The Simpsons 412
I recently rewatched The Simpsons season 4's "Marge vs. the Monorail" and was struck by its prescience.
The episode begins with the town of Springfield finds itself a surplus when government watchdogs discover Mr. Burns is hiding nuclear waste in a tree.
At a town meeting, the citizens gather to decide what to do with it. Marge's idea to rebuild the town's infrastructure -- the roads are full of potholes due to civil negligence -- is supported with cheers. But the support wanes when Lyle Lanley, a slick salesman, sells the town on a monorail through the power of a catchy tune.
"I hear those things are awfully loud..."
"It glides as softly as a cloud."
"Is there a chance the track could bend?"
"Not on your life, my Hindu friend."
"What about us brain-dead slobs?"
"You'll all be given cushy jobs."
Marge: "But Main Street's still all cracked and broken..."
Bart: "Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!"
Isn't this all strangely familiar? A salesman pitching a get-rich-quick scheme to economically weak town and muting the people's concern with catchy spin -- you'll all be given cushy jobs! -- all at the expense of less sexy community-benefitting proposals. Fix roads? Fuck that, make me rich! We're all culpable here -- Lyle Lanley didn't take Springfield hostage, the people wanted this. But without any leaders at the town meeting, decisions are left to the whims of mobs, mostly likely the same people who approved the "elevator to nowhere."
Marge's concerns lead her to North Haverbrook, one of Lyle's past accomplishments, past a billboard that reads "Where the monorail is king!" There she meets this woman (12:28)
She says "Go away! There ain't no monorail and there never was." Tea Party insanity.
When the monorail breaks down due to faulty wiring (or possibly intentional, the breaks are named "Seld-M-Break"), police Chief Wiggum gets dizzy watching the monorail drive out of control. He and the Mayor argue over responsibility -- while people's lives are endangered -- and they decide to solve it by finding an ancient town charter. But by the time they find it, they've lost all sight of why they are there -- they spend their time drooling over their entitlements (Wiggum gets a pig every month, as well, as "two comely lasses of virtue true").
We're still on a monorail out of control, desperate to find anchor. I just hope there's a donut big enough for us.
5 comments:
Funnily enough, similarly, I caught the end of naked gun 2 1/2 this morning. I guess the story of the movie was that energy conglomerates conspire to suppress a renewable energy scientist from speaking at a presidential dinner. at the very end leslie neilson gives a speech about how he hopes one day that his kids will live in a world not controlled by big oil, that the environment will be cleaner, and that the democrats will finally actually have decent candidates running for office.
I was amazed by the fact that the movie portrayed the big oil as old hold-out thugs and gangsters (and robert goulet) and even though renewable energy was portrayed as boring and stuffy, it's what everyone wants and it's the obvious next step and of course it'll happen soon and it's stupid we haven't already changed over. i was struck by the hope you could read between the (absurdist) lines.
just seemed surprisingly prescient. like frank drebin could make that speech today. amazing how little has changed in 19 years.
The best line of the episode is clearly when Leonard Nimoy says melodramatically "I should never have stopped for that haircut."
The irony regarding the Naked Gun thing is that the Zucker brothers have become insane republicans after 9/11.
And Ben, that's not Leonard Nimoy - it's the guy in North Haverbrook who shares with Marge the story.
The ACTUAL best line is when a solar eclipse temporarily stops the train, Leonard Nimoy says "The cosmic ballet... goes on" and the man next to him responds "Does anyone want to switch seats with me?"
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