The Simpsons and Scopes
Making a mockery out of the Maker
by Shaun Doyle
Bart Simpson’s sister, Lisa, is usually cast as the ‘liberal’ conscience. This particular show was no exception.
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Whether one likes it or not, The Simpsons is one of the most popular cartoons
in television history. It has come to have a prime place in the homes of so many
people every week (and every night with the seemingly endless reruns).1 Therefore, it has become a reflection
of American, and wider western, culture, and a good gauge of the social issues currently
in the public mindset.
In the episode ‘The Monkey Suit’, which aired in Australia on Tuesday
5 September (and months ago in the US), The Simpsons addressed teaching
creation vs evolution in US public schools in its usual highly satirical manner. And
unsurprisingly, it was biblical creation that received the heavier ridicule.
This is not the first time something resembling biblical creation has been satirized
on The Simpsons. In an episode that aired in the 13th season called ‘Gump
Roast’, two aliens named ‘Kang’ and ‘Kodos’ said they
had seen Earth created ‘5000 years ago, by God.’ However, ‘The
Monkey Suit’ was the first episode to deal with creation and evolution at
length.
To teach or not to teach …
While at the town museum, Ned Flanders (an ‘over-zealous’ evangelical
Christian) sees an evolution exhibit. He then leaves horrified to hear that
humans supposedly evolved from monkeys, covers his children’s eyes and promptly
exits the museum. Ned meets up with the Church council afterwards, and they decide
to blackmail the local elementary school to teach creation as opposed to evolution.
They even convene a town council, where evolution is summarily outlawed from being
taught.
However, creationists in general (and especially Creation Ministries International) are not at
all against the teaching of evolution! In fact, we say that schools should teach
more evolution than they normally do; they should teach evolution warts
and all!2
An arresting message
The case against evolution is finally dropped after Homer ‘goes ape’
over a beer can and Ned admits Homer could be related to apes.
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Disgusted with the town council vote, Lisa (the elder Simpson daughter, who is cast
as the (usually liberal) ‘social conscience’) decides to teach evolution
in secret, and is arrested before she can begin teaching. This is where this episode
pulls no punches: Lisa is arrested ‘for the teaching of non-biblical science.’
Even though its intent is to mock, The Simpsons gets this spot on! The
whole problem is not about ‘intelligent design’. The problem is that
evolution goes directly against the Word of God! Evolution is therefore based
on a wrong understanding of science itself. It is not just based on the idea that
everything observed to happen in the universe is a process that can be explained
naturally; it also says that the origin of everything observed in the universe
must have a purely natural cause. The personal God of the Bible making things from
nothing by his Word is not a natural explanation!
Scoping out Scopes
Lisa is then brought before the court in a case titled ‘Lisa Simpson vs God’
that is itself a parody of the famous Scopes trial. The attorneys hired for the
trial are named ‘Clarice Drummond’ and ‘Wallace Brady’,
directly parodying both the actual trial lawyers (Clarence Darrow and William Jennings
Bryan) and their namesakes in the play
Inherit the Wind (Henry Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady). The case
against evolution is finally dropped after Homer ‘goes ape’ over a beer
can and Ned admits Homer could be related to apes.
The old canards are brought out, like the idea that ‘Christian’ and
‘scientist’ are a contradiction in terms (the Creationist ‘expert’
has a bogus degree ‘in Truthology’ from a Christian diploma mill). Christians
are also portrayed as having a secret agenda in proclaiming the Bible as truth.
It’s all about the numbers in the pews, apparently.
What’s the moral of the story?
While Lisa is being arrested, the local criminal, ‘Snake’, is shooting
people from the top of the convenience store saying: ‘You live! You die (then
shoots)!’ This is supposed to present the idea that Snake’s actions
are far more important to deal with than the creation/evolution issue. The irony
is that Snake’s arbitrary killing spree is in fact a perfect logical conclusion
from the premise that evolution is true. If humans are nothing but modified pond
scum, then ultimately there is no reason to value human life as anything more than
a means to a pointless end.
The story ends with Ned and Lisa coming to some sort of agreement that ‘religion
and science should never mix’. This is unfortunately a compromise much
of the church is happy to make for the sake of peace. The problem is that religion
forms the basis for all understandings of origins. Evolutionists base it on
principles that place fallible man as a higher authority than the Bible, whereas
biblical creation is formed on the infallible Word of God as the final authority
on everything it touches upon.
This episode obviously has its negative points. Once again, biblical creation is
ridiculed in the popular media with blazing strawmen lighting the screens. It’s
also unfortunate that that is a good estimation of public opinion of not only creationists,
but the Bible as well. It presents creationists as irrationally fanatical or
promoting creation for less than upright reasons. We need to bear in mind what sort
of effect these images will have on our children. But the mere fact that such
a fuss is made in something like The Simpsons is great reason for those
who trust in the Word of God as the ultimate authority to take heart. We are making
an impact—a show such as The Simpsons would not take any notice of
us if we weren’t.
References and notes
- A poll taken in Chicago found that while one in four
people surveyed could name one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the first amendment
to the American Bill of Rights, more than half could name at least two members of
the Simpson family. See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11611015.
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- I.e. with all of its scientific problems, and philosophical/religious
presuppositions, on show. The problem is often thought of as religion being
taught in the science classroom. But the problem is not whether religion is
taught in science; it’s which religion is taught in schools: naturalism
or biblical Christianity. Religion is always taught in schools. However,
the religion of naturalism, which evolution is based on, is the dominant religion
of the western world today, and its educational systems.
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Published: 4 October 2006(GMT+10)
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