text:
According to Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, he and his
fellow producers
wanted to make a cartoon the entire family could enjoy, one that would
present "an alternative
look at the American family" ("Doonesbury").
After six and a half seasons, the
Fox sitcom has done that and much more. It has been a ratings hit, an
advertising force, and a merchandising gold mine. Last season, it was the
third most-watched program in the 8 to 9 PM slot among kids age 6 to 17
(Rudolph and Hammer, 21), and it consistently ranks among 18
to 49-year-olds' favorites. A specially-designed ad campaign featuring
Bart Simpson helped Nestle jack up sales of its Butterfinger candy bar 51%
in 1993 (Krumplitsch, 29). As of February 1994, $100 million
worth of licensed Simpsons merchandise had been sold (Darlin and
Levine, 98).
Clearly, The Simpsons is enormously popular. While its
popularity makes it worthy of attention, the ways in which it achieves its
popularity make it a fascinating text. As I will show, The Simpsons
is in some respects a typical sitcom, telling moral tales and affirming
nuclear family. But in other important ways it is a distinctive product of
the current television milieu and the postmodern condition. With skillful
use of
the cartoon form and a self-reflexive, allusive narrative style, The
Simpsons presents a portrait of the American family that is by turns
critical and respectful, fantastic and realistic--all to great comic
The Contested Family
Like the vast majority of sitcoms, The Simpsons revolves around the
family. Still, it is different enough from the
standard run of sitcoms that it strikes
some observers as belonging to a separate category. Television critic
Gerard Jones
writes that The
Simpsons "is no true
sitcom, to be entered
vicariously. This is bitter, self-conscious, self-dissecting satire"
(Jones, 268). Evidently,
Jones means "no true sitcom" as praise; that is, he appreciates that the
show eschews the
plot recycling and facile moralizing characteristic of sitcoms, especially
in the
80's. But despite its sometimes trenchant wit, The Simpsons is not
truly bitter. In fact,
"Bitter...self-dissecting satire" better describes a Simpsons
contemporary on Fox, Married...with Children. This
live-action sitcom is a relentless send-up of the nuclear family that turns traditional mores
upside-down for the sake of laughs. There is no real moral center to
the show, no character or institution diplaying admirable or redeeming
traits. The
Simpsons, on the other hand, retains a moral center--even
though at times its characters also upend traditional values--and that moral center is the
family. As confused and misguided as the characters may get, at the end of
each episode the sanctity of the family unit is maintained.
Perhaps The
Simpsons, premiering at the end of a decade of Republican
presidents and wholesome sitcoms like Family Ties and The Cosby
Show, appeared at just the right time to satisfy a national
hunger for something saltier. Cosby's ratings defeat at the hands of
the cartoon family when the shows went head-to-head in August of 1990
signaled a changing of the sitcom
guard. Appropriately, George Bush--who can justifiably be called "old
guard"--in a
1992 campaign speech called for "a nation closer to the Waltons than the
(Henry, 88). He was later rewarded with an
unauthorized and unflattering portrayal on
the show. That the president (and the vice president, for that
matter) would use sitcoms to illustrate what they think is wrong with family life indicates
the importance of these programs in our culture. Darrell Hamamoto describes their status
thus: "Through narratives that assimilate social contradictions into
everyday personal
experience, the situation comedy has stood as an enduring sociodramatic model that has
helped 'explain American society to itself'" (Hamamoto, 153). Bush appreciated the
sitcom's power, and evidently he did not like the explanation The
offering. But as
Matthew Henry points out, he failed to acknowledge that the Simpsons
"live in a society
'loosed from its moorings,' full of corruption, voracious consumerism, and moral decay.
They are as dedicated to family values as the Waltons ever were, but, in such a society,
find it increasingly hard to live up to them" (Henry, 88). The corruption and decay of the
Simpsons's era
relative to that of the Waltons is debatable, but many contemporary
viewers seem to recognize
and accept the Simpsons's moral confusion as truer-to-life than the
certainty of the
In Michael Kinsley's view, The
Simpsons does celebrate family values, "but with a left-wing twist:
family as haven from the
cruelties of the economic marketplace, and as threatened by those same
economic forces" (4).
Kinsley's diagnosis of this "family vs. the world" phenomenon is
by no means new. Jackson Lears,
in his book No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of
American Culture
1880-1920, points out that "many Victorian idealogues did imagine the
family to be a haven in
the heartless world of capitalist competition"
(15). As the country's economy shifted from
subsistence farming to market capitalism during the 19th century, the family became less and
less important economically, and more and more important ideologically. For the middle class,
"work" grew psychologically separated from "home," as did productive males from non-productive females and children. This separation made it easier to sentimentalize the domestic
sphere (Lears, 15-16). In light of this
historical process, the "family
haven" hardly seems "left-wing". In fact, national political discourse
over the past 15 to 20 years has fostered the impression that
conservatives champion "family values" more frequently and more vehemently
than liberals. But Kinsley
apparently sees the unrestrained market as a conservative desideratum, so
therefore he deems any resistance to it "left-wing."
Of course both
and conservatives value the family, but their ideas about what
threatens it and how to protect it differ. This is where
the leftward leanings of The Simpsons can be discerned. For
example, cultural conservatives' perennial
issue of the appropriateness of TV programming for children is
addressed--and eventually dismissed--by The Itchy & Scratchy
Show, the
extravagantly violent cat
and mouse cartoon the Simpson kids watch. In one episode, when the baby,
Maggie, hits her father with a mallet after watching the cartoon, their
mother, Marge, goes on a crusade against it. She succeeds in taming its
violence in the short
run, but her efforts are undercut when she refuses to protest the showing
of Michelangelo's "David" at a local museum. When she cannot justify
"censoring" one form of expression while sanctioning another, the violent
Itchy & Scratchy returns. Yet traditonally liberal
concerns, such as tight
funding for public schools, high-priced medical care, and huge military
budgets are frequently presented as
problems on The Simpsons. Still, despite this slight bias, the show
is never
crudely orthodox. Institutions
that are traditionally associated with the left, like organized labor, are
subject to ridicule, though not as often as those associated with
the right, like big business.
Matt Groening, in one of his few public
comments on the show, said simply, "There is an ongoing subtext to The
Simpsons, and that is
that the people in power don't always have your best interests in mind"
("Doonesbury"). A
sampling of the show's plots bears out Groening's point: the Simpson
family is threatened in
some way or another by the nuclear plant boss, the mayor, the child welfare agency, the police,
overzealous Christians, new age therapists, organized crime, and a distinctly Disney-esque theme
park, just to name the most obvious. In this environment there are no
clear-cut "good guys," and only a handful of "bad guys," most notably the
nuclear plant boss, Mr. Burns. In Todd Gitlin's view, a stance that is
basically ambivalent about public issues is
essential for a popular program:
While Hamamoto's basic point is sound, The Simpsons certainly
pushes the boundaries
that he erects for the sitcom. Dissent on the show is often contained in
the private sphere, as
Hamamoto describes. But sometimes it is not, as when Lisa crusades against
the "Malibu Stacy"
doll (read: Barbie), cigarette advertising, and corruption on Capitol
Hill; when Marge protests Itchy & Scratchy, when Homer rallies
workers against unsafe conditions at
the nuclear power plant, and when
Bart and Lisa expose the anti-Irish origin of "whacking day," in which
snakes are rounded up
and killed. These crusades are sometimes successful, as when Bart and Lisa halt whacking day,
sometimes unsuccessful, as when Marge takes on the cartoon makers or Homer takes on the
power plant boss, and sometimes partially successful, as when Lisa designs an alternative doll to
Malibu Stacy. The producers of The Simpsons seem to choose their
the outcomes of their
battles--carefully. When a protest succeeds, its effect is limited:
whacking day is halted, but the
mob mentality that drove it persists.
