Lab+8

The Simpsons is truly a remarkable show. Matt Groenieng is a creative genius. There is no other show in the history of television that has been able to capture viewers attention for 22 years. An interesting side element to this show is the diverse, and never the same scene of the family on the couch in the opening sequence. You just never know what your going to get. The episode aired on October 10th took this a step further, but going deep underground into a slave/sweatshop mine operation. What is interesting, is that this is perhaps a mockery of the labour standards in Asia, where assumingly much of the Simpsons merchandise is prowhy the duced.

Using ones own medium as a channel to mock or cause controversy on the very things you do is called culture jamming. The Simpsons has actually been doing this for a while now. If you havent noticed, nearly every episode has some mockery of a popular cultural product or phenomenon. Sometimes these mockeries are very blunt and obvious, like Fox sucks, other time not so subtle. This may be just the reason why the Simpsons has been able to survive for very long. It seems, that if you can find something that is popular, yet people hate it, then make fun of it, it works. Actually, often times these mockeries become more popular then the thing being made fun of. This opening scene from the recent Simpsons episode has pushed that boundary a tad further again, and show that the creators of the Simpsons are clearly not running out of ideas, even after 22 years. Amazing.