TV

Disney+ Won’t Include The ‘Simpsons’ Episode Starring Michael Jackson

'Stark Raving Homer' won't be streaming in Australia.

by Joseph Earp  15 November 2019
The Simpsons on Disney+

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Yesterday, after a lot of speculation, it was revealed that Disney+ in Australia would host The Simpsons in its entirety.

Well — almost its entirety.

Although the new streaming service will host every season of the classic animated show, plus the full-length movie, users will not have access to ‘Stark Raving Homer’, the now-controversial episode guest-starring Michael Jackson.

In the episode, Homer is briefly sent to a mental institution thanks to the antics of Bart (I’m sorry, it’s impossible to describe Simpsons plots without sounding like a robot that is trying to teach itself how jokes work). While there, he meets a mild-mannered man who believes that he is Michael Jackson.

So not only does the episode actually feature Jackson as a guest, a lot of it directly contends with his legacy.

That makes it different to say, the episode starring Dustin Hoffman, who has faced his own share of #metoo allegations. That episode isn’t about Hoffman — it’s about a supply teacher who bonds with Lisa. That’s why it’s still up on Disney+, and ‘Stark Raving Homer’ isn’t.

It’s a particularly interesting move given the broader context of how Disney+ have been treating their problematic material. The service is not streaming Song of the South, the famously racist live action-animated hybrid that Disney spent a lot of time and energy burying. But it is streaming the likes of Dumbo, which features its own racist stereotypes.

It’s just doing so with a warning, one that pops up at the beginning of the film and tells the audience that what they’re about to watch might contain ‘outdated cultural depictions.’

Anyway, the whole thing is a mess, obviously — but the kind of mess that will only become more pressing as time goes on, and the culture is increasingly forced to deal with the fact that some of our foundational myths have characters that exclude and offend.