I don’t mean that the joke just isn’t funny, I want to know a joke that almost makes you want to fast-forward through the scene.
Same with Futurama. Kif repeatedly reacting disgusted at Zapp’s more homoerotic antics or singing a pro-trans song, do not seem to sit right when watched with a modern eye.
I never saw those moments as Kif being homophobic. I read it as a subordinate being repulsed by the idea of seeing his commanding officer naked.
I only remember one instance of Kif being homophobic, when Zapp says Lee Lemon is filling him with “other emotions that are weird and confusing.” Not wanting to constantly see your commanding officer naked isn’t homophobia.
And his annoyance when Zapp sang a name-swapped version of Lola was about how Zapp is acting toward Leela by doing that rather than the subject matter of the original song. Zapp even replaced the trans subject with a cis one, what could a transphobe even be objecting to?
Here’s the Lee Lemon clip:
No one is naked. Kiff is reacting to the statement itself. The nudity comes later and isn’t reacted to.
Here’s the Lola clip:
Note that before Zapp even mentions Leela’s name, the patrons are already sickened by him singing it. Kiff doesn’t react here, so I might have confused a memory, but still, that’s quite a reaction by the audience, no?
I was giving the Lee Lemon thing as an example where I agree Kif’s reaction was homophobic, saying it was the only such example I could think of.
The patrons are responding to the way he’s performing. Zapp is broadly a parody of Captain Kirk and this scene was a reference to William Shatner’s infamous spoken word cover of Rocketman, at least until Zapp fully broke down and started wailing the name of the woman who hates him. The only reason the song is Lola is because that’s a famous song you can easily swap Leela’s name into.
I swear I remember a Kif reaction, too, by the way.
