A Yellow Boy

Eat my shorts.

A bit of an odd catchphrase no? Nothing is inherently cool about it, or self-identifying for that matter. Its absurdity is what captures attention. The fact that people don’t eat clothing and if one’s shorts were to be eaten, well then they would too be suffering, bottomless I’d presume. 

…

The Simpsons premiered December 17, 1989, and has since become the longest-running scripted US television series with a whopping 36 seasons (IMBD). The show, if somehow you’re one of the few people who wouldn’t recognize the yellow family, takes place in Springfield, chronicling the lives of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. A rhetorician could spend years trying to engage with those chronicles, as The Simpsons have followed society through unenumerable cultural and global shifts. There has been one little boy through them all, who despite his nihilism and maleducation, captures viewers’ hearts. I’d be quite alright with Bart Simpson telling me to “eat my shorts.”

Although the show consistently remains in the present; keeping Bart 10—writing apologies on chalkboards and pissing Homer off, he would realistically be reaching the ripe age of 45 by now, doing taxes and feeling turmoil instead. But our Bart never grows up, and never receives the silencing of maturity that comes with doing so. A typical 10 year old probably doesn’t share his ostentation (the world would be quite an interesting place if they did) but perhaps Bart is more than just that. Behind the absurdity of “eat my shorts” there is something else we see in that little boy. Something that allowed him to be a write-in for congressional, senatorial, and gubernatorial elections, a cultural phenomena of the 1990’s (Bartmania), and a staple on American clothing.

I think we want Bart in office, in the public sphere, and on our shirts because he represents a sentiment we are taught to subdue. Our ostentation—in the respects of reactive and primal immaturity. An ability to live without a filter, be indisputably selfish, and call our dads by their first name as an act of defiance. 

Bart does what he wants when he wants to. He acts first, thinks later, and makes a fart joke at every opportunity. He neglects not only the rules but the overarching social consequences of breaking them. His being is never derailed by place, standard, or people, and instead remains consistent—36 seasons so. Bart has the same ostentation towards his Dad as his teachers. Towards the town Mayor and town drug lord. In school or the store. Despite the trouble this creates, Bart always finds his way out. He calms the wrath of Springfield after falsifying a child trapped in a well. He writes a parting letter of love for the teacher he tricked. Bart confronts his own ostentation, his mistakes, head on, head up, unapologetically as who he is. 

There is a twofold symbolism in his character. Not only has our world learned to reign in primal immaturity, but we have done so more out of the fear of facing the mistakes it could cause, than for the sake of being good-natured. If people were truly unafraid of error, they’d be a bit more ostentatious. 

…

The other day I broke a plate. It was a shitty white one that had little separation from its stacks of sisters, with no sentimental value or connotation in my house. Yet still, I wrapped the plate in a paper towel and put it in the bottom of the trashcan. I didn’t want my roommates to see my foolery.

I told my neighbor I’d go to dinner with her the coming weekend. Then the weekend came. That fact had evaded me and I had made alternative plans. Instead of explaining the rather minor fault on my part, I engaged in a combative game of Tetris, trying to make it so both plans could fit without any personal confrontation.

I wish I’d simply have the ostentation to be wrong. It’d have saved me a whole lot of time and headache.

I don’t think I’m alone in trying to avoid facing mistakes head-on. It’s a systematic obligation to feel your worth decrease with each frugal one—why would we let others have the opportunity to feel that devaluation as well?

So feet up, popcorn out, blanket on, we can let our perfect selves rest and watch Bart make our mistakes. He can make the inappropriate timed fart joke, devalue his best friend Millhouse, and disrespect Principal Skinner, while we mourn the fact we never could. 

We can swallow our ostentation and listen to his…

I can’t promise I’ll try, but I’ll to try to try. (season 8, episode 20) 

Don’t have a cow, man! (season 3, episode 20) 

I don’t know why I did it! I don’t know why I enjoyed it! And I don’t know why I’ll do it again!” (season 2, episode 1) 

Eat my shorts. (season 6, episode 24)

And what good catch phrases that ostentation makes.