Saturday, February 27, 2010
This I Believe
I believe in Lisa Simpson. The brilliant writers of the hit television program The Simpsons developed a dynamic character who is as real to me as the dust under my dresser. At 27, I believe I’ll never be too old to have an eight-year-old as a role model.
When I was eight years old, I lived on a Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Maryland. I didn’t know about current events outside my world, which included my Catholic School, the naval base, and the local McDonalds, where my Dad bribed me with French fries to entice me to whine less about my after school program.
Our house was in Officer’s Quarters on the Chesapeake Bay. We had a Cocker Spaniel named Timmy who ran around our acre plot, meanwhile the twin blond Labradors next door, Chessie and Ginger, harnessed his ears.During my eighth year, I let the world happen around me. My Dad drove me to a weekly sports practice, I had sleepovers with friends, where we built forts and played Slapjack, I watched television sitcoms and cartoons very often, and I swam off our dock in the summer. I know I only had one year being eight, while Lisa Simpson has had twenty years - but Lisa attacks her neighborhood, her school and anything in her moral compass – which is everything. Lisa is the most unconventional rebel in the cartoon world. She challenges feminist foes and school bullies because she knows what’s right and wrong. Her instincts follow science and pragmatism. I believe in her character as if it was the Lisa religion. One day, Lisa exposes corrupt politicians when she skeptically trusts the U.S. Constitution and exposes a scandal between her local Congressman and Washington lobbyist during a writing contest in D.C. Her decision withdrew her chances at winning the competition. Lisa’s bravery and determination seem beyond an eight-year-old’s young developing intellect. But she grasps governmental intricacies and is an activist against ludicrous town traditions, like a “Whacking Day,” or the day for killing snakes. Lisa asks the event’s MC, Barry White, to use his bass vocal style to lure the snakes to safety, and the slithering reptiles live. Lisa has mishaps, like disrespecting her mother’s traditional principles and suffering from consumerism at The Olympics. But her consistent values for equal rights, learning and willingness to bear change, even if it’s slowly, are reminders how I want to live. Where Lisa seems predictable- as a smart, out-spoken, atheist outcast, one of her most luminous qualities is the knowledge that her actions affect the world, and her predisposed habits mustn’t hinder the opportunity to undertake an unfamiliar venture. Most people don’t challenge their self-schema often because it helps making decisions easier. I watch Lisa struggle too. But rather than settle into complacent patterns, Lisa wants to explore and make the world, not let it happen to her.
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