From: Dur 

(Toronto Star) - The Fox network recently celebrated the 20th
anniversary of "The Simpsons" by airing an hour-long documentary by
Morgan Spurlock, best known for Super Size Me, his greasy takedown of
McDonald's. Spurlock's documentary turned out to be a puffy look at
the show and its fans, sparing the animated franchise his critical
eye.

Those seeking a more substantial look at the longest-running sitcom in
history should read John Ortved's "The Simpsons" (Amazon.com:
http://xrl.us/SimpsonsOrtved ), an oral history of the show and the
people behind it. Neither academic ("Watching with The Simpsons:
Television, Parody, and Intertextuality" by Jonathan Gray) nor
epistemological ("The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer")
nor theological ("The Gospel According to The Simpsons" by Mark I.
Pinsky) nor fanboy braindump (the 464 pages of "Planet Simpson" by
Chris Turner), Ortved turns most of the book over to his interviewees,
inserting his own comments sparingly.

While his love for the show is obvious, Ortved does not let passion
erase necessary judgment. He calmly asserts, for example, that the
show hasn't been worth watching for almost a decade and that The
Simpsons movie was tepid. As professor John Alberti observes in the
book, The Simpsons began as The Beatles, but have now "stretched it
into the Rolling Stones, because the Rolling Stones are so
corporatized now it's really hard to imagine that they were ever
subversive or edgy or countercultural."...

Continued: http://xrl.us/Simpsons2


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