Homer’s personality allows The Simpsons to have an overall warm and fuzzy tone despite the family dysfunction. © and ™ 2000 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. — All rights reserved/© 2000 Fox Broadcasting Credit: Fox.

This is the button-pushing level at which we want our characters to operate. And to make it really real, not just the others acting on the hero (though yes, I’m also convinced that it’s strictly a one way street, with me no more than a guileless recipient) but the hero and supporting characters caught in the deep web of interactive context.

So the overly confident inflame the anxious who respond with desperate revenge like Woody and Buzz; the overly polite inflame the aggressively needy who then feel compelled to take advantage like Cruella against Anita and Roger, an interaction which then makes it credible for a dog to take over as hero; the overly stupid irritate the intelligent provoking all kinds of inspired nonsense to put them in their place like Bugs and Elmer Fudd or driving them to drink in the face of near total disregard like Peter Griffin and Brian.

Speaking of Peter Griffin and for that matter, Homer Simpson, actually gives us another kind of relationship between character and context. This is where a central driving character (not necessarily the hero) generates context for everyone and everything else around them. Homer and Peter are definitely shaping forces at the hearts of their own series. At first glance, they have a lot in common but their differences are significant enough to change the way their shows are developed. And it’s this attention to the implications of such details that helps give these shows the ring of truth.

Both come from a long tradition of fat, loser sitcom husbands with wives who are prettier and smarter than they deserve, a TV formula that goes back at least to The Honeymooners. This formula, which has produced more unmemorable husbands and families than memorable ones, places us squarely in the realm of clichés — the antithesis of reality and truth — so what, in fact, makes these guys work?

On one level, of course, they work the way all fat loser TV husbands do — as characters who make us feel better about ourselves by being more stupid and fucked up than we are. So you might find that the forgotten loser husbands got that way because they didn’t go far enough. Such characters need to be spectacularly fucked up to make an impression on a jaded audience. And Homer and Peter both fulfill this nicely.

So how do they differ?

What’s notable about Homer, a sitcom husband who set a new standard for stupid, is that we don’t just love to look down on him, we actually love him. This is created by a balancing of negative and positive elements, one that’s not easy to pull off. With a character as extreme as this, get the balance off and you end up with a character no one wants anything to do with.

So what Homer both lovable and real is that, while he is only occasionally brains, he is always big emotion. His love and humility are as supersized and fully felt as his anger, frustration, laziness, etc. The negative emotions are on display more often, of course, because that’s where the entertainment value lies. But we get to see his caring side just often enough to be sure that it’s really there, even when he’s at his worst.

He also has a degree of self-awareness, enough for us to see that he is capable of being ashamed. This critical factor allows us to not give up on him, even with full knowledge that, as heartfelt as his moments of self-reform are, they too will pass. Self-awareness can be the swing factor in creating sympathy, perhaps because only a self-aware person can be truly apologetic.

Yes, he is still a character we sometimes feel superior to and one we probably wouldn’t want to know in real life but apology opens the door to forgiveness and forgiveness to sympathy and sympathy to the possibility of loving someone in spite of their difficult sides. And that takes us into the territory of real world relationships. In effect, we forgive Homer’s trespasses again and again just as his family does. And of course, with sympathy comes empathy, so now we can acknowledge, vicariously indulge and maybe even forgive our own worst nature through Homer’s antics.

So in spite of plentiful mayhem, Homer’s personality allows The Simpsons to have an overall warm and fuzzy tone, which we could summarize as lovable dysfunction. Gee, just like most real families which is why The Simpsons can be so bad and yet be an effective family show — better for kids, certainly, than many family shows which go to extremes of all sweetness and light or the more currently typical all bitterness and dark.

The world of Family Guy is much harsher than The Simpsons, but this, of course, is a show clearly intended for an older audience. Though partly due to the obvious sexual content, Peter Griffin’s impact as the central character is at least as much a factor.

Cruder, meaner, more selfish and altogether more incorrigible, Peter rarely shows his warmer side and when he does it usually comes with a sideswipe. This is a character who elicits a strong response — you either love him strictly for his awful behavior (and what does that say about you, hmm?) or you just plain hate him. This is exactly the approach that would kill The Simpsons, so why does it work here?

It may have to do with there being a more complex way to love such a character. This is where love intersects with wishful thinking, where you love someone more for who you believe them to be than for what they are on the nasty surface. And where you believe that, if only you are patient and good enough yourself, one day they will prove you right.