Move over, Jimmy Kimmel; you’re not the only one to create an international incident with a comedy bit.
Just as Kimmel’s “Kids Table”; skit angered Asian-American groups and, eventually, the Chinese government, a throwaway joke in last week’s episode of The Simpsons has caused a firestorm of criticism in Italy.
In the episode, Springfield news anchor Kent Brockman visits Bart’s school to do an exposé on rampant cheating, decrying that “This school is more corrupt than the Italian parliament! If these children are our future then I, for one, do not want to live!”
An article in U.K. newspaper The Telegraph reports that Italians reacted with “a mixture of indignation and self-criticism”; over the remarks after enduring years of political scandal and the relentless shenanigans of ousted (but still powerful) PM Silvio Berlusconi.
As English-language Italian news site The Local points out, a recent survey indicated that 77 per cent of Italians viewed their government as corrupt, which was apparent in Twitter comments such as “We’ve really hit rock bottom,”; and “It’s official – we are now the laughing stock of even the Simpsons.”;
As The Telegraph notes, however, many Italians did not take the joke lightly. “This comes from the country that has the largest number of banking scandals in the world,”; read one ticked-off Tweet.
Unlike Kimmel and his travails, however, it seems unlikely that the government of Italy will ask Homer Simpson to issue an apology.
