The Monkey Suit
Encyclopedia
"The Monkey Suit" is the twenty-first episode of the seventeenth season
of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons
. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 14, 2006. In the episode, Ned Flanders
is shocked after seeing a new display at the museum about evolution
. Together with Reverend Lovejoy, he spreads the religious belief of creationism
in Springfield
, and at a later town meeting, teaching evolution is made illegal. As a result, Lisa
decides to hold secret classes for people interested in evolution. However, she is quickly arrested and a trial against her is initiated.
J. Stewart Burns
wrote "The Monkey Suit", which he received inspiration for from the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. The episode features a few references to this legal case, as well as several references to popular culture
. Many analysts have commented on the episode's treatment of the creation–evolution controversy, a dispute about the origin of humanity between those who support a creationist view based upon their religious beliefs, versus those who accept evolution, as supported by scientific evidence
.
Critics have given the episode generally positive reviews, praising it for its satire of the creation–evolution debate. "The Monkey Suit" has won an award from the Independent Investigations Group
(IIG) for being "one of those rare shows in the media that encourage science, critical thinking, and ridicule those shows that peddle pseudoscience
and superstition
." In 2007, a scene from the episode was highlighted in the scientific journal Nature
.
realizes that he wasted the whole summer. He therefore makes a list of summer activities such as a winning a ballgame and having a summer romance. After Bart finishes rushing through all the activities, Lisa
brings the family to the museum to see a weaving
exhibit as her summer activity, but they quickly discover that it has been canceled and replaced by a "History of Weapons" exhibit. Faced with an incredibly long line, Homer notices Ned Flanders
and his children at the front of the line and cuts in front of them. Others start taking advantage of Ned’s kindness as well, until the Flanders family is stuck at the end. At the end of the day, they are still waiting, and are denied entry, as it is closing time for the weapons exhibit. They therefore decide to check out the evolution
exhibit next door. Ned is horrified to hear that humans evolved from apes and that the creation account in the Genesis is characterized as a myth. Covering his children's eyes, he drags them out of the exhibit.
Ned meets up with the church council to suggest promotion of creationism
. The next day, he and Reverend Lovejoy blackmail Principal Skinner into introducing creationism in the school. Lisa is perturbed by this, and at a town meeting asks everyone to make a choice between creationism and Darwinism
, as there is only one truth. The townspeople vote for creationism, much to her chagrin, and the act of teaching or learning Darwinism and evolution is made illegal. Lisa therefore decides to start holding secret classes for people interested in evolution. However, just as the first lesson is about to begin, she is arrested by Chief Wiggum. Lisa is brought to trial, which is dubbed Lisa Simpson v. God. Representing her is Clarice Drummond, a despised American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) lawyer, while on God’s (i.e., Ned's) side is Wallace Brady, a beloved, overweight, southern lawyer. The trial does not go smoothly for Lisa, as Professor Frink
(called by Clarice) gives ambiguous answers regarding God's existence, while a creationist scientist says that evolution cannot be real, as there is no proof of a "missing link
" (depicted in a picture as a savage hominid, holding a rock over his head).
With Lisa now facing a long jail sentence, Marge decides to help her out. She starts reading Charles Darwin
's The Origin of Species
and becomes addicted to it. When the trial resumes, Marge tells Lisa that she now knows a way that she can help her. While Ned is being cross-examined by Clarice, Marge gives Homer a cold beer. Homer, ecstatic at getting a beer, tries to open it unsuccessfully. The more he tries, the more primitive he gets, hooting and banging the bottle on the bench, disrupting the trial. Finally, Ned loses his cool and screams "Will you shut your yap, you big monkey-faced gorilla!" Clarice then asks Ned to compare the picture of the "missing link" and Homer shaking the beer over his head, and asks if he truthfully believes Homer cannot be related to apes. Ned concedes defeat and the teachings of evolution are reinstated.
"The Monkey Suit" was written by J. Stewart Burns
and directed by Raymond S. Persi
as part of the seventeenth season of The Simpsons (2005–2006). Burns received inspiration for the episode from the Scopes Monkey Trial, a 1925 legal case in which high school science teacher John Scopes was accused of violating Tennessee
's Butler Act
which made teaching evolution unlawful. Clarice Drummond, the ACLU lawyer that represents Lisa, is a reference to the ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow
that defended Scopes, while Wallace Brady is a reference to William Jennings Bryan
, an attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial. American actor Larry Hagman
guest starred in the episode as Wallace Brady, while American actress Melanie Griffith
played herself as the narrator of an audio tour at the museum. Burns did research for "The Monkey Suit" by reading Richard Dawkins
' book The Selfish Gene
and watching Inherit the Wind
(a film based on the Scopes Monkey Trial). He also visited a natural history museum.
