10 Incredible Tiny Details Hidden In The Simpsons
5. Was Homer A Rashomon Fan? He Can’t Really Remember
By the close of the tenth season, The Simpsons had embarked on all manner of wacky adventures and travelled to so many different places. Homer, being the impulsive, impetuous free-spirit he is, happily went right along with almost all of them. One trip he wasn’t quite sure about, however, was the family’s visit to Japan in “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo.”
On the plane, he’s a little restless, and Marge tries to comfort him. “Come on, Homer,” she tells him, “Japan will be fun! You liked Rashomon.” Unmoved, he grumpily replies, “that’s not how I remember it.”
At first glance, there’s nothing particularly special about this exchange: A rather obscure reference to a Japanese movie made in 1950. For fans in the know, however, it’s a surprisingly clever little joke.
Rashomon, for the uninitiated, is a thriller directed by the legendary Akira Kurosawa. It revolves around the sad story of a murdered samurai, and the difficult process of piecing together what happened to him and who was responsible. In court, eyewitnesses and suspects share their very different versions of events and the intrigue builds. So influential was this movie that the Rashomon effect (which deals with the complexity of conflicting witness reports) was named after it.
Homer’s joke, then, alludes to the plotting of Rashomon, in which opinions and memories contradict each other. A deceptively clever line, which is something the show has always been known for.