Value of Life through The Simpsons

Throughout history, people have been trying to settle the matter of how to properly establish the value of one man’s life. A task such as this is undeniably difficult because of the vast diversity and uniqueness between every person on planet Earth. Egomaniacal and deviant individuals have come and gone believing that they hold such answers nevertheless, acting as self-appointed appraisers of whether or not one man is worth more than the next. Is preparing a monetary or economic figure appropriate, or does ascertaining this amount require something deeper? A common response to this quandary is to not place importance on the value of a man’s life, but rather what is of value in said life. While many in today’s America get caught up with lucrative and self-serving desires, true value is dictated by how happy we are, the experiences we have, and the relationships we acquire. Two landmark films in American cinema, Citizen Kane and It’s a Wonderful Life, touch upon the topic of the valuation of a man through different means and character development. Along with the television series The Simpsons, both of the aforementioned works expounds upon where value genuinely lies in American culture. In Orson Welle’s 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane, viewers follow the life path of newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane. The film begins with Kane on his deathbed dropping and shattering a snow globe he had been holding, and then utters his famous last word, “Rosebud”, to which no one seems to know the meaning of. Flashbacks then return to Kane’s childhood, and the decision by his parents to send young Charles away from his impoverished roots to go live with a wealthy businessman in New York, in hopes of giving Charles an opportunity at a better life. As Charles begins to age, his aspirations for power and fortune become more and more apparent, and ultimately lead to his demise. He employs yellow journalism tactics to gain success for his newspaper that leaves him with few friends,