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 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 boys, one girl. He's married an estranged wife who lives all the way in California and only contacts him around the holidays. Even then, the affection is still dying and isn't being rekindled even by Christmas Black Magic. Guy isn't depressed, but the little thing with his wife (who still hasn't divorced him for some odd reason) just gets him so down so quick.

Sounds like a good character, right? Sure. But the thing with Guy 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 once the show 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 isn't much. Their audience has grown up and moved on to things other than Guy's show. But instead of just Canceling The Whole Thing and letting the show go, the main producer wants to Beat Every Dime Out Of It. 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 people start to hate it being played so much. Guy's wife isn't mentioned any longer, he doesn't go to parties all that much any longer, and when he does, he still shows some bashfulness although it was shown earlier in the show that Guy's 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 with all of these different characteristics and have one or few of those characteristics become all they are. Take Guy from earlier. He initially was a guy (GET IT HAHAHAHAHA) who mattered and had all this interesting depth to his character. But then as his show started to age, his depth started to die with it. After a while, he was flattened into nothing more than a Paper Cut-Out who's not really himself, but almost like an imposter of himself that 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 pretty much all he was. 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, 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 you might be saying, "But Moe's always been like this, you dumb idiot. There's been no difference in his character." Oh, really? 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 have a typical Brother v Sister Rivalry with Bart. Now she's just a hippie who'd sometimes doot-doot.