The Simpsonsisn't nearly as big a television hit as it used to be, but it became an internet favourite yesterday when Banksy's version of the opening credits went viral.
Here was the subversive street artist having his way with a once far-more-subversive cultural giant. The result – an Asian animation sweatshop, kittens being shredded to make dolls, and the 20th Century Fox logo behind barbed wire – has been hailed as bleak and controversial.
So how come it felt so cosy? The title sequence was just an extended riff on gags
The Simpsonsitself has been doing for a long time. Media coverage may have focused on how "Banksy is said to have been inspired by reports that Simpsons characters are animated in Seoul, South Korea", but that has been happening since its early days. Besides,
The Simpsonsdid that joke years ago when it featured Korean animators working under the eye of armed guards. One of the show's producers has said that the Korean company wasn't too pleased with the portrayal – a mirror of the row that has developed over Banksy's version.
And the dig at Fox? Very old. They're as much part of the furniture as the couch. The whole family once gleefully stomped on its logo. And Rupert Murdoch was once portrayed as introducing himself as a "billionaire tyrant".
So Banksy's title sequence is interesting and amusing (unless you're the owner of a Korean animation studio) but not original or edgy. Maybe that's the joke. Sure, it looks on the surface like subversion, but it's a knowing gag about lack of originality. Or maybe that's ascribing too much depth to Bansky's work. Enough people have done that already.
