Lester and Eliza: The Simpsons' Demented, Derivative Double

In the eighteenth episode of The Simpsons' classic seventh season, "The Day The Violence Died", we are introduced to one of the show's most sinister creations- the doppelgänger siblings Lester and Eliza. Unlike the horror-movie pastiches from the show's "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween specials, Lester and Eliza turn up at the end of an otherwise normal episode of the show. Rendered in reference to the early versions of Bart and Lisa Simpson from The Tracey Ullman Show, Lester and Eliza made a strong impact in spite of minimal screen time, yet it is how they make themselves known that reveals to us the true nature of their distinctly uncomfortable presence.

The Simpson family as they appeared on The Tracey Ullman Show. On the right we have Lisa and Bart, the inspirations for Eliza and Lester.

So, why do Lester and Eliza consistently find themselves at the top of fan's lists of most unsettling Simpsons moments? Why are these two siblings capable of instilling so much fear? On the textual level, these characters tap into a perennial fear of an identical other. Our doubles, who may at any given time, appropriate and remove our senses of identity, remind us of the Lacanian mirror stage; we feel a perpetual disassociation between our true selves and the bodies which we show to the outside world. The conceptual doppelgänger is frightening for this very reason, it highlights not only the disparity between the imaginary and the real but also our anxieties around others not being to perceive our true selves.

The episode's narrative concerns itself with Bart finding the homeless original creator of Itchy, Chester J. Lampwick, from the violently popular Itchy and Scratchy cartoons. Having had his work stolen from him by an untalented artist, yet savvy businessman, Lampwick fell into poverty and would never see any royalties or accreditation for his creation. Inadvertently, Bart's mission to find justice for Lampwick leads to the bankruptcy of the Itchy and Scratchy studios. Bart and Lisa attempt to get their beloved cartoon back on the air, finally coming up with a plan and rushing off towards the studio. The sinister siblings get there first and, by taking Bart and Lisa's narrative role as conflict resolvers, Lester and Eliza already imprint a disconcerting presence. It is worth noting that immediately before the appearance of Lester and Eliza, Marge Simpson reaffirms and recounts all the times Bart and Lisa resolved conflicts such as the one featured in this episode. It is presented as a mother motivating her children to succeed in their task at a moment of weakness, but it also serves the purpose of reacquainting an audience with the format of previous stories. There's really no reason not to think that Bart and Lisa will save the day once again. Yet, as we know, they didn't.

Lester and Eliza, resembling Bart and Lisa, resolve the episode's conflict.

In true Simpsons fashion, Lester and Eliza have solved, alongside the A-Plot of saving Itchy and Scratchy, a B-Plot of Apu's public nudity case/Krusty the Clown's estranged wife. We can imagine an alternate episode that exists within this one, where Lester and Eliza's inciting incident occurs at the cancellation of Itchy and Scratchy, telling its own story to the same resolution. Likewise, we can imagine Lester and Eliza experiencing a similar shock to that which faces Bart and Lisa at the end of this episode, only this shock happening on a far more regular basis, whenever Bart and Lisa's adventures are made public. There may then be an element of personal revenge to Lester and Eliza's appearance. These siblings, who only exist in relation to Bart and Lisa, are faced with the same fear of the double, only their doppelgängers are paraded around town as local celebrities. But what I find more interesting is the notion that Lester and Eliza are not so much characters as they are arbiters, particularly arbiters of punishment.

So, beyond merely the fearsome nature of the characters within their relation to the Simpsons and Springfield, there is a metatextual element that has made Lester and Eliza ring through the audience's mind. It is no coincidence that the designs for these doppelgängers so closely resemble Bart and Lisa's former selves, they tie into the stories themes of authorial ownership and originality. Lester and Eliza arrive to exact punishment on Bart and Lisa- the original versions seeking vengeance on the derivative. With the episode's earlier acknowledgment of Chief Wiggum's derivative status (his voice being an impression of Edward G. Robinson's), the show briefly dips into metacommentary. Bart and Lisa have no right to fight on the side of Lampwick, or originality, as they themselves are insipid repetitions. They are not allowed to succeed, with the conclusion delivering the punishment for their hubris.

The final disconcerting shot of Lester passing by, meeting eyes with Bart, is reinforced by a mind-boggling geography; Bart cannot be looking at Lester, from everything we know about the layout of the Simpson house, yet, look he does. Through the final moments of this episode, Lester and Eliza are repeatedly presented to us as something deeply, profoundly wrong. The distortion of the Simpson house is perhaps the most aesthetically clear realisation of this theme, alongside the Tracey Ullman-esque designs, but the distortion of episode normality, where the audience is prevented from ever actually finding out what Lisa and Bart's resolution to the conflict, is arguably just as significant aspect. Foiling their plan ensures the audience never get the payoff of finding out what their plan to save Itchy and Scratchy actually was, meaning that the episode ends on a dejected whimper, rather than any triumphant victory.

Bart looks out of the rear-house window to see Lester in the view of the front-house window.

Bart ends the episode with a comment on how unsettling it is that he and Lisa weren't the ones to solve the conflict. Here he speaks for an audience who are, for a change, suddenly challenged and made uneasy by The Simpsons. Lester and Eliza's fearsome nature, in their minuscule time on screen, is played up, so as to exist properly as arbiters of punishment. Not satisfied with merely stealing the joy of victory from Bart and Lisa, the arbiters of punishment go so far as to steal their individual identities and the natural order of their world. 

"The Day The Violence Died" is a deeply affecting, profound episode, even if all the elements which make it so only occur within the final minutes of the story. It taps into something primal and existential. Bart and Lisa would, of course, go on to have more adventures, paying this experience no heed, but the visceral, lasting effect this throwaway gag has had is worthy of note.

