Talk:King of the Hill

I've only been watching KOTH seriously since the reruns started on Adult Swim. I guess that makes me "new" in a way (had watched it occasionally in the past) but it seems there is a pro-conservative bias on the show. Do the comments about Family Guy's rudeness and liberalism apply to King of the Hill as well? danq 21:52, 26 February 2009 (EST)

Yeah well, you can make that case with any show regarding families. The episode I saw had Hank's wife trying to make him were patch of hormones on his testicals . Family friendly? no way. Acceptable behavoirs and pro-conservative? I don't think it is either. If it were any better than Family Guy, it shouldn't be rated the same. --jpatt 22:36, 26 February 2009 (EST)

I've been watching KOTH a bit longer, and I can attest that it is indeed family friendly and conservative in nature. It takes stances for traditional family values and gender roles, a conservative stance on abortion, tackles issues with teen drug use and violence, exemplifies national pride, and takes the conservative side on almost every issue it comes across (I am hard pressed to think of any issues it takes a liberal stance on). You cannot use it's rating as an indicator of possible liberal content. I can point out that Passion of the Christ was rated "R", does that mean it's full of liberal messages too? Such ratings are given by activities done in the show, not stances taken on issues. The reason it has the rating it has is because it occasionally (and I do mean occasionally) has light profanity, contains alcohol use (Hank and his friends drinking beer in the alley), and sometimes deals with issues that young children might not understand. None of these make it a liberal show. --ShawnJ 23:34, 26 February 2009 (EST)

Conservative? maybe conservative stereotyping. It is adult oriented but the content is acceptable conservative values? Hillbilly laughs and moron story lines, great conservatism on display. The R-Rated Passion is no comparison regarding conservative values. Why this page even exists, it is not encyclopedic. --jpatt 00:01, 27 February 2009 (EST)

Let me add this liberal equation. rated top 100 all time shows by none other than Time magazine. [1] We all know how much they love conservatives.--jpatt 00:04, 27 February 2009 (EST)

Firstly, my R-rated Passion comparison was to illustrate that parental ratings by no means indicate political leaning. Just because it has the same rating as Family Guy does not mean it espouses the same values. Of course it's a stereotype, animated shows rely on stereotyping. It does have a few "hillbilly laughs", but has far more laughs at the expense of liberals. Yes it's adult oriented, most conservative issues are adult in nature too. It also features a message of strong family values. It does simplify issues, but it's a 30 min cartoon. I agree this page needs a lot more content to be encyclopedic, but I don't think it needs to be deleted, just expanded. Oh, and your Time list also features such shows as "I Love Lucy", "Leave it to Beaver", "Mary Tyler Moore Show", "The Honeymooners" and a list of other shows that are conservative in nature [2] I'm not gonna argue that it's "family-friendly", but it's nowhere near as bad as Family Guy (which didn't make that Top 100 list, by the way), and there are plenty of conservative shows I wouldn't want my children to watch. --ShawnJ 01:07, 27 February 2009 (EST)

The discussion about rating is a diversion from the main issues, it seems, although its rating is relevant to its family-friendliness. I took Jpatt's reference to rating to reflect on its family-friendliness, not it's liberal/conservative content.

However, being rated the same as another show doesn't meant that it's as bad. Suppose we could rate shows as a percentage of how bad they were (from a family-friendliness point of view), from 0% (the best possible show) to 100% (the worst possible show). Because I'm an Aussie and am not familiar with American rankings, suppose further than rankings were G (general audience), PG (parental guidance), A (Adult content), and R (Restricted). These might be divided up evenly over that 100%, so that shows that rated 0% to 25% were G, 26% to 50% were PG, and so on. Therefore two shows being rated at 51% and 74% respectively would both be ranked A, yet the one at 51% is not as bad as the one rated at 74%.

Not everybody falls neatly into a "liberal"/"Conservative" classification, and this is specially true of fictional people, such as in cartoons. So someone could be portrayed as very liberal in some ways, and very conservative in other ways, defying attempts to classify them. And how you do classify them will depend on what criteria you are applying. Then, as Jpatt mentioned, there is the matter of stereotyping, in which someone might be portrayed as, say, conservative, but in a way that makes conservatives look bad.

Just stick to the facts (and being family-unfriendly may be a fact), and don't try and pigeon-hole them if they don't neatly fit into one category or the other. And although I'd agree with Jpatt that concentrating on a bloke's testicles would not be family friendly, watching one episode (Jpatt) or a few (ShawnJ and possibly me, I don't recall) does not make us experts on the show.

Philip J. Rayment 16:57, 27 February 2009 (EST)

Ok, so I watched a few more shows. Basically, I may have stepped out of line. It is generally harmless humor except for some exceptions like cussing. --jpatt 01:05, 4 March 2009 (EST)

I have to admit I was dead wrong about this cartoon. I have now watched over 100 episodes and Christ really is a prominent theme.--Jpatt 23:21, 27 October 2010 (EDT)