Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze! has a nice post about mapping Springfield. There is a great link to a map of Springfield. It reminded me that Regina Monologues, the episode where the Simpsons visit the UK, might be an interesting starting point for considering what consititutes British culture and identity. How others see us?
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9 comments
Posted in Cultural Geography
Written on Fri, 18 August 2006 at 1:21 pm
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September 15th, 2006 at 11:19 am
We have just used the Regina Monologue in that way, showing a 5 minute clip from Mary poppins! The students listed all the portrayals of London.
We then got them to create a storyboard: The Simpsons in Barking, using local images. Worked well!
September 15th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Hi Pete,
Thanks for posting a comment. A great idea
I wonder what the Simpson’s would do in Illson?
Cheers
Tony
September 19th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Am going to be doing the Simpsons in Norfolk when I get to this part of the course.
Alan
February 16th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I am doing research for class on this topic and want to use some of your information and knowledge as to the inaccuracies in the simpsons episodes. Being American I am interested in how other countries are represented as well as how these representations have come to be. Also, is the simpsons a representation of americans to people in other countries?
February 16th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Hi Nathan,
Happy to help out if I can. Perhaps you can provide some examples of Britishness displayed in the Simpsons and we’ll tell you whether they are true or not.
February 16th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
I can do that, I am going to review that episode and make some notes on what a typical american would consider “Britishness” and I will post my notes. perhaps I can do this for the other countries and others may be encouraged to reply!!
thanks for the help
February 16th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Happy for you to do this Nathan, I will then post your thoughts in a separate posts, for that people can comment on them.
February 20th, 2008 at 5:37 am
I have watched the episode several times now and have put together a small list of what Americans would consider “Britishness”.
The things that I have noted are:
use of certain phrases, i.e. my word, I say, cross the pond
Big Ben in the background quite often
dry British wit/humor
“classy” everyone wearing suits and tuxedos or, when in the tower of london, dressed more like the rural people in ep. 616 Bart v.s. Australia
women of power refered to as “Mum” (Judy Dench and then The Queen)
theaters playing nothing but shakespeare (except the Joe Millionare reference)
the rich men betting with gold (this one I thought to be quite interesting as throughout the episode there are numerous comments on Americans and American pop culture and this is a bit of an homage to the movie “Trading Places”)
On a bit of a side note, I was wondering what is the reaction to Homer’s quote about Jimmy Page?
February 20th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Hi Nathan, I’ve put this as a new post, to see if you get any responses to your questions.