Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

12-15-90 A few weeks ago I watched a popular television program—The Simpsons—for the first time. It’s a cartoon about a weird family. The father, Homer, works in a nuclear-power plant; the mother [Marge] has a ridiculously tall beehive hairdo; the baby [Maggie] sucks on a pacifier; and the main protagonist, Bart, is a classic underachiever. Only the oldest daughter, whose name I forget [it’s Lisa], is normal. What cracks me up about the show is its irreverence. The characters swear, cut each other down, and in general act like real people rather than angels. As if to emphasize this “normalcy”, they’re ugly as sin. Bart has an elongated head, spikes for hair, protruding eyeballs, and a pudgy body. Homer is balding and has a potbelly. William Bennett, the former drug czar of the [George Herbert Walker] Bush administration, has criticized The Simpsons for exalting mediocrity. Millions of American kids identify with Bart, who, as I say, is an underachiever. In this Thursday’s episode, for example, Bart is overjoyed to get a score of sixty on a history exam, for that means he didn’t fail. Not failing is a success. He disrupts class, runs away from home, spends his time watching television and skateboarding, and gets on the nerves of his parents and sisters. Bennett is concerned with the message this conveys to impressionable children. While I’m usually concerned about such things, this show doesn’t bother me. If anything, Bart shows kids what not to be. I consider it good, clean, escapist fun. [The Simpsons is still on the air, 20 years later. It is in its 22d season.]