The Simpsons is a sitcom of parody because the episodes usually mimic or imitate well-known scenes, plot devices, or characters from other media texts. Jonathan Gray describes it as “Parody attaches itself to generic discourses and either playfully or scornfully attacks them, aiming to destabilize the common sense of genre, and intertextuality chip away at already-read and yet-to-be-read texts” (Gray, pg. 44).
At the beginning of episode Three Men and a Comic Book, Bart and Lisa imitate Casper and Richie Rich which are well-known characters from other films. Casper is known as a friendly ghost but the thought of him being a ghost makes him scary. Richie Rich is known for being a troublemaker. Bart shows his audience what he is looking at
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as he speaks about them and assumes of Richie Rich being Casper. The magazine draws the two characters alike to presumably make Bart’s opinion valid. In this case, the producers of the text made reference from another text. This intertextual gesture was intentional because it is in the producers’ best interest to take the existing text/genre and create another text out of it. With that being said, this serves as writerly text because it invites the audience to co-create its meaning since they have seen these two characters elsewhere. Additionally, throughout the twenty-two minutes of Three Men and a Comic Book, it parodically attacked real-life situations with the characters speaking of critical issues or acting upon them.
Parodies such as The Simpsons is, “Fundamentally expansive, taking in all manner of discourses and genres, and serving as a purveyor of distrust of television form” (Gray, pg. 48). Parody is known as a tool of disembedding because while genre tries to continually work on gaining the trust of the audience, parody destroys that by mocking genre. Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, stated his goal and message of this sitcom parody and it’s to wake the public up from being manipulated and exploited by television. This works as a potential technique because each short episode of The Simpsons basically ‘resets’ itself introducing new topics every time. With only having twenty-two minutes of program time to create an entire plot, everything moves quickly especially the rushed last-minute ending, however, “The Simpsons cannibalizes its own generic grammar and ideology often with brutally astute accuracy” ( Gray, pg. 51) that at the end it makes it worthwhile. Analyzing critical intertextuality in Johnson Gray’s reading only made me realize how many times I have seen television shows, reviews, ads, etc. deliberately make reference to another text without knowing a word existed for
it.
South Park is an animated TV series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, which first aired on Comedy Central in 1997. The show features four boys Eric Cartman, Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick. South Park has been seen as one of the most controversial shows due to its raunchy humor and obscene depiction of characters in the show. South Park deals with many current issues in the news surrounding anything from in politics to religion. In dealing with these issues South Park involves adult comedy that parodies current issues going on in the United States and around the world. South Park also uses many other rhetorical deceives, such as
While the tone may range from playful to angry, satire generally criticizes in order to make a change. Exaggeration, parody, reversal, and incongruity are satirical devices. Author’s use satirical devices to strengthen their central idea.
Move over Jetson there is a new beloved animated family in town, the Simpsons. The Simpson’s originally aired on December 17th, 1989 and has yet to make us stop laughing. The Simpson’s follow a not so typical American family from the fictional town of Springfield. The episode follow the satirical lives of Homer (Dad), Marge (mom), Bart (brother), Lisa (sister), and Maggie (little sister). Though this is a satirical TV show many episodes provide excellent points and example of material covered in a sociology class. The episode “Marge not be Proud” gives multiple examples of deviant behavior and this essay will discuss two of them.
Popular culture is the artistic and creative expression in entertainment and style that appeals to society as whole. It includes music, film, sports, painting, sculpture, and even photography. It can be diffused in many ways, but one of the most powerful and effective ways to address society is through film and television. Broadcasting, radio and television are the primary means by which information and entertainment are delivered to the public in virtually every nation around the world, and they have become a crucial instrument of modern social and political organization. Most of today’s television programming genres are derived from earlier media such as stage, cinema and radio. In the area of comedy, sitcoms have proven the most durable and popular of American broadcasting genres. The sitcom’s success depends on the audience’s familiarity with the habitual characters and the situations
Satire is form of comedy in which flaws in people or society are chastised in order to prompt change in the objects of criticism. Regardless of how long ago comedy itself may have existed, the concept of satire was introduced by the Roman satirists, Juvenal and Horace. The tones conveyed in their writing characterize the main modes of satire, being Horatian and Juvenalian, and are still used in satire today. Presently, two popular forms of comedy that employ satirical elements include parody news sources and comedic performances. Although satirical writing has evolved throughout history, many aspects of satire are still apparent in both the articles of parody news sources, like The Onion, and the performances of professional comedians, like
Since television came into existence, it has evolved into a useful tool to spread ideas, both social and political, and has had a great effect on the generations growing up with these heavily influential shows. To these younger generations, television has taken the role of a teacher, with the task of creating a social construction by which many of us base our personal beliefs and judgments on. This power allows television shows take the opportunity to address problems in a manner that many audiences can take to heart. Many television shows present controversial topics in a comical matter, in some ways to soften the blow of hard-hitting reality at the same time bringing attention to the issue being addressed. In the television show, Everybody Hates Chris, season one, episode four entitled “Everybody Hates Sausage”, the stereotypes that continue to fuel racism are examined in a satirical motif, and class is presented in a comical way, but carries serious undertones which present a somewhat realistic view of the different social strata within the United States.
