Australian researchers believe that despite Krusty the Klown's pacemaker, or Selma and Patty's, well, overall nastiness, Australian children may still take up smoking because it looks cool.
According to a story in the Melbourne (Australia) Age, researchers Dr. Guy Eslick and Marielle Eslick had the coolest job in all the world: studying 400 episodes of the first 18 seasons of The Simpsons.
Most notably, they did it without Marielle once yelling at Guy to "get off his ass and do the effing dishes."
The Eslicks also found 795 instances of smoking or references to smoking. They're disturbed by this, because smoking was only portrayed negatively 35% of the time, 2% was positive, but the rest was neutral.
The Eslicks were also worried that the influence of the popular US cartoon would lead to an increase in rebellion, laziness, and eating one's shorts.
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Thursday, June 04, 2009
Australians Worry The Simpsons "May Prompt" Smoking
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1 comments:
This is absurd. I grew up watching the Simpsons and barely noticed all the smoking. It was just something that faded into the background. I have never once picked up a cigarette or even considered smoking. The fact that the Cancer Council Australia implies to me that there is some kind of ulterior motive behind this story.
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