Sargasm

Apropos of the sarcasm post, here is one of my favorite ever Simpsons quotes, which in its fashion makes the same point I did:

Squishy Culture Jam

Banksy's Simpsons intro is getting lots of attention. The video's been removed from YouTube, but here's a bootleg:



Depicting Korean slave labor grinding up kittens and chaining unicorns in service of producing the show's animation is supposed to draw attention to the plight of cheap foreign labor--an important issue I'm sure--but its effectiveness is questionable. Like fellow graffiti artist Shepard Fairey, Banksy's work, at least here, is steeped in irony and turning giant cultural forces against themselves. This is fine for taking the piss out of the powerful, but for advancing a positive argument the effect is muddled. Is he serious? one must ask. Even the master ironist Stephen Colbert breaks character when it comes time to actually make a point:



Irony can also lead to a certain infinite regress: The Simpsons mocks its own harsh labor practices...by using harsh labor practices!

It comes down to effectiveness: is this really going to make anyone sit up and say, "No more!" or will the viewer chuckle, concede that he's probably right, and then move on to the next cute animal montage on YouTube?




P.S. Clerks' Korean labor gag was funnier.

Worn-Out Welcomes

There's not much surprising in this interview with Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, ostensibly the first since 1989. Watterson made his intentions clear in the 10th Anniversary Collection that he wanted his creation to maintain its integrity, which would have been hard to do if it had been licensed onto every manner of stuffed animal, cartoon, lunchbox, etc. etc. (He didn't name names, but it's patently obvious that he had the odious Garfield in mind.) For that same reason he decided to quit while he was ahead:

This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of 10 years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say.

It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now "grieving" for "Calvin and Hobbes" would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them.

I think some of the reason "Calvin and Hobbes" still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it.

I've never regretted stopping when I did.

Those who wish Watterson had kept going would be well-advised to compare the last ten years' output of The Simpsons to their mid-1990s heyday. Are we really glad it's still around?

The Simpsons is Now Twenty.

It's been shitty for at least ten, which is why I didn't bother watching the celebratory episode this weekend. Jonathan Chait and his readers discuss their favorite episodes. Mine is the Treehouse of Horror VII segment, "Citizen Kang," which has disappeared from YouTube and centers on Bill Clinton and Bob Dole being impersonated by monotone aliens with no one able to tell the difference.

"My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but
tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward,
and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom."
- campaign speech by Kodos as Bill Clinton

What is your favorite episode? And is anyone willing to defend the last decade or so of output (not counting the movie, which was a refreshing last gasp for air)?