“Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore” is the seventeenth episode of the seventeenth season of The Simpsons.
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Plot
On movie night at the nuclear plant, Homer learns that the nuclear power plant is being shut down and outsourced to India. After Homer is sent to train the new employees, he becomes power-hungry. Meanwhile, Selma and Patty meet their Hollywood heartthrob, Richard Dean Anderson, who plays MacGyver, only to find that he is totally uninterested in MacGyver and only did it for the pay. Meanwhile, Homer realizes to his horror that he has come to India (which he has mistaken for Indiana, among other misconceptions). After a brief standoff with a sacred cow, Homer looks for a relative of Apu named Kavi, who should be around somewhere. After randomly asking people, he finally gets the right man on the second try.
Back in Springfield, Patty and Selma kidnap Richard Dean Anderson from his Stargate SG-1 convention and tie him to a chair. From there, he manages to escape by using one of his contacts to focus the sunlight and burning the ropes, only to discover that he loves escaping, and starts having Patty and Selma put him through increasingly complex MacGyver-esque kidnapping trials.
In India, Homer is coming to love the concept of outsourcing. With “help” from a book Marge gave him to read on the plane trip, The Cereal Is the Prize, Homer is able to spur the "natives" into a working frenzy (actually they assume that if they cheer, they will be allowed to go back to work). Homer, Smithers, and Mr. Burns get a positive (if inaccurate) impression from this, and Homer is put in total charge of the power plant while Mr. Burns takes time off to have fun floating down the Ganges with corpses he has befriended. Homer, left in charge of a slightly-overgrown nuclear power plant on a river in the middle of nowhere, appraises the Hindu deities and decides he might be a god himself . About a week later, Lenny and Carl come to the India plant, invited by a card claiming that Homer is to become a god.
Soon, the rest of the Simpson family, worried about Homer, travel to India and, with Mr. Burns, journey upriver on a PBR boat and find that Homer is ruling the plant like a god. Horrified, Marge and the kids tell the plant workers that Homer is not a god. They cheerfully explain that they know, and are worshiping him instead for the American workplace routines he has instituted, like coffee breaks. It is revealed that Homer is treating the workers as good human beings, much to Marge’s relief. Mr. Burns calls this “madness” and decides to close down the plant and move it to an area 'where the people are more stupid and desperate for work...Springfield'. Burns then fires all the workers; however, this makes the workers delighted due to the various firing clauses Homer has written into their contracts ("Golden parachutes for all!"). The episode ends with the Simpsons, Lenny, Carl, Patty, Selma, Richard Dean Anderson, and Smithers joining in a Bollywood style dance at the plant.
Cultural references
The outsourcing concept is based on the critically awarded film Outsourced.
The title is based on Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, a 2005 film starring Robert Downey Jr. A small part of the episode is referent to Indiana Jones. For example, the way Homer dresses is referent to what Mola Ram wears in the Indy film Temple of Doom. As well, the people chant to Homer in a similar way they do for Ram in the film.[1] The boat trip to the Indian power plant is reminiscent of Apocalypse Now, with the coolant towers a stand-in for the Angkor Wat set in Col. Kurtz's compound.
Homer's general stupidity and Mr. Burns' tendency to misinterpret blends as a reference to Being There where the protagonist, Chance, is a mentally challenged gardener whose concrete statements about gardening are misinterpreted by intellectuals and leaders as being metaphors for life and the economy. Homer refers, word-for-word, to a management guide book that uses breakfast as an analogy to managing, which Mr. Burns interprets as a metaphor.
The song at the end of the episode is from the 1970 Indian film Johny Mera Naam (My Name Is Johny), starring Dev Anand and Hema Malini.
Reception
The episode has become study material for sociology courses at University of California Berkeley, where it is used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects, in this case, a satirical cartoon show", and to figure out what it is "trying to tell audiences about aspects primarily of American society, and, to a lesser extent, about other societies." Some questions asked in the courses include: "What aspects of American society are being addressed in the episode? What aspects of them are used to make the points? How is the satire conveyed: through language? Drawing? Music? Is the behavior of each character consistent with his/her character as developed over the years? Can we identify elements of the historical/political context that the writers are satirizing? What is the difference between satire and parody?"[2]
References
- ^ "The Simpsons". TheRaider.net. http://www.theraider.net/information/influences/the_simpsons.php. Retrieved July 4, 2009.
- ^ Thomas B. Gold (2008). "The Simpsons Global Mirror". University of California Berkeley. http://sociology.berkeley.edu/documents/undergrads/syllabi/Soc190_1.pdf.
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