Unintentionally Unsympathetic characters in The Simpsons.
- The trope is parodied In-Universe with The Itchy & Scratchy Show due to the tendency of this trope to happen with chase cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes. In ''Itchy and Scratchy", the supposed Karmic Trickster Itchy is actually a full-blown 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. Lampshaded by Homer:Homer: Which one is the mouse?
Bart: Itchy.
Homer: Itchy's a jerk.- Notably, Bart, Itchy & Scratchy superfan, actually agrees with this.
- Pretty much every member of the Simpson family (except Bart and Maggie) has come across as this at some point or another.
- Lisa comes off like this in some episodes. While it's easy to sympathize with her for feeling like the Only Sane Man among fellow Springfieldians and her Middle Child Syndrome, she can define her father-given name of a "Know-Nothing Know-It-All" when she goes too far. She may be smart, but her application in wisdom definitely grants her an F; some examples include trying to change her town and her family for the better or her believing that being clean of conscience is better than having an easy life, even if it means burning a few bridges along the way — which is not only extremely off-putting for some fans, but ultimately underprepared and ultimately rooted in self-absorbed arrogance when you analyze her reasons and character (pretty often, her decision to expose a hidden truth has the risk of destroying a life — but it isn't something that will destroy her life, so she's dogged to do it without any hesitation, regardless of how many people are literally begging her to stop). And while you can understand why she gets angry at Bart (and other people who insult and denigrate her because she's a "nerd"), some of her retaliations take it too far.
- 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 thirty 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 Treehouse of Horror 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 Not-So-Imaginary Friend who's killing people over her. She's also All Take and No Give — 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 becomes a self-righteous witch even when she is presented as a put-upon mother dealing with two bickering children and an idiotic husband (as seen in "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious"). This has gotten to the point later episodes portray her as 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 "it is morally unwholesome" card is portrayed, at best, as being Right for the Wrong Reasons).
- The show's first three seasons often had Marge wrecking Homer's own chances of success by meddling with her supposed "moral superiority", most notably in "Bart Gets Hit By A Car", an aspect downplayed by season 4 to avoid having the Simpsons under constant risk of crumbling every week. Much later, in "There's Something About Marrying", this comes into play again as Marge is enthusiastic about same-sex marriage being legalized in Springfield... until she learns that Patty is a lesbian and wants to marry, something she takes offense at, leading Patty to chew her moral posturing out.
- As part of The Unfair Sex, both Homer and Marge have had multiple episodes where they meet people who they are attracted to or who are attracted to them, and the question is raised if they would have an affair. With Homer, it's usually shown that he's either oblivious to the other party's feelings or is horrified and ashamed of his own; Marge, however, often reciprocates the other's feelings and will consider cheating, but a Deus ex Machina or last-minute change of heart stops her. Overall, it's apparent that Homer is completely loyal to Marge and would never cheat on her no matter how tempted he might be, but Marge shows nowhere near the same loyalty and it's easy to think she would cheat if the right circumstances came up.
- In many episodes, Marge feels unappreciated even what she does is completely half-assed. In "Sleeping with the Enemy" she not only embarrasses Bart with a hastily-made surprise party for his earning an "A" and asks Lisa to eat the cake she baked for Bart, ignoring that Lisa was worried about growing fat but also takes Nelson in, even if he openly bullies Bart, just because he thanked her for giving him the lunch Lisa rejected.
- In "Homer's Night Out," Bart secretly takes a photo of Homer dancing with a stripper at a work party. Marge finds it and is utterly pissed and throws Homer out the house. When he begs for her forgiveness, she claims that she's upset at him not for dancing with a stripper, but for letting Bart think it's okay to treat women like objects. However: 1. Marge was mad at Homer before knowing Bart was the photographer; claiming Homer set a bad example felt like an excuse to guilt-trip him when her real issue was jealousy. 2. Homer had no idea Bart was there in the first place, and Marge wasn't mad at Bart for sneaking into an adult party and taking a photo of people in a compromised position without their consent. 3. At no point was the girl disrespected. She was hired to perform, and nobody—including Homer—ever touched her or verbally demeaned her in any way. If anything, Homer's conduct at the party was exactly how one should treat exotic dancers.
- In "The Last Traction Hero", we are supposed to feel sorry for Marge while overlooking her hypocrisy. Homer can't be friends with a woman he has zero feelings for, but it's okay for Marge to form a romantic emotional attachment to Smithers as long as she takes her sexual frustration on Homer.
