July 6, 2007–The Simpsons series creator Matt Groening, speaking to an audience in London after clips from the upcoming movie were screened, said he expected complaints. “In America there’s someone willing to pretend to be offended by everything and so we annoy people and that’s part of the appeal,” he said. “It’s to entertain people and also to annoy a certain segment of the audience as well.”
Series writer Al Jean agreed that there were big themes in the film, particularly the environment, but that the movie’s makers did not obviously take sides.
“They are big themes, especially the environmental theme, but we always like to approach it from both sides, so later in the film when Lisa’s giving a lecture about the pollution, the label of the lecture is ‘An Irritating Truth’.” Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore inspired Oscar-winning climate change documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”.
Groening said he had been thinking about making a movie based on the hit animated television series as early as 1992, but struggled to find the time. Asked what the main message of the movie was, Jean replied: “It’s that a man should listen to his wife.”