The opening of the episode, in which Bart rushes to do everything he planned on doing during summer vacation, was originally written and animated for the season fourteen
episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can
" (2003) but was cut. This episode came in short, and to fill in time, the sequence was added. Burns has said commented the episode "ended up being incredibly short because when you do an episode where there's really just one good side of an argument[ creation vs. evolution] , you don't fill out as much time as you need to." The opening sequence features a large number of allusions to popular culture, including references to The Natural
(1984 film), Happy Days
(television sitcom), and Men in Black
(1997 film).
."
Ted Gournelos analyzed "The Monkey Suit" in his 2009 book Popular Culture and the Future of Politics: Cultural Studies and the Tao of South Park, writing: "More than anything, the episode is used to critique the demonization of evolutionary theory by religious propaganda, by an instructional video used in the school (that shows a drunken Charles Darwin passionately kissing Satan) as well as by the prosecuting attorney. This allows for a somewhat leftist discussion of the issue, but ultimately is ultimately is unable to address the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the United States [...]". Gournelos noted that the episode focuses on the old Scopes Monkey Trial and does not address contemporary creation–evolution debates, adding: "Interestingly, The Simpsons continues to place creationism at a higher popular plain than evolution, as the jury and trial audience are obviously biased towards the creationists (who, unlike in contemporary cases, are the prosecutors rather than the plaintiffs)." Gournelos concluded that the episode "pokes gentle fun at media rhetoric and the questioning of evolutionary theory [...], but is unable or unwilling to address the rise of intelligent design
or contemporary court battles (in Pennsylvania [see Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
], Kansas [see Kansas evolution hearings
] , and elsewhere) that might encourage debate in its audience."
selected "The Monkey Suit" as one of the show's "10 classic episodes", one they said demonstrated that "the writers still have fire in their bellies." TV Squad critic Adam Finley wrote that "Last night's episode had some good moments, but it did feel like they were treading upon somewhat familiar ground and not saying anything especially new," referring to the fact the issue of science and religion has been dealt with before on the show, "most notably in the 'Lisa the Skeptic
' episode in which the supposed skeleton of a dead angel is found." In 2007, "The Monkey Suit" won an award from the Independent Investigations Group
(IIG) for being "one of those rare shows in the media that encourage science, critical thinking, and ridicule those shows that peddle pseudoscience
and superstition
." J. Stewart Burns, the writer of the episode, was present at the awards ceremony to accept the award.
While reviewing the seventeenth season of The Simpsons, Jesse Hassenger of PopMatters
noted that he thought the show had declined in quality compared to its earlier years, and added that the stronger episodes in the later seasons are that ones that "satirize topical issues", giving "The Monkey Suit" as an example. Similarly, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
staff writer Robert Philpot commented that "Even in its weak seasons, this show has always been good for at least one belly laugh per episode. Not this year [season seventeen]. Aside from an installment that took on the evolution -vs.-creationism edge and a couple of other bits, the satirical edge has really dulled, making the announcement that it will have at least two more seasons a cause for concern rather than celebration." In the July 26, 2007 issue of Nature
, the scientific journal's editorial staff listed among "The Top Ten science moments in The Simpsons" the scene from the episode in which "Flanders is flabbergasted that the science museum's exhibit on the origins of man both highlights evolution and makes light of creationism — and, to top it all, has a unisex bathroom
."
The Simpsons (season 17)
The Simpsons' seventeenth season originally aired between September 2005 and May 2006, beginning on Sunday, September 11, 2005. It broke Fox's tradition of pushing its shows' season premieres back to November to accommodate the Major League Baseball games airing on the network during September...
of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 14, 2006. In the episode, Ned Flanders
Ned Flanders
Nedward "Ned" Flanders, Jr. is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally...
is shocked after seeing a new display at the museum about evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
. Together with Reverend Lovejoy, he spreads the religious belief of creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
in Springfield
Springfield (The Simpsons)
Springfield is the fictional town in which the American animated sitcom The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized town in an undetermined state of the United States, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. The geography of the town and its...