When a crusade fails, it is sometimes because the producers do not agree
with it (as in the cartoon protest episode) or because they
need to maintain its target (like the power plant) for ongoing jokes. In
the case of the failures, a
controversial representative of the status quo is questioned, but in the
end things remain unchanged. The only difference in the partially
successful crusades is that some small change in the status quo is allowed
to stand at the end of the episode. This is the case when Lisa designs a "Lisa Lionheart" doll
that makes feminist
statements when her string is pulled. When Lisa's doll is introduced, she
only sells one, while the vapid
Malibu Stacy sells out. But Lisa takes courage from the thought that if
her doll's message gets through to just
one girl, she will have succeeded.
So while dissent is sometimes expressed
publicly on The Simpsons, it rarely results in any real change.
Aside from the commercial pressure Hamamoto identifies, the other force
resisting political change is the "timelessness" in which the show exists.
It is a convention of the live-action sitcom that "each week the
narrative returns the characters to the same situation and frame of
mind with which they began"(Henry, 93). The
Simpsons, as a cartoon, takes this convention a step further: its
characters never age, so theoretically every episode takes place in the
same 22-minute period of time. Of course the show violates this theory
night falls, day breaks, and the occasional episode is set at a
recognizable time of the year, like Christmas or the last day of school.
(Viewers should not be troubled by these violations, since the show
makes a show of its artifice, as I will discuss later.) In any case,
viewers can be sure that when they turn on The Simpsons each
week, the characters will look the same, they will have the same house,
and they will have the same cars. More importantly, the characters will
have the same characters--they never learn or grow emotionally. (The only
exception to this stasis was the "dumbing down" of Homer
early in the show's run; since then, his character has remained
essentially static.)
In this state of "suspended animation" real political change is
After all, if people do not change, how can the institutions they take
part in change?
The Trajectory of the Situation Comedy
Regardless of how one characterizes it politically, The
Simpsons fundamentally
affirms the family. And not just any kind of family, but a two-parent,
male bread-winner family.
Of course the fact that the Simpson family is, at least in its
composition, traditional, allows the show
to comment on the tradition. This is where it runs afoul of many culturally conservative viewers.
Its characters have faults, and obvious ones in the case of the males: Bart is disruptive in school,
impertinent to adults, and rebellious generally; Homer is lazy, gluttonous, selfish, and impatient
with his children; Marge tends to nag and Lisa is at times self-righteous
and intellectually
condescending. They are not noble characters, but neither are they, in the
words of the reverend's daughter in one episode, "yellow trash." They do
not resemble those comfortable, complacent, clean-cut, clean-mouthed
inhabitants of such programs as Leave it to Beaver and Father
Knows Best. But there is no
reason to think that these 50's characters are the natural denizens of television, or that they were
ever an accurate portrayal of the American family.
In fact, sitcoms started out differently--on the radio. In the 1920's and 30's, many popular
radio shows responded to socio-economic upheaval: for
instance, Lum & Abner
dealt with rural whites' migration to the city, Amos 'n' Andy with
that of rural blacks, and The
Rise of the Goldbergs with the Eastern European immigrant influx
(Hamamoto, 5). In the first
years of television, many of these shows were adapted for the new medium
an attempt to retain their large radio audiences. But most
working-class or "ethnic" programs did not last long.
With the exception of Amos 'n' Andy, which was canceled after
protests from civil rights groups,
the radio-era portrayals of ethnic and working-class life, along with others that had been created
for TV, were supplanted by portrayals of comfortable WASP middle-class life. Television critic
Ella Taylor describes this shift as the result of both the postwar zeitgeist and the calculations of
the networks:
Ella Taylor's analysis also supports the assertion that "people shown on
TV are not
representative of population. The groups shown most are those with
importance in society"
(Huston, et.al., 21). In the 50's and 60's the
important people, as defined by television and
advertising executives, were middle-class whites. Of course programs about working-class
people did not disappear altogether in the 50's, as The
Honeymooners demonstrates. But
portrayals of them differed sharply from the portrayals of the middle-class. In studies of
programs aired from 1947 to 1977, researchers found that working-class husband/fathers were
often shown as inept, stupid, and bumbling (predominantly in the years
1949-66)(cited in Cantor,
42). Conversely, middle-class husband/fathers were shown as competent
and their family life
was idealized (cited in Bryant, 132). In
effect, working-class shows like The Honeymooners
reversed the dominant social order: the man was the fool, the woman his superior (Cantor, 42).
Although The Simpsons started its run with a basic parity of
intelligence and responsibility between
Homer and Marge, in its second season Homer was refashioned in the
bumbling image of Ralph
Kramden and Fred
Flintstone, and Marge in the stoic image of Alice and Wilma. The
portrayal of the working-class
man as a child who must be mothered by his wife betrays a persistent paternalistic elitism in
American culture. Throughout the nation's history, various disadvantaged groups, including
African Americans and immigrants, have been portrayed as children in the popular culture.
Still, this observation does not fully explain the childish, incompetent television character. Not
every disadvantaged character in American comedy is a bumbler, and not every bumbler is
At this point some pre-television-era criticism is relevant, since
"television inherits the
forms and preoccupations of earlier narratives and social meanings"
(Taylor, 4). Aristotle's
theory of comedy is helpful in the attempt to determine what audiences
laugh at.
In the Poetics, he
argues that comedy "aims at representing men as worse than in actual life"
and is "an
of characters of a lower type" (quoted in
Shershow, 6). Although Aristotle made it clear that he
meant "lower" in an ethical sense, Renaissance critics, perhaps misled by
mention in the Poetics
of wandering comedians of "the more trivial sort," misinterpreted the
statement as pertaining to
social class (Shershow, 12-13). Social class
was, after all, easier to apprehend than ethical fiber.
But there was also an idea in their culture that made the misinterpretation make sense to these
critics: the poor were comic. It had been expressed succinctly by
In the 1970's an increasing number of sitcoms featuring working-class families
appeared, displacing to some extent the middle-class fare of the previous two decades. One
reason for this, according to Matthew Henry, is that "the sitcom needed
to add to its 'mimetic
agenda' the complex social and political issues of the day in order to retain its credibility 'as
chronicler and salesman of the American family'"
(88-89). As the Vietnam war era drew to a
close, Americans were acutely aware of the divisions in their society. The complacency and
consensus of 50's sitcoms seemed more and more unreal in the context of newsreels showing
combat in the jungles of Asia and rioting in the streets of America. Some
shows, like Happy
Days, returned to the 50's for escapist entertainment. But others,
most notably All in the Family,
integrated current--and sometimes thorny--social issues. The views
expressed by All in the
Family's main character, the
stubborn and grouchy Archie Bunker, were frequently racist and sexist,
but they did not go unopposed. His daughter and son-in-law, representing the younger generation
and the more enlightened viewpoint, regularly challenged his opinions. It was a far cry from
Father Knows Best, but it was popular.
In 1973 another program stepped into the ring of the non-idealized
family. An American
Family was not a sitcom but a sort of cinema verite, a document
of seven months in the life of
the Loud family of Santa Barbara, CA, shown in several installments on PBS. Viewers learned
early on that they would not be seeing a conventional family. In the first episode, Mrs. Loud goes
to New York City to visit her 20-year-old gay son, who takes her out to a transvestite show. In a
later episode, she learns that her husband has been having an affair and she orders him out of the
house; viewers are privy to both the revelation and the confrontation.
