The Simpsons Malign the Tea Party: Season 23, Episode 10 — Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson
It’s been several years since I watched The Simpsons on a regular basis — mainly because the show became far too Leftist for my tastes. Even the Halloween episodes are largely mean-spirited and unfunny now (and those used to be the highlights of the year). It’s impressive the show’s still on the air and I do get nostalgic about it because I remember being in grade school and seeing the first Simpsons animated shorts air after commercial breaks on The Tracey Ullman Show (back when Tracey Ullman herself was funny, supermodels ruled the world, Pepsi was crystal clear, and 2012 seemed like a lifetime away in a very distant and unimaginable future).
On January 8th, 2012, The Simpsons aired the 10th episode of its 23rd season, entitled “Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson” – where Matt Groening and his crew malign the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Christians, conservatives, and Republicans. One of the biggest mistakes the GOP makes is to ignore Hollywood, especially in an election year. Though The Simpsons is now watched only by dozens of people (and, perhaps, an equal number of circus animals) and is no longer as culturally relevant as it was back in the days when teenaged boys struggled to decide whether their sideburns would be Dylan or Brandon-esque, it’s still a useful window into what The Tolerant Left thinks is important to lampoon about conservatives. Because it takes so long to animate an episode, The Simpsons’ jokes are stale and most references are dated…but it’s still clear The Tolerant Left despises and fears the Tea Party and works overtime in its attempts to malign it.
This should be a clarion call to the GOP: what The Tolerant Left fears most it mocks…and whatever it mocks is the thing Republicans need to embrace harder and do much more of because Leftists forever telegraph their greatest points of weakness.
Here’s a summary with screengrabs of “Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson” so you can know what attacks The Simpsons directed against Tea Party Americans without ever having to watch the episode for yourself (in case you never wanted to subject yourself to 22 minutes of your life you can’t ever get back):
[ Click above to embiggen: and while doing so, credit The Simpsons for coining the perfectly cromulent word "embiggen" ]
[ Click above to embiggen: opening couch gag with spilled tea ]
This is probably not a reference to the Tea Party, because I believe it’s an opening couch gag that’s been recycled from another episode. I think it’s totally a coincidence that the Simpsons are drinking tea in the bit above.
[ Click above to embiggen: reference to failed Chicago 2016 Olympics bid ]
This just HAS TO BE a Chicago joke — and a reference to the fortune spent by the outgoing Daley Administration on the ill-advised bid to secure the 2016 Games. Remember the folly the White House committed by dispatching Michelle Antoinette Obama and Oprah Winfrey — at massive taxpayer expense — to travel to Copenhagen (back when it was flooded with all that now-expired Hopenchangen) to “bring home the Olympics”. Michelle Antoinette and Oprah treated IOC officials rudely and behaved like prima donnas…with Michelle Antoinette in particular making an ass of herself by claiming the biggest reason Chicago should have the Games was because “then I could watch people play stuff in my back yard”.
The rebuke from the IOC was severe: not only did Chicago not win the Games, but it was the first city to be eliminated from contention.
A month later, guilty Europeans awarded Barack Obama a Nobel Prize “for being awesome and saying hope a lot” as sort of a consolation prize for Chicago not getting the Olympics.
[ Click above to embiggen: episode begins with TSA and airport jokes, leading to Homer boarding a plane and going nuts after it sits on the tarmac for too long ]
The airport scene gave The Simpsons a chance to do a bunch of TSA jokes, including one where a TSA agent tells Marge that “real patriots” breast feed.
It’s typical of this show, where patriotism is made to seem loony and unreasonable.
[ Click above to embiggen: Homer goes on diatribe after being trapped on the tarmac in an idled plane -- this leads to him become a Glenn Beck-style political commentator]
The tirade Homer engages in on the plane is a reference to the flight attendant who had a minor breakdown as he readied the cabin for departure — and instead ended up bolting from the plane using the emergency exit chute to slide onto the tarmac with a few bottles of liquor in hand.
