with Barbie is now on the warpath against Bart Simpson and his dysfunctional family.
The Simpsons are corroding the morals of Iranian youth, an official said Monday, as dolls based on Bart, Homer and the rest of the American cartoon family joined the shapely Barbie among Western toys targeted by a new crackdown in Tehran.
“The Simpsons dolls are merchandise from an animated series, of which some episodes are even banned in Europe and America,” Mohammad Hossain Farjoo, whose agency oversees what Iranian children can play with, told the daily Sharq. He did not say where he got the cockamamie idea that the US government has banned episodes of The Simpsons.
“We do not want to promote this cartoon by importing the toys,” said Farjoo, whose full title is secretary for policy-making at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults.
That is the organization that declared war on Barbie more than a decade ago. It then said it would produce Sara, a Persian doll, to put Barbie out of business. It spent years trying to make the doll in Iran, then went to China to bail it out. When the doll hit the market, it was a flop in Iran. The police were sent out to confiscate Barbies from shops, but Sara still couldn’t make it with little girls.
Barbie’s full figure and revealing wardrobe offend Iran’s leaders—but Barbie also offends many American mothers who feel the doll promotes figure-consciousness and fashion as ideals.
Farjoo made it sound like he was speaking with the full force of the law when he said, “Imports of all kinds of dolls that display full adult figures are banned because they promote Western culture.”
That, however, left it unclear why the lumpy members of the Simpson family had offended Iranian regulators.
Farjoo expressed a generic policy, saying that the regime banned dolls of adults, toys that have speakers that blare out the voices of Western singers, toy kitchen sets that include glasses for drinking alcoholic beverages and dolls with visible genitals. While the Iran Times is not expert in the toy business, it is unaware of any toy dolls with genitals or any kitchen sets with glasses for alcoholic beverages. There are some pornographic figures with genitals, but they are not manufactured by toy makers or sold in toy stores.
Oddly, Farjoo said that all-American super-heroes like Superman and Spiderman were still welcome in Iran because they do battle on behalf of the oppressed. He said the values of the Simpsons, an obnoxiously self-centered and irreligious bunch, were not acceptable in Iran, however. Apparently, he had not done enough research to know that Superman fights for “the American way.”
Farjoo did not say if Simpsons dolls are popular in Iran. Those with access to foreign satellite channels might be familiar with the Fox Television cartoon. But that doesn’t mean the dolls would sell.
The Iran Times could not reach Bart Simpson for a reaction to Farjoo’s attack, but it is likely he might give his standard reply of: “Eat my shorts!”
