Flanderization

Okilly dokilly, neighborino!

Before we get into defining Flanderization, read the example below to get a good idea of its premise.

Guy starts out in his show as a man of many traits: he's good at parties, but really loses his charismatic nature in public spaces. He's also a father of three: two sons, one daughter. He's married an estranged wife who lives all the way in California and only contacts him around the holidays. Even then, the affection between the two is dwindling and can't be rekindled even by the godly force known as Christmas Magic. Guy isn't depressed by this, but the fact that he isn't with his wife (who still hasn't divorced him for some odd reason) gets him so down so quick.

Sounds like a well-rounded, fleshed out TV show character, right? Sure. But a problem Guy struggles with is that he's a character of a TV show that's been going on for almost 20 whole years. There have been a few crew members who've passed away in the recent years, cast members are starting to regret their decision of joining the show and not parting with it once it got old, and the creators can't come up with funny or meaningful material anymore, so they pump out the best they can come up with, which doesn't amount to much. Their audience has also grown up and moved on to things other than Guy's show. But instead of simply Canceling The Whole Thing and letting the show go, the main producer wants to Beat Every Dime Out Of It so the he can earn every single possible cent he can from the show. So what happens to Guy's character who's been through so many episodes and seasons of this show? Since the show's Lost Its Magic and the episodes are Too Boring To Survive, Guy is forced to do nothing but fall back onto his trait of being shy in public. This joke is played constantly until the remaining members of the audience start to hate it for being played so much. Guy's wife isn't mentioned any longer, he doesn't go to parties all that much in new episodes, and when he does, he still shows some bashfulness although it was shown in the early days of the show that Guy was a king of parties. There's only one thing to say now: "Welcome to Flanderization, USA. Population: Diddly."

"Flanderization" is, by definition of Wiktionary, "The act of progressively exaggerating a single trait (or set of traits) of a character until it overtakes all other characterization". If you didn't understand all that, it means you take someone who has a multitude of distinct characteristics and have one or few of those characteristics become all they are over time. Take Guy from earlier. He initially was a Mix who had great depth to his character. But as his show started to age, his personality started to die with it, degrading Guy to a One Note who's not really himself, but almost like an imposter of Guy who makes his audience yearn for the days of the past to have never ended.

The Simpsons
Ned Flanders. Flanderization was named after Ned Flanders!? PREPOSTEROUS !

Barney Gumble. To be fair, Barney was already a bit of a Paper Cut-Out before Flanderization in The Simpsons was initiated by Ned Flanders. But he had this issue fixed in Season 11's "Day of Wine and D'ohses" and, unlike how many Simpsons episodes would end, this stuck for a bit. However, Barney later descended back into alcoholism and reverted back to his old self, most likely because the creators thought if Barney Gumble, Springfield's largest drunk, wasn't, well, drunk, he'd be nothing since that's essentially all he was in the show. There's even an entire episode with Barney drinking all forms of alcohol in Springfield, then Springfield's state, then America. What? Don't act like you wouldn't believe that episode would actually exist.

Moe Szyslak. Moe doesn't suffer from Flanderization as heavily as the two above him on this list, but he's gradually boiled down to barely anything more than a Horn Dog bartender who's at the noose's ready whenever he remembers how hollow his love life is. Now after reading that, you might be saying, "B-but Moe's always been like this, you dumb idiot!" How about when Moe gave Homer advice on how to get Marge to love him more/again in Season 1's "Some Enchanted Evening" instead of trying to steer Homer wrong and take Marge for himself while she was still steamed at her husband? Or when Moe rescued Maggie from almost accidentally falling to her death undefined off a bridge he himself was about to jump off of in Season 14's "Moe Baby Blues" and decided to continue taking care of her? There was a lot more to Moe than a horny server of alcohol back then.

Lisa Simpson. Probably one of the horniest eight-year-oldsundefined in history, Lisa Simpson has also been caught by the clutches of Flanderization. Before, she was a hippie doot-doot girl who'd develop a Sudden Crush for any "dreamboat" boy who passed by and had a typical Brother v Sister Rivalry with Bart. Now she's just a hippie who'd sometimes doot-doot.