, and at a later town meeting, teaching evolution is made illegal. As a result, Lisa
Lisa Simpson
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
decides to hold secret classes for people interested in evolution. However, she is quickly arrested and a trial against her is initiated.
J. Stewart Burns
J. Stewart Burns
J. Stewart Burns is a television writer and producer most notable for his work on Unhappily Ever After, The Simpsons and Futurama....
wrote "The Monkey Suit", which he received inspiration for from the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. The episode features a few references to this legal case, as well as several references to popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. Many analysts have commented on the episode's treatment of the creation–evolution controversy, a dispute about the origin of humanity between those who support a creationist view based upon their religious beliefs, versus those who accept evolution, as supported by scientific evidence
Scientific evidence
Scientific evidence has no universally accepted definition but generally refers to evidence which serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis. Such evidence is generally expected to be empirical and properly documented in accordance with scientific method such as is...
.
Critics have given the episode generally positive reviews, praising it for its satire of the creation–evolution debate. "The Monkey Suit" has won an award from the Independent Investigations Group
Independent Investigations Group
The Independent Investigations Group is a volunteer-based organization founded by James Underdown in January 2000 at the Center for Inquiry-West in Hollywood, California...
(IIG) for being "one of those rare shows in the media that encourage science, critical thinking, and ridicule those shows that peddle pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
and superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
." In 2007, a scene from the episode was highlighted in the scientific journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
.
Plot
On the last day of summer vacation, BartBart Simpson
Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
realizes that he wasted the whole summer. He therefore makes a list of summer activities such as a winning a ballgame and having a summer romance. After Bart finishes rushing through all the activities, Lisa
Lisa Simpson
Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
brings the family to the museum to see a weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
exhibit as her summer activity, but they quickly discover that it has been canceled and replaced by a "History of Weapons" exhibit. Faced with an incredibly long line, Homer notices Ned Flanders
Ned Flanders
Nedward "Ned" Flanders, Jr. is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally...
and his children at the front of the line and cuts in front of them. Others start taking advantage of Ned’s kindness as well, until the Flanders family is stuck at the end. At the end of the day, they are still waiting, and are denied entry, as it is closing time for the weapons exhibit. They therefore decide to check out the evolution
Human evolution
Human evolution refers to the evolutionary history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids and mammals...
exhibit next door. Ned is horrified to hear that humans evolved from apes and that the creation account in the Genesis is characterized as a myth. Covering his children's eyes, he drags them out of the exhibit.
Ned meets up with the church council to suggest promotion of creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
. The next day, he and Reverend Lovejoy blackmail Principal Skinner into introducing creationism in the school. Lisa is perturbed by this, and at a town meeting asks everyone to make a choice between creationism and Darwinism
Darwinism
Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
, as there is only one truth. The townspeople vote for creationism, much to her chagrin, and the act of teaching or learning Darwinism and evolution is made illegal. Lisa therefore decides to start holding secret classes for people interested in evolution. However, just as the first lesson is about to begin, she is arrested by Chief Wiggum. Lisa is brought to trial, which is dubbed Lisa Simpson v. God. Representing her is Clarice Drummond, a despised American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
(ACLU) lawyer, while on God’s (i.e., Ned's) side is Wallace Brady, a beloved, overweight, southern lawyer. The trial does not go smoothly for Lisa, as Professor Frink
Professor Frink
Professor John Nerdelbaum Frink, Jr., or simply Professor Frink, is a recurring character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Hank Azaria, and first appeared in the 1991 episode "Old Money". Frink is Springfield's nerdy scientist and professor and is extremely...
(called by Clarice) gives ambiguous answers regarding God's existence, while a creationist scientist says that evolution cannot be real, as there is no proof of a "missing link
Transitional fossil
A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a lifeform that exhibits characteristics of two distinct taxonomic groups. A transitional fossil is the fossil of an organism near the branching point where major individual lineages diverge...
" (depicted in a picture as a savage hominid, holding a rock over his head).
