The Irony

For a programme that's always prided itself on satirising the worst excesses of consumerist capitalism, The Simpsons has certainly never shied away from merchandising any conceivable trinket that can have a member of the family emblazoned on it. Over the years, I've acquired (usually as gifts) a Bart alarm clock, numerous Homer mugs, a Duff bottle opener and even a Lisa air freshener. This, it seems, is the future of the genre: satirists openly engaging in the activities that they satirise, and then satirising the fact that they're doing it. It's irony with a nice income attached to it.

Not that it'll ever stop me from loving The Simpsons (or at least, the golden days of the series in the 1990s). I'm just idly wondering if I'll see the day when passenger planes carry Yossarian-themed sick bags, or law students can buy notebooks with a picture of Lemuel Gulliver exclaiming: "Laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them."