The Simpsons and History
Cartoon vs professor over the value of myth.
Geoffrey Hamilton
Febrary 20, 2003
It's not often when a cartoon answers questions vital for human civilization, but
such was the case with February 18th's episode of the Simpsons.
The answer the show gave is: myths should be treasured even at the expense of truth.
Luckily, this answer arrived just in time for the question: should our city save an
important Toronto myth? The myth to be saved can be paraphrased, 'the United Nations
designated Toronto as the most multicultural city in the world'. And the answer should be: keep the myth.
Philosophical issues, like myth versus truth, don't often attract the kind of passion
necessary to have people wanting to air them in public for wide audiences to consider.
These issues usually languish in post-graduate studies, or in Hamlet, or in a book like Crime
and Punishment, or in a movie like Seven, where the amateurs can have their voices heard
and where the majority of humanity can find out how others think about issues of value.
Now we have a battle of true proportions.
On one side is a man out for the destruction of Toronto's myth, Micheal Ducet,
Ryerson Geology Professor. On the opposite side is Lisa Simpson, cartoon, and the better
philosopher.
The Simpsons is a perfect platform for this kind of public airing and the creators of this
show's stories have been responsible for disseminating many ideas which fall greatly beyond
the issue of the week. So it is they, the creators, who are 'Lisa Simpson'.
The episode of February 18th fell even further beyond the normal depth of the show.
For the sake of reference and clarity, this is quick synopsis.
The episode begins with a school educational film relating how Jedidiah
Springfield in 1796 lead a group of Massachusetts settlers into the western US
looking for New Sodom, after misunderstanding, positively, the Bible passages on Sodom and Gomorrah
(the first case of myth doing some good).
Lisa Simpson is, as usual, the most enthusiastic
member of her class towards
learning and decides to augment the documentary by going to the local history museum to find out more. There,
the curator, played by Donald Sutherland, offers her hands-on access to Jedidiah's affects,
then leaves her alone while he answers the phone. When she tries to play Jedidiah's flute, a
piece of paper comes out the end, and on it is written a confession by Jedidiah to the effect
that he was a murderous pirate and had once attempted to assassinate George Washington.
She tries to convince the whole town of this truth, but is dismissed along with the
document. Finally she notices that the paper, on which the note of Jedidiah is written, is
the missing piece of the famous unfinished George Washington painting, the
painting with the white lower quarter. This convinces the reluctant curator to allow Lisa the chance to
tell the whole town of this truth during the bicentennial parade. But when she sees all
the people wearing Jedidiah coon-skin hats and coming together as a community for the first
time, she decides instead to give a short speech extolling Jedidiah's mythical virtues.
Why does she do this? Because she has weighed the value of truth and myth and found the
truth wanting.
The Toronto myth began roughly 15 years ago when newspaper reporters heard a rumour
that the U.N. had designated Toronto as the most culturally diverse city in the world. The
story was never checked and was even spread during the 93 World Series in Toronto by American
sports announcers.
So many people were repeating this story that an idea came into the mind
of Ryerson's Micheal Ducet to call the U.N. and ask if the story were true. According to the
U.N. it was not true and ever since then he has been writing politicians and reporters
informing them of their mistake. As late as February19th he was ready to continue correcting
all these 'misinformed' people as far up as the Canadian federal government.
The parallels between the Simpsons episode and the fight over the Toronto U.N. myth are
as close as real people would want it too be. Cartoon character, Lisa Simpson, discovers a
town's history is a myth and sets out to fix it. A Ryserson University Professor calls the
U.N., discovers a myth and sets out to correct it. Both make the correction of myth a mission
in life. The communities involved, Springfield and Toronto were proud of their myths and
rallied around them. In both communities there was resistance to the truth from the proudest
and most powerful members of the respective communities and both crusaders went to the brink
of finally killing the myth. But whereas Lisa had an epiphany on the value of myth and did
not cross the line into a blind smugness, Micheal Ducet continues sticking his mouth against
the microphones of cynical reporters and never realizing how he is crushing a the
spirit of Toronto by his words. This could be the real difference between Americans and Canadians.
If truth were the only value in this world, then given how there is so much ignorance
and division on what the truth is, it would be impossible for humanity to value anything and
therefore survival would be impossible in the long run. But Lisa recognizes that the relative
value of truth is at times lower than myth. What is even more interesting is that she is really bowing to this
greater truth at the expense of the less important historical truth. So even on the issue of
truth as a value she has found the more valuable position. Lisa and Micheal may have squared
off without knowing it, but when the fight was over Lisa proved to be the better philosopher.
GRH
