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| Hearsay: |
The Simpsons may be the prime philosophical voice of our generation. I believe there’s only one way of summing this up: sweet merciful crap!
To speak truthfully and insightfully today you must have a sense of the absurdity of human life and endeavour. Past attempts to construct grand and noble theories about human history and destiny have collapsed.
We now know we’re just a bunch of naked apes trying to get on as best we can, usually messing things up, but somehow finding life can be sweet all the same. All delusions of a significance that we do not really have need to be stripped away, and nothing can do this better that the great deflater: comedy.
Lisa, I’d like to buy your rock.
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May 30th, 2006 at 10:04 am
i guess it’s not THAT crazy, when you think about it. humor writers have long been social satirists , poking fun at society’s ills…swift, voltaire, even freaking shakespeare, if you’re into that sort of thing.
but still, it’s hard to reconcile that with the franchise that spawned the “don’t have a cow, man” t-shirt craze of my youth.
ya know?
May 30th, 2006 at 10:48 am
The Simpsons reaches far beyond the reach of any intellectual I’ve heard or read. It’s a brilliant show that speaks volumes and has for many years now.
July 26th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
I don’t think The SImpsons has to be analysed that deeply to see its value. On one level every episode is just a rewrite of Everyman, the great medieval evocation of what it’s like to be human.
In fact, I guess one of the central recurring themes is how ordinary people fail to take big ideas and works of art seriously because they’re just too busy with the business of living their lives. Just take a look at the musicalizations of Planet of the Apes (Oh no, I was wrong/ It was earth all along/ I guess you’ve finally made a monkey out of me’) and A Streetcar Named Desire (’You can always depend on the kindness of strangers/To pluck up your spirits and shield you from dangers/Now here’s a tip from Blanche you won’t forget:/ A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met!’)
On Swift’s tomb it says that “..he served human dignity”. I think the Simpsons does the same, and old Dean would be proud of Matt Groening and co. for that.