[ Click above to embiggen: Homer goes nuts on the plane and commandeers a beverage cart while he's captured on Internet video (which goes viral) ]
[ Click above to embiggen: Homer's video goes viral after Bart puts it on YouTube ]
[ Click above to embiggen: Homer is invited to a Sean Hannity-like show ]
The news scroll at the bottom of the screen during this segment reads:
* Newt Gingrich looks forward to fourth wife
* Rick Perry mistakenly signs order to execute himself
* Obama calls mulligan on first term
* Europe puts Greece on Ebay
* Satan tweets support for Santorum
* Romney changes position on phoniness.
* Steve Jobs unveils iGHOST
* Congress postpones end of world to 2013
* Derek Jeter, George Clooney divide up world’s women (which I think is a gay joke…since Clooney at least would only be dividing them up so he can style their hair).
* Biden to Republican candidates: Compared to you me am smart
Homer was invited on the show to talk about his viral video tirade, but the talking heads won’t give him a chance to speak. “Nash Castor” is equal parts Sean Hannity and Neal Cavuto and “Adriatica” is a clear parody of Arianna Huffington (who is herself a bad parody of a functioning human being).
[ Click above to embiggen: The Simpsons totally did a "Barack Obama is gay" joke and acknowledged he is on the down-low and also a closet Marxist ]
During the scene set at a FOX News-like network, Homer is told that he’s the new media darling of the moment and will be a perfect fit for his own show. He’s also shown a pundit who is the network’s designated Democrat — an Alan Colmes-esque character who sings his show to the tune of “If I Only Had A Brain”:
Oh, the plain and simple fact is…
I’d love to raise your taxes…
and make your children gay.
For those of you who are aware that Barack Obama is on the down low and has long engaged in covert gay affairs with men ranging from Reggie Love, Kal Penn, and Nick Colwin to trysts like he had with Larry Sinclair, that image of Obama and Marx embracing takes on several meanings.
[ Click above to embiggen: Homer's TV show is a riff on Glenn Beck's program on FOX ]
Homer’s TV show is a clear send-up of Glenn Beck’s old FOX show. Some of the lines Homer delivers and tidbits from this segment are:
* I’m America’s latest truth teller with a book deal on the side.
* I’m not just another loudmouth, I’m a loudmouth who says things you’re afraid to say, but not racist things.
* Homer goes to a giant screen with a map of the US on it and zooms in on Nebraska where he mocks a high school principal who claims football is too dangerous; the principal wants to replace football with soccer, which sends Homer into a diatribe against effeminate Irish soccer announcers and the loss of cheerleaders, “Rudys” (like the movie with Sean Astin), and other football-related things.
* Homer starts crying on live television when he talks about “fat kids not having anything to play” if football is taken away
[ Click to embiggen: what Mount Rushmore would look like in a world without high school football ]
Homer tells people to hoard their toilet paper then shoot the mailman and cries some more.
Cut to Moe’s Tavern, and some of Homer’s drinking buddies talk about how weird it is that he cries so much. They make a gay joke at Beck’s expense by saying, “When a guy who loves America cries it makes him super-straight”.
Homer’s show becomes a big hit — and some company starts making Halloween masks of him by taking old Shrek masks and painting them yellow (which, incidentally, is how the Michael Meyers mask was created for the movie Halloween…when a William Shatner Star Trek mask was painted white by John Carpenter back in the 70s for his new horror movie).
Lisa confronts Homer about his crying at the dinner table.
Just then, Homer wants more gravy but Marge tells him they’re out — and that makes him start crying more than ever.
Marge says she’s glad that Homer’s passionate but is concerned that he’s riling people up with his show. Homer tells her not to worry, since people know he’s “doing a character…like Stephen Colbert or Newt Gingrich”.
[ Click above to embiggen: Tea Party references start here ]
Homer uses a large piece of meat to represent the United States — and cuts off California and New York to feed to a cardboard lion while shouting “take that centers of art and commerce!”.
