Television

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – If Homer Simpson and his family are planning any more South American vacations, they might want to come up with a backup plan.

Fox

The Simpsons is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon in many parts of the continent, but it also has become very good at exposing the region's rawest nerves, then clawing them sore.

During a recent episode, Homer and his friends grumbled about their choices of political candidates.

"I'd really go for some kind of military dictator, like Juan Perón," Homer's buddy Carl said, mentioning the general who was elected president by Argentines three times. "When he 'disappeared' you, you stayed disappeared."

Carl's friend Lenny then delivered a coup de grâce: "Plus, his wife was Madonna."

Most Argentines don't consider Perón a dictator, and they certainly don't blame him for the fact that up to 30,000 dissidents went missing during the country's "dirty war." Those disappearances are attributed to a military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983, after Perón's death.

"This type of program causes great harm, because the disappearances are still an open wound here," said former congressman Lorenzo Pepe, who now heads the Juan Domingo Perón Institute.

The reference to Madonna also riled Perónistas. Perón's second wife, Eva, is so beloved in Argentina that her ardent backers launched protests after the pop star was cast to portray her in the 1996 movie Evita.

"The part about Madonna – that was too much," Mr. Pepe said.

The offenses might have gone unnoticed had it been any other program. But in much of South America, Los Simpsons are more popular than they are in the U.S. The Simpsons Movie broke box-office records for an opening weekend in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia.

Despite the popularity, Venezuela's telecommunications commission last week threatened to punish a television station that aired The Simpsons during the daytime. The agency had deemed it unsuitable for children. The station replaced it with a program presumably considered more edifying to the development of Venezuela's youth: Baywatch Hawaii.

In Brazil, the show inflamed mass anger when the Simpson family visited Rio de Janeiro in a 2002 episode. Homer was kidnapped by a taxi driver, he and Bart were mugged by a gang of children and Bart was attacked by a monkey.

Juan Perón biographer Joseph Page said it is unfair to label Perón a dictator, much less the architect of the disappearances. Still, he said, the Argentinian response seems like an overreaction.

"The controversy that erupted around the Brazil episode proves that the Simpsons are equal-opportunity offenders," Mr. Page said.

That sentiment was seconded by Al Jean, the executive producer of The Simpsons.

"We won't rest until we've aggravated every country on Earth," he said.

Monte Reel, The Washington Post