Friday, July 27, 2007

I'll smell it later

As of this moment, there are millions of nerds, nintendo freaks, high school drop outs, blatant chodes and average Joes meticulously plotting their Friday night. This is neither extraordinary nor significant but for one minor detail: this is not a normal Friday. No no...

This is Simpsons Movie night.

For those who don't share my cynicism, I have to say I'm a little fed up with the Simpsons crowd. While I admire it for its ability to somehow stay on the air for a whopping 18 years, and I think it's cute that the Simpsons has become the new gateway drug (used by all socio-economic backgrounds for senseless giggles and excessive snacking), I have to hate it for how indicative it has become of the mindset of modern America.

It's become a staple of marketing and branding genius: just like we don't buy "facial tissues" we buy "Kleenex", America doesn't watch a cartoon it watches the Simpsons. And this of course is followed by the typical senseless, elitist sniping that comes with any brand: if it's not made by brand X it's crap... if it's not the Simpsons it's just another cartoon on the air in the evening. It's a fallacy of making the one better not on it's own substance, but on what is the perceived lack of substance in similar items. The Simpsons fanbase has been doing this for years, turning on any sitcom-riffing evening cartoon for being a blatant Simpsons rip off (Family Guy), a bland alternative to the non-stop shennanigans (King of the Hill), or a preachy wannabe with crappy animation (South Park).

The reality of course was that for all of the similarities one could find in those other cartoons (South Park once did a pretty brilliant episode entitled "The Simpsons Did it" to point out how inescapable the similarities were just by sheer volume of episodes the Simpsons produced) all of those cartoons challenged and braved the Simpsons, and inevitably moved on to become bigger and better in substance if not marketing. King of the Hill managed to brave the realm of a realistic comedy, challenging the perceptions of conservative and suburban southern America with a genuinely likeable (if not agreeable) character in Hank Hill. Family Guy dared to stretch the bounds of absurdity and pop culture sensibility and paved the way for success via DVD sales - a path that the Simpsons crowd have eagerly taken to in their more recent crap laden and unoriginal years. And South Park took on the Simpsons by offering a Swiftian wit to boot that confronted America with a new conscience and moral desperation that the Simpsons never had. But none of that matters of course because none of them have tag lines like "D'oh" or "Smell ya later" that stick to the softer minds that drive sales and advertising revenue, so of course the Simpsons became the name of the thing we wanted: cheap, easy, adult humor in a childish format.

We become obsessed with the name of the thing to the point that when that thing no longer produces or provides we still call and compare anything similar by it and adore for what it was, the keystone in a brand of comedy. So it is with the Simpsons: an over-produced mix of cheap giggles and stupid jokes that we've been watching for 18 years and we keep buying (in t-shirts, cups, action figures, and now movie tickets) just because it's been here so long that we might as well be faithful.

Get a life, and get a clue America. If you see any movie this summer... it shouldn't be "The Simpsons Movie".

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