Homer pours gravy over the meat map and says it symbolizes freedom.
* When March Madness spills into April, that’s the gravy
* When someone messes with you and you invade the country that did it plus another one, that’s the gravy (this is a clear reference to the War on Terror)
* When you stick your flag in the moon and say, “Now we’re done trying!”, that’s the gravy (a reference to the now-abandoned US space program)
* So get on the boat…the gravy boat…GOODNIGHT and GOOD GRAVY
Lisa asks Homer what’s with the gravy boat and he tells her it’s an innocuous little symbol like a smiley face or an I.O.U.
Lisa says, “You know, symbols can often rile people up. The swastika, the New York Yankees logo…”
Homer: Don’t worry sweetie, I think I know how to whip up an audience just short of a frenzy…
Scene cuts to people watching TV who take to wearing gravy boats on their heads. This is The Simpsons staff making the Tea Party Americans look ridiculous.
[ Click above to embiggen: Simpsons mock Tea Party Americans as "The Gravy Boat Party" ]
[ Click above to embiggen: The Simpsons combined The Tea Party with Occupy Wall Street to make the Tea Party look terrible and blur the violence and property damage that OWS commits ]
Kent Brockman, the local Springfield news reports, covers “The Gravy Boat Party” by calling it “Au Jus-tice for All”.
“The gravy boat party is spreading like a rumor about some kid and someone’s mom hooking up at some high school”.
The Republican Party is forced to court Homer Simpson’s endorsement for a presidential candidate.
Homer then has to meet with the Cocktail Party GOP establishment to pick their nominee — he offers to bring Marge back some sandwiches.
Interesting: Marge and Lisa say that Homer is helping to pick the next leader of the free world — implying that whomever the Republican nominee is will win the election. The Simpsons sort of admit Barack Obama will lose the general election and be a one term president.
Lisa says it’s not fair how much influence Homer has.
[ Click to embiggen: how The Simpsons depicts the Republican Party's headquarters..they've been using this image for years, actually ]
The Simpsons has done this a few times, depicting Republican Party headquarters as an evil-looking castle surrounded by a forest of thorns.
The Cocktail Party GOP establishment is defined in the cartoon as:
* Crazy Texan oil man
* Bob Dole
* Dracula
* Krusty the Klown
* Arnold Schwarzenegger-like actor named Wolfcastle
* Bill Cosby-like Dr. Hibburd
* Mr. Burns
Homer asks if they can get Chris Christie to run because he does not like the current slate of GOP candidates (Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann’s faces are X-ed out and Jon Huntsman was never shown).
Christie’s at the table, eating himself to death — he chokes and shouts, “Save me, Obamacare!”
Homer says: “Well, maybe I’ll vote Democrat. The great thing is, when they get in they act like Republicans”.
Note: In 2008, Homer voted for Barack Obama in the Halloween episode that aired that year.
Just as Homer says he’ll vote Democrat (again), he’s almost shot with an arrow that was fired by Ted Nugent.
[ Click above to embiggen: how the Cocktail Party GOP establishment is depicted on The Simpsons -- with Homer choosing between Gingrich, Romneycare, Perry, and Luap noR! ]
Homer then decides to endorse Ted Nugent for President.
Ted Nugent then comes into the Simpsons’ home and drops an elk on the kitchen table; he tells Lisa the vegetarian she can munch on an antler because “antlers ain’t meat”.
Nugent cleans the elk outside in the Simpson’s backyard, where he mistakes Ned Flanders for a Leftist because of his mustache — he calls him a “tenured-professor of the People’s Republic of Berkley”. Nugent then shoots Flanders with an arrow, and Flanders says that’s just fine as long as he’s not a Mormon.
Nugent is depicted as a crazy person so obsessed with hunting he can’t tell chubby little Martin from a badger.
