Wednesday, March 25, 2009

March 22nd episode - In the Name of the Grandfather

This week The Simpsons episode was entitled “In the Name of the Grandfather.” The Simpsons decide to buy a new hot tub in the beginning of the episode, and the family proceeds to spend the rest of the night and the next day soaking in it. They are so absorbed by their new purchase that they forget about a family reunion they were supposed to attend. This upsets the grandfather as he realizes that he doesn’t have a lot of time left to do the things he’s always wanted to do. So the family takes a trip to Ireland so grandpa can go back and have a drink at his favorite pub from his youth. Like in the episode that we watched in class about their trip to Australia, it seems that the Simpson family, particularly Homer and his father, do not respect the laws of other countries while they are visiting them. When they drunkenly agree to buying the rundown pub, they realize that they have no customers, so they go against the law and allow smoking within the building to promote sales. Homer and his father don’t see it as a problem that they are blatantly breaking the Irish law, and when they get arrested and go to court, Homer plays the innocent card by saying that they did it to bring the ways of old Ireland back. I see this as an indication of ethnocentrism, in that Americans think their ways are the best and they should be treated differently than everyone else. I also found it funny that the potato-headed judge at the end makes a comment about deporting all of the Irish “incompetent halfwits” to America, where we foolishly made them police officers, as we learned about with immigration.

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