Although An American
Family did not air on a commercial network, it received a great deal
of attention, and represented,
along with All in the Family, the new realism in portrayals
of the American family in the 70's.
With the beginning of the 1980's, the country settled into a mood of nostalgia for the
simple certainties of the pre-Vietnam war era, and sitcoms reflected that change. Working-class
sitcom families were gradually replaced by more harmonious middle-class ones. A few shows
featured unconventional family arrangements like a single mother with a daughter and a live-in
male housekeeper (Who's the Boss?). Others tried to "integrate" the
sitcom by having affluent
whites adopt black children (Diff'rent Strokes, Webster), thereby
providing enough material for an entire
thesis on middle-class white paternalism. More representative of 80's sitcoms, however, were the
"happy family" shows Family Ties and The Cosby Show.
Family Ties featured an upper-middle-
class suburban family headed by two former hippies. Their ideas were often portrayed as
inappropriately idealistic for their proto-yuppie children, but their authority was never seriously
questioned. The Cosby Show, meanwhile, was a thinly-veiled morality
play that also featured a
harmonious upper-middle-class family who happened to be black. Bill Cosby,
"NBC's 2-D pater
familias," (Herron, 18) actually sent the
show's scripts to a psychologist for review to ensure that
they contained positive messages.
The Rise of The Simpsons
In the transition from Cosby to The Simpsons,
sitcoms once
again reflected the national
zeitgeist; relative to the 80's, the 90's have been characterized by economic anxiety, cynicism
toward national institutions, and diminished expectations of the America's role in the world.
More concretely, the competition for viewers brought on by the
proliferation of VCR's, cable television
and the addition of a fourth broadcast network has spurred producers to
more attention-grabbing programs. Most viewers now receive 50 to 100
channels, and with the help of remote control, their viewing
patterns have come to resemble surfing--skipping quickly over
channels until something catches and holds their fleeting attention. The
unofficial "family hour"--a
period from 7 to 9 P.M., first
established in 1975, during which no adult-oriented material would be
aired--has all but disappeared
as networks vie for the highly coveted demographic group of 18 to 34-year-old viewers.
Another factor in the changing look of prime time television has been the number of television
sets in the average household; whereas twenty years ago, the family tended to gather around the
one living room set, now 73 percent of households have two or more TV's
(Rudolph and Hammer, 19). Advertisers can
now target multiple demographic groups simultaneously within a
single household. In this atmosphere of intense competition for viewers,
The Simpsons has thrived.
In order to understand why, it is important to
consider the
nature of television and its effects on us as viewers. Stephen Fjellman
writes that "As a
medium, television is characterized by disconnection and
decontextualization" (53). He explains how
decontextualization alters meaning:
At this point it is helpful to refer to some basic postmodern theory.
According to Marguerite Alexander, one of the prerequisites for
postmodernism is a "shattering of the fictional illusion," the illusion
that what is narrated is an actual series of events in real people's
lives (quoted in Henry, 95).
The Simpsons accomplishes this by frequently drawing attention to
its status as an artificially created product. It begins in the
opening sequence: the viewer sees scenes of each member of the family
racing home at the end
of the day to jump on the couch and watch what appears to be the same television program we
are about to watch. Despite this self-reflexive introduction, within the
context of the
show the
characters themselves are generally ignorant of their status as cartoons
and subjects of the program. For instance, at the beginning of one
episode, Bart comes into the kitchen whistling the Simpsons theme,
prompting Marge to tell him
to stop whistling "that annoying tune." At a time when a large portion of
the population has
known television all its life and watched thousands of episodes of sitcoms, such reminders of the
medium's artifice strike viewers as clever and refreshing. As Jerry Herron
has noted: "when it
(TV) succeeds at informing on itself, the result for an audience is not disillusionment. Just the
reverse: the result is a kind of hailing that yields strong ratings numbers and a large audience
share" (15). Of course self-reflexiveness is
not a new technique, but it is a particularly important one for
postmodernism as it attempts to "shatter the fictional illusion."
Working in concert with self-reflexiveness in The Simpsons is
a heavily allusive narrative style.
Allusions include a scene in which Homer hoards a huge pile of contraband
sugar, insisting, "First you get the sugar, then you get the power, then
you get the women," (Scarface) and a flashback scene in which a
Marge and her mother are swooped down upon by a biplane while walking on a
road bordered by cornfields (North by Northwest). Matthew Henry
observes that "such intertextual incorporations, blatant transgressions of
real-world boundaries, problematize the ontological status of the
cartoon's fictional world by acknowledging its artifice" (91). In other words, in a world where people have
four fingers per hand and yellow skin, they ought not to be aware of
movies like Scarface. That The Simpsons uses this allusive
narrative style is not just an indication of its cleverness; many
contemporary critics would say that it is an indication of the postmodern
condition. Fredric Jameson, for example, calls the phenomenon of frequent
allusion in contemporary arts
"pastiche," and identifies it as the primary practice of postmodernism:
The effect of all this self-reflexiveness and allusiveness on The
Simpsons is to destabilize narrative conventions; in this way the
show takes
part in postmodernism's project to force a re-evaluation of traditionally
held notions of authority, hierarchy, and centeredness. For Linda
Hutcheon, postmodernism's initial concern is
Postmodernism's project sounds positively anti-capitalist. But, as
Hutcheon and other critics admit, it is unable to "escape implication
in that which it nevertheless still wants to analyze and maybe even
undermine" (quoted in Henry, 86). The
Simpsons is a good example of this complicitous criticism.
One episode instantiates it particularly well: the plot revolves around a
festival as a device for introducing Fox's prime time cartoon sitcom
The Critic (which premiered
immediately following this episode). At one point, Bart is watching
television when he hears: "Stay tuned for The Flintstones Meet
Jetsons." Miffed, he says, "Uh-oh, I
smell a cheap cartoon tie-in." Just then, Homer enters with the new show's
protagonist and
says, "Bart, meet the critic. This is Jay Sherman." Besides acknowledging
its cartoon
predecessors in prime time, the show has, in Jerry Herron's words,
"informed on itself," inviting
viewers to forgive it for plugging one of the network's programs. It has simultaneously ridiculed
network promotions and promoted for the network. As Matthew Henry puts it,
"The Simpsons is
involved in the production of
the very 'culture' it satirizes; it is at once a hilarious situation comedy, a biting social
commentary, and a monumental merchandising phenomenon" (Henry, 86).
The Archetype (A close reading)
In order to demonstrate how The Simpsons works as a postmodern
sitcom while retaining the traditional theme of family affirmation, I will
describe and analyze an individual episode. While every episode deals with
family issues in some way,
episode #3F01, produced in 1995, tackles them head-on, offering two
competing visions of
what the American family should be. The storyline is as follows:
Homer surprises Marge one morning with two certificates for a three-hour spa "getaway."
