Looks like Homer is going to continue strangling Bart after all
In the words of The Simpsons co-creator James L. Brooks, Bart will "continue to be loved by his father in a specific way.” So there's that.
Look at the woke mob, using their basic critical thinking skills and powers of perception to make a reasonable inference about a TV show. If only they hadn’t listened to a line from a script that was aired on basic cable, none of this would have happened!
We’re talking, of course, about the highly publicized “reveal” that Homer was done choking Bart on a recent episode of The Simpsons, which was immediately followed by a sort-of retcon from the show’s creators. In a single sketched-out panel, the team implied that viewers had somehow misinterpreted the line that they wrote—specifically Homer saying “I don’t do that anymore… times have changed”—into a click-baity announcement that Homer indeed didn’t do that anymore because times had changed. As if that wasn’t enough of a mess, fans also pointed out that the Simpson family patriarch hadn’t strangled his son for multiple years—specifically since season 31 which aired from 2019-2020—so presuming that the show was committing to change didn’t seem like all that much of a jump.
Not according to Simpsons producer and co-creator James L. Brooks. “Don’t think for a second we’re changing anything,” he told People about the kerfuffle. (Since it’s been so long since Homer strangled Bart, it actually seems like having him pull the move would be changing something, but whatever.)
“Nothing’s getting tamed. Nothing, nothing, nothing,” he continued. “He’ll continue to be strangled—[if] you want to use that awful term for it. He’ll continue to be loved by his father in a specific way.” That’s a lot of words to acknowledge that yes, this bit is indeed portraying a form of domestic abuse, but yes, they’ve decided to just keep airing it anyway. We’re not sure how else you could possibly interpret that, at least.