The battle to respect diversity seems to be over; the public has chosen to chortle instead. Fasto (in green) and Nonstop (in white turban) represent black and Native American stereotypes, respectively.

Round Two
Long-time readers of mine know that I have little patience with half-baked research and studies. I have done my share, and I know bad science when I see it. Of late, the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum made much of a study comparing the public’s ability to name members of the Simpsons as opposed to the five freedoms listed in the First Amendment. It was found that only one in four Americans (of the 1,000 polled) can name more than one of the five freedoms, while more than half can name at least two members of the family Simpson. Joe Madiera, who is director of exhibition at the museum, professed to be amazed. In old Dr. Toon’s view, my only amazement is at the research itself.

Faulty science begins when you believe you are comparing apples to oranges, but are actually comparing apples to footballs. The five freedoms are a political/legal artifact while the Simpsons belong to the world of media and entertainment. The correct study would have compared the public’s ability to name members of the Simpsons against their abilities to name members of the Flintstones, Jetsons, or the cast of Spongebob Squarepants. The First Amendment should have gone up against something such as the following amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights. The same survey laments that more people can name the three judges on American Idol better than they can identify three First Amendment rights, and that they were more apt to remember popular advertising slogans, as if this should be surprising. Well, nothing like compounding your mistakes, I always say.

This brings us to the next point. Let me familiarize you with a research concept called a “confound”. Simply put, a confound is an unforeseen or unconsidered factor that contaminates research by providing an alternative explanation for your results or an alternative argument against them. For example, it is virtually certain that every American who died of cancer from 1960 until now watched television at some time. Therefore, one could publish a study that TV viewing causes cancer. I’m sure all of you out there can come up with at least five confounds (as opposed to freedoms or members of the Simpsons) that would render this study invalid.

Quick! Name two members of The Simpsons! Now name the five freedoms of the First Amendment. That’s a confound. ™ & ©1998 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved. CR: FOX .

In the case we’re discussing, a major confound is media exposure. Simply put, the Simpsons have been in the public eye continuously since 1990 (longer than that if you count the interstitials on Tracy Ullman’s show). Not only has the show broken the record for network longevity in an animated series, it has been running in syndication daily. The five freedoms are typically learned in middle and high school civics classes (or in independent study if one were so inclined). If we compare the time that the average American has spent watching The Simpsons as opposed to the time spent studying the Constitution, the results would be as expected. I wager that there are several TV sets in every American home. Quick — without using the Web, can you find a copy of the Constitution in your own home?

Then there is a confound called merchandising. There are many products bearing the likenesses of Bart and Homer, and very few T-shirts, mugs, action figures, towels, clocks, and watches depicting the five freedoms. There are now multiple seasons of The Simpsons available on DVD, but I have yet to see a First Amendment video at the local Best Buy. Lots of people stand around the schoolyard, campus, or proverbial water cooler discussing the frustrations of Lisa and Marge, but very few discussing the finer points of Constitutional guarantees.

The point of the survey, at least as reported by the Associated Press, is that “America (is) more familiar with cartoon family than First Amendment”. Well, d’oh! The same can be said for the NFL, NASCAR, 50 Cent, Survivor, Garth Brooks, the Hulk, Jennifer Aniston, SUVs, Barry Bonds, Jay Leno, Desperate Housewives, Paris Hilton, and whichever performer is Jessica Simpson or Britney Spears (I honestly can’t tell the two apart).

If there were a TV show called CSI First Amendment, Americans would pass the survey with ease. However, there isn’t, and nothing will pull most of us away from immersion in the celebrity, sports event, or lurid mystery involving a missing young beauty of the moment. The First Amendment was not created to entertain us, nor was it written to compete with entertainment. Any contest with the Simpsons is inherently a mismatch.

What bothers me is that much is made of the fact that freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition for redress of grievances were depicted as losing out to an animated cartoon, as if this was the ultimate debasement possible. All this study truly reveals is what commands attention in an entertainment culture, not how little people do or do not know about the Constitution. Measuring the latter would take a different, more tightly constructed study. Therefore, my friends at the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, leave Homer, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, and Marge alone, already. While you are at it, you can lay off Snowball and Santa’s Little Helper as well. The Simpsons will never make us a more ignorant nation, but bad surveys can make us look as if we are.

Martin “Dr. Toon” Goodman is a longtime student and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.