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even forgets he has a third child, has an astoundingly low intellect (looking up ‘photography’ in a
dictionary, for instance), is not registered to vote, and his greatest dream was to become a ‘pin
monkey’ at the local bowling alley. The Simpsons takes the sitcom father’s talent for conservative
inertia and ironically attaches it to a human being desperately in need of some or any form of
change. Versus the hardworking ethic of sitcom fathers – the ethic that engines the American
Dream – Homer’s rare words of fatherly advice to his son are that ‘If something’s hard to do, it’s
not worth doing’ (‘The Otto Show’). Homer can be a remarkably selfish man, guided less by civic
or parental responsibility than by childish amusement and hunger. And unlike his counterpart
sitcom dream father, represented in The Simpsons by the parodic Cliff Huxtable, Dr. Hibbert, and
by annoyingly perfect next-door neighbour Ned Flanders, Homer cannot simply laugh or pray all
his problems away, resorting more often to anger. Yet he is revered by the town, and is their
favourite and model citizen, emblematic of the town’s ethos.
Indeed, Springfield’s ignorance is regularly satirised in The Simpsons. Grote observes that
what goes unmentioned amidst most sitcoms’ glowing depiction of comfy suburbia is the ‘intense
exclusivity’ required to keep this situation, whereby ‘the people from outside who cause problems
are overcome and excluded’ (1983:82), creating ‘a world of Us and Them, and there is room for
only so many of Us and no more’ (1983:105). However, if so-called White Flight to the suburbs
and racist exclusivity are the unspoken truths of traditional sitcoms, The Simpsons highlights this
racism and xenophobia. Here, the episode ‘Much Apu About Nothing’ is illustrative, as the plot
sees a bear-watch programme push taxes too high, and the town ends up spuriously blaming
immigrants. What follows is a hilarious yet chilling depiction of suburban provincialism. The
townspeople plaster the streets with Uncle Sam posters demanding ‘I Want You OUT!’ and
generally get caught up in the push to deport all ‘foreigners.’ This action culminates at the port,
Convention