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Planet Simpson Chris Turner Ebury Press, 471pp This review first appeared in Third Way, Winter 2005.
For those not familiar with the work of jumptheshark.com, it takes its name from the sharkjumping episode of Happy Days which experts tell us was the demise of a once reasonably amusing TV series, and the website is devoted to pinpointing where any given sitcom turns, starting its long irrecoverable descent into dross. Just in case you thought the internet was unrelentingly trivial. The authorities there say that The Simpsons is one of the few that have never jumped the shark, and Chris Turner agrees. Be that as it may, the series that, the cover tells us 'documented an era and defined a generation' has done all the defining it's going to do, and it's safe to look back on the Simpsons era and take stock. Planet Simpsons is the best book that has been written about the show, and is surely the longest that ever will be. It's entertaining and thorough, and a helpful attempt to weigh up the achievement and significance of The Simpsons. The first chapter tells the story and tries to analyse the humour. Half of the following chapters are about the central characters, and these are rather good. Without reducing them to stereotypes, Turner argues that they embody the viewpoint and values of various sections of society, giving the show its resonance. Homer personifies 'consumer-age America', a self-absorbed, dumbed-down, coddled civilization around which the world revolves, but with a heart of gold. Marge stands for traditional family values, for good and ill, of the kind that The Simpsons was once supposed to be demolishing. Bart is apparently the punk ethic. Most perceptively, Turner argues that Lisa embodies the values of the shows writers themselves &endash; the 8-year-old girl with the cultural interests of a Harvard grad, political passion, environmental commitment and a taste for eastern spirituality. It's no surprise that Turner identifies Mr Burns with corporate America. But this then allows him, in the highpoint of the book, to judge the Simpsons itself as a corporation as well as a programme, a question surprisingly lacking from most discussions. Is it a Trojan horse, subverting commercial culture from within? Or something more profoundly hollow, a global empire that paints itself in biting satire and liberal images, while selling cheaply produced crap to children? Turner's answer is that its fortunes have been inextricable from the Fox's network from the start, giving it unprecedented satirical freedom, without any counter-cultural soul to sell. Later chapters explore the show's online following, its attitude to other countries, celebrity culture and TV, all worth a read. The footnotes would make a decent book in themselves. The one weakness is that Turner is so keen to link the show to its cultural context that he takes vast detours (10 pages on Radiohead and ironic detachment in the middle of a chapter on Lisa). But then products of the Simpsons generation should have no problem hitting the virtual picture search. |
just in case you thought the internet was unrelentingly trivial |
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