12 Years Later: Did We Really Need to See Bart's Penis in The Simpsons Movie?
The answer may surpenis you.
Oh to be young again, when there was only one Willy on the Simpsons. In 2007 Fox finally gave long time fans of the show what they had been clamoring for for years, a movie. As to be expected with any successful franchise that makes the leap onto the silver screen, you’ll end up with a final product that’s trying to put on all the stops. They tend to be bigger, brashier, louder, and above all else, more plot heavy. New characters will be introduced and mostly forgotten unless you’re Spider-Pig.
Real name “Plopper”
The stakes will be greater. The animation sleeker. The voice acting, exaggerated. And the pacing: all off. It is, after all, stretching out a 20 - 23 minute show into an hour and a half movie. So the “stakes” in a normal simpsons episode are being stretched thin and this case can become cumbersome when you’re just here for the laughs. Because the laughs slow way down when the action scenes come up. But I digress, we’re here to talk about Bart’s penis.
The gag here, of course, being that we’d normally get a long and unrealistic shot of a naked Bart wherein by sheer coincidence all the in-universe elements so happen to censor his junk without the need for a 4th wall-breaking censor bar or blur. Although at this point it might as well be punching holes in said 4th wall with how often this gag is used in cartoons and movies.
Or the classic car honk whenever anyone curses.
I’m not sure if Ralph’s “I like men now” line really lands nowadays. Yes, Ralph is dumb, but would him seeing a 10 year old boys penis really prompt him to say that he likes men now? Not to mention the insinuation that sexual orientation might be a choice or at the very least something that is easily changeable. But again, this is an 8-year old boy looking at a 10-year old boy naked and saying he likes men. It’s not even edgy, just weird.
But you have to go further back into the Simpsons’ long history before you can proclaim that it’s not “The Simpsons” way to do something. The show has evolved so much so fast that even it’s first season looks nothing visually like it’s fifth or tenth or twentieth. The show started off grounded in a human-like reality and before long Homer was in outer-space eating chips while Kent Brockman was fearing ant-alien overlords. We’ve certainly seen our share of Simpsons butts.
U.S. Declares War on Australia (c. 1995)
It’s not necessarily the nudity itself that one would have a problem with (although for the puritanical it might draw more ire.) We’re all born nude and if we can live our best lives, we’ll all die nude.
Of course, it helps when the nudity is more for comedic purposes than anything else. It’s not as if though Bart was sexualized in anyway. Although one could argue that Ralph’s comment did edge it a bit in that general direction. One of my favorite Simpsons moments of all time involves Martin Prince’s butt in the pool/Rear Window episode, in fact it’s the very last scene and it perfectly captures that beautiful Simpsons spot between hilarious and heartfelt.
Butt of course, we’re not just talking about derrieres. Cabooses. Trunks filled with junk. Brick houses. We’re talking about penises. Namely of the 10-year-old yellow boy kind.
The whole joke is the subversion of the classic censor. So because the audience is not actually expecting to see his penis the sudden surprise and ridiculousness of it causes laughter. I’d argue most audiences probably weren’t laughing until the reveal because the censored parts, while somewhat visually creative, were to be expected. The joke works, at least in the moment, but does it become too distracting later on? Minutes, hours, days after you’ve seen that one moment, how much does it impact the movie overall? The legacy of the show? You’ve seen Bart Simpson’s penis. Perhaps it got a good belly laugh out of you in the moment, but does the end justify the means?
What do I do with this information?
The gag works better in a movie because it accomplishes several things. One being the laughs, already mentioned. Two being that it becomes a big talking point for a movie adaptation of a show. You can’t just make a run-of-the-mill episode. It’s a movie, an event. So something big has to happen. And besides the middling dome plot, you need that one scene that gets everybody talking. You need your propane tank in the shark’s teeth moment. The “Did you see that?” hook. This accomplishes that because besides Spider-Pig, I’m not sure how much more of this movie really penetrated the pop-culture borg. And three, well, it introduces a new element that had never been seen previously in the show.
So this subversion of expectation kinda work for the movie, in my humble opinion. Although I think I’ll be OK with never seeing it again. For better or for worse The Simpsons did it and nothing will ever be the same ever again.