With Lisa now facing a long jail sentence, Marge decides to help her out. She starts reading Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's The Origin of Species
The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the...
and becomes addicted to it. When the trial resumes, Marge tells Lisa that she now knows a way that she can help her. While Ned is being cross-examined by Clarice, Marge gives Homer a cold beer. Homer, ecstatic at getting a beer, tries to open it unsuccessfully. The more he tries, the more primitive he gets, hooting and banging the bottle on the bench, disrupting the trial. Finally, Ned loses his cool and screams "Will you shut your yap, you big monkey-faced gorilla!" Clarice then asks Ned to compare the picture of the "missing link" and Homer shaking the beer over his head, and asks if he truthfully believes Homer cannot be related to apes. Ned concedes defeat and the teachings of evolution are reinstated.
Production
J. Stewart Burns
J. Stewart Burns is a television writer and producer most notable for his work on Unhappily Ever After, The Simpsons and Futurama....
and directed by Raymond S. Persi
Raymond S. Persi
Raymond S. Persi is a director for episodes of The Simpsons. His directing credits include season sixteen's "Mobile Homer", several episodes from season seventeen including "The Girl Who Slept Too Little", the Emmy-award winning "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story", and "The Monkey Suit", the season...
as part of the seventeenth season of The Simpsons (2005–2006). Burns received inspiration for the episode from the Scopes Monkey Trial, a 1925 legal case in which high school science teacher John Scopes was accused of violating Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
's Butler Act
Butler Act
The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law prohibiting public school teachers from denying the Biblical account of man’s origin. It was enacted as Tennessee Code Annotated Title 49 Section 1922...
which made teaching evolution unlawful. Clarice Drummond, the ACLU lawyer that represents Lisa, is a reference to the ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
that defended Scopes, while Wallace Brady is a reference to William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
, an attorney in the Scopes Monkey Trial. American actor Larry Hagman
Larry Hagman
Larry Martin Hagman is an American film and television actor, producer and director known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early life and career:Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas...
guest starred in the episode as Wallace Brady, while American actress Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
played herself as the narrator of an audio tour at the museum. Burns did research for "The Monkey Suit" by reading Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
' book The Selfish Gene
The Selfish Gene
The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. It builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's first book Adaptation and Natural Selection. Dawkins coined the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution as opposed to the...
and watching Inherit the Wind
Inherit the Wind (1960 film)
Inherit the Wind is a 1960 Hollywood film adaptation of the play of the same name, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, directed by Stanley Kramer....
(a film based on the Scopes Monkey Trial). He also visited a natural history museum.
The opening of the episode, in which Bart rushes to do everything he planned on doing during summer vacation, was originally written and animated for the season fourteen
The Simpsons (season 14)
The fourteenth season of the animated television series The Simpsons was originally broadcast on the Fox network in the United States between November 3, 2002 and May 18, 2003. The show runner for the fourteenth production season was Al Jean, who executive produced 21 of 22 episodes. The other...
episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can
I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can
I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can is the twelfth episode of The Simpsons fourteenth season. The episode aired on February 16, 2003. Twenty-two million people watched this episode, making it the second-most watched episode since 2002.-Plot:...
" (2003) but was cut. This episode came in short, and to fill in time, the sequence was added. Burns has said commented the episode "ended up being incredibly short because when you do an episode where there's really just one good side of an argument
The Natural (film)
The Natural is a 1984 film adaptation of Bernard Malamud's 1952 baseball novel of the same name, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert Redford, Glenn Close and Robert Duvall...
(1984 film), Happy Days
Happy Days
Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....
(television sitcom), and Men in Black
Men in Black (film)
Men in Black is a 1997 science fiction comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith and Vincent D'Onofrio. The film was based on the Men in Black comic book series by Lowell Cunningham, originally published by Marvel Comics. The film featured the creature effects...
(1997 film).
Themes
"The Monkey Suit" is an episode that tackles the creation–evolution controversy, and according to Theresa Sanders in her book Approaching Eden: Adam and Eve in Popular Culture, "skewered antievolution legislation." The authors of the book Chronology of the Evolution-Creationism Controversy commented that the episode "caricatures creationism as an intellectual joke." Burns has cited the episode as "a nice example of The Simpsons really taking one clear side". However, as pointed out by Sanders, it "should be pointed out that though the Simpsons episode clearly sides with Darwin, evolutionists come in for criticism as well. When Ned and his sons go into the museum's Hall of Man, one of the exhibits they see in support of evolution is a collection of dinosaur bones with the title 'Indisputable Fossil Records.' The cartoon's inclusion of the sign can be interpreted as mocking the pretension that science knows all and may not be questioned." Sanders cited another scene as an example of this; at the trial, Drummond asks Professor Frink if "this theory of evolution necessarily mean that there is no God?", to which he replies, "No, of course not. It just says that God is an impotent nothing from nowhere with less power than the undersecretary of Agriculture." Sanders wrote that "His arrogance is clear, and equally clear is the show's satirical presentation of science's hubrisHubris
Hubris , also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power....
