The Simpsons Impact on Family Values

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The Simpsons Impact on Family Values

The Simpsons first came to life on April 19th, 1987. It was aired as a

‘filler’ in the commercial breaks of ‘The Tracey Ullman Show’ and was

animated in 30 second mini-episodes. Matt Groening, the proud producer

and creator of The Simpsons, made these 30 second episodes after being

recognized for his ‘life is hell’ comic strip and asked by a fan,

Pauly Platt, if he would be interested in coming up with ideas for an

animation. Groening ceased the opportunity and now, 18 years on The

Simpsons have become a global success and have been honored with: a

Peabody award, over 20 Emmy awards, over 50 Emmy nominations, over 20

Annie awards, four Genesis awards a Golden Globe nomination and many

more accolades.

People seem to engage with the Simpsons so well because they are

portraying the average family but obviously with some not so average

experiences. The Simpsons themselves are a simple family in a small

town in Middle America called Springfield. They are: Homer (the loyal

but stupid father), Marge (the frustrated, trapped housewife/mother),

Bart (the rebellious son), Lisa (the unappreciated genius daughter),

and Maggie (the silent baby). This is a model family that many other

families may relate to or in someway mirror, but the main difference

being that the Simpsons qualities are exaggerated. On the other hand

there are people that dislike the Simpsons, possibly because they

think people viewing the programmes will stereotype American families

due to the Simpson family. People who don’t like the Simpsons may feel

that people watching it will ‘bracket off’ all American men, for

example, as being g...

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promotes the fact in the programme that people should not be so

judgemental until they have seen both sides of an argument. In this

episode Homer is bought to justice after Willy shows him a tape of

what happened (because he had secretly been filming them) so in the

end justice is done. This is another value ‘The Simpsons’ promotes

consistently through all its episodes (except Halloween specials).

Overall I think the Simpsons can be seen to be promoting family values

or setting bad examples depending on how much you are willing to open

your mind up to the programme. Personally I think the Simpsons are a

modal family who have big hearts and always manage to pull through for

each other and I believe that if all families had the amount of love

that is in the Simpson family the world would be a much better place.

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