The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History by John Ortved

Author:John Ortved [Ortved, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780865479883
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2009-10-12T23:00:00+00:00

MARGE: Bills, bills, bills. Oooh! Free sample of Lemon Time.

HOMER: Oooh! Give it here.

Homer begins to drink the sample.

MARGE: Homer! That’s dishwashing detergent.

HOMER: (pauses) What are you gonna do?

He continues drinking the detergent.

Silly? Yes. Absurd? Of course. But cheesy? Not at all. Nor was it predictable, safe, or snarky. The scene conveyed Marge and Homer’s marital roles: he the incorrigible with an insatiable appetite, unmatched sloth, and less than discerning taste; she the dependable, responsible housewife, both horrified at his disregard for himself and oddly accustomed and attracted to those unorthodox features that made Homer Homer. Simpsons episodes were replete with these clever, revealing, ridiculous moments, which were able to make you laugh without cracking jokes about Marge’s cooking (The wife is a bad cook! Hilarious! Boo urns).

The end of Bartmania also transferred the focus to Homer, a more wide-ranging, relatable character than Bart (whose proximity to a walking catchphrase was parodied in the “Bart gets famous” episode in Season 5). Homer incorporated many of the impetuous, id-driven behaviors of his errant son, but his age allowed for adult conflicts. Originally Homer was a character not unlike many sitcom dads, an underdog chasing the American dream. During The Simpsons’ golden age, Homer stayed somewhat anchored to this role but expanded his range of emotions, silliness, caprice, and appetites. It’s at this time that viewers began to appreciate in Homer what Newsweek called the “most potent ingredient of comedy: the shock of self-recognition.”

While it’s possible that the writers were simply running dry of Bart stories, Homer was becoming an embodiment of his time, a representation of our nineties selves, Homer became a symbol of our voracious appetites and cultural cravings; our deep dissatisfaction combined with our profound lethargy. More than anything, Homer was a pawn in the chess game of life—he was at the mercy of his job, his cravings, the media, and the pressures of cultural and institutional forces he could not, or chose not to, understand. Giant corporations, lobbyists, and media conglomerates didn’t suddenly appear between 1989 and 2000, but in the nineties there was an increasing sense that institutions were growing beyond our control. Bands like Nirvana, books like The Beach, and films like Office Space expressed a fundamental alienation and helplessness in the culture we’d created. It made a great deal of sense that, after Bart had been a focus of the culture wars during Bush’s last years in office, the show would turn to Homer while Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh galvanized the public against gays, immigrants, abortion, and the separation of church and state.

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