December 25, 2009 5:21 PM
Vatican praises The Simpsons
From the UK Daily Mail:Okely dokely do! The Simpsons mirrors modern man's need for faith, says Vatican
December 23The Vatican newspaper has declared The Simpsons an 'okely dokely' lot - as Homer's Christian neighbour Ned Flanders would put it.
In an article entitled 'Aristotle's Virtues and Homer's Doughnut', the L'Osservatore Romano paper congratulated America's longest-running animated TV show on its 20th anniversary.
From the snore-evoking sermons of Reverend Lovejoy to Homer Simpson's face-to-face talks with God, religion appears so frequently on the show that it could be possible to come up with a 'Simpsonian theology', it said.
Save me, Superman: Homer Simpson's religious confusion mirrors that of modern man, the Vatican paper said
The paper commented on several religion-themed episodes, including one in which Homer calls for divine intervention by crying: 'I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!'
The paper commented on several religion-themed episodes, including one in which Homer cries: 'I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!'
'Homer finds in God his last refuge, even though he sometimes gets His name sensationally wrong,' L'Osservatore said.
'But these are just minor mistakes, after all, the two know each other well.'
L'Osservatore Romano said The Simpsons had opened up cartoons to an adult audience. Without it, 'many today wouldn't know how to laugh'.
However, the paper added there was some reason to criticise its 'excessively crude language, the violence of certain episodes or some extreme choices by the scriptwriters'.
I wrote about the same thing in 2001: Are The Simpsons Okily Dokily?
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