Last week, “Lisa the Iconoclast” (1996) was up for discussion in my Simpsons class.
(Lisa discovers that the town hero, Jebediah Springfield, was actually Hans Sprungfeld, a pirate who fought George Washington, hated the town he founded, and took credit for taming a “land cow” (buffalo), even though he had simply shot it. No one but Homer believes her, and the town historian actually covers up proof she’s right. When she confronts him, he admits it & is prepared to let her tell the townsfolk. Lisa reconsiders, though, since “the myth of Jebediah has value too.”)
When I last taught the class, in 2019, we had a robust discussion of whether Lisa made the right choice in ultimately keeping Hans’s secrets.
We did this time as well, but we spent more time talking about how this episode would likely be very different if it were written today.
While Miss Hoover calls Lisa a “PC thug . . . who keep[s] the rest of us from landing a husband,” today, Lisa would be derided as “woke.”
I also postulated that our recent grappling of history, specifically the removal of confederate statues, might have changed Lisa’s perspective on preserving a false legacy.
When a student asked why Lisa is okay with abandoning her quest to spread the truth and protect her reputation, it occurred to me that maybe it’s enough that the town historian validates her, especially after he gaslit her. I noted that “gaslighting” wasn’t a common term in 1996 (and that we overuse it now).
I’m not sure exactly what would happen in a cromulent 2024 version of this story, but I’m sure it would embiggen my streaming time.
Very interesting points here with the passage of time.