Despite Marge's protests that the housework isn't done, he pulls her away, leaving his father to
take care of Maggie. That day at school Bart's teacher discovers he has head lice (which he got
from a monkey at his friend Milhouse's house) so his clothes are burned and he's given a potato
sack to wear; Lisa has her shoes taken away by pranksters and on the way to the principal's
office gets hit in the head with a ball, causing her to bite her tongue. Thinking Bart and Lisa have
been neglected, the principal calls the child welfare agency. When two welfare agents show up at
the Simpson residence, they find the house a mess, "Grampa" asleep with
the cat eating off of
him, and Maggie drinking from the dog's water bowl. When Bart and Lisa come home (Bart in a
sack, Lisa with plastic bags on her feet) they can't tell the agents where their parents are since
they don't know about the spa getaway. Homer and Marge return and are presented with a
citation for neglect. All three children are taken to a foster home--next
door at the Flanders
The Simpson kids are welcomed with open arms by the hyper-wholesome
fundamentalist Christian family--Ned, Maude, Rod and Todd--but they chafe
at the bland new
world they've entered. Homer and Marge go to the county courthouse to try to get their children
back, but a judge tells them they must first complete a "family skills"
class. Back at the Flanders
house, Bart and Lisa continue to feel out of place, but notice that Maggie seems to enjoy living
there. One night, during a game of Bible questions, Lisa admits that they've never been baptized,
much to the horror of the Flanderses. Ned calls their reverend but is brushed off, so he decides to
baptize the Simpson kids himself. Meanwhile, Homer and Marge complete the humiliatingly
condescending family skills class. When they return they find a "gone
baptizin'" sign on the
Flanders's door, much to their horror. They get in the car and race
to the river, where Ned is
performing the baptismal ceremony. Homer runs (and tumbles) down a hill in time to see Ned
raise a chalice over Bart's head. He lunges, pushing his son out of the way of a splash of holy
water, which falls on him instead. Bart and Lisa hug their father, but Maggie seems torn. She
begins walking toward the Flanderses, but just then Marge appears and mother and baby are
reunited. Homer, Bart, and Lisa join them in a family embrace, then they all walk off into the
sunset together.
Even from this simple plot outline it is easy to see that the episode makes an explicit
comparison between the Simpson family and the Flanders family, the Simpsons's "ideal family"
foil. The problematic situation is precipitated by that old sitcom stand-by, the misunderstanding:
several unusual circumstances combine to give the principal and the child welfare agents the
impression that the Simpson children are neglected, when in fact, Marge takes extremely good
care of them (as the first scene of the episode demonstrates). But the show begins to invite family
comparisons even before this scene, in the opening sequence.
The basic idea of the characters heading home at the end of the day is
modeled after the opening of The Flinstones, in which Fred knocks
off work and races home in his bipedal vehicle.
But the second-to-last shot, in which they all jump on the
couch in front of the TV
set, changes with each episode. In one episode, for example, they run into the room to find
"clones" of themselves already sitting on the couch. In the episode under
consideration here, the
frame in that variable shot is split into nine boxes, with each member of the family (including
Grampa, the cat, and the dog) shown in a head shot a la The Brady
Bunch. The center box is a
long shot of the empty TV room. After glancing lovingly around at each other Brady-fashion,
they dash out of their boxes and into the TV room (still shown in the center box), where they all
jump on the couch as usual. All except Grampa, that is--he's dozing. To
anyone familiar with
The Brady Bunch, the technique is instantly recognizable. In the
space of four seconds, an
allusion has been made to the popular sitcom of the 60's, which featured a family unusual in its
composition (a widow and her three daughters, a widower and his three sons) but wholesome and
conventional in every other way. The Simpson family, on the other hand, is conventional in its
composition, but quirky and decidedly flawed in many ways.
The formal presentation of the first scene also conveys a great deal of information about
the family. In a standard sitcom transitional device, the first scene begins with the theme music
playing for a few seconds. Marge is in the kitchen making breakfast and packing lunch boxes. A
series of quick cuts as she cracks eggs, pours orange juice, gets down a box of cereal, and wraps
sandwiches indicates the quickness and precision with which she performs the morning routine.
There is even a crane shot showing the breakfast table from above as Marge distributes waffles.
The fact that she has a smile on her face the entire time lets the viewer know that she gains
satisfaction from these domestic duties.
The first pieces of dialogue reinforce this impression. Taking a tray out of the oven and
putting its contents on the baby's plate, Marge says, "
Here's your toast,
Maggie. I melba-fied it
myself." When Lisa enters the kitchen, Marge tells her "I tracked down
those old newspapers for
your history project." The headline of the top paper reads: "America Loves
Ted Kennedy." It is an
acknowledgment that Lisa is the character most likely to express liberal
political opinions, and the first instance of viewers being jarred out of
the fictional world. She
responds, "Wow, Mom, you didn't have to go to this much trouble." By this
point Marge's status
as a good mother is secure, even before she prevents Bart from wearing plastic fangs to school
for his class picture, takes a sign reading "I'm a stupid baby" off Lisa's
back, and shoos a spider
away from Homer's car keys.
As in many other episodes, it is one of Homer's ideas that leads the
family into trouble.
When Marge asks him how he afforded the spa certificates, Homer answers,
"Never you mind."
Then a wavy dissolve accompanied by a harp flourish (sitcom signal for a flashback) changes the
scene to a Bentley dealership, where a banner reads: "Free spa getaway
with test drive." Having
told the dealer that he is a count, Homer takes the car for a three-second spin, snatches the
certificates, and runs. The act is typical of Homer, who loves both treating his wife, on whom
he relies so heavily, and getting something for nothing. Once Marge agrees to go, everything is
set for the misunderstanding that is to come.
The involvement of the child welfare agency represents a challenge to Homer and
Marge's parenting that is more direct and powerful than those in other episodes, which are
generally limited to other characters' disapproval. But the show's
portrayal of the child welfare
agents efficiently subverts the authority of these official figures.{Click here for video clip.} When the principal
calls them,
the scene cuts to a shot modeled on the segues in the Batman TV
programs: a badge (with the state
seal rather than the bat design) quickly approaches the camera, with a swirling effect in the
background, until it fills the screen, then recedes. The shot is accompanied by the same trumpet
flourish used in Batman. The next two shots show the agency's
vehicle (which looks like a paddy
wagon) tearing out of a garage, much the same way the Batmobile tears out
of the Batcave, and
running over a tricycle as it speeds up the street, accompanied by the
Batman theme music. In
just a few shots the show has established, by way of allusion, the unwise
zeal of the agents, thereby preparing the
viewer (who should already be on the Simpsons's side after the first scene) to dismiss the charges
of neglect they are about to make.
The scene in which the agents confront Homer and Marge and take the children away
solidifies their characterization as appallingly intrusive government bureaucrats. They hand
Marge a citation listing the evidence of neglect they observed, including
the absurd item "toilet
paper hung in improper over-hand fashion." The children are led away and
put in the back of the
welfare vehicle/paddy wagon. One agent tries to reassure them by saying,
"Now just relax, kids,
all we're doing is taking you to a foster home." But the presentation of
this line makes it clear
that it is anything but reassuring to the Simpson kids. The agent begins speaking in a medium
shot from the front of the vehicle, showing him and his colleague in the
front seats and the kids behind them.
But after the word "to" there is a cut to a kids' point-of-view head shot
of the agent, and a zoom-
in as he says "a foster home," with a slight echo effect and menacing
music in the background. This melodramatic effect, reminiscent of B-grade
horror movies, is the show's self-consciously hyperbolic way of
highlighting the
difference in perception bewtween the agents and the kids. Bart and Lisa
gasp and throw themselves against the back
windows, looking with dismay at Homer and Marge standing helplessly by, equally dismayed.
The sadness of the scene is broken by the absurdity of the fact that the
agent drives exactly one
house down and pulls into the Flanders's driveway. Ned Flanders greets
them with "Hey-dilly-
ho! Welcome to your new home, neglect-arinos!" He is the exaggerated foil
to Homer, who is
annoyed to no end by having such a wholesome neighbor. Yet Ned's trademark silly wordplay
serves as a sign that he may be pious and kind, but he is also a bit ridiculous. His wife, Maude,
announces in a sweet voice, "I don't judge Homer and Marge. That's for a
vengeful God to do,"
revealing the scorching flip-side of their fundamentalist Christianity.
