Like many of you, I suspect, I spent a few hours this weekend at the theaters watching the Simpsons movie. I thought A.O Scott, in his review in the NY Times, got it just about right -- it's not (and not trying to be) some sort of grand Simpsons apotheosis, but rather just a good Simpsons episode, stretched out some. I suppose that means that people who don't like the TV show very much (and I know there are such people out there) won't find the movie terribly interesting, but for those (like me) who do, it's a real treat. PG-13 because, as the official advisory has it, there's "irreverent humor throughout." Damn straight -- the Simpsons is so subversive (and has always been) that we sometimes take it for granted, but we'll miss its attitude when it's gone. Authority is bullshit. You could line up every anarchist and libertarian tract and treatise ever written and they won't, in the aggregate, have a fraction of the impact the Simpsons has had in conveying this important message.
The Simpsons:
David Post FTW!!!1
I also am a big fan of the TV show.
Once some commentator in the press said (in praising The Simpsons) that it was the most politically left-wing prime-time show ever. I remember being quite taken aback because I had never thought of the show as particularly left or right-wing. Of course, it's certainly anti-big business, but it's also anti-big government.
As for The Simpsons being libertarian, how about the "Ayn Rand School for Tots"?
In the episode, there is this bit on self-reliance:
Jim Lindgren
There are thousands of other blogs on the internet where this kind of post and this kind of language are tolerated, even welcome.
By publishing such gratuitous profanity, volokh.com hurts its credibility and appeal for those who are looking to read thoughts more carefully considered and better-expressed than what can be found on those other blogs.
That's because the Simpsons is written by the sane, whereas libertarians are nuts.
It's a post about the freakin' Simpsons for crying out loud! What did you expect? This is clearly an off the cuff topic for those who frequent the blogand and are interested in the show. I'm tempted to go ad hominem but I'll restrain myself; simply put, even lawyers/legal scholars need a break. Can you give us a break?
And why should we listen to you, Mr. Smartypants?
The Simpsons regularly take aim at both the left and right the same way Libertarians do. The Simpons just do it funnier.
But I do agree with the commentary on Fub's link in that a lot of the humor is high brow, elitist, or just targetted to a very specific minority. Did anyone catch the foreign signs when Homer opens the curtains from the red rash inn? The one in Russian said "learn to speak english or leave". I got a laugh out of something a good protion of the theatre couldn't understand. What can I say? The Simpsons make me feel special.
And since when do commenters, on a free web blog no less, get to tell the posters what they should/shouldn't do when it comes to an animated cartoon movie post? Is that guy serious? I have less restraint than the commenter above me, dont mind ad hominem for the sake of ad hominem and not argument, so i have no problem telling Siona to borrow 10 bucks from the nearest person he can find and buy a clue.
As an aside, how bout that shot of bart's "noodle?" Making fun of the NSA surveillance...and fox advertising policy...an inconveient truth...etc...Shocking!!Inappropriate! And totally worth the money.
I agree that The Simpsons Movie was a modest, yet effective and thoroughly enjoyable, effort. It pales in comparison to the genius of the South Park movie, however. The difference is that South Park really had nothing to lose by going big, while the Simpsons couldn't afford to fail and tarnish the years and years spent in building up the comic credibility of the franchise.
the simpsons has, ironically, become a symbol of iconoclasm and i feel like the critics and public alike are giving this movie a free pass because we all love the tv show so much.
even worse was the "play inside a play" element which the creators apparently did not trust the audience to "get." instead we got "how stupid it is to pay for something you get for free on television."
how clever! how self-reflexively clever! get it! he's really talking about the simpsons itself! get it! get it! subtle like a sledgehammer.
Let me get this straight - the screenplays are really good, but when you add drawings then it becomes not visually interesting enough to hold your interest?
Although I agree with much of your post, I must say that I find the Simpsons to be more "moderate" but slightly left, rather than the neither and both that you describe. It is certainly not hard-left, but neither is it completely unbiased or equally making fun of everyone.
If it was capable of making fun of all political angles, then why has it never really taken a good stab at Lisa Simpson's left environmentalist and PC crusades? Why is she always the hero? She occasionally learns a lesson, but she is never mocked the way that Homer is mocked.
