"Lisa the Skeptic" is a painful episode to revisit, because I used to want to be a Lisa Simpson sort of character, a "citizen activist" in a spectacularly ineffectual mode that I associate especially with the 1970s and 1980s during which I grew up. It makes me think of Ralph Nader and CALPIRG and consumer advocacy and a lot of other things that felt like hope to a young whıte American kid with a glimmer of political consciousness. The ideal is that you can change the world by typing letters and making yourself into an irritant to the powerful—there's surely some value in this ideal, but arguably the overall effect of Lisa's sort of activism is the trivialization of dissent. It's easier to feel like you're getting somewhere if you focus on insignificant issues and tiny victories, like crusading against plastic straws.

"The Simpsons" started out with a hint of sympathy for Lisa's citizen activism—the third season episode "Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington" is an example—but within a few years the mood of the show was thoroughly curdled and cynical, so "Lisa the Skeptic" makes her look futile and shrill. Nobody cares, not even Lisa's hero Stephen Jay Gould (who was a hero of mine, too.) All Lisa's efforts are worse than useless; she plays right into a viral marketing scheme. (The episode was made in 1997 but it might as well have been made today.)

Phew. Is this really entertainment?

~Chara