Nancy Cartwright’s penis

One of the scenes that almost made my list as best of the year below was the scene from THE SIMPSONS MOVIE of Bart skateboarding nude — on a dare from Homer, natch. But I said there that “Showing the 8-year-old’s willie was a mistake though,” which has drawn two dissents from uncharacteristically misguided folks, both Christians as it happens. (As I recall, they both commented similarly when I initially wrote about THE SIMPSONS MOVIE, though their comments were lost when I had my Blogspot Booboo.)

And to be honest, I did laugh at that moment. Donna and Adam are right … it’s a brilliantly timed gag, one that works exactly because for so long you get the Austin Powers/Borat “show everything else with some ludicrous groin-covering” gag. Then suddenly, for no more than a second or two, you get the exact reverse: The rest of the screen being blocked out and seeing ONLY Bart’s boyhood — just showing it wouldn’t be funny.

Then, the minute I stopped laughing, I really felt … well … pretty disgusted. And violated. Not because it was news to me that Bart would have a penis (I distinctly remember having one when I was his age too. Younger even.) Not because it made the scene potentially erotic or was anatomically realistic (Bart is a cartoon). And not because the scene be an objective violation of any child (for that selfsame reason).