The lesson there is that Mr. Average American is a (somewhat lovable) dope. His Christian neighbor is a freaky dope. And urban-minded youth are twice as smart at seven than either of them (as are black Jazz singers and other good guys), and are the only ones capable of saving poor rural and suburban America.
Consider the way that South Park makes fun of PC thinking. Compare. And, for the record, I would say that South Park (and especially my favorite Team America: World Police) is right of center (not "unbiased" and "making fun of all equally").
Very true. The South Park movie is a landmark in cinema, and will be recognized as such decades from now. You heard it here.
Lisa is constantly mocked for her beliefs. When she is not being mocked, she is ignored. Homer is made fun of because he is a lovable idiot. It is not becuase it has some left wing bias. What show do you watch?
This just goes to show that familiar intellecual trait that when you really enjoy something, you can see the message you want to see. Anybody that tries to look this "deeply" into the Simpsons movie is simply deluding themselves.
The same goes for the previous discussions here on Harry Potter.
I agree with PS, and I would add that I disagree with your characterization of South Park. I'm not necessarily saying that Matt and Trey don't make a point of skewering PC and Hollywood liberal types. I just think the genius of South Park (and, moreover, the Simpsons) is that it validates the view of anyone who watches it by allowing them to laugh. You see South Park as a right wing show because you get so angry at political correctness and haughty Hollywood, and the South Park guys verbalize it in a way with which you identify. Someone else might watch the lampooning of faith-based gay camps (Butters' Bi-Curious episode) and feel an attachment to Matt and Trey taking on the evangelical right.
The Simpsons has this genius as well. It's easier for people to see in the Simpsons sometimes because some people can't get past the vulgarity of South Park, and the utter depravity of its most central (and brilliant) character, Eric Cartman.
The real genius of both shows is not only in providing the message "authority is bullshit", but by framing it in a way such that different viewers are provided with different targets for that message. Perhaps, the real joke is on us--we're so busy laughing at the jokes that validate our world view that we don't stop to consider how that makes us insulated, stubborn, partisan, judgmental...all the aspects Groening, Parker, and Stone were making fun of in the first place. In making us laugh, they're pointing out the Quimby/Burns/Sheila Broflovski in all of us.
Thanks for the kudos, and I want to point out that there is absolutely no Chicken-F*&(er in me!
I found that this latest season of South Park has been taking on the right in a greater proportion than past seasons. My favorite episode is the apolitical - Warcraft episode. That is brilliant.
Actually, if you read Groening's old Life In Hell comics it's pretty damn clear where his sympathies lie. 'course, his influence on the show has waned over time -- he couldn't identify one of the more famous lines in a radio interview -- so it's unclear how much of that affects the Simpsons of today.
It's true, I think, that the Simpsons supports some version of a spiritual life, but it constantly mocks all organized religions.
In almost every episode, at least in the first few years, there was almost always a gay reference, and it might be very subtle. (The Walt Whitman Memorial, for instance), but even that has seemed to have waned over the years.
But my favorite parts of the show are when they make cultural reference. I loved it when a book store was offering James Michener's books at 5.99 lb. Or when someone was trying to prevent Bart from watching tv, Lisa says, "but if he doesn't watch violence on tv, how will he ever become desensititized to it?"
When you add terrible animation to a funny story, I would rather read the story. Anyway, I like to read. I don't much like watching TV.
I've never watched more than a couple seconds of the show, but you guys make it sound so good, I may have to rent a DVD and give it another try.
"A is A"
"Helping is Futile"
Of course, sometimes you get hysterically funny lines like this:
Flanders' son: "I wish Homer Simpson were my Dad" (after Homer has done something that's made him very popular)
Flanders replies to his son: "And I wish you didn't have the curly hair of Satan!"
ROFL
Well.
It doesn't sound like "Goodnight Moon."
I thought I read somewhere that there were several lines - depending on the broadcast, they said Kentucky, Illinois, or some other state. Not so?
There is a Simpsons episode which Christopher Walken reads "Goodnight Moon" to a group of children.
Oh, mercy......