Marge, ever the self-abnegating matriarch, blames herself for the
situation. "I can't
believe I put my own pleasure ahead of my home and family," she says in a
moment of high
irony, "That is so like me." But Homer protests, "I'm the terrible parent.
The boy bugs the hell
out of me; I can't help Lisa with her homework. The only thing I'm fit to take care of is a
houseplant." Just then he turns around and sees the plant wilted. This
exchange pretty well sums
up Homer and Marge's respective roles in the family. Following in the
footsteps of The
Honeymooners, The Flintstones, and All in the Family, The
Simpsons presents the man of the
house as selfish, dim-witted, and irresponsible--in other words, as a
sort of overgrown child--
who must be mothered by his wife. Still, Homer has an ultimately redeeming trait: his genuine
love for his family, which will be borne out in an upcoming scene.
At the Flanders house, Bart and Lisa are having trouble fitting in. The boys' newspaper
reporter game and their cucumber and cottage cheese snacks are alien to
them. In an attempt to
make him feel more at home, Ned grants Bart his wish to watch The
Itchy & Scratchy Show,
an ultra-violent cartoon about a cat and mouse. Itchy & Scratchy
generally takes the theme of the Simpsons
episode in which it is embedded, and this one is no exception: the cat finds what he thinks is a
baby (the mouse in costume) on his doorstep, so he picks it up and hugs it, but the mouse
smashes his bottle, stabs the cat with the shards, then runs inside and steals his TV set. Bart and
Lisa laugh uproariously, but the Flanders boys are clearly traumatized.
Rod, the older son, asks his father,
"Daddy, what's the red stuff coming out of kitty's ears?" "Uh, that's
just...uh...raspberry jam,"
he answers. Todd, the younger son, asks, "Dad, should I poke Rod with a
sharp thing
like the mouse did?" Ned responds, "No, son. No-sir-ee-Bob!"
Itchy & Scratchy functions within The Simpsons as an
ambivalent commentary on cartoon
violence. The fact that it is a show-within-a-show, (combined with the
that it is so extravagantly violent) gives viewers of The Simpsons
added critical distance with which to consider it. The
effect is to "de-naturalize"
cruelty and violence in children's cartoons, reminding viewers that they
are created that way--they don't have to be that way. But at the same
Itchy & Scratchy is so absurdly--and creatively--excessive that
sometimes viewers can't help
laughing along with the Simpson kids. The result is a queasy ambivalence
about the appropriateness of these cultural products being pitched to
American children. Accordingly, the show follows its "de-naturalization"
of cartoons with an implicit rebuttal to those who claim that cartoons
cause violent behavior in children. The notion is ridiculed by Todd's
question to his father about poking
his brother with a sharp thing. It is ridiculous because the Flanders children are so well behaved,
it seems they would never think of harming each other. But there is another subtle shade of
meaning that can be discerned in the scene: if somehow cartoons do
inspire violence in children,
it is only in those whose parents shelter them so much that they have no idea what the world is
Meanwhile, Homer and Marge have gone before a judge to try to get their children back,
but their cause is imperiled by Homer's thoughtlessness. He begins to explain to the situation to
the judge: "OK. I'm not going to win 'Father of the Year.' In fact, I'm
probably the last guy who
should have kids..." Then, catching himself, he says, "Wait. Wait. Can I
start again? Fathering
children is the best part of my day. I'd do anything for Bart and Lisa."
While Homer's rhetorical
reversal is intended to be humorous, the sentiments he expresses are basically sincere—in both
statements. He does not think too highly of his parenting ability, but in every episode key actions
on his part betray a genuine love for his children. In any case, the judge sends Homer and Marge
to a family skills class to learn how to be better parents. Once again, government is portrayed as
unjustifiably intrusive in the Simpsons's lives. The irony of the situation is heightened by the
judge's admission, in response to Marge's plea "from one mother to
another," that she doesn't
have a family. "I don't care for children," she remarks.
Back at the Flanders house, Bart and Lisa notice that Maggie seems to be happier there
than she was at home. Watching Ned play with the baby, Lisa asks her
brother, "When was the
last time Dad gave her that kind of attention?" Although she does not
talk, Maggie's shifting
allegiance is indicated by her location in the scenes with the Flanderses. In several shots she
appears visually united with them and separated from Bart and Lisa: on the opposite side of the
dinner table, in a bedroom across the hall, sitting between Maude and the boys on the floor of the
family room, and in the front seat of the car. On the way to the river for the baptism, Maude tells
Bart to relax, pointing out that Maggie isn't scared. "That's because she
can't talk," Bart shoots
back. At that point Maggie takes out her ever-present pacifier and, looking at Ned, says,
"Daddilly-doodilly." Then, in Bart and Lisa's POV shot, the back of
Maggie's head appears
over the front seat and rotates 180 degrees to look at them with a maniacal smile. Besides being
an allusion to the horror film The Exorcist, about a child
possessed by the devil, this shot is a
subtle self-reference to a previous Simpsons episode, in which
Homer sells his soul to the devil
for a doughnut, and the Evil One turns out to be Ned Flanders (but with
red skin, horns, and the hind legs of a
goat). The implication in these episodes that Flanders is actually evil reveals the producers'
ambivalence--and prods some viewer's ambivalence--toward religiosity. On
one hand, the
idea that Flanders is the devil is funny because it is so outlandish; he is, after all, a devout
Christian, a good neighbor, and a kind, loving family man. On the other hand, it appeals to the
producers' secular sensibilities--and those of some viewers--to think that
such unblemished
goodness, and further, such self-righteousness, may be evil in disguise. Homer and Marge never
voice any such suspicions, but they clearly resent the idea that anyone could care for their
children better than they can.
Meanwhile, they are stuck in a class that treats them like idiots. The
instructor's tips for building a happy home include putting milk in the refrigerator and putting
garbage in a garbage can. At one point Homer is asked to participate in a role-playing exercise
with Cletus, the show's redneck stereotype. When Cletus tells him he's cut his finger on the
screen door, Homer reacts as he often does with Bart: he shouts, "Why you
little..." then starts
choking him. But when he notices the rest of the class looking at him critically, Homer releases
the redneck and says to himself, "I gotta pass this class for my kids."
Homer's reflexes may be wrong, but he is clearly willing to change his
behavior for the sake of his children. Turning to his partner,
he says, "Son, let's stop the fussin' and the feudin'."
Cletus throws back his head and shouts, "I love you, pa!" prompting Homer
to respond, "I love you, Cletus!" They embrace and dissolve into
as the class gets up and cheers. The show's presentation of a
skit-within-a-show, featuring instantaneous resolution of a problem, once
again gives Simpsons viewers critical distance. This time it
prompts them to consider the improbably quick and clean resolution of
problems on sitcoms.
When they return from the family skills class, having passed both
the class and a drug
test (more government intrusion on privacy), Homer and Marge's horror at
finding the "gone baptizin'" sign is
indicated by a POV shot
that zooms in on the sign, accompanied by a measure of typical horror movie music. They gasp,
and Marge says indignantly, "They're going to baptize our children?!"
Homer's reaction is: "Oh
no! In the eyes of God, they'll be Flanderseseseses!" They may not be as
religious as Ned and
Maude, but Homer and Marge acknowledge religion's importance as a family bonding ritual.
