A new survey says more Americans can name characters on The Simpsons and judges on American Idol than can name the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. Now, we at PopWatch could wring our hands at Americans’ civic ignorance or curse Fox honcho Rupert Murdoch, but we’d rather suggest something constructive, especially since the solution is so simple: Make the Idol contestants sing Schoolhouse Rock-style jingles about the Constitution. Set the text of the First Amendment to a peppy tune Idol regulars already sing frequently, like the Four Tops’ ”I Can’t Help Myself.” Sing along with us now:
Congress shall make no law (Congress shall make no law)
Respecting an establishment
Of religion, or
Prohibiting the free exercise thereof…
That should work, no?
That’s actually a good idea! Except my guess is if contestants can’t remember the lyrics “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch,” they ain’t gonna remember a song about the Constitution.
Oh, thank God I get to weigh in on this one somewhere. I think this bit of “news” is ridiculous. Of course people know the Simpsons better than the First Amendment – the Simpsons is on multiple times a week! How often do people pull out the Constitution and read it? This is why people should never just take some sham study at face value.
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed at the notion that we put the choice for leader of our country in the hands of a public that couldn’t tell if said leader was doing anything unconstitutional or not. According to this study, however, they’d willingly be able to name their favorite and least favorite American Idol judges.
To Jake: It’s true the Simpsons comes on multiple times a week, and people rarely read the Consitution before they go to bed, but don’t you think maybe some should start so they can become more educated about how someone is supposed to run their country?
To Bryant: I agree with you completely. But my comments had more to do with how I thought that the study was unfair. People should know all about how their government works, of course. That study was like shooting fish in a barrel – the people who conducted it KNEW that people would be able to identify who the Simpsons were without fail.
I think if those people wanted to find out how much people knew about the first amendment, they should have just built their study around that and left the unfair comparisons out of it.
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