“By their own follies they perished, the fools.”
~ Homer, The
Odyssey
“Operator! Give me the number for 911!”
~ Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
I’m far from alone in taking The Simpsons seriously as a
force to be reckoned with in American culture. After 400 original
episodes over 18 full seasons – the longest run by far of any sitcom
in U.S. television history – a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, a
dubbing by Time magazine as the "20th century’s best television
series," and a new, rave-reviewed box-office smash motion picture,
The Simpsons is anything but obscure and avant-garde nowadays.
It’s downright mainstream.
College courses are taught about The Simpsons. Modern philosophers
have waxed existential about what the fictional family means for humanity.
Social and political pundits have opined about the series’ relevance
and impact on American culture for years. Even our language has been
forever changed by that dysfunctional Every-family from Springfield,
U.S.A. – in 2001, the Oxford English Dictionary added Homer’s
trademark exclamation “D’oh!” to its comprehensive catalog
of the lingo…
In fact, so many articles – more than 300, as an educated guess
– have been written about The Simpsons since their first TV
appearance more than 20 years ago (as a comedic sketch on The Tracey
Ullman Show) that I had trouble coming up with an original title
for this essay. Options I labored to come up with that were already
in print included gems like "Homer’s Odyssey," and "The
Tao of D’oh!" Both have been used, multiple times.
But all this is beside my point. What I want to talk about today
isn’t that The Simpsons has become a staple of American TV
and a permanent fixture of Americana itself – or even whether or not
it’s a good influence on the culture. My goal is to reveal just how
IMPORTANT Homer and company are to America’s freedom.
Yes, that’s right: The Simpsons play a vital role in the
preservation of our liberty.
Homer’s Homer of a Flick
Everyone who’s ever seen The Simpsons on television knows
that – at least on the surface – the show is largely pointless. Like
an animated Seinfeld, the storylines are basically vehicles
for the writers’ creativity and barbed (yet remarkably clean) humor.
It doesn’t aim to be the social conscience of a culture or to reflect
the zeitgeist of an age. Nor does it attempt to preach at us like
some animated after-school special for adults.
Therein lies The Simpsons’ beauty and genius.
Because its fundamental goal is to spread laughs instead of lessons,
the show’s writers are free to skewer everyone and everything in America
without fear of undermining any overarching agenda. And this they
do – gleefully freed from the shackles of political correctness by
their two boorish bards, Bart and Homer Simpson. In fact, The Simpsons
is such an equal-opportunity heckler of the American condition that
it’s really the only thing on the Fox network (or any network) that
truly approaches "fair and balanced."
True, if one looks really hard, the slightest suggestion of a skew
to the political left can be detected in The Simpsons. But
it’s so light-handed as to be almost irrelevant – and it tends to
highlight general issues (chiefly, the environment) more than any
particular political party. In fact, recognizable caricatures of politicians
from both sides of the aisle get roasted regularly on The Simpsons.
In my opinion, the fact that there are no sacred cows in Springfield
is one of the reasons why the show is still running strong after 18
seasons. What’s lampooned mercilessly in one episode (like organized
religion) might be glorified in the next. In simplest terms, The
Simpsons is like that box of chocolates in Forrest
Gump. You really never know what you’re going to get in the
way of satire. And as you’ll see in a minute, this is integral to
the show’s relevance as a beacon of freedom…
However, even more important than this satirical even-handedness
is that year in and year out, the show’s primary gag-fodder isn’t
political movements, pop-culture icons, or high-profile figures in
the news or current events (though all of these make occasional cameo
appearances) – but rather, the media, big business and government.
And specifically, the hypocrisy and corruption rampant in these institutions.
I was afraid that, in the movie version of The Simpsons, these
elements would be diluted or tempered in pursuit of the wide-reaching
mega-appeal summer blockbusters strive for. I needn’t have worried.
This dissenting spirit is not only alive and well on the big screen,
but applied with such alternately brutish and near-subliminal expertise
that, in my humble opinion, The Simpsons Movie sets a new American
cinematic benchmark (not to mention sounds a new wake-up call) for
the criticism of government, Big Business and the major media in this
country…
But especially the government.
In fact, the entire premise of the movie casts government as the
antagonist. Basically, the plotline is that after the town lake becomes
hopelessly contaminated with all sorts of pollutants (Homer himself
administering the toxic coup de grâce), the Environmental Protection
Agency seizes control of Springfield. In short order, the entire town
is wiped off maps and GPS grids by the government, then sealed under
an impregnable glass dome and left to implode into an anarchic, might-makes-right
state that’s like something out of Lord
of the Flies or Hobbes’ Leviathan.
When this plan fails, the EPA chief decides to nuke the city inside
the dome – then convert its vast annihilation crater into a "new
grand canyon" tourist attraction. The Simpson family, having
escaped the dome through a sinkhole in their backyard, first flees
to Alaska, then return to save their hometown and foil the Feds…
Of course, The Simpsons Movie is farfetched and nonsensical.
But it’s also brilliantly crystalline in its illustration of the very
essence of government – how it does exactly the wrong things, for
the wrong reasons (like their own enrichment and expansion), while
selling it to the public under the auspices of acting in their interests.
