There are probably few Alaskans left by now who have not heard the best lines from The Simpsons Movie repeated again and again, often by relatives living elsewhere who call specifically to quote them to us. For those of you who have been living in a salmon creek since the movie debuted, those lines are as follows: “Alaska, where you can’t be too drunk or too fat.” And, spoken by an official handing them money as the family crosses into Alaska, “Welcome to Alaska. Here’s a thousand dollars.” Finally, “We pay everyone in Alaska to let us destroy the environment.”
Yep, between this movie and our current crop of politicians, I think Alaskans are going to need to develop a thick hide and a great sense of humor in the very near future. Actually, living in the cold has already given most of us a thicker hide than we really want so I guess it’s just the sense of humor that needs to be honed.
Italians learned about the need to laugh over what was being said about them back around the time Mario Puzo started writing his Godfather series and Martin Scorsese started directing movies about wise guys and good fellows. It wasn’t easy. Italians of my parents’ generation still remembered the fight for acceptance and the prejudice they faced in trying to assimilate. They found it hard to be amused by Marlon Brando with cotton in his mouth.
My generation, on the other hand, didn’t face signs that read, “No Italians wanted”. So we viewed these movies as examples of a life we heard about but never encountered.
It wasn’t until a classmate of my sister’s named Crazy Phil went to jail for dumping the bodies of people he’d killed into car trunks in the down beach area of Absecon Island that it occurred to me that those kinds of Italians had been all around while I was growing up. It was just my mother and father’s determination that my brother and sister and I would never be part of that life that kept us in such ignorance.
And then came the Sopranos and suddenly laughing at mob hits became a national pastime. It was a bit weird but a welcomed relief from Vito Corleone and John Gotti.
Alaskans now need to learn to laugh at the predicament they find themselves in or we’ll spend a lot of time crying over it. With the demise of the Fly By Night Club, there really is no place in Anchorage where we can go anymore and get the sweet relief that laughter and comedy brings to the all too sad and tragic story playing out across our state right now. When Whitekeys played his songs, he could make Uncle Ted and Don and Lisa, the Boy Mayor Mark and the goofy governor Murkowski, all seem more like endearingly Alaskan originals than possibly sleazy politicians. For just a few moments, we laughed at them and the only thing sleazy was the bar we were in.
As each day seems to bring some new information that raises even more questions about our political leaders, it occurs to me that we should get a state grant to get Whitekeys back in business on a daily basis and count it as needed mental health for the citizens of this state. Because the reality is that it looks to get a lot darker before it gets light again. Laughter may be the only sure medicine we have at this point to fortify us against the headlines that threaten on the horizon and the very real possibility that even more of our politicians will soon be doing the perp walk.
If Italians could learn to laugh at Tony Soprano and accept that the characters that inhabited Puzo’s novels did in fact exist in some places, even if they never represented the majority of the Italian immigrant experience in the new world, then Alaskans can learn to find at least some black humor in our current political situation while knowing that no matter what certain politicians think, they are not Alaska. The people are Alaska, you and me. Our politicians no more define being Alaskan than Sonny Corleone defined being a good Italian son.
Laughter may not be the best medicine for everything that ails us, but right now it’s our best hope for keeping our sanity intact. So go see The Simpsons Movie and laugh, no matter how painfully close to the truth what they say might be. It’s better than crying.