by Melanie Knight 

What does it say about the state of Mass Media when cartoons and fake news shows are more in touch with reality than the Main Stream Media?

November 12th’s episode of THE SIMPSONS begins with the military recruiters having problems: even the dumbest teenagers in Springfield know there’s a war on, and refuse to be seduced into joining up.  So, the recruiters turn their attention to the elementary school, where a “cool” video—a cross between a computer game and a rock concert—convinces most of the student body to enlist.  When Bart comes home to announce he has signed up, Marge insists Homer go down to the recruiting office to have her son UNenlisted.  He succeeds, but ends up in basic training himself.  The recruiters’ promise of giving him “a parade” consists of giving him a copy of the cheesy newspaper filler, PARADE MAGAZINE (where he reads that Army privates make $14,000/year—doh!)  The Army, however, decides that they really DON’T want some of their new recruits, and assign them to be “the enemy” during wargames (during which the Army is equipped with live ammo, and “the enemy” with guns that shoot bubbles).  The Army spends $50 million to find Homer and his squad, only to lose when Marge and other townspeople (using a phone tree) rise up.  The townspeople point out that an occupying force can never over come a local insurgency.  Lisa analogizes to Vietnam, but the commander prefers having an airhorn sounded in his ears to the truth.

In one segment of the show, Homer tells Cletus (the incestuous hillbilly) that if they don’t cooperate, they’ll be sent to prison, and forced to form naked pyramids, as in Abu Grahib.  Cletus replies that that was his family Christmas card the year before.  (On THE DAILY SHOW, Jon Stewart impersonated a certain Yale grad, commenting on the same photo, saying it looked like a cheerleading pyramid to him!)

On a recent episode of GILMORE GIRLS, students take over a building (unfortunately, off camera), wearing Dubya and Condi masks.  Rory’s newspaper staff scrambles to cover the event.  While not as rad as it could be (why can’t they JOIN the protest??), GG’s often makes political references and liberal comments, and (Rory’s mother) Lorelai can be seen sporting peace T-shirts as far back as the beginning of the Iraq War.  In one episode, Rory and her friend Paris do tabling for prisoners’ rights.