Lab+8

Lab 8: A response to "Simpsons’ opening a suddenly dark turn" by Eddie Kim

I believe The Simpsons has been one of 20th Century Fox's most successful television shows. Being the longest running American sitcom and the longest running American animated cartoon, the Simpsons has come to have a fan base that covers every possible corner of the earth. With a show holding such popularity and being a guarantee of revenue, I believe the point has been reached where any production company would turn a blind eye on content. With such a large company handling production, I personally believe that revenue would be one of their most important concerns. With such a mentality, it is no wonder that such a significant counter culture artist such as Britol, England's Bansky would gain artistic control over the couch gag opening sequence.

The Simpsons has always been known for throwing jabs and slander to their overruling production company, 20th Century Fox. However, out of recent memory this couch gag is one of the harder hitting discredits to Fox. But why now? The commercialization of the Simpsons has been in full effect for quite a while now, perhaps it was the intention of the creators of the show to send out a little reminder to their audiences that they still aren't a full fledged corporate entity. Perhaps a little distinguishment between the creators of the show and producers of the show was needed. And who else would be better suited for the job than Banksy?

No matter what network, the popularity of the Simpsons will always be staggering. And of course, Fox fully realizes this. In fact, they are lucky enough to have the show still on their network. I believe it was the intention of the creators to utilize culture jamming processes in order to attack the unreal commercialization and outsourced creation of the show. With the ghastly imagery of the couch gag juxtoposed with a brutish 20th Century Fox logo, Banksy has achieved a magnificent attack on this mainstream institution. Money isnt everything!