The moral of the episode was seriously ”it's wrong to lie to get lots of money from an evil rich guy”? They should've taken Burns to the cleaners, Marge was totally the villain of the episode with her whining about how wrong it was to lie.
The moral of the episode was seriously ”it's wrong to lie to get lots of money from an evil rich guy”? They should've taken Burns to the cleaners, Marge was totally the villain of the episode with her whining about how wrong it was to lie.
Lisa befriending Burns and then throwing away his money as a moral act similarly bothered me. It's peak liberalism and fetishizing poverty.
Like 12 million dollars couldn't be used to good for your family or the world? Ensuring she gets the best education she could. Hell, she could have donated the money and at least that way, it would do some good.
But no, it's noble to ignore the rules employed by the ruling class. Like what the hell?
It's narrative brainworms. Having access to powerful and refusing to use it because you personally aren't desperate enough to use it doesn't make you the hero. It makes you naive at best.
It also didn't change anything, she was already complicit in whitewashing Mr. Burns by being the face of his fake environmentally friendly company. Not taking the money doesn't make her a hero.
Noting is allowed to change all that much in The Simpsons, having 12 million bucks given to them in an episode but then having to completely forget about it in the next episode might have been too much to attempt.
Nah, she could've just donated to charity. Plus, Homer owns the Denver Broncos, but nobody cares.
Homer's disappointedly exasperated "Aw, the Denver Broncos?!" lives rent-free in my mind.
When's the last time Homer visited his half brother?
He actually lost them gambling at Moe's. It's in one of the comics
Any pop culture artifact is compelling to the extent that it taps into our real desire for change, justice, virtue, freedom, resolution, etc. But it can never go all the way down this road, it can’t consummate this desire, because that would be too threatening to the reigning social order.
The example of this that hit me the hardest was the "Planetina" episode of Rick and Morty. This is a show where Morty remains loyal and complicit in hundreds of capers Rick orchestrates where people are constantly getting killed, entire planets destroyed, lives ruined, all of the benefit of this old egomaniac's ego. Morty complains but never abandons Rick.
But Planetina starts doing the same shit in the service of actually improving the world and he suddenly has a crisis of mortality and tearfully abandons her.