The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh of Homer

by William Irwin, Mark T. Conard, and Aeon J. Skobl (editors)

While I'm not the world's biggest Simpsons fan, I nevertheless enjoyed this collection of essays about the show. I have seen Simpsons enough times to be familiar with its characters, premise, and style, and the essay writers never assume that you've seen a particular episode.

The essays themselves extend beyond what I would call the purely philosophical to also offer political, feminist, and Marxist analysis. You can get all of that out of a cartoon? Well, yeah, if it's a richly developed cartoon like The Simpsons, you can.

Among my favourite essays were “Simpsonian Sexual Politics” (ever notice that three-quarters of the Simpsons characters are male, and that something like 80% of episodes focus primarily on a male character?), “And the Rest Writes Itself: Roland Barthes Watches The Simpsons” (you got to love semiotics), and “Lisa and American Anti-Intellectualism” (which explains a lot of American popular culture, really).

See also

Buffy Essays book review

Report from the Popular Culture Conference