The Simpsons and Society

I just finished reading Steven Keslowitz's The Simpsons and Society: An Independent Analysis of Our Favorite TV Family and Its Influence in Contemporary Society. Ugh, what an irritating book. Among the many many frustrating things about the book (most of which are captured very lucidly by the reviewers on Amazon) are the following: 1) he gets quotes from the Simpsons wrong (or attributes them to the wrong characters - I'm not sure which is worse), 2) the text is not only uninsightful and repetitive but downright insipid, 3) many of the "facts"he states (Simpsons-related or otherwise) are proving very hard to verify, and finally 4) that the book overall feels like a slap-dash student essay of the D+ variety. It is so frustrating to see such a wonderful potential topic get such a dim-witted treatment. (Luckily, there are other excellent scholarly focused books on The Simpsons - like The D'Oh of Homer.)

However, I never like just straight up bashing, and there are random interesting tidbits to be scoured from the pages if you can get around the inanity of the "analysis" itself. Such as:

• Bruce Springsteen is the only guest star asked to appear on The Simpsons who turned the offer down (according to the book, this is stated in an Al Jean interview, though I couldn't find any reference to it on the web when I searched to verify...)
• The Brazilian government threatened to sue Fox over the Simpsons episode "Blame it on Lisa," (in which the Simpson family travels to Brazil) if Fox did not issue a formal apology for the portrayal of Brazil and Brazilian in the episode. (Reminiscent of the scuffle caused by A Streetcar Named Marge)
• The Lincoln-Douglas debates were really long (best I can tell the author gets the actual length wrong - he says the Galesburg debate was 8 hours long, but the consensus on the web seems to be 21 total, 3 hours each - CSPAN even reenacted the Galesburg debate and it came to 3 hours and seven minutes)
• According to Neil Postman "an American who has reached the age of forty will have seen well over 1 million commercials in his or her lifetime and has close to a million to go before the first Social Security check arrives." I wonder how much Tivo and other such DVR technologies are changing this figure...
• More 18-24 year olds voted in the 2004 American Idol competition then voted in the 2000 presidential election.

All in all, a frustrating book #3 of my "12 books in a year" challenge. Apologies for all the negativity. I am holding our higher hopes and expectations for book #4 - Blue.