A World Without Sin: Reconciliatory Fictions In "Serenity"

With each passing day, opposition to our political class and its institutions has started to feel increasingly untenable. Not in that we cannot present viable alternatives, but in that we are so inundated by constant controversy that engaging in any kind of political discussion feels futile. This is by no means a recent phenomenon, but it is certainly best exemplified by our relationship with the "truth" under Trumpism. Both fake news and the spectre of fake news are utilised as tools to confuse narratives and, furthermore, this all takes place within a journalistic sphere that is tired and perhaps even no longer fit for use. News media has now evolved to such a state that a consumer can choose which "truth" to buy into, leaving any search for a true "truth" superfluous. The fictionalising force of journalism, the turning of events and information into a story, has accelerated this evolution, curating fictions designed for informing that stand side-by-side with fictions designed for entertainment. Yet, simultaneously, it provides the means through which these concerns will be resolved. It is in fiction that our own anxieties with fictions can be expressed. Joss Whedon's 2005 sci-fi film, Serenity, the pseudo-finale to his untimely cancelled cowboys-in-space tv series Firefly, then serves as an example of how speculative fiction, particularly genre films, serve as attempted resolutions to unconscious political anxieties.

I want to begin by positing the question, would the space-cowboy's plan work in our own political context? In the film, the protagonists discover the film's "truth": that the dominant, fascist government covered up an experiment which, in their attempts to introduce an airborne sedative to a population, directly lead to the creation of the Reavers, a group of mentally degenerated cannibals and rapists that blight the 'verse. In a multifarious attempt to find justice for the initial victims, to prevent further attempts at this experiment and to expose the dominant government's true nature, the protagonists seek the delivery of a government-exposing tape to a source who will distribute it across the 'verse. The film positions this as the happy ending, clearly implying that once the footage is distributed to its audience, the protagonists intended societal change will occur and the hero's sacrifices will have been justified. This small act of delivery is emblematic of the synoptic, journalistic ideal- of the many holding the few to account. Let's imagine that plan in the context of Trumpism. Would the imagined outrage at the system even manifest? The Trump administration has courted controversy after controversy to the point where only the most politically ardent avoid desensitisation, would Serenity's distributed imagery be capable of shaking and emboldening a populace to action? Could the imagery simply be dismissed as propaganda efforts, as fake news? The film offers a simple premise, that truth yields consequences, yet this has proved, time and again, a myth for real world politics.

The Firefly/Serenity franchise is, in a way, the ideological antithesis of science fiction narratives like Aliens, Starship Troopers, Halo and the like; the myriad of stories which hold the space marine archetype to its core. These, parodic or sincere, cast in its heroes the very fascistic, militaristic qualities that Whedon's libertarian crew deny. The "world without a sin" that Nathan Fillion's Mal distributes to the 'verse is a world without choice and personal liberty and across both the series and, film, the totalitarian government is constantly presented as an impediment against Mal's (and his crew's) self-determination. It is this libertarian perspective that informs not only the film's climax, but also its attempt to reconcile the very illegibility of holding power to account in its political climate.

Serenity then must be read in its post-9/11, Bush-era context, as this shows two things: the first, that Trumpism does not hold a monopoly on post-truth sentiment, and secondly, that the film's narrative works as an effort to placate and ease concerns around truth and authority. This film arrived in the midst of an estrangement with American authority, as 2004, the year preceding the film's release, saw instances like the CIA admission that there was no immediate threat from Iraq and the Killian documents controversy. Serenity absolves its fictional universe of such concerns, presenting a world where the freeing of information will have direct, liberating consequences, rather than sewing further animosity and confusion in a populace. Mal sacrifices information to the fictionalising forces of distribution and relies, totally, on the hope that the fictionalised narrative will elicit change. In our world, the distributed image may not resemble its original at all. But, Serenity, as fiction, and a specifically speculative fiction, is allowed to treat truth as the monolith its audience believes it to be. The Mr. Universe mantra of "You can't stop the signal", proves true and the film's antagonist, the Operative, is pacified and rendered faithless after witnessing the true nature of the government.

Ultimately, this resolution only exists in the film. It did not have any metatextual reaction, it did not reconcile real world concerns with truth and political authority, nor did it impede the rapid degeneration of news media into the even less authoritative state it is in today, but that is more or less the point. It is a fantasy. The resolution works in the film, and can only work in the film, because it presupposes that certain features of our society have clear-cut constants. Particularly, it presupposes that journalism exists as a means to challenge the powerful and that it, both as an industry and as something received by audiences, is devoted to universal, unquestionable truths. The reality, of course, is that journalism has now become as much of a power as that it is meant to challenge, that the pursuit of truth often comes second to a sensational, fictionalising frame and that there is no longer a single, monolithic truth.

Therein lies the necessity of interrogating popular speculative fiction, as, above all, it serves as the way in which people engage with contemporary issues. Not in a meaningful way, as that is the very nature of our predicament, but, for many people, as the only way. Policy is detached so far from our lives that our only hope for reconciliation is to observe, to see it take place through fictional narratives. We can see it in the ever rising prominence of fan activism and the fierce identity wars that rage in fan communities; more and more the political battleground has been shifted away from the intangible phantasms of democracy and bureaucracy and to the more real, more tangible realm of storytelling and fictional world-building. Even engagements that supposedly have more intrinsic meaning, such as the ballot box and the protest, remain similar to popular fiction in a sense, as they are all attempts by people to solve the unsolvable; to gain entry to the political sphere of which they have been denied access.

Popular fiction is far more useful as a lens than it is as a toolbox. Serenity does not provide us with a blueprint or instruction manual to reach the film's idyllic relationship with truth. It does not seek any kind of transformative platform. It exists merely as a struggle to reconcile harsh reality through escapist fiction.