It’s simultaneously stupid slapstick camp and quasi-polemical high
art. And it’s hilariously funny, especially if you’re alert. An unbelievable
amount of stuff is happening in the margins of the screen or in the
background of scenes here that’s pure comedic gold. If you take a
bathroom break from this 87-minute film, you’ll miss five good chuckles
at least…
Among the funniest highlights in The Simpsons Movie that poke
a hot stick in the eye of government are:
-
When EPA Chief Cargill – a business wizard who was appointed
to bring his PR savvy to the largely invisible agency – presents
President Schwarzenegger (they never show his face, but he’s remarkably
similar in voice and background to a certain West Coast governor)
with dossiers outlining five options for dealing with the environmental
crisis in Springfield, he chooses one at random, offering the
heavily-accented justification "I was elected to lead, not
to read."
-
Later in the movie, the same scenario plays out in the Oval Office
after the containment dome plan begins to show weaknesses that
could backfire, hurting the EPA’s image. Villain Cargill again
presents the President with five options – but hints and prods
and coaches him until he picks Option 4, which calls for the nuclear
annihilation of Springfield. At other points in the film, we discover
that Cargill’s conglomerate had a hand in making not only the
bomb, but also the dome that originally sealed off the town.
-
Not exactly a MENSA candidate himself, Homer outwits a jack-booted
military guard (and breeches the dome to rescue the town) by appearing
out of the bushes dressed in a gold-piped, epaulette-equipped
hotel doorman’s outfit. Consulting the uniform’s nametag, he pretends
to be General "Marriot Suites" and orders the guard
away with an official-looking letter – written on a leaf!
-
In an attempt to win public support for the creation of a "new
Grand Canyon" where Springfield used to be, the Feds enlist
the aid of über-popular Tom Hanks to appear in a public service
announcement, in which he says: "Hello, I'm Tom Hanks. The
U.S. Government has lost its credibility, so it’s borrowing some
of mine…" And later, "Because if you have to trust a
government, why not this one?"
-
When Cargill calls in the troops to protect Springfield from
Homer’s attempt to rescue both his family (whom the EPA has taken
prisoner) and the town, one of his minions calls him on the carpet
– accusing the bureaucrat of having let power go to his head.
Cargill answers: "Of course I've gone mad with power! Have
you ever tried going mad without power? It's boring and no one
listens to you!"
-
Having fled Springfield as wanted fugitives, the Simpson family
takes refuge in Alaska. But after seeing the Tom Hanks commercial
about the "new Grand Canyon" coming soon to where Springfield
is on the map, Marge realizes that the EPA plans to nuke her home.
But Homer refuses to help save the town, so she takes the children
and leaves him, heading back to Springfield with no real plan
except to sound the alarm and do whatever else she can. While
on a train across the tundra, they talk openly, Marge assuring
the kids that they’re far from the prying eyes and ears of government.
Just then, the conductor – who’s actually a surveillance robot
– picks up and starts transmitting their conversation to a vast
installation of the NSA, where hundreds of Federal agents are
eavesdropping on thousands of conversations across the nation.
The pointy-headed geek who hears them jumps up and gleefully screams
to the whole cavernous room: "The government finally found
someone we were looking for!"
These are just a few from many of the comedic barbs The Simpsons
Movie hurls at our government. And it would take multiple essays
to catalog even the most obvious shots the film takes at the media,
popular culture and big business. If you see the film (and you should),
keep an eye out for Bart’s almost under-the-radar swipe at Disney.
It’s priceless!
But I digress. Again. I’m here to talk about why The Simpsons is
important to America, and why – even if you can’t stand them – you
should cheer their very existence…
The (Free) World According to Bart
As I alluded to earlier, it’s my opinion that what The Simpsons does
better than any other television show, radio gripe-fest, blog or anything
else on the scene today is reveal the hypocrisy in a lot of establishment
institutions. This is a very necessary thing for the care and feeding
of a proper democracy – in America and elsewhere in the free world.
But what’s really scary these days is the fact that so much of this
type of healthy dissent gets quashed – by the media’s political correctness,
the increasing hyper-sensitivity of a litigation-happy victim state,
or by the bullying (or outright mandate) of government and the courts.
This should make us all a bit leery. When the most biting, accurate
and poignant kinds of dissent in our society have to be delivered
with animated pratfalls, quips and pranks in order to be palatable
to the masses and those who rule them, something’s wrong…
Then again, perhaps I’m being too dramatic here. It could be that
the lightest form of comedy – not the earnest, dire commentary of
somber-faced, over-educated talking heads – really is the best vehicle
for simplifying and exposing the root of institutional hypocrisies.
Perhaps the ambiguity of the inane and farcical creates the perfect
receptive condition in the mind for the realization of just how screwed
we really are by those whom we’re trusting to look after our interests
on a larger scale.
But regardless of WHY The Simpsons are able to speak truth
to power whilst so many others are muzzled, one thing’s clear: Biased,
culturally destructive or not, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and
their friends reflect more accurately than anything else in mainstream
culture the things Americans from all points on the political spectrum
should have in common: A healthy, objective, and constant skepticism
of not only our government, but the other institutions that rule over
or influence us by virtue of their position, doctrine, proximity,
wealth, mythology, dogma or technology…
That’s what I mean when I say The Simpsons can save America.
If only we will let them.
