Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Simpsons Never Did It
Culture Wars piece by
Aaron Goldstein
What more can one say about South Park and the prophet whose name Comedy Central dares not speak?
If you are a fan of South Park there is a good chance you are familiar with the episode “Simpsons Already Did It”. (1) In the episode, Butters (through his evil alter ego Professor Chaos) devises ways to wreak havoc on the people of South Park, Colorado. The only problem is that every plot Butters hatches has already been done on The Simpsons. Butters’ sidekick Dougie (a.k.a. General Disarray) keeps telling him, “Simpsons did it!!!” “Simpsons did it!!!”
Well, one thing that has never been done on The Simpsons is an episode with the Prophet Mohammed. It isn’t a huge stretch of the imagination when you consider that God (as voiced by Harry Shearer) has been a recurring character. (2) But if Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening has his way Mohammed will never set foot in Springfield. During the opening credits of their most recent episode Bart Simpson could be seen writing this line on the blackboard:
“South Park - We’d Stand Beside You If We Weren’t So Scared.” (3)
It was Groening’s way of telling South Park’s dynamic duo of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, “You’re on your own.”
Bart’s chalk drawn confession is also emblematic of the intellectual bankruptcy and cowardice of Western post-modern liberalism. Bart and everyone else in Springfield are afraid to undertake any social commentary where it concerns Islam because they don’t want to end up like Theo van Gogh as was so graphically illustrated by Revolution Muslim on their website. Even if the members of the Brooklyn based group had no intention of doing any harm to Parker and Stone they know all too well there are those amongst them who would love nothing more than to become the next Mohammed Bouyeri. And everybody else knows it too.
Yet The Simpsons have never been scared when it comes to commenting on Christianity because they have had no reason to be scared. Indeed, hardly a week has gone by over the past twenty years when next door neighbor Ned Flanders isn’t mocked because of his Evangelical piety. In one episode when Bart asks his father what religion the family observes Homer Simpson replies, “You know, the one with all the well-meaning rules that don’t work in real life. Uh, Christianity.” (4)
It is safe to say that in our P.C. world even Homer is smart enough not to go near Islam with a forty foot pole. In fact, their reluctance to address Islam was briefly discussed in a book written by Mark I. Pinsky called The Gospel according to the Simpsons. In the book (which was originally published in 2001), Pinsky interviews longtime Simpsons’ writer and now show runner Al Jean who explained why the show had not at the time delved into the Muslim faith. “One reason (for largely ignoring Muslims) is, I don’t think we’ve had a writer who was a Muslim,” said Jean, “It’s a faith where you don’t want to offend, because we’re not Muslim, and we’re not sure what might be offensive.” Pinsky notes that Jean’s comments were in the context of the fatwa placed on Salman Rushdie by the Ayatollah Khomeini after the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1989. (5)
Yet Parker and Stone had no such reservations about what happened to Rushdie when they depicted Mohammed in an episode titled “Super Best Friends” which originally aired in July 2001 without incident. Even after the events of September 11, 2001 and the 2006 Danish cartoon controversy, the episode has also been broadcast in syndication for many years without so much as a negative word and is available on DVD. (6) However, in light of the threats from Revolution Muslim, Comedy Central has declared this episode can no longer be viewed online. (7)(8) Talk about retroactive censorship.
The Simpsons would not focus its attention on Muslims until the episode “Mypods and Boomsticks” which first aired in November 2008. (9) However, the episode did not discuss Islam or its tenets but rather Homer’s mistaken belief that his new Muslim neighbors were plotting to blow up the Springfield Mall. Indeed, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent a letter to Groening praising him “for tackling the disturbing phenomenon of Islamophobia.” (10) One must wonder if Groening is afraid to stand with South Park because he doesn’t want to offend CAIR.
The unwillingness to discuss Islam in a candid manner while criticizing Christianity casually is hardly confined to The Simpsons. It is pervasive in other television shows, movies, music and in books. I can attest such sentiments are also pervasive at poetry readings. This isn’t to say that Christianity (or for that matter Judaism) shouldn’t be looked at with a critical if not humorous eye. I simply wish those engaged in arts and entertainment would scrutinize Islam with the same vigor and zeal with which they scrutinize Christianity.
In a recent interview, Trey Parker commented on this dynamic. “That’s messed up to have that kind of thought process, you know,” said Parker, “OK, we’ll rip on the Catholics because they won’t hurt us but we won’t rip on them because they might hurt us.” (11) Yet I suspect the reason the Matt Groenings of the world speak about Christianity is because it is safe. Nothing will happen to them. The same cannot be said if one speaks about Islam. As long as Matt Groening is scared to stand beside Trey Parker and Matt Stone this state of affairs will not change.
Aaron Goldstein
(1) http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/607
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recurring_characters_in_The_Simpsons#God
(3) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/26/the-simpsons-come-to-the_n_551625.html
(4) http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-07-20/news/0707200386_1_simpsons-well-meaning-rules-religion
(5) I don’t think we’ve had a writer who was a Muslim
(6) threats from Revolution Muslim
(7) http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/504/
(8) http://www.mediaite.com/online/south-parks-mohammed-episode-censored-by-comedy-central/
(9) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1291171/
(10) http://pa.cair.com/actionalert/thank-fox-for-simpsons-episode/
(11) http://www.cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1004/22/sbt.01.html
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