The Simpsons sparked a revolution in the way we make and watch television. Now, 25 years on, it’s a cultural touchstone, too.<\/p>\n
Tyler Shores has seen, by his own admission, “thousands” of episodes of The Simpsons.<\/p>\n
It’s his job – the Stanford academic was a pioneer in the study of the hit TV show, and is now at work on a book on The Simpsons’ cultural impact over the last 25 years. As he described it: “How ‘d’oh’ made it into the Oxford English dictionary, that sort of thing.”<\/p>\n
In an interview with dpa, he explained why he believes The Simpsons is the most influential television show of all time.<\/p>\n
“It’s almost impossible to imagine what television would look like in a world where The Simpsons had never existed,” Shores said.<\/p>\n
That’s because, he said, The Simpsons changed the way television was written: “Suddenly, intelligent TV writing became the norm, instead of an anomaly.”<\/p>\n
The Simpsons and their multilayered cultural references were born in the age of video-cassette recorders, enabling – even encouraging – viewers to go back and watch episodes again and again to spot subtle details.<\/p>\n
The show was written with what he called “an eye toward further consumption” – a then-new concept that is taken for granted today.<\/p>\n
The show’s subject matter broke new ground, too.<\/p>\n
In the early 1990s, family sitcoms largely avoided “politics and religion, education, environment, race relations, gay marriage,” Shores said. The Simpsons became “revolutionary” by tackling such topics.<\/p>\n
The show’s impact was felt not just in the US, Shores said. For better or for worse, The Simpsons have become ambassadors of American culture around the world.<\/p>\n
“There was a BBC poll a few years ago, and Homer Simpson was chosen as the greatest American ever for people in the UK,” Shores recalled.<\/p>\n
“The funny part is that Homer Simpson is not a real person, and, if you look at the list of people that he beat out, like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and all these other people, that’s very telling.”<\/p>\n
The show’s global popularity comes from the “honest mirror” it holds up to American life, warts and all, he said.<\/p>\n
“A large amount of the humour works precisely because it celebrates and makes fun of the American cultural excess,” Shores said.<\/p>\n
But the show isn’t all fun and games.<\/p>\n
In 2003, as a student at the University of California at Berkeley, Shores developed a course called The Simpsons and Philosophy, using the show as a cultural text to explore larger ideas.<\/p>\n
“I thought philosophy was very important because it talks about: what is a good life? What does it mean to be a good person? How do you think about these things? But it was just too boring and too out of touch for too many people,” he recalled.<\/p>\n
Shores developed a curriculum utilizing The Simpsons, expecting a few dozen students to register.<\/p>\n
“We ended up cramming almost 600 students into the auditorium for that class,” he recalled.<\/p>\n
Asked for an example of a Simpsons teaching moment, he recalled an episode in which the Simpsons’ brainy daughter Lisa joined a local Mensa chapter, where all of The Simpsons’ smart characters decided they wanted to run the town.<\/p>\n
“It’s a very loose parody, based on the ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s The Republic. The Republic basically says that philosopher-kings are the ones best suited to run society, and that they should be in charge because they’re more enlightened than the common masses,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Simpsons poked fun at the theory by taking it to its logical end: “It starts off really well – the smart people are making smart decisions -but then just like anything else, there is human fallibility. And it kind of devolves into chaos.”<\/p>\n
While the Berkeley course is no longer offered, other Simpsons classes are in the course catalogues at several other universities.<\/p>\n
“It’s less weird now than it was 15 years ago,” he said. “Universities and educational institutions are recognizing that these things are part of our culture. And a way to understand part of our culture is to incorporate critical scrutiny toward the things that we see every day.”<\/p>\n
The Simpsons may not be as relevant today as they were 10 or 15 years ago, he said – because The Simpsons blazed a trail that the rest of television has followed.<\/p>\n
“It’s still in some ways difficult and unfair to compare it to what it was back then,” he said.<\/p>\n
Before The Simpsons, he said, “no one in the history of television did what they were doing.”<\/p>\n
Porn channel appeal bid dismissed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n