Photo By Jymi Bolden

John Alberti, a professor of English at Northern Kentucky University, has found intellectual benefit in -- gasp -- The Simpsons.

If the United States governs as cartoon characters, couldn't a cartoon govern as intellectuals? President Homer? First Lady Marge? Imagine a White House that's two-dimensional, animated, lively and full of humor. Is that really different from the current administration? Not under Matt Groening's reign, it's not.

The political undercurrent pulls and sways in the land of Springfield, hometown to Groening's colorful and, at times, off-color creation, The Simpsons. Skilled, sacred skewering and precisely defined characters feed off each other's life force. Think The McLaughlin Group with better hair.

Groening would be in sync with the comparison. The humorist has navigated Homer's Odyssey through the surreal and the sublime, commenting on political pundits, pop culture icons and lifestyles of the not-so-rich and famous. He threw in his two-dimensional sense on gay marriage long before the polarizing topic spread like a Bush fire. And he does this with a malleable core family of five: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie.

John Alberti tunes in for this seven-layer dip, a venerable, multi-tiered workhorse racing along in its 15th season after its early days drawing attention as shorts on The Tracy Ullman Show. Alberti, a professor of English at Northern Kentucky University, sees the intellectual benefit in -- gasp -- a television show.

"It's a cartoon where the characters aren't cartoon characters," he explains. "People watch the show for all sorts of different reasons. They're a parody, but you don't have to watch them as a parody. (Some watch) not for the irony, but for the characters. They're multiple ways you can use or interact with any text. That's not how I use that show. It's one of the reason these shows are so popular."

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for all the derision it's received as a shallow, grave show, demonized teen angst and growing pains as palpable monsters. Star Trek, in its day, boldly took social commentary into another stratosphere with parallels between other worlds and our own. Even Twin Peaks wasn't just wrapped in plastic with its delightfully strange symbolism. But The Simpsons has achieved something the others didn't.

"It's a mass market show and has maintained its popularity," Alberti says. "How many people watch the show for the characters? It wasn't the way I looked at the show, but it wasn't an invalid way of looking at the show. I always watch the show as a satire."

Alberti delved into the intellect, compiling critical analysis in Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture. He put out a cold call for submissions, posting primarily on university list serves and receiving approximately 20 serious inquiries. Of the published essays, William J. Savage Jr. marks out censorship, Matthew Henry hugs and kisses the representation of gay life, and Valerie Weilunn Chow unfurls the everyman status of patriarch Homer -- all in connection with Groening's televised Simpsonian Institute. Despite the varying angles, the thrust of the collection treats television with respect as an art form, a deviation from the intellectualized frowning of the boob tube as anything but mindless entertainment.

" 'Oh, it's TV, so it's not worth talking about.' I think it's almost wishful thinking in that 'Oh, it's not worth talking about,' " Alberti says. "Can a TV show really compare to a great novel? They're different mediums. It's more of a cumulative effect of one episode after another. Television just constantly needs to be fed with stuff. Now, we're more likely to find smart writing (in television) than in the movies. It's the assumption from the beginning that it must be stupid just because it's a television show. But that's how I think our interpretation works."

Alberti understands television as a teaching tool, one he's employed in many of his classes. He drenches education in the water cooler effect. "Students love talking about television shows. Students are often less intimidated. Television shows are much more comfortable. A great percentage of my students have been raised on The Simpsons," he says.

"It does provide an opportunity to speak to wider audiences," Alberti continues. "With literature classes and film classes, most of the material is new to them. Here's looking at something new. With pop culture, they came in with pre-existing ideas. They're actually ready to talk about it. It automatically approaches a larger audience."

Disguised as an animated sitcom, The Simpsons, which Alberti refers to as an important and seminal show, is a masked bandit of irony. It steals from a richness of material and pours it over the airwaves, questioning but not answering, provoking thought but evoking laughs.

"Political satire is trying to get an audience to think differently," Alberti says. "It's an entertainment show. It's not as partisan. It certainly conveys an attitude or a point of view. The shows tend to resist having morals. The show is always leaving you up in the air. The show isn't completely unbiased. Lisa speaks most of the morals of the writers of the show. She can be overly earnest, and she can be susceptible. In spite of her political correctness and her status as the show's intellectual, she also likes Itchy & Scratchy. Any time you engage in cultural interpretation, we're assuming there's a whole lot of stuff in there. All human behavior is complex."

Besides, he notes, "The Cosby Show wasn't going to have kids become atheists or pagans." ©