play in the dismal quality of her marriage and content to dump the blame all on Kirk (and set his stuff on fire, and demand alimony when she's very clearly the one with all the money, and dating a muscle-bound star from an ''Series/AmericanGladiators'' {{Expy}} (and ''two-timing him'' with a co-worker from the same show), and hates Milhouse so much that she actually had a custody battle to dump him on Kirk but later tried to deny shared custody because she was trying to move away and doing it was giving the dog an extra kick...) In addition to all that, later episodes revealed that even before the divorce, she was already cheating on Kirk and even if they love each other she's as perfectly okay with having NoSympathy for Kirk's life still being a StrawLoser hell as everybody else.
* Manjula. While Apu double-timing her with the woman who delivered the Squishee mix to the Kwik-E-Mart was a pretty good reason to be upset, episodes before that showcased her as a woman that needed a very severe amount of sacrificing to demonstrate love to and afterwards, after Apu did everything he could for her to forgive him, made a RunningGag of showing her as a ''horrifyingly'' abusive harpy -- up to and including beating the crap out of him on some unknown basis (which in turn [[CerebusRetcon changed the reason]] of Apu's own gag about why he attends the Kwik-E-Mart for seemingly days on end without any break from him being just a workaholic FunnyForeigner to him doing anything in his power to stay well ''the hell'' away from his home and Manjula on a constant basis (as well as needing to pay the octuplets' maintenance) -- this he actually said in one of the Bongo Comics, while firing Bart (who he had hired) because he was being ''too'' good at his job).

* Gil Gunderson could give Hans Moleman and Frank Grimes a run for their money on being the unluckiest character in the show. He's meant to make the audience feel bad for him, but he never develops beyond being a StrawLoser, [[TooBleakStoppedCaring making his misery more depressing than funny.]] Plus he's shown to be a moocher at times. And in [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS18E9KillGilVolumesIAndII Kill Gil, Volumes I & II]], he doesn't even thank the Simpson family for letting him stay as their house for almost a year taking advantage of them and driving Homer and especially Marge crazy. One instance is when he takes a photo of the family and photoshops himself on it to give it out as a Christmas card. Marge calling him out after all this time ends up getting him fired again but it's hard to feel sympathy even after all of that. Then we find out in “Do Pizza Bots Dream Of Electric Guitars” (which has questionable canon) Gil ran a SuckECheeses Restaurant that is actually a front for smuggling cocaine and even after being exposed showed no shame nor guilt for this. In retrospect him constantly being a StrawLoser in the work place would be well deserved karma. “Still think drugs are cool?”

* Frank Grimes from "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E23HomersEnemy Homer's Enemy]]" was supposed to be what happens when a normal person exists in the Simpsons universe, but as his episode played out, Frank was far from normal. Not only did Frank go out in a jealous rage in front of Homer and his family even though he tries to reconcile with him, he was also portrayed as a pompous, selfish, self-pitying, and uptight jerk that expected everything to fall into his lap, and was a pathetic dreg of a person who refused to stand up for himself and instead played by the rules, when all throughout his life, said rules screwed him over. Furthermore, Frank is far from a "real" person in that [[DeusAngstMachina his life is just exaggerated misery after misery]], such as his parents abandoning him and waving goodbye all the way to losing a sweet position in the power plant to a ''dog''. And Homer's annoying tendencies and stupidity were amped up a lot more than he usually was as if the writers were specifically trying to make Homer so obnoxious the viewers would have no choice but to sympathize with Frank (and even then Homer, and almost every other character except Mr Burns [[PetTheDog is sympathetic towards Frank]], [[ComicallyMissingThePoint just his frustration towards Homer goes over their heads]]). But it's hard to feel sympathy when Frank is overly wound up already. Also, despite Homer's increased stupidity and obnoxious behavior, he was the only one who cared about Frank's well-being.

*** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E2YouOnlyMoveTwice You Only Move Twice]]" shows her failing to cope with the fancy new house the family gets to live in when they move to Cypress Creek, as robots do all her standard household chores down to rocking Maggie in her swing. However, her response to all the free time she now has is to sit around bored out of her mind and drink wine, rather than embark on a new hobby (such as taking up painting again), get a job of her own, make new friends, or even just ''watch the tv or read.'' As a solution to Marge and Bart's complaints (he hates being in the remedial class at school) and their desire to go back to Springfield, she could have home-schooled him, giving ''her'' something to do and ''him'' a better learning environment. Instead, all she does is contribute to Homer having to leave a job he loves.

** Many of the recent episodes that focus on Homer and Bart’s antagonistic relationship try to present Homer in a sympathetic light. The problem with this is that throughout the show it is repeatedly shown that their antagonism is the result of Homer’s abuse and neglect so it’s kind of hard to feel sorry for him. For example in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS28E8DadBehavior Dad Behavior]]", Homer hires a handyman to take over father-son catch duties with Bart only to become jealous and start hanging out with Milhouse. The problem with this is that Bart generally did want to hang out with Homer, he only had a great time with Matt the handyman until he found out that everything was all part of a business transaction and tries to hang out with Homer again only to rebuffed. Homer claims that he likes hanging out with Milhouse because he’s hurt over the fact that Bart keeps calling him by his name instead of dad. But for someone who repeatedly tells his son he’s an unloved accident, pawns him off on someone else at the quickest opportunity only to get jealous at seeing how happy his son is and start hanging out with another child as some kind of childish revenge just makes Homer come across as a petty jerkass.

* Pretty much every member of the Simpsons family (except Maggie) has come across as this at some point or another.

* Pretty much every member of the Simpsons family (except Bart and Maggie) has come across as this at some point or another.

* Pretty much every member of the Simpsons family (except Maggie) has come across as this at some point or another.