Posted on 12/09/2001 4:42:14 AM PST by foreverfree
The Simpsons: sacrilege or satire?
New book by Florida religion writer tries to answer the question.
By Richard N. Ostling
AP Religion Writer
How God appeared in a dream: “Perfect teeth. Nice smell. A class act all the way.”
The family religion: “You know, the one with all the well-meaning rules that don't work in real life. Uh, Christianity.”
Church signboard slogan: “God Welcomes His Victims.”
This is just a very small sample of one-liners about religion from “The Simpsons.”
For 12-plus seasons, the animated series has mined religious subjects for laughs like no other show on television.
The staple of the Fox network has sometimes been called sacrilegious rather than satirical for its jabs at clergy and the faithful alike. But religious commentators have looked at the animated series and found plenty to like.
In a rare coincidence, two leading Protestant magazines, the liberal Christian Century and conservative Christianity Today, simultaneously ran friendly cover stories on the show in early 2000.
Christian Century said it's appreciated in religious circles, while Christianity Today hailed the good-guy characterization of the Simpsons' evangelical neighbor, Ned Flanders.
An anthology, “The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer” (Open Court), reported religion was an element in 70 percent of randomly selected episodes and the major theme in 10 percent.
The latest analysis, in a book many folks will find under their Christmas tree, claims that strange as it might seem the cartoon “more accurately reflects the faith lives of Americans than any other show in the medium.”
In “The Gospel According to The Simpsons” (Westminster John Knox), Mark I. Pinsky notes that the characters regularly pray, attend worship and discuss humanity's inescapable religious questions. God's existence is unquestioned and he sometimes intervenes directly in the preposterous plots.
Pinsky, religion writer for the Orlando Sentinel, also notes that, despite ridiculing everything in sight, the show is basically pro-family and usually lets a rough morality triumph.
“The Simpsons” may be irreverent toward churches and clergy, he says, but other institutions suffer more, particularly big business. (Montgomery Burns, owner of the nuclear power plant, once hatched a scheme to block out the sun, forcing everyone to buy more electricity).
Pinsky, an active Reform Jew, is not a big TV fan. But he was goaded into sampling “The Simpsons” by his children and got hooked. He can only hope now that the book replicates his publisher's 1965 title “The Gospel According to Peanuts” by divinity student Robert Short, which sold 10 million copies.
In that more innocent era, “a lot of people were offended by putting something as holy as the Gospel together with a comic strip,” says Short, now a Presbyterian minister in Monticello, Ark. The New York Times considered it “a perilous experiment.”
Now preachers make frequent use of pop culture. But less often does pop culture, especially TV, treat religion.
With “The Simpsons,” Pinsky says, early episodes featured bratty son Bart. But as the focus shifted more toward bumbling father Homer, the show began tackling deeper issues, Pinsky says. Besides, a series this long always needs new material, and religion is rich territory.
The Simpsons crew was sharp enough to realize this even though, according to Pinsky's estimate, 80 percent of the show's writers over the past dozen years have been either skeptics or atheists. Several, however, have called been active Christians.
The characters they and creator Matt Groening have created for fictional Springfield are a microcosm of American religious and particularly Protestant types.
Homer is the sort who regularly displays his religious ignorance (he calls God “omnivorous” instead of “omnipresent”), snoozes in church and prays largely in desperation. “God, if you really are God, you'll get me tickets to that game. Why do you mock me, O Lord?” he moans in one show.
Long-suffering wife Marge is the solid saint who delivers the rare serious lines: “There has to be more to life than just what we see, Lisa. Everyone needs something to believe in.”
Precocious daughter Lisa is the mainline Protestant rationalist and preacher of social justice.
Son Bart veers between belief when needed and being the incarnation of the devil.
Next-door neighbor Flanders has his boys play Bible Bombardment board games and vacations at “America's Most Judgmental Religious Theme Park.” His piety irritates people, but he always returns scorn with love, and is committed to his faith.
Then there's Rev. Lovejoy, burned-out pastor of Springfield's community church, who veers from non-denominational blandness to fundamentalist rigidity. God is among those who find his unctuous sermons boring.
Non-Protestants don't come off perfectly, either. Krusty the Clown, the show's Jewish character, is a gruff, chain-smoking show-biz veteran. The depiction of workaholic Kwik-E-Mart manager Apu, a Hindu, has offended some Indian-Americans, partly because he's at once obsequious and overcharging.
Catholics are less visible, but the Catholic League objected to a satirical commercial in which a scantily clad woman wearing a cross suggestively filled a car with gas as a voice-over said “The Catholic Church: We've made a few . . . changes.”
Among all denominations, liberal Unitarianism with its lack of doctrine may fare the worst. “If that's the one true faith, I'll eat my hat,” Homer exclaims.
For all its barbs, however, “The Simpsons” rarely mentions Jesus and steers clear of explicit Christian teachings, Pinsky says. He says that, in the end, the show may actually cloak a “sacred essence in the guise of profane storytelling.”
He concludes that “whether the series, once considered so anti-authoritarian, is subversive or supportive of faith is largely in the eye of the beholder.”
The newspaper article which Pinsky expanded into his book ran in this section in October 1999.
Does anyone know what the scanner readout is when maggie goes through the scanner at the beginning of every show?
The show has one big, BIG problem that keeps it from remaining as fresh as it could be: It's essentially corporate welfare for the Harvard Lampoon Mafia. If you knew the right people and hung out with the right crowd at Hah-vahd, you WILL get a job on the "Simpsons" writing staff. This guarantees a stagnation of people who all think and act alike, hang in the same social circles, etc. It's why the show has been trending downhill for years; these people have said all they have to say, and thus the plots are becoming increasingly stretched and contrived. What they ought to do is keep one or two veterans on as head writers, and then fire everyone else and replace them with people that have no Ivy League connections whatsoever. Fresh outlook = fresh writing.
Addendum:
1) Even with this massive problem, they've managed to keep the show at least tolerable for over ten years now, which is an achievement. I just think it would still be amazing, instead of merely so-so, if they'd do what I suggested above.
2) For all its faults in this area, the absolute "worse. episode. ever." is Citizen Kane compared to the best episode of "Futurama," which is corporate welfare for the Harvard Lampoon Mafia Second String. (And if you've ever actually read a copy of the Harvard Lampoon anytime since, oh, the early 70s, you'll realize that 95% of those "comedy geniuses" are not any better at what they do than you and your buddies were when you got together during study hall in junior high school to tell jokes and make fun of your teachers.) To get an idea of how bad "Futurama" is, note that they gave a writing job to one of Al Gore's daughters.
And you base this on what? The episode where Homer fought George Bush?
Marge: Homer, this is absolutely the worst thing you've done, ever.
Homer: You say that so many times, it's lost all it's meaning.
But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men [Peter and the other apostles] be put outside for a little while. Then he addressed them: "Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men...in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."
He isn't actually called a priest.
"Didn't God tell us not to eat that?"
"Hey, you're pretty uptight for a naked chick."
Homer as Adam to Marge as Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Those of faith can at least appreciate the subject getting some air time in ANY light!
Or the one where Clinton showed up to expound the "lesson" that if you whine and complain enough, you can get what you want. Marge says, "That's a pretty lousy lesson," to which Clinton replies, "Well, I'm a pretty lousy president."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.