Some thoughts on “The Simpsons”

A possible countervailing influence to their cultural dominance that some Leftists are beginning to notice (Bates, 2001)  is the amazingly popular Homer Simpson.  There is rather a good wrap on The Simpsons here.  Excerpt:

“Conservatives and libertarians should appreciate The Simpsons for regularly showcasing much that they hold dear.

“There’s no ideological requirement to work here,” executive producer Al Jean says by phone. Though free marketeers and liberals write the show, Jean says they agree on this: “We mistrust authorities and people who try to hold people down. We believe more in individuals and families.”

The Simpsons are a nuclear family led by an atomic power-plant engineer and a stay-at-home mom. They regularly attend church and occasionally seek spiritual advice from their minister, Reverend Timothy Lovejoy. Marge Simpson even homeschools Bart when he is expelled for misbehavior.”

It seems to me that although Homer is merely a cartoon character and ostensibly an object of ridicule meant to evoke disgust, his great popularity is due at least in part both to his believability and his grossness.  And one reason why he is believable and why people are amused by his grossness is that ordinary people can often see, to some degree, an uncensored or more honest version of themselves in him.  So it seems to me that a more subtle and accurate reading of him would see him as a strong and believable character with Rightist views whom many people identify with or even envy to some degree precisely because he is unapologetic about his failings—failings (such as greed) that are in fact common and normal ones.  His utter lack of political correctness must be refreshing where people are so often (and so boringly) being urged to be goody-goodies. And an example that one can identify with will always have infinitely more influence than any amount of preaching, nagging and exhortation. It might not be drawing too long a bow to say that, for many ordinary people, Homer, makes at least one form of Rightism at least attractive and maybe even lovable.  Homer could, in other words,  have much more influence as a model than is immediately apparent or generally realized (See also Pinsky, 2001 and Appleyard, 2002).

Even if all that is completely untrue, however, Homer has undoubtedly given high visibility and exposure to one type of Rightist view and kept such views very much on the mental agenda of ordinary people at the same time as Leftists have been trying so hard to get them off the agenda.  It is after all commonly said that there is no such thing as bad publicity.  Because of Homer, total political incorrectness constantly spends long periods pervading perhaps hundreds of millions of living-rooms worldwide—and does it in an entertaining and pleasant rather than a boring way.  It is amusing to speculate that Homer Simpson might well be a greater influence on the public mind than the influence all of our universities put together.  So low the relevance of our universities would appear to have sunk now that they are in the hands of the Leftists.  So in our universities and elsewhere, Leftists are a good example of Lord Acton’s axiom that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It must be acknowledged, however, that many conservatives would not identify with Homer in any way at all.  His attitudes are mainly “Rightist” in that they completely defy the unnatural and oppressive “political correctness” that Leftists have managed to make dominant in other media sources. By constantly engaging in politically incorrect behaviour in so many people’s living rooms, he shows that politically correct behaviour is not as compulsory and as universal as other media sources would like to pretend.  He shoots down the artificial liberal consensus.

Posted by jonjayray on Thursday, April 7, 2005 at 06:57 AM in Popular Culture
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