18 October, 2018
The Simpsons mirror reflection of Americans
In series The Simpsons, a viewer will notice how accurately it reflects Americans’ lives. They constantly use humor to show how Americans act towards anything from gay marriage to world issues always with a sense of accuracy even though they just have about 22 minute per show and have to stay relevant with the times even with that on their shoulders they do a really good job at mirroring American lives and issues. Even though The Simpsons is a comedy show about Americans’ daily lives, it is fairly accurate at reflecting issues such as same sex marriage, illegal immigrants, woman rights and global warming to name a few.
On of the episodes the viewer notice how when a problem arrises officials point the finger on other things that come up as racist. In the episode “Much Apu About Nothing” the character Homer wanted his town to protect them against bears entering and scaring the townspeople. The mayor of the town came up with a plan to help with protection against bears; however, he would have to add a new tax to help with paying for those services and no one wanted to pay for it and got upset. Mayor Quimby used a scapegoat and placed the blame for the high taxes on illegal immigrants he said “They won't give up the Bear Patrol but they won't pay taxes for it either. Ducking this issue calls for real leadership. People, your taxes are high because of illegal immigrants” (“Much Apu About Nothing”) which is in a way racist to say illegals are the sole reason why taxes went up. Something similar happened in America that shows a connection with similar issues. On May 28, 1999, The Los Angeles Times published an article about Anaheim school district wanted to bill Mexico in the amount of 50 million dollars of which they claim was the cost to teach the illegal immigrants in school for the past 10 years. Martin said, “We’re providing a service just like anybody else, and why should the American taxpayer have to pay for this?”(Richardson). From what happened in Anaheim we can see that some of these issues brought up on this episode really reflect how Americans react to taxes then place the blame on illegal immigrants instead of looking for other resolutions. We will continue to show how The Simpsons reflect Americans where Lisa takes up military school.
In this episode “The Secret War of Lisa Simpson” a viewer sees how accurately young men and military personnel act when a girl is introduced into the academy. Americans have had male-only military institutes for a very long time and when a female has tried to apply she is turned down for the simple fact she is a woman. In the episode, Lisa is bothered by her school’s curriculum and argues she doesn’t final get enough mental stimulation. Bart her brother gets into trouble which lands him into military school. There Lisa notices how much better education is and insist to be let in. The military personnel then says “ In our 185 years, we have never had a female cadet. Um, but that seems to be the way the wind is blowing these days. After all, we have female singers female motorists.”(“The Secret War of Lisa Simpson”). She is then able to attend only to be hazed and not allowed to be apart of the group. Lisa struggles to make it through and does, in the end, do everything they wanted her to do. We can take from this that the military doesn’t want any part of Lisa. Around that time there was an institute of all male students and have been for a long time. They were able to do so because they had what they thought a valid reason to exclude females. VMI refused the admittance of a woman upon finding out she was in fact a girl “After having her guidance counselor delete references to her sex on her transcript. The college accepted her, the rejected her after learning she is a woman.”(Press). On January 16, 1996, the US Supreme Court argued that Virginia Military Institute didn’t have a valid enough reason to exclude women. VMI argued that single-sex education allowed higher education for attendees, but failed to pursue the court. As a consequence in June 25, 1996, the courthouse invalidated the institute’s exclusion of women. The viewers can see that in both the episode and in real life there were issues with women attending military schools. A very actuate representation of what Americans thought. The Simpsons use a lot of real life events into their episodes and we will continue with another example that shows how same-sex marriage affected both The Simpsons and the United States.
On another episode titled “There’s Something about Marrying”, the Simpsons tackle issues with same sex marriage. Marge was for the change and fully supportive of them until her own sister came out as gay and wanted to marry a woman. Homer, on the other hand, was willing to marry homosexuals as long as he got paid to do so. Later on, in the episode, Homer is willing to marry anyone to anything “Homer, have we started down a slippery slope, where marriage becomes so meaningless that anyone could marry anything?” (“There’s Something about Marrying”). In December 9, 1999, The Los Angeles Times published an article about prop. 22 ‘limit on Marriage’ which would deny the state of California from recognizing same-sex marriages denying them any benefits that come from a regular marriage “Proposition 22, which would bar the state from recognizing same-sex marriages and thus from providing the benefits conferred on such unions.”(Warren). They were fighting against its wording saying it was not clear and people would vote for it when in fact it is against what they believe. From this event, we can notice a lot of tension when it comes to gay unity. People had a hard time accepting them and state like California wanted to ignore the couples that married in other states and not accept the marriage licenses as legitimate. Moving on the reader will see how The Simpsons tackled another issue on global warming.
Another example that shows how accurate The Simpsons portray Americans is in the episode titled “On A Clear Day I Can’t See My Sister”. Lisa and Bart are taken on a field trip to visit Springfield’s glacier. Upon arrival, Lisa takes note of the size of the glacier and points out how much it has melted. The park ranger then tells Lisa that there is nothing wrong and that he has a daughter just like her and she does not leave the house and advises Lisa to do the same. The park ranger also pointed out that the government did not think the same as her “Young lady, the federal government's position on global warming is that it does not exist.”(“On a Clear Day I Cant See My Sister”). Lisa did not give up and tried to educate her fellow classmates only to be made fun of and is not taken seriously. The viewer can see how with a serious matter no one cares and is often ridiculed for thinking differently. On July 12, 2006, Pew Research Center released an article titled “Little Consensus on Global Warming”. One of the topics in this article was the most Americans do not see global warming the same “The public also is divided over the gravity of the problem. While 41% say global warming is a very serious problem, 33% see it as somewhat serious and roughly a quarter (24%) think it is either not too serious or not a problem at all” (PEW Research Center). A viewer can notice how similar the two are on one hand Lisa is for change to help with global warming and on another one people do not care or do not think it is even a problem, to begin with. Some Americans live without a care for nature and the problems we have. On the next paragraph, readers will see how Homer reacts to gay influence on his son.
Another accurate representation of the Homers of America is in “Homer’s Phobia” a viewer sees how Home
r reacts when his son is spending time with a homosexual. He does not like it and feels that his son Bart might turn gay just by hanging out with him. Homer then turns to drastic measures to make sure his son has enough machismo influence, therefore, making him not grow into a homosexual “I'm taking the boy deer hunting. He's going to grow up straight for once!”(“Homer’s Phobia”). He tried many activities that would surely make Bart manly but none of them seemed to help. Homer shows that he really does not have a valid enough reason to not like gays. Towards the end of the episode, Homer accepts his son as gay when in fact Bart was not gay, to begin with. On March 10, 1999, a Bakersfield School District removed students from a classroom because the teacher had come out as homosexual. The parents did not like the idea of a homosexual teaching their kids and told the school to have their children excluded from the class itself “Parents had requested their children be taken out of James D. Merrick's eighth-grade science class because they objected to his homosexuality.”(Staff). The district removed the kids illegally “a placement cannot be based on the teacher's actual or perceived sexual orientation” (Staff). Parents in America did not take well about having a homosexual near their child and acted wrongfully just how Homer did with his son Bart. The Simpsons got this subject and made a very good example of how American parents act when a person with a different sexual orientation is near their children.
Even despite the fact that the show is only 22 minutes average long, it does a really good job at showing how Americans react to certain problems they are faced with. With so many different things happening every day The Simpsons turn almost anything into a comedic setting making millions of Americans laugh at issues that normally would offend most. Some topics that are turned into a comedy and accurately represented are global warming, same-sex marriage, deportation of illegals, exclusion of women in certain activities and homosexual influence on American children. Viewers can agree with this assumption based on all the actual events that reflect the episodes.