[ Click above to embiggen: Homer Simpson meets the Founding Fathers ]
James Madison comes to Homer in a dream, where he takes him back through time to teach him about the Constitution. Homer observes the Founding Fathers meeting to debate…and then gets bounced by them atop a giant Constitution that’s become a trampoline. Homer wakes up by muttering:
“No, no, John Hancock, I don’t need insurance”.
“Sam Adams, I’m sorry I made fun of your winter ale”.
“Marge, Oscar Madison came to me and told me the politics was serious and important”. (That’s an Odd Couple joke, in case you missed it).
Homer tells Lisa he’s decided not to endorse anyone for president…but then discovers a brochure for Springfield Colonial Village on her nightstand and realizes she and Marge hired a James Madison look-a-like to fake the dream.
Homer is so mad he was tricked that he decides to punish Lisa but not only endorsing Nugent after all but also calling for the elimination of the direct election of Senators.
Lisa is horrified.
Homer then goes to the TV studio to address “The Gravy Boat Nation” and tells everyone listening to make Ted Nugent the next president, after Homer baptizes him with his tears — only the tears don’t come.
Nugent gets impatient because he wants to be elected so he can open up the San Diego Zoo for big game hunting.
Lisa tells Homer that he can’t cry to baptize Nugent because he knows he doesn’t believe in what he’s doing — and then Homer admits he is full of crap (his words, not mine).
Ted Nugent then does a mangled version of the Hail to the Chief song where he promises he’d move the capital to Kalamazoo.
– End Credits –
I think the most interesting thing about the above is how The Simpsons writers chose to meld the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street into one entity — with all the bad things that the Occupoopers do (the violence, the destruction of property, the mob mentality) ascribed to the peaceful Tea Party Americans.
This was deliberate — because the Tolerant Left wants to mitigate the damage the Occupoopers are doing to the Democrat brand while simultaneously maligning the peaceful Tea Party movement. Two birds, one D’oh!
What other things can you notice in the above that The Simpsons did to help Democrats in this election year?
© 2012, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
Also Recommended:
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Kevin, something that's just come to light in the MSM: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northam…
Never having been a Simpsons fan {they just seemed stupid, when the Progeny was a kid, and looked forward to them every week; besides, Homer's whining always irritated}, I never watched enough to "get" their political leanings …………………………….. guess I'm guilty of ignoring Hollywood {as you note in another post}, because I reached the conclusion that "they" don't pay my bills, so WHY should whatever they have to say as a PRIVATE CITIZEN matter? I LOVE Barbra Streisand's singing/acting, but do NOT agree with her politics – I'm able to choose which parts to accept – which a LOT of folks seem to be like the Progeny as a youngster, in that the question is always "is that good or bad?", asking someone else {the Nanny State?} make determinations for US. I would tell the Progeny that most everything has "good" and "bad" points, that it was up to her to decide whether the "good" outweighed the "bad" FOR HER. That helped somewhat, but as a Libra, she's ALWAYS seeking "balance" ………………………………………
Semper Fi'
DM
For heaven's sake, that Telegraph "revelation" is a surprise to you? That a Democrat would say one thing while doing another? You must be a HUGE Obama supporter, Diamond, 'cause "do as I say, not as I do" is the Democrat Party SLOGAN, for heaven's sake!
The FACT that a BRITISH newspaper would slam Øbama IS a revelation ……………………………. and, as far as "supporting" Øbama, I'd chip in $3.00 toward his UHaul rental, to leave the White House ……………………………….. after being accused by my mother of being racist, for not wanting him for president, I take umbrage at being accused of being one of his "supporters" ……………………………..
Semper Fi'
DM
Also, Mo Dowd on "Mr. Cool": http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/…
Semper Fi'
DM
What does this have to do with the Tea Party or The Simpsons episode?
There’s an Open Thread where this belongs.
