You’ve probably seen this already, as it’s gotten a fair amount of publicity, but just in case:

I love the closing shot, and the overall idea is pretty good, but… there’s something unnerving about it. I know it’s The Simpsons, but still, they go so over the top with it that it undermines serious critique. Is that the point? Is it supposed to undermine that critique? Or is it supposed to power it? Should we be happy because it got on television, or sad because it’s unlikely to make any difference whatsoever? Happier because this particular apparent scathing attack on global capitalism was brought to me by the United Mileage Visa Signature card?

This entry was posted on Friday, October 15th, 2010 at 23:50 15 Oct 2010 and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

3 Responses to “Banksy Starts The Simpsons”

1. Graham Says:
   16 Oct 2010 at 03:57

   I’d rather see a full episode about the Korean sweatshop in which they reportedly make The Simpsons, instead of the brief references they made to it previously and this cloying intro.

2. alex Says:
   16 Oct 2010 at 06:10

   capitalism appears to be not that global, hulu won’t play here, eugh!

3. Tadhg Says:
   17 Oct 2010 at 20:01

   Graham: Sure, but that would be rather more documentary-style than The Simpsons usually gets, right? Also, it would be a lot harder to make popular and funny, two things evidently uppermost in their minds.

   Alex (and any other overseas readers): Sorry about that! I picked Hulu because it seemed like the most stable place to point at, as I thought any YouTube versions would be taken down rapidly. (Incidentally, the restrictions really annoy me, and not just for the usual reasons—this is essentially an ad for The Simpsons, and it’s in Fox’s interest for it to be spread anywhere people want to spread it.)

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