Simpsons Explaining Salmon
You really can sort of measure the pop culture success of something by how much of it makes it into everyday speech. Shakespeare, for example, has given the English language a number of expressions that are still used today. So has The Simpsons. To be clear, however, I’m not necessarily equating the Bard with Groening’s creations. Beyond expressions and sayings, there’s also the ease for which people can use something, like The Simpsons, as a metaphor or explanation for something else. We’ve kind of seen it with The Taurus, recently. Now, however, it seems a Simpsons episode has made explaining Salmon issues a bit easier:
If you’re a Simpsons fan, you may remember an episode in which Lisa inadvertently releases an invasive lizard in the town that eats pigeons.
Everyone is happy, and when someone points out that they’ll soon have a problem with lizards instead of birds, someone dismisses it by saying they’ll release monkeys to eat the lizards and then cold will kill the monkeys. See, there’s no real problem!
It’s meant to be a ridiculous jab at peoples’ short-sightedness, but some days it seems like reality TV. Western states have now taken steps to protect their valuable wild salmon stocks by killing sea lions.
The rest of the article goes into greater detail. Normally, however, in terms of writing, these sort of pop-cultural references usually don’t work. For example, not everybody may be familiar with Robot Chicken, so using it as an explanatory tool may not be too effective. Plus, there’s the ever present problem of dating. In this regard, using an obscure 1980’s comedy could possibly be lost on people. At any rate, since it’s The Simpsons, it largely works, due to the success of the show and most people’s grasp on the characters.
The Simpsons, Nature, Conservation
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