David Bridges
In a US election yr, whilst one as rapidly bizarre as this one has change into in current weeks, you count on candidates (and presumptive candidates) to look far and wide as they launch their campaigns to assist form the upcoming way forward for the nation. Not often are these campaigns at Comedian-Con, and barely are they associated to having Simpsons brainrot.
However such was the case when Simpsons and Futurama creator Matt Groening climaxed the SDCC Simpsons panel by teeing up a clip from none apart from Vice President Kamala Harris herself. In the course of the recording, Harris quoted a legendary quote from a skit within the basic 1996 particular, “Treehouse of Horror VII”: “We should transfer ahead, not backward, upward, not ahead, and all the time twirling, twirling, twirling in the direction of freedom.” There are conflicting studies on the character of the message, with some studies saying the viewers believed the recording was made for the panel (Harris was not in San Diego right this moment, however campaigning in Massachusetts). Others report that the clip is definitely a resurfaced video from a number of years in the past, when a gaggle of College of Chicago college students have been apparently tasked with getting an elected official to recite the notorious quote.
The road comes from, in fact, “Citizen Kang”, the third and ultimate skit from “Treehouse of Horror VII”. The brief noticed recurring Simpsons aliens Kang and Kodos infiltrate the then-upcoming 1996 US Presidential Election, taking the place of nominees Invoice Clinton and Bob Dole. The alien duo then participated of their rival election campaigns earlier than finally assuming management of America, even after being uncovered, because of the nature of the two-party electoral system.
However Harris’ nascent marketing campaign has already been inextricably linked with Simpsons memes and shitposts even earlier than her shock SDCC look. In current days, one resurgent meme round Harris’ potential to change into the primary feminine President of america this yr has seen her contrasted with the 2000 episode “Bart to the Future” and its personal imaginative and prescient of the close to future–placing pictures of an grownup Lisa Simpson’s purple pantsuit as the longer term President of the US, belaboring a finances crunch inherited from President Trump, with pictures of Harris in a similarly-colored swimsuit at Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2020.
Is America prepared for a President with a thoughts as addled by Simpsons quotes as the typical thirty-somethings? Maybe we’re about to search out out.
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Daniel Mercer
