TV review: The Simpsons

Last week's commentary got its praise and its slams in the e-mails, Ty informed us. He also said we (Ava and C.I.) had to read one e-mail. We read it. Let's share it:

Love how you trash everything if it's not some liberal Hollyweird fantasy. Bet you two drool over The Simpsons every Saturday. Word to you feminazis, the only girl on the show that's any good is Maggie [who] knows how to suck good, shoot a gun and can't talk.

Maggie being an infant, we found the e-mailer sufficiently creepy. (Maggie sucks on a pacifier. We know where the e-mailer's mind is headed with "knows how to suck good.") We also wondered what universe he lived in? New episodes of The Simpsons air Sundays on Fox. Maybe he's referring to syndication and those episodes only air on Saturdays in his area?

Regardless, hate to piss on his perv-ade, but no, we aren't huge fans of The Simpsons.

The show got its starts as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show and Ullman was shut out (by the courts) of any syndication money. Back then, it largely avoided weighty issues and just dealt with (crudely drawn) Lisa and Bart's childhood problems (such as what to watch on TV and stopping Maggie from changing the channel). (An early Simpson short is available on the video cassette of Mike Nichols' Working Girl starring Melanie Griffith.) Julie Kavner was a regular on Ullman's show and that's how she ended up voicing Marge. The shorts ran from April of 1987 until May of 1989 (plus summer reruns of Ullman's show -- over forty shorts in all) and then, on December 17, 1989, the half-hour versions of The Simpson's began airing.

They're three years short of twenty years. Two decades. We don't see a lot to show for it.

Yes, we all know The Little Red Dress episode, where Lisa starts her own newspaper (hilarious joke about where Ralph ends up writing after Lisa's paper shuts down and amusing joke when Milhouse reveals where he really filed his international coverage from). Montgomery "Monty" Burns, the Mr. Potter of this It's A Wonderful Life, is buying up all the TV and radio stations as well as all of the printed press. It was an interesting, it just wasn't an issue exclusive to the left. Media consolidation impacts everyone and that's why opponents to it come from a wide range of points on the political spectrum.

We don't see much left on the show.

Apu is a stereotype and the fact that the United States isn't 100% White, yet The Simpsons has had so little criticism of their portrayal of Apu (or his wife), is surprising. Or take the fact that only two African-Americans (in a show populated by hundreds of characters) seem to exist and play any sort of significant part on the show.

Or let's deal with the issue of women. Where are the working women who are also mothers? We aren't seeing them. They can cop out and claim, "Well Maggie's only one-year-old!" Yes, and she always will be. So what? Many mothers of one-year-old children work.

But where are the mothers that work on this show? LuAnn doesn't seem to have a job (Milhouse's mother). Nelson's mother may "work" but look at how he turned out (town bully when not bursting into tears). (Marge takes pity on him due to his home life.)

You've got Marge's sister Patty or Selma, which ever adopted the baby from China.

Want to talk about gay portrayals? (One of Marge's sister is a lesbian.) How about the fact that casting the voice for a gay character has become increasingly problematic as people refuse to take part in reinforcing stereotypes?

How about the way the working class is portrayed? All the adults are lazy and that's why they can't get ahead. (Working adults.) That is the message. Homer's not smart, he's got no drive, he's a lousy father, stupid, a drunk, and much more. That lazy lower class -- yet another stereotype the show reinforces.

But we think the most telling detail may be in the way they handle presidents of either party. Poppy Bush and Bill Clinton for example.

Poppy's big appearance comes when he moves across the street from the Simpsons and ends up the George Wilson to Bart's Dennis the Menace. Poppy's cranky and old. The jokes come from that. (This is after he's no longer president. In another appearance, he'll snarl "loser" at Jimmy Carter.)

And Bill Clinton? He's a liar, a huckster, and a pervert.

The show demonstrated how eager they were to crawl into the gutter when they made the then-president Bill Clinton a pig f**ker. A pig f**ker.

Clinton (to Marge): I know you don't think you're good enough for me, but believe me, you are. Hell, I done it with pigs. Real, no fooling, pigs.

Poppy Bush gets to be George Wilson. Clinton is a pig f**ker -- coming on to Marge.

In another appearance, aired while Clinton was still in office, he'll confess, "Hey, I'm a pretty lousy president."

And Poppy Bush is just the grumpy old neighbor across the street, Iran-Contra, arms for hostages, not withstanding.

We guess that's the sort of thing that had Jonah Goldberg praising the show for its "even-handness"?

Or take the episode everyone will toss out, when the Simpsons get ensared due to the Patriot Act. Bill Clinton's hauled out for some more nonsense. But note who helps them escape -- "I'm the last tax-and-spend Democrat! Tax-and-spend! Tax-and-spend!" cries an old man.

Now both parties tax and both parties spend. But it's so much better, and so much more New Republican, to reinforce a stereotype.

Repeatedly the ones on the losing end are the left. (Goldberg noted Homer's mother, so we won't.) Take Lisa who some, no doubt see, as the equivalent to Meathead on All in the Family. We think that's an apt comparison because there are some on the left who will embrace Lisa, as they did Meathead; there are some on the right who will boo and hiss her; and there are some in the mushy center who find her too "strident."

The last point isn't surprising when you consider how much the character's political convictions are loathed by everyone on the show (from "Monty" Burns on through to her own parents). Marge is forever worrying that Lisa might have a career when she grows up or making comments like, "Lisa, normally, I would say that you should stand up for what you believe in, but you've been doing that an awful lot lately . . ."

We don't see it as a left show. We think it crossed a line with the pig f**ker joke since there's been nothing similar for Poppy Bush (or the Bully Boy). They toss out a love pat here and there to Republicans and kick Democrats to the gutter. (And does anyone not get who Quinby is supposed to be?)

It's a show where women are rarely the focus and mothers don't work. It's a show where people of color largely don't exist. It's a show that's frequently homophobic, that portrays the working class (Carl, Lenny, Homer . . . ) as lazy.

What's in it for the left?

Is it sometimes funny? Yes. Is it a left show? No.

And it shouldn't have required Jonah Goldberg praising the show for anyone to pick up on that.

Most damaging has been the show's success. With few exceptions, every show since has had a stay-at-home mother. They've modeled themsevles on The Simpsons (with a twist! always with a twist!) to attempt to recreate its success. (One noteable exception is King of the Hill which we're not calling left but are noting was quite a bit more original than any of the knock-offs Fox has aired.)

Bill Clinton isn't the left anymore than Poppy Bush (or Bully Boy) are the right. But we've seen the treatment of both on this show. Bill Clinton? Pig f**ker. We didn't think it was funny and we didn't think there was an equivalent aired with regard to either Bush.

What we did see was yet another trashing of the working class (that's where Homer resides and what Clinton rose from). Lot of cheap laughs at the working class. Left? No.