Pretend you are called Chuck. You live in Shitsville, Idaho and you’ve gone to the pictures on Saturday night. On screen the most admired man in the country is trying to sneak into church late telling his family that they don’t need to worry about the people inside with their “phony baloney religion”. A minute or two on and he’s holding up a copy of the Bible shouting “no one ever got any answers there”. A while later Ned Flanders stares at a chipmunk with thirty eyes and thanks his god for the wonder of this “intelligent design”.

How do you feel about this Chuck? If you’re seriously Christian, and lots of Shitsville’s citizens are, you should be offended. It’s pretty subversive stuff relatively speaking. Though really its mildness should be telling you how far millions of people in your society have recoiled from reason.

I should have spent this afternoon reading Capital again or something but Rupert Murdoch commissioned Matt Groening to lead me astray. The clever plan was that by going to the 1.20 screening of the Simpsons Movie I’d have the cinema to myself. Bollocks I did! It was full of kids! It was one of those moments you were grateful you weren’t wearing you dirty raincoat. To be fair the little f***kers added something to the atmosphere. The glimpse of Bart’s penis got quite a reaction and so did Ralph Wiggum’s statement that he likes men now. Though it was of the playground homophobic sort.

The film has a strong coherent plot based on pollution and climate change with all the detours so characteristic of the Simpsons including a wonderful sub-plot involving Homer’s infatuation with a pig. It’s an experience many of us have had and it was movingly depicted. Watching the reception given to Green Day’s attempt to talk about ecology and consumerism was a foretaste of what is in store for Socialist Resistance come the autumn. Yet Groening is on the far left of the American multi-zillionaire community and it came through in the film.

Comparing this film to the Sistine Chapel might sound trite. But the comparison holds. Both were commissioned by hyper rich robbers and with the passage of time Murdoch will be forgotten for all but his part in making this film possible. Both will remain popular cultural artifacts for many years to come and both express something of what the artist thinks about his world and his situation and you can bet that Chuck agrees.