Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington
Lisa submits an essay on the contest's topic – "what makes America great" – after visiting Springfield Forest and seeing a bald eagle land nearby.
At a shrine to a feminist icon, she sees a corrupt congressman, Bob Arnold, taking a bribe from a timber industry lobbyist to allow loggers to clearcut Springfield Forest.
She pens a scathing indictment, "Cesspool on the Potomac", which condemns government greed and corruption and names the politician involved in the bribery.
When word of her speech quickly spreads through the capital, Congressman Arnold is arrested, removed from office and sent to prison, where he becomes a born-again Christian.
"[5] Wes Archer directed "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington", which was one of the first episodes to feature the Simpson family traveling to a real-life location.
[7] Marge's voice actor, Julie Kavner, said she loved the charm of the family "just being on a trip and experiencing the hotel room they're staying at, and the integrity of Bart's character.
Bush (the then-incumbent U.S. president), voiced by Harry Shearer, who would reappear as a recurring character throughout the years most notably in the season 7 episode "Two Bad Neighbors".
[22] Bitzer also wrote that The Simpsons, through "skillful" use of satire, demonstrates with this episode "insights into the underlying political culture and public opinion of the United States' governing system (and, more broadly, society at large)".
[22] In his book Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization, Paul Arthur Cantor said he was amazed by how far the episode was "willing to take its corrosive satire of national politics".
It makes fun of the very process by which patriotism is inculcated in the nation's youth, the hokey contests that lead children to outdo each other in progovernment effusions.
Benedict Anderson wrote in the book The Spectre of Comparisons that series creator Matt Groening "assumes that his tickled audience is confident that the system barely works [...] So why does he need to show a patriot at all, especially one who is a deluded little female block-head?
"[9] Günter Beck, a lecturer for the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at the Haifa Center for German and European Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, compared Lisa's role in the episode to the nineteenth-century American poet and philosopher Henry David Thoreau.
And indeed, Lisa's bravery is the impulse for the state's representatives to carry out their democratic obligations, so she can gladly notice 'The system works!'
Wes Archer, David Silverman, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, and Julie Kavner participated in the DVD's audio commentary of the episode.
The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, praised the episode for being one of the best Lisa-centric episodes, and called Lisa's talk with Thomas Jefferson and her nightmare vision of politicians as pigs "especially worthy of note".
Bill Gibron of DVD Verdict called the episode a "biting political satire in the guise of a children's oratory contest [which] signifies that this season of the series will be all over the map, both emotionally and logically".
"[30] Bryce Wilson of Cinema Blend said the episode solidified the series' politically satirical voice as it "bitch slapped the Bush administration" that would later badmouth The Simpsons.
[31] DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson, however, gave the episode a more negative review, stating that it "has its moments but never seems like one of the series' better programs.
"[32] Nathan Rabin writes that "It’s a testament to the respect The Simpsons has for its audience’s intelligence and frame of reference that it includes dead-on parodies of Reader’s Digest and Mark Russell in the same episode...Like James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Lisa learns that Washington, D.C., is a lovely town with a rich, honorable history that’s also a seething cesspool of corruption after stumbling upon rank corruption in her midst.
[1] In an open letter to The Simpsons executive producer James L. Brooks, the coalition wrote: "Rather than approach this issue with genuine concern for Mother Earth, you took an easy shot at hard-working people whose only crime is [having been] born in a timber town.
"[1] Karen Clark, a payroll clerk for a timber company in Stayton, Oregon, said: "The Simpsons portrayed us as greedy, bribery-type people.
"[34] Luke Popovich, vice president of the American Forest Council, wrote a letter to the show's producer to protest "the fuzzy-headed characterizations that pass for political correctness, the thinking in Hollywood where people are not very serious about these issues, but interested in pushing the right hot buttons, scoring the right points with audiences".
[34] The Simpsons creator Matt Groening responded to the criticism in an interview with TV Guide, in which he said he did "research on the ecological damage caused by clear-cutting and over-logging [and] it's really appalling".
"[34] Jake Hogan, supervising producer of the show, defended Groening: "[The episodes] are just little stories, little comedies—stories that make people laugh.
"[34] On October 15, 1991, Groening issued another statement to the public, in which he said: "So now a few lumber companies have joined the nuclear power industry, right-wing preachers and high-ranking Republicans in attacking The Simpsons.
But the environmental sloganeering of The Simpsons as well as Groening's cartoon commentary are symptomatic of a Hollywood and a popular culture that are hostile to the concerns and values of most Americans.
