Interview Review: The Gospel According to The Simpsons

Ok, by now I'm sure you've noticed the current unofficial theme to the blog: Religion, Sex, and Race in adult animation. Yesterday, while I was washing the dishes and listening to CBC radio, Tapestry had an interview with Mark Pinsky about his book "The Gospel According to The Simpsons". Due to my current theme, this topic immediately caught my attention and I jotted down little notes in-between washing the plates and silverware.

These are my notes from the interview with Mr. Pinsky. I haven't fact checked all the references he made or read the book myself, but everything sounded fairly credible from what I know about the material.


Statements made by Mark Pinsky during the interview and my shoddy notes on it. 
Click here to listen to the Mary Hynes interview with Mark Pinsky for free on the CBC website 

In animation, as opposed to live action, depictions of Jesus and/or God are accepted as depictions or commentary. This gives animation the ability to critique and comment on various aspects of religion in ways that live action depictions can't because, for whatever reason, people become offended by them.

The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy all have different approaches to their commentary/inclusion of religion. Both The Simpsons and South Park portray religions/Gods as existing whereas Family Guy generally mock the existence of God(s) and pokes fun at anyone that has faith.

For example, when Homer is having a discussion with God the conversation is ended with God having to leave to appear in a tortilla in Mexico. The interesting part about this is that in this episode God is actually appearing in the tortilla. This event confirms that the shows writers are not only affirming the existence of God they are also affirming that God does indeed manifest in various objects.

If a similar plot line was happening in Family Guy God may be shown to exist, but he would likely have to go deal with some lunatic who believed that Gos was in a tortilla.  So, God may be affirmed as existing, but believers would likely be shown to be rather silly.

Simpsons was the first sit-com to portray a realistic view of an average North American family that attends church. Previous to this religion was suggested, but never discussed or depicted in any critical way and attempts to portray religion appeared preachy. The Simpsons portrayal allowed other TV shows the freedom to begin to reference religion as well.

Pinsky also believes that The Simpsons is unique in it's ability to comment on religion because it's writers so obviously have a deep understanding of religion and their commentary comes across as 'insider' views as opposed to snarky attack humour.

When God is depicted in The Simpsons he has five fingers and toes suggesting that he is more 'real' than the other characters that have four fingers and toes.

The Simpsons was also one of the first North American shows to depict main characters that practice religions other than Christianity. Lisa, while being a skeptic, is a secular budhhist;, Apu is Hindu; Krusty is Jewish.


End of statements made by Mark Pinsky during the interview and my shoddy notes on said interview. 



During the interview Pinsky also referenced one of my own favourite quotes from The Simpsons so I thought I'd share it with you:

Marge: I can’t believe you’re giving up church, Homer.

Homer: Hey, what’s the big deal about going to some building every Sunday? I mean, isn’t God everywhere? And don’t you think that the Almighty has better things to worry about than where one little guy spends one measly hour of his week? And what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week we’re just making God madder and madder.

Bart: Testify!

Marge: [Groans]

On the surface it looks like this is the everyman protesting religion, but if you dig a little deeper you notice that he's using layman's terms to express this message from Corinthians:

Corinthians 15:12–18 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

So basically Homer is using the argument that if you're misrepresenting God by having faith in something that is incorrect it is more damning than having no faith at all. What a wonderful hymnal for religious apathy.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass on my notes on this interview with Mark Pinsky about "The Gospel According to The Simpsons" since it was rather intriguing.