Spot on analysis, Kevin, and I agree with your notion that popular culture has a huge impact on people's political thinking and votes, which the cocktail party GOP ignores at its peril. Likely because I'm older, I never found the Simpson's to be enjoyable or quality entertainment. IMO, most of the story lines were too dependent on themes that were contrary to the common human courtesy/decency values with which I was brought up. That these themes were conveyed in cartoon fashion, IMO, was a dangerous precedent in terms of the potential negative impact on young minds.
It was. They're now all sitting in front of City Hall in a tent, not having showered in months…
The Simpson's were buried by South Park years ago for relevant social commentary. My two kids, 19 & 17, stopped watching the Simpson's at least 5 years back because, "It just isn't funny." The Simpson's are a long way from "Monorail" and "He likes the company of men." / "Who doesn't?" days.
Simpsons?
What's the Simpsons?
Are they another torture show like that "Cleveland" cartoon on Fox?
2012:
Bankrupt the Media!
Turn Off!
Tune Out!
Do not buy Print (media).
It is time abused consumers put the Lame Stream Media corporations out of business.
Stop buying their crap!!!!!
"RUSH:
"'I do believe in some cases on our side they would rather Obama win than a full-throated conservative beat him, because they don't control the conservatives. They don't control the Tea Party. They don't control where that victorious conservative cad would coming from.
"That's the statement about the Republican establishment. That's December the 5th, and I first postulated this theory on November 10th of last year.
"Here we go. Saturday night, MSNBC's special coverage of the South Carolina primary. Rachel Maddow had as one of her guests Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign manager. (big sigh) … (groans) This is so hard to say. What do people who ran LOSING campaigns have to offer? It's like, why would Romney openly put McCain on stage with him in New Hampshire, which he had in the tank anyway?
"He was the favorite son and was supposed to win New Hampshire. He's leading. Nothing could have stopped it. Why put the 2008 loser and somebody that you know the Republican base does not like front and center on stage with you endorsing you? Would somebody explain the thinking? I've never understood it." http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/01/23/dc_e…
"There is a narrative afoot that says Mitt Romney is the only candidate who can beat Obama. The media seems to be perfectly willing to echo it. Why would it do so if it is interested in getting Obama reelected? The answer is simple; the Obama camp wants to face Romney. Once Romney gets the nomination, he will be the target of Alinsky’s method rule number five and he has shown no indication that he is capable of overcoming its intended effect. He’s already said he won’t call Obama a socialist. By not telling the truth about Obama, Romney will be an ideal target for ridicule; he will succumb to rule number five and he will react to Obama’s advantage." http://www.westernjournalism.com/newtralizing-ali…
Moreover, if Romney is the *only one* who can beat Oblahblah, then this country has a much bigger problem than just Thee One. I'd say the electorate's cheese has fallen off its cracker.
Glenn Beck loved it. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/watch-clips-of-th…
The Pimpsons, a Kosovar parody of the Simpsons: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2031688…
i've been watching the simpsons for years. i disagree with the tea party/occupy blurring analysis. historically, the city of springfield has always had a mob mentality about anything it comes across- whether is bart and milhouse messing around with time, snake clobbering day, ganging up on mr. burns- you name it, the town mobs. i think it's more a reflection on human herding and our sheepleness. i don't think they intended to show the tea party as crazy vandals like the occupy people.
however, the gravy boat party is a jab at the tea party; crazy uncle ted- have you seen him? he's all wacked out on life and bowhunting. yes, i agree with him on personal freedoms, but i feel he goes overboard due to the constant pushing of the left. i feel myself do it- i go further right than i want because of the left pushing so hard left that i need that balance. it'd be interesting to find out if ted's a libra or gemini. hmm..i'll google that later.
anyway, the simpsons make fun of everyone. you saw that with your own breakdown. but the mob mentality is just that. it isn't to make the tea partyers look like occupy. i think matt groening is conservative. i'll look that up too actually.
oh- sagittarius. huh. and oh, groening supported kerry. my bad.
Kevin, who is your all-time favorite Supermodel?