From Barthes to Bart: The Simpsons vs. Amadeus JUSTIN D BURTON I N EPISODE FABF06 (“MARGICAL HISTORY TOUR”) OF THE SIMPSONS, Marge takes her children (and Bart’s friend Milhouse) to the Springfield Public Library to research papers they must write for school, only to find that the library no longer carries books, opting instead for Yu-Gi-Oh! price guides, Everybody Poops: The Video, and newspapers perched atop snoozing bums. Unperturbed, Marge gathers the children around and offers lessons on historical figures to help them write their papers. After telling of Henry VIII for Milhouse and Sacagawea for Lisa, she turns to Bart. Marge : What famous historical figure do you want to write about? Bart : I don’t know. Boogeyman. Marge : C’mon, Bart. We can make this fun. History’s like an amusement park, except instead of rides, you have dates to memorize. Bart : Mom, everyone who ever lived is boring. Marge : Boring? Is there anything boring about a bad-ass rocker who lived fast and died young? Bart : I know there’s a catch, but tell me more. With that, Marge launches into the story of Mozart, which, as Lisa points out, “sounds a lot like the movie Amadeus, which was histori- cally inaccurate.” Lisa was not the first to notice. A. Peter Brown published an arti- cle in The American Scholar on the heels of the Mozart bicentennial The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2013 © 2013, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 481