The thwarted baptism scene is the structural climax of the episode and the peak of the
show's stylistic virtuosity. A crane shot that moves in on the Flanderses
singing "Amazing
Grace" on the riverbank, with Bart, Lisa, and Maggie standing by dressed
in white robes, serves
as the establishing shot. There's a cut to a high-angle long shot of the group, then another to a
medium shot of Ned as they finish singing. He holds up the bible, saying,
"Today we write a new
page in the Flanders family Bible." After the word "Flanders" there is a
cut to a close-up of the
Bible, with gold lettering reading "Flanders Bible" on the cover, in Ned's
hands. A light glitters
along the lettering accompanied by a chime. A cut to another high-angle long shot shows Ned
wading into the river with Bart, Lisa, and Maggie reluctantly following behind. There's a cut to a
medium shot of the three kids' feet stepping into the water, with a tilt upward to show their
apprehensive faces looking up. A kids' POV medium shot of Ned comes next,
as he asks, "Who
wants to be the first to enter God's good graces?" leaning forward with a
chalice in his hand. He is smiling, apparently oblivious to (or perhaps
dismissive of) Bart and Lisa's discomfort with the whole affair.
There's a cut to a high-angle medium shot of Bart and Lisa, each pointing at the other and
looking more frightened than ever.
After a brief cut-away to the Simpsons's car crashng through the reverednd's model train landscape as it is
being unloaded in front of his house, the scene cuts back to the river.
A low-angle shot shows Ned holding the
Bible in one hand and the chalice in another; as he raises the chalice, the camera tracks backward
to show Bart with his head bowed beneath it. Organ music in a minor key plays in the
background. There is a close-up of Bart's frightened upturned face, then one of Ned's smiling
downturned face. Then there's a cut to the the road where the Flanders's car is parked. The
Simpsons's car come skidding into the frame, and Homer and Marge jump out. A low-angle shot
shows Homer stoop next to the Flanders's bumper, where a sticker reads "I
love your kids." He
growls and runs down the hill. About halfway down he trips on a rock and tumbles headlong the
rest of the way, cursing as he goes.
A high-angle close-up shows Homer land face-first
in the mud on the riverbank. The
camera moves in on his face as he looks up and gasps. The menacing organ music continues in
the background. There's a cut to a long shot of Ned with the chalice raised over Bart's head with
Homer in the left foreground.{Click here for
video clip.} The camera tracks in as Ned intones, "Do you
reject Satan..." Cut
to Ned's POV shot with the chalice held over Bart, who looks terrified.
"...and all his empty
promises?" The chalice begins to tip; Bart cringes. Cut to a medium shot
of Homer, running
through the water in slow motion, shouting "No!" (the sound is also slowed
down, distorting his
voice). Cut to a close-up of Bart, looking to his left with a surprised
expression. Cut to a high-angle
medium shot of Ned, also turning in surprise. Cut to a close-up of Bart,
looking up worriedly; tilt
up to close-up of chalice tipping, dropping a splash of holy water. Cut to
a long shot of Homer
with Bart in the right foreground; the camera moves in on Homer as he lunges, still shouting
"No!" Cut to a long shot of Ned with the dripping chalice and Bart
looking toward his father, who
lunges (in slow motion) into the frame from the left and pushes Bart off his feet. Cut to a close-
up of Homer and Bart face to face, moving in super slow motion from the left of the frame to the
right. Several drops of holy water fall on Homer's head, making a sizzling sound. Cut to medium
shot of Bart falling backward out the right of the frame and Homer growling as the holy water
sizzles on his head. He falls into the water, then gets up, growling and flailing his arms. Cut to
close-up of his contorted face. Cut to a medium shot of Homer falling with
a splash into the water,
then floating up on his back with his eyes closed.
The running lunge and the slow-motion effects used to portray it offer
viewers, on one level, the satisfaction of recognizing typical
action/adventure movie techniques. The use of these techniques seems at
once silly (since it is not a life-or-death situation) and appropriate
(since Homer has such a rivalry with Flanders and he resents Ned's
presumptuousness). Viewers are also implicitly being invited to assess the
silliness or appropriateness of these techniques in the movies from which
they are drawn. The shots in which the holy water sizzles on Homer's head
and appear to cause him pain imply that he is evil,
acknowledging his lack of enthusiasm for religion. But the implication is
playful rather than damning, since viewers will not believe anyting so
awful about one of the show's protagonists.
Normal speed action returns as
Bart and Lisa run to embrace their father, who revives quickly. "Wow, Dad,
you took a
Baptismal for me," says Bart, sincerely impressed. By way of both
and physical exertion,
Homer has gotten his children back, and he has won their respect for it. But when he turns
toward the bank and holds out his arms to Maggie, she seems unsure of what to do. She turns to
look at the Flanderses; the over-the-shoulder shot shows them gathered happily together, waving
to her in a landscape of green grass, flowers, fruit trees, and blue sky. A butterfly alights on the
younger son's head, and a rabbit hops by, while a happy melody plays on a flute. The music
stops abruptly with the cut to another over-the-shoulder shot as she looks at Homer, Bart and
Lisa sitting in the water. Behind them, the trees are bare, the sky is overcast, and there is no
music--only the sound of a frog croaking as it hops by. Here The
Simpsons's producers take advantage of the cartoon genre quite
blatantly and self-consciously, flaunting its artifice once again.
walking toward the
Flanderses. A cut to her POV shot shows them standing together and Ned outstretching his arms,
but in the upper right of the frame, Marge's signature blue hairdo appears over the rise. There's a
tilt up and right as Marge comes into full view and runs forward. She picks up Maggie and spins
her around against a brilliant sunset with a triumphant variation on the show's theme playing.
"Oh Maggie," she says, "you're a Simpson again." In response, Maggie takes
out her pacifier and
burps. Homer, Bart, and Lisa run to join them and they all embrace. As they walk off together,
Marge asks what it was like at the Flanders house. Homer says, "Yeah,
gimme all the dirt." Lisa
answers, "Let's see...dirt...dirt...well there wasn't really much dirt."
Bart jumps in with "There was
a bunch of old cans of paint in the garage, though," at which Homer laughs
heartily. "Old painty
can Ned!" he exclaims, and the rest of the family joins him in laughter as
they walk off into the
sunset, that indispensible prop for a sentimental ending. Just as the
producers insert the backgrounds when Maggie looks from the Flanderses
to her
own family, they insert the brilliant sunset as a little piece of
artifice, calling attention to the ways in which television programs and
films try to manipulate viewers' emotions to craft the "happy ending."
Still, the consciousness of this manipulation does
not tarnish the beauty of the moment. The Simpsons have
the efforts of intrusive government agents and overzealous Christians
to tear them apart, and their sense of humor remains intact. For the moment, at least, they are a
happy, united family.
As a conspicuous success in the lucrative and highly visible
sitcom arena, The Simpsons merits close attention as a late 20th
century American cultural product. Working in an atmosphere of intense
competition for television viewers, the show's producers have crafted a
prime-time cartoon sitcom that balances distinctiveness and
familiarity, critical acuity and marketability, irreverence and morality.
They have taken advantage of the plasticity of the cartoon form to give
Simpsons an eye-catching appearance and to create an alternate
reality not dependent on the laws of nature, while still making use of
some of
sitcom's structural conventions. They have employed the
self-reflexive and allusive techniques of postmodernism, with the
effect of de-naturalizing earlier cultural
products that unself-consciously embraced the dominant features of our
society; yet they have avoided the blatant political partisanship that
would drive
away some sponsors and viewers. They have retained the
family as the show's focus and moral anchor--as it has
been throughout the television era in such popular sitcoms as Father
Knows Best, The Waltons, All in the Family, and The
Cosby Show--despite the confusion and missteps of its characters.
It is remarkable that The Simpsons has assimilated
all of these ingredients and maintained enormous popularity for six and a
half years--already a long run for a sitcom. The most remarkable facet
of this success is the
trick that the show pulls off every week; Frank McConnell phrases it well:
"The genius of The Simpsons...is that it deconstructs the myth of
the happy family wisely, and miraculously leaves what is real and valuable
about the myth unscathed" (390). The
Simpsons has brought the sitcom into the postmodern era, laughing all
the way.
