Yes! More on the Simpsons!

[Terrance]

> I can only agree to this. He plays with the media instead of being abused by
> them; he makes fun of the image of himself they have created.


Give him a Nobel.  It's just another blurb, cameo.  Been reading a bit
about the Simpsons show and I'm wondering why Pynchon didn't do
something better with these Simpsons people. It seems such a good match. 


Here is one of the essays I read: 

"The Whole World’s Gone Gay!": 
Smithers’ Sexuality, Homer’s Phobia, and Gay Life on The Simpsons m*
by  Matthew Henry

What interests me is not the gender-politics ( Henry is critical of the
use of fantasy because he sees it as a political closeting of homosexual
real-life and in his analysis of this scene he argues that Simpsons has
finally outed Smithers and real-gay-life) stuff so much as the intricate
allusiveness of these two satirists (Pynchon and Simpsons). 



"Secrets of a Successful Marriage" (1995). Deep into the fifth season,
the producers
decided to make it clear—at least to those who can understand the
literary allusions—that Smithers is indeed a gay man. Homer initially
gets the class to share personal secrets and reveal the failings of
their marital relations. Smithers speaks up, saying "I was married once.
But I just couldn’t keep it together." We are then given a flashback
scene showing Smithers having an argument with his wife over Mr. Burns
and Burns himself passionately calling out for Smithers. This flashback,
a wonderfully rendered parody of scenes from two of Tennessee Williams’ 
most famous plays, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named 
Desire, has great resonance within the context of The Simpsons. 
To fully appreciate it, one must know something of not 
only the two plays cited but also of
Williams himself, of his own struggles with both heterosexual and
homosexual desires and the ways in which these struggles were
incorporated into his art. The creators of The Simpsons offer what I
think is a perfect parallel for the relationship between Smithers and
Burns by combining Williams’ two most notable male characters and their
defining characteristics: the suppressed homosexual desire of Brick
and desperate dependence of Stanley. I also believe that this scene is
significant in that it provides viewers an allusion to past experience,
not fantasy. We are meant to read this scene literally, as one of
Smithers’ memories; it is, in effect, a moment from Smithers’ "real"
life.

http://www.mtr.org/seminars/satellite/simpsons/simpsons.htm