Immigrants. People who we natives have labeled as “aliens” and “foreigners” at a time when we should’ve welcomed them with open arms, when we should’ve embraced them with our compassion and considered them with our empathy. Isn’t this humanity? Treating others as we expect to be treated? But what have we done besides ostracizing them? Nothing. Despite the many benefits that they bring along with them, we insist on focusing all attention to the few temporary disadvantages that they have. In reality, if we natives had conducted the least bit of professional research of the benefits versus the disadvantages of immigrants, we would come to the realization that their benefits outweigh their costs, and that they are much more valuable to our society, then we expected them to be.
Distraction, lack of education, disinterest and misinterpretation; every one of these words describe a reason people give for being uniformed and unaware of the current events swirling around them. In an effort to try and remedy the lack of awareness about the problems plaguing the country, many artists and entertainers use satire, a literary device which merges a critical attitude with humor and wit to the end that human organizations or humanity may be improved (Harris), to keep the general public, somewhat, informed. Often times, movies, comic strips, music, literature and television shows are used to satirize current events, political views and different morals.
all worthy people living in a jubilant but melancholy world, why should anyone get worse penalties than another? Some may feel like celebrities should have longer jail sentences, higher tickets, and pay more money for fines. Others think that celebrities should be treated fairly like everyone else. Honestly nothing determines who a celebrity is, what actually determines who a celebrity is? Celebrities are all regular people however some receive a high amount of bad publicity plus the sentence or what they owe.
When I was a young, naive, and reckless preteen I was arrested for stealing panties. Yes, panties. You see, I was under the impression that attending junior high without proper matching undergarments would immediately be cause for ridicule from my fellow classmates in the locker room. However, my mother did not see the necessity for such things and refused to spend money on costly, unnecessary expenses. I desperately needed them and shoplifted a lovely red pair. I was caught, arrested, ashamed and gracefully served my sentence with a newfound respect for the law. No matter how severe or minute a crime is, it should not go unpunished. A teenager committing petty theft and an immigrant crossing our borders illegally are both crimes in the United States. Billions of dollars and resources are spent each year in an effort to apprehend vagrant aliens who illegally cross our borders into the United States. Illegal immigration is a burden thrust upon the United States yielding
Spending most of his time in high school smoking, drinking beer, and getting into trouble, (He even met his wife, Marge, while serving detention.) Homer’s lack of motivation for achievement grew with him into adulthood. The fat, balding character ends up working in Sector 7G of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, where he holds the record for most years worked at an entry level position. Even in the opening credits of the show, he is seen negligently tossing aside radioactive waste as the whistle blows to end the workday. In addition to his laziness at work, his sloth is also displayed in his free time where he is seen either lounging on his couch while indulging in donuts and watching anything that comes on television or drinking at Moe’s Tavern with his lifelong friends, Barney, Carl, Lenny, and Moe.
“The sitcom is a jumble of mixed metaphors: the repetition compulsion of eternal sameness conjoined to a desire to overturn the established order; a profound aesthetic conservatism bundled with an ingrained desire to shock. Every sitcom possess not just a routine that it perpetually seeks to overturn but also a particular style of fomenting that chaos.”
If television shows reflect the milieu of our society, then it seems as if we are in bad, bad times. Tuning in to Saturday Night Live’s parody of president-elect Donald Trump might be amusing, but it becomes less entertaining once we realize that the parody might just be an accurate representation of him. It is easy to become cynical of society when we have elected a politically-inexperienced businessman as president despite his misogynist, racist, and xenophobic attitude. This cynicism towards our society extends beyond the political sphere; it is reflected by many fictional characters in the media. Take, for example, Don Draper of Mad Men - the egotistical Creative Director of an advertising agency in New
The Simpsons – “Donut Hell” video clip does reveal something more about society. It starts off with Homer Simpson being offered a donut from hell from the devil, which is Ned Flanders. They are inside the power plant, in the control room, where Homer Simpson works. A small demon with an apron that says, “HELL’S KITCHEN”, hands Homer the donut on a silver platter, and then he chuckles. Ned Flanders says to Homer Simpson, “Now remember the instant you finish it I own your soul for…” Homer doesn’t take the last bite and says to the devil, “Hey wait, if I don’t finish this last bite, you don’t get my soul, do you?” The devil responds, “Uh… technically no, but…” Homer tells the devil repeatedly, “I’m smarter than the Devil!” Flanders turns into the devil’s true form, outraged, and shouts to Homer, “You are not smarter than me, I’ll see you in hell yet, Homer Simpson!”, then goes back down into hell.
In a genre analysis, stories, issues and concerns are explored. Researchers who study genre focus on broad patterns within those texts in the genre (Brennen 204). Since my research involves studying sitcoms, my sample will consist of ten popular sitcoms that aired from the 1980s to the present. These sitcoms include Roseanne, 30 Rock, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I Love Lucy, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Friends, Will and Grace, Cheers, The Simpson and Seinfeld. The reason why I am choosing this sample is because I believe that it is broad enough to display the growth and evolution of the situational comedy genre and most (if not, all) of its pertinent aspects. Each of these shows all fit the standard conventions of a sitcom, however, the each bring a something different to the program, which allows them to stand out and be successful. I also chose them because they are all listed on the Rolling Stones top 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. This list was gathered by actors, writers, producers, critics and showrunners in the television industry (Sheffield,