Back to:
TV entertainment takes its design from social and psychological fissures.... If the messages are susceptible to
divergent interpretations, that is no failure for television. On the contrary, a show that couldn't be interpreted
variously would slide into what Larry Gelbart calls 'electronic pamphleteering,' whose left-liberal form is the
archetypal violation of the television conventions (Gitlin, 217-8).
Television is, after all, big business. Sponsors will take some ribbing, but they will not take a call
to action against the ideas they are founded on--especially consumerism.
According to Darrell Hamamoto, sitcoms have
progressed in tandem with post-World War II social movements,
supporting an "emancipatory popular culture" that includes a tolerance of
difference in our
society and a questioning of the status quo. But working against this emancipatory tendency is
the commercial system which "has helped to confine the affirmative aspects
of domestic culture
in the private sphere" (2). Hamamoto claims that
a false separation between the public and the
private on TV has allowed relatively free expression of liberal democratic values, but stripped
them of their political implications (2).
The domesticity that came to define the series form in the first two decades of network television was grounded not
just in the resonance of an idealized family for viewers steeped in postwar values of progress, affluence, and
national consensus, which were to be achieved through the integrative power of the domestic unit, but also in the
emergent political economy of the television industry itself. In the networks' first two decades they searched for an
undifferentiated, predictable mass audience of regular viewers for programs and commercials that would sustain the
advertising revenues on which they were so dependent. This search helped to create that formulaic mix of repetition
and continuity that was to define the episodic series and fashion an image of family so benign and uncontroversial,
so broadly middle-class and free of ethnic partisanship, indeed so free of ethnicity in general--that it would offend
no one (151).
Taylor's analysis helps to expose the hidden ideological underpinnings of what must have
seemed natural to many viewers. The project of 1950's television was to not only to entertain
viewers but to enlist them in support of the burgeoning postwar consumer
culture. Gerard Jones's contemporary comment
on the sitcom applies even better to the 50's: "The promises of
bureaucratic democracy,
managerial capitalism, secular humanism, and mass consumption are miniaturized, tested, and
found true in the funny travails of TV families" (Jones, 4). But it is not clear that viewers went
along for the feel-good ride. Commenting on unflappably happy sitcom families, TV researchers
Glennon and Butsch wrote in 1982 that "these idealized pictures may raise
expectations about
parent and child relations that are not realizable and can lead one to question one's own family
adequacy" (quoted in Bryant, 132). The
psychological effects of these portrayals are as yet
undocumented, but the discrepancy between TV and reality clearly resonates
with Jones.
"The feeling that Father Knows Best and its successors inspire in
contemporary viewers are
complex, often unsettling.... For some viewers...they are strangely seductive horrors, which deny
reality as they pretend to engage it, which offer an image of secular paradise that could just as
easily be viewed as hell" (101). The
Simpsons playfully acknowledges this attitude with
an episode in which Homer inadvertently makes a deal with the devil--who
turns out to be his
super-wholesome and super-Christian neighbor Ned Flanders (more on this
portrayal to come).
Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se
In order to understand the perceived connection between the disadvantaged and the comic, many
modern critics have turned to psychology. In his Jokes and their
Relation to the Unconscious,
Freud calls attention to the phenomenon of incongruity:
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.
(The worst thing about poverty is that it makes men
ridiculous)(Shershow, 14).
A person appears comic to us if, in comparison with ourselves, he makes too great an expenditure on his bodily
functions and too little on his mental ones; and it cannot be denied that in both these cases our laughter expresses a
pleasurable sense of this superiority which we feel in relation to him
(quoted in Merchant, 9-10).
Both of these theories posit a basic feeling of superiority in the laugher or observer of comedy.
Characters of any station in life and with a wide range of failings can elicit this response in an
observer, but the disadvantaged are more likely to do so. Perhaps because the poor man lacks
education he seems to expend too little mental energy in certain situations; perhaps because he
must work so hard to survive he seems to expend too much bodily energy in others.
Returning to
the American sitcom, it is important to note that the ridiculous character may be working-class,
but he is almost never destitute. Ideally, the character should be far enough "below"
(economically, educationally, and/or ethically) the viewer to elicit a sense of superiority, but not
so far below him to elicit pity. Homer Simpson fits comfortably in this
range. Viewers can laugh at his ignorance, selfishness, cowardice,
petty deceit, and bad luck, while remaining certain that he will
always have a steady
job and be able to provide for his family.
By pulling meanings out of their contexts and repackaging them
in bounded informational packets, decontextualization makes it difficult
for people to maintain a coherent understanding about how things work.
Meanings become all jumbled together--separate in that all are abstracted
from their different environments and equal in that their packaging
destroys any sense of scale by which they could be measured against each
Hence on television a plane crash in which 200 die is presented as just as
important as a local woman giving
birth to triplets, which is as important as the shooting
of a fictional character, which is as important as the scrubbing
bubbles of a household cleanser. In this telescape, entertainment
value becomes more and more privileged:
Messages on television...are edited into shorter and shorter
cuts that pass in front of us faster and faster. Both commercials and
transitions are accompanied by music. As the editing gets faster
and faster, the use of music grows. Senses are assaulted as the battle
over our attention escalates. We pay what little attention we do to
information only if it is entertaining (Fjellman,
In this frenetic environment The Simpsons succeeds because it is so
good at winning "the battle over our attention."
One way it does this is simply by being a cartoon, a rare genre in prime
time. For viewers surfing the
channels, the appearance of a cartoon, obviously visually diferent from
live-action programs and reminiscent of beloved childhood shows, is enough to
prompt a pause. Once the viewers/surfers have paused,
The Simpsons's quick pace helps its chances to keep them long
enough to
pay some attention to the content. Again, the show's cartoon form is an
asset: Jerry Herron writes that the animator can "crowd more information
into his cels than a comparable, human-acted frame of film or video tape"
He adds that in The Simpsons "there are dizzying dolly shots and
tracking shots that mock the limitations of real life cameras and action
and make these seem visually, and informationally, impoverished by
comparison, which of course they are" (19).
Simpsons demonstrates its greater visual capacities not just to hook
in viewers, but also to serve its narrative and thematic needs. In
one episode, for
example, the family turns into flaming demons before Homer's eyes as
he mentally compares them to other families. Once it has hooked viewers in
with the uniqueness and sheer abundance of its visual information, The
Simpsons attempts to keep them
with a postmodern narrative style that employs self-reflexiveness and
...with the collapse of the high-modernist ideology of
style--what is as unique and unmistakable as your own fingerprints...the
producers of culture have nowhere to turn but to the past: the imitation
of dead styles, speech through all the masks and voices stored up in the
imaginary museum of a now global culture (74).
It is certainly true that The Simpsons relies on cultural products
of the past to tell its stories. But the problem in applying Jameson's
idea of pastiche to the show is his gloomy view of how it works; he calls
it "devoid of laughter," and "a neutral practice" of mimicry. Even granted
that some of The Simpsons's allusions appeal simply to the
satisfaction of recognition, as do
the examples cited above, they still provoke laughter. Further,
some allusions appear not just for the sake of laughter, but to
a decidedly non-neutral way--on characters or situations in the show. A
good example of such an allusion comes in the episode that I will study in
the next section. Having been called by Bart and Lisa's school principal,
two child welfare agents in a paddy wagon go speeding out of a garage in a
scene modeled on one from the Batman TV series. The
allusion may be
neutral toward its referent, Batman, but it is certainly not
toward the agents, who are being chided for their excessive zeal.
to de-naturalize some of the dominant features of our way of
life; to point out that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as
"natural" (they might even include capitalism, patriarchy, liberal
humanism) are in fact "cultural;" made by us, not given to us (quoted in Silvio, 40).
