Make THE Simpsons YOUR Simpsons

Molly Antos
Margaret Bauer

When I was younger, my parents wouldn’t let me watch The Simpsons. My mom feared I would pick up on Bart’s rude mannerisms and start spray painting the brick walls in the schoolyard. Now I realize that although Bart is not my role model, this particular sitcom is one that can relate to everyone’s life, and in fact relates to almost every aspect of life.

The family lives in a place called Springfield, in an undisclosed location. The stereotypical nuclear family has a highly intelligent daughter, a miscreant son, a hardworking stay-at-home mother and a 9-5 beer drinking, TV watching, kid swatting father. These strategic ambiguities help anyone identify with a crazy family living in suburbia, USA. It’s the specific situations that represent real life, however, that make the show so ingenious.

For instance, I remember my high school English teacher showing us the episode where Bart and Lisa catch Blinky the three-eyed fish to demonstrate the satirical efforts of the writers in their clever political rant against pollution and the evils of politics. The correlation goes way beyond high school humanities, however. On a daily basis, I find myself saying, “That’s like in the Simpsons episode where they…”

For instance, everyone always wishes that their professors would postpone tests and push back papers so that they would have more time to work on them/study. But just like in the episode where Bart prays for a snow day to study for his social studies test, no one ever takes advantage of this gift, and ends up wasting the time away.

A major lesson that I have learned in life, particularly when it comes to journalism and classroom interactions, is that you should always act dumber than you really are. If you follow this simple rule of life, people will feel the need to explain things to you more thoroughly and no one will really expect you to make intelligent comments, so if you do, it comes as a complete shock. It’s really a super philosophy. My belief in this was reinforced by watching the Simpsons episode where Bart cheats on his standardized test and everyone thinks he’s a genius, but when he gets to his new, smart school, and a classroom discussion erupts about paradoxes, the best he can come up with is, “Well, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

The finer points of etiquette can be ascertained by watching the episode in which Ralph Wiggum develops a crush on Lisa. It becomes obvious that she shouldn’t have led him on by attending the Krusty Anniversary Show with him when she breaks his heart in front of the whole TV audience.

I think everyone at this school has, at one point or another, been pissed off at THAT guy that can get away with not studying and then pull an ace on the test. For people who work hard for the things they achieve, it’s frustrating to see someone who doesn’t work for it get what they want. Every time I become perturbed by this situation, I think of poor Frank Grimes, and how angry he gets at Homer for his accidental success.

Even just isolated phrases that come out of the characters’ mouths provide insight and poke fun at the way people live their lives. For instance, when the Simpsons aren’t getting along, Homer quips, “When will I learn? The answers to life’s problems aren’t at the bottom of a bottle. They’re on TV!” This is not surprising considering that Homer believes that alcohol is the “cause of and solution to all of life’s problems,” a philosophy I happen to know is popular on this campus.

The point is, everyone should watch The Simpsons, and they should do it a lot. It provides insight for everyone’s life, comic relief, political satire and a shining example of what to do in numerous situations. If you ever find yourself lost or alone, just think WWTSD?

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