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Indeed, the educational system is a particular target for the Simpsons. The
principal at Springfield Elementary, Seymour Skinner, is almost certainly named
after B.F. Skinner, the controversial psychologist who advocated strict behavior
and conformity. The teachers, especially Edna Krabappel, give the students
meaningless assignments and have no investment in the their futures. Besides
Lisa and Martin Prince, the students are generally dull and unimaginative. In
one episode, Lisa, a vegetarian, refuses to dissect a worm, causing her teacher
to push a secret button to trigger an “independent thought alarm.” Lisa is the
consummate smart kid—nerd with some hipster thrown in. She’s a great saxo-
phonist and dreams of going to an Ivy League college. When the school’s
teachers go on strike and she fears she will not be able to go to an elite school,
she cries “I probably won’t even get into Vassar.” Homer comes back with “I’ve
had just about enough of your Vassar-bashing, young lady.” Even Otto, the
stoner school bus driver, has an elite background. “Weren’t you at Brown,
Otto?” Skinner asks him. “Yup,” he responds. “Almost got tenure too.”
The show if full of characters who represent and mock American culture,
such as the sleazy lawyer Lionel Hutz, the quack doctor Nick Riviera, the
donut-munching police chief Clancy Wiggum, who would “rather let a thou-
sand guilty men go free than chase after them,” the 1970s throwback Disco
Stu, Carl and Lenny, bi-racial friends with ambiguous sexuality, Moe, the
pathetic owner of the local bar, Comic Book Guy, the corrupt, womanizing,
and boozing Mayor “Diamond Joe” Quimby, clearly created in the image of
the Kennedys, and the fundamentalist Christian neighbor, and Homer’s nem-
esis, Ned Flanders. But the two most outrageous figures, symbolizing the
often-malignant role of celebrity and big business, are Krusty the Klown and
Charles Montgomery “Monty” Burns. Krusty is a drug-addled media star hosting
a popular kid’s show that features the violent cartoon “Itchy and Scratchy,”
but he also has his own fast-food franchise, “Krusty Burger,” a cereal, “Krusty-
O’s,” and other businesses exploiting child labor and weak environmental laws
all over the world. He’s a washed-up celebrity who seems to rely on Bart to
keep his career alive. Monty Burns is the most overtly political character, a
representative of the worst excesses of Capitalism. Burns owns the Springfield
Nuclear Power Plant, which looks like it is held together by duct tape and glue
and has badly polluted the air and water of Springfield. Homer, not by coin-
cidence, is the chief safety inspector. Burns looks back longingly on the days
when child labor was legal, when immigrants had no rights, when you could