“The Simpsons” and its “Little Ukraine”

 

“The Simpsons” is considered to be the longest-running sitcom on American TV. It has been broadcast in Ukraine for a very long time, too. Nevertheless, I had never watched a single episode of this show thinking of it as foolish, before I found out that there is an episode about Ukraine. And I just couldn’t pass it by.

In general, this episode is not so much about Ukraine, but about our former President Victor Yanukovych. He is depicted as a not very smart mafia boss (which is, by the way, a true fact) from Kyiv, who kidnaps Homer and hide him in “Little Ukraine”,  a Springfield’s district where Ukrainian diaspora lives.

All the place names here have references to Ukrainian history. For example, there is a “Tsarbucks” coffee shop, “Hot to Trotsky’s” ice skating ring, clothes shop called “Cossacks Fifth Avenue” and mental health center “Insane in the Ukraine”.

One more interesting hero of this episode is Victor’s wife and our former first lady, Lyudmyla. She appears on the screen only for a few seconds to hear from Victor that she must stay in her room. This tiny episode shows that the screenwriter has to know some details of Yanukovych’s family life. The thing is that Yanukovych really tried to hide his wife from the press. The reason for it was the fact that every time she appeared on public she made a fool of herself wearing unsuitable clothes and talking a complete nonsense.

After watching this episode I was amazed how familiar the screenwriter of the show is with details of Ukrainian history and politics. Also, it is worth to mention that the episode was released in 2011, just a year after Yanukovych became a President and at that time he wasn’t criticised so much.

And, by the way, few days ago I read another article describing how sitcom’s creators made fun of Putin and his imperial ambitions in one of the latest episodes of “The Simpsons”. So, it looks like I underestimated this show.