Much Ado About Nothing copy of the Second Folio. The provocative treatment of gender is central to the play and should be considered in its Renaissance context. While this was reflected and emphasized in certain plays of the period, it was also challenged. Amussen notes that the undoing of traditional gender clichés appears to have inflamed anxieties about the erosion of social order. It seems that comic drama could be a means of calming such anxieties. Ironically, we can see through the play's popularity that this only increased people's interest in such behavior. Benedick wittily gives voice to male anxieties about women's "sharp tongues
Much Apu About Nothing succeeds as a savage satire on the scapegoating of immigrants. Homer has never been so frighteningly dumb, although he does come through with a rousing liberal speech." The episode is "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening's third favorite episode of the show. The episode received a negative review from Dave Foster of DVD Times. He considered "Much Apu About Nothing" to be one of the season's most "tiring" episodes, "mostly because Apu is not a strong enough character to focus an episode on no matter how much writer David Cohen develops him". Foster commented that the episode deals with a political