> Several years ago on this list we had a thread in which Yoshie and I
> argued that "self-criticism" is always fake unless in response to
> criticism from others. "Self-launched" self-criticism is, as you suggest
> here, a way of avoiding actual criticism.
I think that's quite true, but the kind of "self-criticism" represented by The Simpsons is not so serious as that. It's more in the area of "poking fun." Still, given that Groening and associates take a fairly progressive political line (most of the time), the fact that the show is as popular as it is does indicate something interesting about a lot of Americans' attitudes toward themselves. Certainly you wouldn't get the same picture from most opinion polls you see these days.
On a somewhat more serious level, some of the HBO series (excluding Sex and the City, of course) also represent "American self-criticism" which a pretty good number of Americans watch. I don't know if they are available to TV viewers in other countries. In fact, I wonder whether the advent of world-wide cable/satellite networks has changed the rest of the world's image of the U.S. from what it was in the days in which TV shows were disseminated to the rest of the world by a more cumbersome process.
In any case, it's too bad that most non-Americans still seem to get their impression of the U.S. from U.S. TV. Even today, it's still hardly representative of reality. Even within the country, some of the best things we say and do never get shown on TV, because the bias of that medium seems to be primarily towards showing what the folks with the big money want shown. (As it used to be said, "the press is free for those who can afford to buy one," now it's "TV networks are free for those who own them.")
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org _____________________________________ "Apparently if you play a Windows CD backwards you hear satanic messages. You think that's bad? If you play it forwards it installs Windows!" -- Random bit of wisdom from the Net