The Nuclear Power Industry Is Mad at ‘The Simpsons’ Again
The Simpsons has made its fair share of enemies over the past 36 years — from the Bush family, to the entire country of Brazil, to the smattering of transportation experts who still blame Homer for ruining the monorail-filled utopia that we could all been living in right now.
But one of the show’s earliest satirical targets was the nuclear industry, since Springfield’s local power plant is owned by an evil billionaire and its safety inspector spends his days napping, eating donuts and causing life-threatening catastrophes.
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Back in 1990, the nuclear industry reportedly had “a meltdown” over the show. The pro-nuclear U.S. Council for Energy Awareness wrote an open letter to producers complaining about the show’s depiction of nuclear power. They specifically took issue with the recently-released Season Two episode “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish,” in which Mr. Burns tries to bribe government inspectors with a table full of cash.
And, most memorably, it introduced “Blinky,” the three-eyed fish that was seemingly mutated by the plant’s nuclear waste. And if they disliked Blinky, they must have really hated that tentacled tree and superpowered squirrel from Season Four.
Some experts have suggested that The Simpsons has helped shape the public’s opinion about nuclear power, a theory that was borne out when Simpsons memes (including Blinky himself) were utilized in an Australian political battle over the construction of seven new nuclear plants.
Now one of the heads of a controversial new U.K. power station is calling out the long-running animated series.
As reported by The Independent, Sizewell C is a planned “major nuclear plant” to be built on “the coast of Suffolk” with a price tag of £20 billion, more than £14 billion of which is coming from taxpayers. But it’s faced criticism from “environmentalists and those that believe the plans are too expensive.”
In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, the project’s joint managing director Julia Pyke tried to put at least some of the blame for the backlash on the residents of Springfield. “I definitely think The Simpsons, which I very much enjoy, has done the nuclear industry a big disservice,” Pyke claimed, clarifying, “I am not Mr Burns.”
“We need to make more effort to talk about nuclear positively in the mainstream,” she added, “and to help people to feel, rather than bombard them with facts, that it is a safe, clean, green way of making electricity which offers great jobs and opportunities for our future generations.”
Of course, people have a lot of reasons to oppose the project that have nothing to do with Mr. Burns. Construction will reportedly “damage 150 hectares of land” which is “home to two different nature reserves and thousands of birds, animals and plant species.” There are also concerns that it will “compromise local water supplies.”
Following Pyke’s interview, the group Stop Sizewall C countered with a social media post stating: “You can't blame The Simpsons for the nuclear industry's huge expense, delays and budget overruns.”
New Orleans can still blame the show for making us all think of the city as being “vomity vile” though.