- In "Regarding Margie" she gets Easy Amnesia and the only thing she doesn't recall within five minutes of getting her amnesia diagnosis is 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, having three kids completely killed the romance for him), makes zero attempt to try to recall Homer on her own (Homer has to chase her constantly throughout the whole episode, to no avail — it's only a Deus ex Machina that brings her memory back), and her politeness towards him just comes across as Condescending Compassion 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 "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 "$pringfield (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)", everybody else in the meeting, including other Moral Guardians-types like the Lovejoys, instantly turns towards Marge expecting her to be the only one against it, and on "At Long Last Leave" her nagging (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 Soapbox Sadie antics have caused a lot of grief).
- "Break My Wife, Please" has her presented as being the one who's supposed to be won back over despite the fact that she was the one who ran Homer over. In fact, this episode perfectly demonstrates how easy it is for Marge to get away with her abuse by painting things as Homer's fault. This is despite the fact that Homer took up walking to relieve her of a burden and much of her stress of being the family chauffer wasn't even related to him but with people like Bart and Milhouse having fighting frogs in her car. Regardless, Homer is the one who has to hold a grand BBQ so he could prove he loved Marge despite Marge being the one who broke down saying she hated Homer.
- "The Great Wife Hope" is a perfect example of the "Right for the Wrong Reasons" bullet point. The whole conflict of the episode happens because Marge absolutely detests Mixed Martial Arts and thus gets militant, forming a Moral Guardians group that spends all its time in front of the local arena protesting, with Marge explicitly saying that if 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 who cheats, milks the spectacle of the upcoming (apparent) Curb-Stomp Battle for all it's worth, casually mentions at one point being a domestic abuser, and allows absurd amounts of brutality on the ring For the Evulz (and that nearly knocks out Marge and beats up Bart when he tries to make him stop, causing Marge to get a Heroic Second Wind via Mama Bear 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 "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.
- Lisa comes off like this in some episodes. While it's easy to sympathize with her for feeling like the Only Sane Man among fellow Springfieldians and her Middle Child Syndrome, she can define her father-given name of a "Know-Nothing Know-It-All" when she goes too far. She may be smart, but her application in wisdom definitely grants her an F; some examples include trying to change her town and her family for the better or her believing that being clean of conscience is better than having an easy life, even if it means burning a few bridges along the way — which is not only extremely off-putting for some fans, but ultimately underprepared and ultimately rooted in self-absorbed arrogance when you analyze her reasons and character (pretty often, her decision to expose a hidden truth has the risk of destroying a life — but it isn't something that will destroy her life, so she's dogged to do it without any hesitation, regardless of how many people are literally begging her to stop). And while you can understand why she gets angry at Bart (and other people who insult and denigrate her because she's a "nerd"), some of her retaliations take it too far.
- Frank Grimes from "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 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 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, is sympathetic towards Frank, it's just that 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.
- Mona Simpson, Homer's mother. A sympathetic free spirit who forever is Blaming "The Man" and his system, or a dirty ham-fisted straw 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 Contrived Coincidence that happens throughout the act, it's easy to think that Burns uses that silo pretty often enough for Mona to devise a Plot Tailored to the Party 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 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 "Mother Simpson" as canon.
- Mona is also given the excuse of Good Adultery, Bad Adultery for her cheating on Abe since he cheated on her first. However TheRealJims
point out 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.
- Mona is also given the excuse of Good Adultery, Bad Adultery for her cheating on Abe since he cheated on her first. However TheRealJims
- Homer's half-brother Herb, a wealthy car tycoon, hires Homer in "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 "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 in depth 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 refuses to accept responsibility for his own mistakes, 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 Herb became broke again, this time without anything involving Homer, saw this as Laser-Guided Karma for his unsympathetic act.
- Luanne van Houten following her divorce in "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 the sorriest loser in the entire Simpsons universe... or at least one of the strongest contenders for the title, with the other being Gil), having Luanne declare 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, indeed, 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 American Gladiators 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 No Sympathy for Kirk's life still being a Straw Loser hell as everybody else.
- Manjula. While Apu two-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 needing 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 Running Gag 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 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 Funny Foreigner 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).
- Reverend Lovejoy during "In Marge We Trust". Lovejoy has spent years being jaded and apathetic about his parishioners' requests for help or advice, and when Marge takes a call at his request and shows a basic level of decency, she becomes the go to person for help and advice. Lovejoy then spends a good part of the episode depressed and we're supposed to feel sorry for him, but ultimately he brought it upon himself. He also guilts Marge into helping at the church when she gives valuable feedback about how he isn't doing enough with his sermons or as a minister (though that was more a dare that backfired on him).
- 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 Straw Loser, making his misery more depressing than funny. Plus he's shown to be a moocher at times. And in "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 Suck E. Cheese's 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 Straw Loser in the work place would be well-deserved karma. “Still think drugs are cool?”
