i mean i fucking watched the simpsons for years after it became mindbendingly bad (and it was worth it for that one brilliant episode like a decade ago, i will look this up for shame points when people tell me it sucks) and part of it was because of Costanza's NeoGAF.com threads for the FOX lineup where the ten KOTH fans would talk before everyone else rushed in to make fun of the simpsons, before fighting over family guy being good or not and then leaving the same ten or so good people to talk about American Dad being awesome (especially that Christmas Special NOBODY saw coming and the awesome stupid shared moment)
but all of that is totally irrelevant except i just remembered WHY i was watching the simpsons for so long into the century and it was fucking Costanza's fault
Lisa has never been critical or self-reflective in the way Austin is implying, and her "alternativeness" was generally purely for mockery, with her progressiveness serving mostly to lecture Homer or Bart and occasionally Marge depending on how Marge is being written this week...in fact, Lisa being self-reflective about her self, her choices, etc. was so rare i can think of one of the few episodes when she was, where she "connected" (with some considerable effort) with some progressive/alternative types on a vacation only to be of course, crushed, when it was all a phony showmanship contest within that group, and then Bart or Homer or whoever gives her a pick me up speech which was basically "but you're serious about those things and that's what matters" and Lisa is happy again...but episode to episode, let alone season to season, etc. Lisa has only managed to be less "Flanderized" and made into a one or two note character than any other sitcom character because of how self-reflective the writers are about this having been done to her in the past especially when she went vegetarian
