In the journey that we call life, it would be swell to be able to take two or three steps without tripping over a certain animated show that has embedded itself so deeply into popular culture that all of us are expected to get every conversational reference its fans throw at us. You know what I’m talking about: Homer and Marge and their kids and his evil boss and her hostile sisters and the pious next-door neighbor and the four dozen others. Don’t you get tired of the assumption that you should know these characters? Aren’t you sick of the way so many people use a moment from “The Simpsons” as a metaphor for real life? Isn’t it like living in a society that adopted Esperanto without letting you vote? Have we lost so many vestiges of mass culture that a TV show – a cartoon! – has to be the glue that holds postmodern society together? And whom should we blame? Read More >>>
