4d ago

This seems applicable to quite a few things

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I remember that one, because for what I remember it was a really shitty episode because like the crux was that the statue had to be naked if you'd let "everyone" have their way. And that is of course disgusting or something you just cannot accept (I'm from Europe so the whole anti naked craziness from the USA is completely stupid for me). So not funny just moralizing pro USA christianity.
Or so I recall, it was some time ago 😁
- I think you might have missed the intended message!
  Marge wants to censor Itchy and Scratchy. She builds up enough support to successfully do so.
  Her followers then want to censor Michelangelo's David, which has come to Springfield on a tour. She disagrees, saying it's a masterpiece and goes on TV to urge people to go to see it.
  On the show Marge is then asked how can she be in favour of freedom for one form of artistic expression (David) but not another (Itchy and Scratchy). She concedes that she can't, and that censoring Itchy and Scratchy was wrong, despite hating the show.
  The nudity issue was shown as an extreme position - it was so extreme as to make Marge realise that she was wrong to campaign to censor Itchy and Scratchy.
  
  It was also a meta or self-referential joke about what was going on with The Simpsons itself, at the time.
  Bush 1, Herbert, had actually specifically attacked the Simpsons in a speech he gave about American moral values.
  All the people that wanted to ban Magic cards, DnD, Pokemon, Harry Potter?
  They also wanted to ban the Simpsons, and of course later, South Park.
  1990?
  The Simpsons was only on season 2, this is the 9th episode of the 2nd season.
  This is back when The Simpsons were a radical departure from the standard family show, was a vicious critique of much of the bullshit fake nonsense image that America pretended it was, before the show uh, Flanderized itself into basically meaningless pablum.
  ...
  These hardcore moralists, dominionists, theofascists... they never went away!
  They just held their tongue a bit more, untill Trump told them it was ok to stop doing so.
  People who didn't grow up in and then escape a strongly right wing upbringing just don't get it, and its why so many people are surprised that such a rapid shift to facism can and is occuring.
  These people have nothing other than their malformed superiority complexes and out of date traditions.
  Of course they would and will always jump at any chance to impose their idiot will by force and double think.
  Its all they know.
  
  Fellow escapee here - no one's believed me yet how unhinged they are. Hugs!
  
  Thanks, I could use some hugs right now.
  Yeah, at this rate, its looking like I'm going to need to escape the entire fucking country... spent most of my life trying to warn people about this, got degrees in econ and polisci, can make the arguments and cite the data correctly...
  ... and almost no one listened untill it was far beyond too late, most people called me a hysterical lunatic while I was recognizing and describing the signs of a mass political movement largely acting and thinking like an extremist religious cult.
  I hate it here, the American 'experiment' has failed.
  
  Thanks, I just remember the statue wearing jeans in the end. 😁
- There was a big kerfuffle in the US at the time, one particular senator - Jesse Helms - went on a special crusade to revoke funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and restrict obscene works, generally. Maybe triggered by, certainly exasperated by Piss Christ. US obscenity law at the time was basically, "I know it when I see it," and Simpsons itself was occasionally threatened for its 'obscenity.'

58 comments