the simpsons touch on argentine politics...D'OH!

This is so interesting...

Apparently Argentine nationalists are up in arms and threatening to censor an upcoming episode of "The Simpsons"--which is extremely popular here. In the controversial episode, Homer's friends at the bar call Juan Domingo Perón a dicatator. Here's the dialogue:

Moe: Who wants to abolish democracy forever? Show a hands!
Carl: I could really go for some kind of military dictator, like Juan Perón. When he 'disappeared' you, you stayed 'disappeared!'
Lenny: Plus his wife was Madonna.

Okay first, this is funny. I laughed when I read it. Love the Simpsons. But...it's only kinda true. The massive disppearance of thousands of people happened under the dictatorship after Perón. But even though his presidency was techincally democratic, many do view him as a dictactor. We're studying Peron's three-term presidency right now in my history class, so this is relevant and interesting. I guess a lot of people are really angry about this dialogue because it "could poison"Argentine society and it shows North American arrogance.

But it also brings up something I've been thinking about and that I mentioned on a blog post earlier...that a lot of American humor, I think, can easily be taken as offensive, arrogant, racist, whatever, in other countries. But a lot of times it's not any of those things. There's a fine line between what the message "actually" is and how it's received. But then again, it's fascinating to note that no matter what is "actually" meant, some Argentines are flat-out offended by the reference. So just something to think about.