“Entertain and Subvert”: Fox Television, Satirical Comedy, and The Simpsons

Abstract

In a segment of The Simpsons episode “Mr. Spritz Goes to Washington” (March 2003), we see the Simpson family gathered around the television watching Krusty the Clown, who is running for a seat in Congress, engage in a televised debate with his opponent on the Fox News channel. The Fox News anchor begins the segment by saying, “Welcome to Fox News, your voice for evil.” This rather shocking announcement is then followed by a satirical attack on the bias in mainstream news media and, more specifically, on the so-called “fair and balanced” reporting that Fox purports to offer. Krusty (the Republican candidate) is introduced as “beloved children’s entertainer Krusty the Clown” and is shown standing before an American flag with a halo superimposed above his head; his opponent (the Democratic candidate) is introduced only as “this guy” and shown with a Soviet flag in the background and little red devil horns drawn atop his head. The anchor also refers to Krusty as “Congressman,” although, as his opponent exclaims, “He hasn’t won yet!” To this the anchor replies, “You make a very adulterous point.” This “debate” then concludes with a Krusty campaign commercial, an overtly propagandistic series of cliché images (apple pie, baseball, farmland, etc.) and sounds designed to invoke patriotic sentiment and to make Krusty appear “all-American.” We are additionally given a parody of the Fox News channel’s infamous “news crawl” at the bottom of the television screen; as the debate unfolds, viewers (of the debate and of The Simpsons itself) read the following messages: Pointless News Crawls Up 37 Percent & Do Democrats Cause Cancer? Find Out at Fox news.com & Rupert Murdoch: Terrific Dancer & Dow Down 5000 Points & Study: 92 Percent of Democrats are Gay & JFK Posthumously Joins Republican Party & Oil Slicks Found to Keep Seals Young, Supple & Dan Quayle, Awesome & KeywordsAMERICAN CultureFederal Communication CommissionComic StripComic BookNews CorporationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.