Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Here's something I read today that I thought was great:

How The Simpsons Can Save America, by Jim Amrhein
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.

I don't see much of a skew to the left, myself. Jim Amrhein must have more of a skew to the right than I do to see it that way. I see a skew toward the old black flag, and I appreciate it.

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