."
Ted Gournelos analyzed "The Monkey Suit" in his 2009 book Popular Culture and the Future of Politics: Cultural Studies and the Tao of South Park, writing: "More than anything, the episode is used to critique the demonization of evolutionary theory by religious propaganda, by an instructional video used in the school (that shows a drunken Charles Darwin passionately kissing Satan) as well as by the prosecuting attorney. This allows for a somewhat leftist discussion of the issue, but ultimately is ultimately is unable to address the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the United States [...]". Gournelos noted that the episode focuses on the old Scopes Monkey Trial and does not address contemporary creation–evolution debates, adding: "Interestingly, The Simpsons continues to place creationism at a higher popular plain than evolution, as the jury and trial audience are obviously biased towards the creationists (who, unlike in contemporary cases, are the prosecutors rather than the plaintiffs)." Gournelos concluded that the episode "pokes gentle fun at media rhetoric and the questioning of evolutionary theory [...], but is unable or unwilling to address the rise of intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
or contemporary court battles (in Pennsylvania [see Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
], Kansas [see Kansas evolution hearings
Kansas evolution hearings
The Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas, United States May 5 to May 12, 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school...
Release
The episode originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 14, 2006. During this broadcast, it was seen by approximately 8.41 millions viewers, finishing forty-sixth in the ratings for the week of May 8–14, 2006. Since airing, the episode has received generally positive reviews from critics. In a retrospective that was published on the twentieth anniversary of The Simpsons in 2010, writers for BBC NewsBBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
selected "The Monkey Suit" as one of the show's "10 classic episodes", one they said demonstrated that "the writers still have fire in their bellies." TV Squad critic Adam Finley wrote that "Last night's episode had some good moments, but it did feel like they were treading upon somewhat familiar ground and not saying anything especially new," referring to the fact the issue of science and religion has been dealt with before on the show, "most notably in the 'Lisa the Skeptic
Lisa the Skeptic
"Lisa the Skeptic" is the eighth episode of The Simpsons ninth season, first aired on November 23, 1997. On an archaeological dig with her class, Lisa discovers a skeleton that resembles an angel...
' episode in which the supposed skeleton of a dead angel is found." In 2007, "The Monkey Suit" won an award from the Independent Investigations Group
Independent Investigations Group
The Independent Investigations Group is a volunteer-based organization founded by James Underdown in January 2000 at the Center for Inquiry-West in Hollywood, California...
(IIG) for being "one of those rare shows in the media that encourage science, critical thinking, and ridicule those shows that peddle pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
and superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
." J. Stewart Burns, the writer of the episode, was present at the awards ceremony to accept the award.
While reviewing the seventeenth season of The Simpsons, Jesse Hassenger of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
noted that he thought the show had declined in quality compared to its earlier years, and added that the stronger episodes in the later seasons are that ones that "satirize topical issues", giving "The Monkey Suit" as an example. Similarly, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is a major U.S. daily newspaper serving Fort Worth and the western half of the North Texas area known as the Metroplex. Its area of domination is checked by its main rival, The Dallas Morning News, which is published from the eastern half of the Metroplex. It is owned...
staff writer Robert Philpot commented that "Even in its weak seasons, this show has always been good for at least one belly laugh per episode. Not this year [season seventeen]. Aside from an installment that took on the evolution -vs.-creationism edge and a couple of other bits, the satirical edge has really dulled, making the announcement that it will have at least two more seasons a cause for concern rather than celebration." In the July 26, 2007 issue of Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
, the scientific journal's editorial staff listed among "The Top Ten science moments in The Simpsons" the scene from the episode in which "Flanders is flabbergasted that the science museum's exhibit on the origins of man both highlights evolution and makes light of creationism — and, to top it all, has a unisex bathroom
Unisex bathroom
A gender-neutral toilet is a public toilet that is available for use by all genders and sexes.Sex-separated public toilets are a source of difficulty for some people...
."
See also
- History of the creation–evolution controversy
- Creation and evolution in public educationCreation and evolution in public educationThe status of creation and evolution in public education has been the subject of substantial debate in legal, political, and religious circles...