Re: Good as Gould

[Elmer Elevator <bobmer@javanet.com>]

The last time a Simpson's episode came up -- the marvelous "Pastorale" episode
-- there were also all these same left-handed compliments and half-hearted
apologies. I think perhaps we might want to adjust our ideas of Culture and
Diplomacy to avoid such meaningless foot-shooters as "... for those of you who
may own televisions ..." etc.

What The Simpsons is is quite simply just Another Kind of Art ... biting,
insightful, brilliantly written and performed satire. Nobody would feel ashamed
on this list to refer to "Gulliver's Travels" or "Gargantua and Pantagruel" or
"Don Quixote." They were just The Simpsons of their day, and laughed over as
riotously, and thought every bit as naughty and wicked -- and, by many (usually
the victims of the satire), trailer-park and low-rent.

That it's shoved through a television set makes no difference ... they shove
Masterpiece Theater through the same box, and half of that, though with lovely
upper-class British accents, is total crap.

Elmer

Alice DuBois wrote:

> I can't remember who posted it, but I take issue with the "simpsons" being
> called Lowbrow!  If you watch closely, it's pretty biting irony and
> commentary on American society!  check out Matt Groening's old strip "life
> in hell" which was run in independent papers (still is, but has fallen in
> quality)  before the  "simpsons" got started.  In a way, "the simpsons" is a
> coup-unlike the work of underground comics like R. Crumb and Bill Griffith,
> Groening has infultrated the mainstream airwaves.  Quite a Feat, I say.
>
> Off-topic diatribe finished.
>
> Alice