This is how The Simpsons differs fundametaly
from the "happy family" sitcoms of the 50's (Father Knows Best,
et. al.): it exposes itself as a product of American consumer capitalism,
whereas the the "happy family" shows steadfastly obscured the fact that
they were the same thing. After watching The Simpsons, it becomes
difficult to see the prosperous patriarchy of Father Knows Best as
The Contested Family
The Trajectory of the Situation Comedy
The Rise of The Simpsons
The Archetype (A close reading)


text:
Fragaria virginiana
Copyright, Dan Tenaglia, Missouriplants.com
Wild Strawberry is a
common creeping plant that grows in forests,
lawns, forest edges, roadsides, and streamsides (just about
anywhere). It can grow up to six inches tall, and its leaves
are split into three leaflets. Each leaflet is 1 to 1
1/2 inches long and has teeth
on its edges. Petioles
are hairy. Creeping plants, like
strawberries, have runners. Runners are stems which grow
sideways on the surface of the soil. As the runners grow,
they send up new strawberry plants. Appalachian State
Delaware Wildflowers
Wild Strawberries bloom
from April to June. Flowers
are 3/4 inch wide, with five white petals. The petals are
attached to a cone-shaped part of the flower. This cone
starts off yellow, then later becomes larger, thicker, and
redder. This is the "strawberry" part of the Wild Strawberry
plant, and it contains dry seeds. Many animals eat
strawberry fruits, including Common Crow, Gray Catbird,
sparrows, Wild Turkey, Cedar Waxwing, Red-bellied
Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Northern Mockingbird,European
Starling, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, Virginia
Opossum, Striped Skunk, Eastern Chipmunk, Meadow Vole,
White-footed Mouse, and Eastern Box Turtle. Birds and other animals
can help Wild Strawberry spread by pooping seeds out in new
places. Wildflowers of Southern
California (http://ww1.clunet.edu/wf/)
Animals that eat strawberry leaves include Eastern Cottontail, White-tailed Deer, nematodes, mites, slugs, stinkbugs, spittlebugs, weevils, and other insects . Wild Strawberry flowers provide nectar and pollen for many insect species, including bees, flies, ants, and butterflies. Some common species which use flowers for food include Honey Bee, Golden Northern Bumble Bee, Eastern Tailed Blue, Cabbage White, and Clouded Sulphur.
Strawberry is also excellent cover for small animals throughout the Spring and Summer. Toads, salamanders, centipedes, spiders, and many insects can crawl and hide among the leaves.
Wild Strawberry grows alongside many plants, including violets, Poison Ivy, and most weeds and grasses.
Relationships in Nature:
Using as Food Source Animals
Using as Shelter Associations
With Other Plants
Relationship to Humans:
Wild Strawberry fruits are considered delicious by many people. They are smaller than store-bought strawberries, which are a hybrid (cross between) of Wild Strawberry and an European species.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
A Foreign Model for American Healthcare Video
George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, says America needs a system that encourages providers to work to cure the sicker people, and outlines the Dutch as a good model for health planning.
Read the full transcript
Browse Most Popular Videos
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text:
Trendsetters put spikes on everything! We customize apparel, handmade jewelry and offer embroidery. We also sell snapbacks, V-neck tees and more to be customized.
We are located at Tara Discount Mall on Upper Riverdale Road near Little Giant in Jonesboro, GA.
Contact us today and get spiked!
Upper Riverdale Road Jonesboro, GA 30236 |
Contact Brandon Adams |
Brandon Adams accepts cash and Paypal |


text:
Givi XS302 / T474 X-Stream Saddlebags
The X-Stream saddle bags are made of laminated EVA Cordura and are fully lined. The front zipper opening makes loading easier and faster. They are expandable and have two external belts on top.
The saddlebags are attached under the seat using adjustable Velcro belts and one central security belt.
Have a functionality, fit, or otherwise product-specific question about the Givi XS302 / T474 X-Stream Saddlebags? Ask it here! If you have a customer service or shipping question, please direct it to our Customer Service department.
Product Style | RevZilla Item # | Manufacturer Product # | Availability |
Black | 780861 | T474 | In Stock: Ships within 24 hours |


text:
editor's notes from SSD Market History. In the period 2007 to 2008 - 2.5" SSDs created a stir in the market by offering performance faster than the fastest hard drives at prices that were a low multiple of the equivalent HDD storage capacity (instead of being justified by server replacements as described in the SSD CPU equivalency segment of the SSD market adoption model). Although the fastest 2.5" and 3.5" SSDs changed many times during that period - it was interesting to see that products from 2 companies - Mtron and then Memoright captured the interest of our readers - and were in the most popular SSDs viewed list. Memoright hit the #1 spot in the top 10 SSD companies list - in 2008 Q2. Below you can see details of various Memoright SSDs - featured here on StorageSearch.com in 2009. | |||||
| |||||
2.5" SSDs |
See also:-
next SSD.................... |
the Fastest SSDs the SSD Buyers Guide After SSDs... What Next? RAM Cache Ratios in flash SSDs 2.5" SSD market - 30 second intro Are MLC SSDs Ever Safe in Enterprise Apps? Data Integrity Challenges in flash SSD Design Can you trust flash SSD specs & SSD benchmarks? |
manufacturer |
model |
description |
Memoright | ESSD |
Memoright's ESSD (Enterprise Storage Solution) is a 2.5"
SATA SSD with balanced performance of 120MB/s sustained Read /Write. |
Memoright | MR25.1-64G |
This product from Memoright provides high performance and more capacity.
Reliability & Endurance:
1.0" SSDs | 1.8" SSDs | 2.5" SSDs | 3.5" SSDs | rackmount SSDs | PCIe SSDs | SATA SSDs |
SSDs all | flash SSDs | hybrid drives | flash memory | RAM SSDs | SAS SSDs | Fibre-Channel SSDs |
StorageSearch.com is published by ACSL


text:
El-P Ripoff Beat
Credits & Info
- Date
- 06/22/2012
- File Info
- Song
- 2 min 35 sec
- Score
- 4.55 / 5.00
Related Content
You might also enjoy:
Licensing Terms
- Attribution:
- You must give credit to the artist.
- Noncommercial:
- You may not use this work for commercial purposes unless you make specific arrangements with the artist.
- Share Alike:
- If you alter, transform, or build upon this image, you may distribute the resulting creation only under a license identical to this one.
- Score:
- Rated 4.55 / 5 stars
- Plays & Downloads:
- 1,903 Plays | 64 Downloads
- Share Links:
- Genres:
- Hip Hop, Rap, R&B - Hip Hop - Olskool
- instrumental
Author Comments
I was messing around with wavs of my voice, added distortion and got this really cool weird sound. It supplied the bassline, the melody, the chords and a little bit of the snare. I made a wav of an FL Keys Rhodes arpeggiating a m7 chord and added portamento to it. Messing around with it, I got stuff that sounded like DJ scratches. Kinda. The drums were a pain in the neck, especially the kick. I doubt they sound good even now. I worked off cheap computer speakers, so if the bass is messed up, let me know in the reviews and I'll fix it and reupload it.
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars
damn dude this is super-weird. I wanna use it for some like fucked up acid trip rhyme.
Oh nice - go ahead!
Rated 5 / 5 stars
nice job man i like it in fact you got style realy so nice job :)
Thanks, man. Appreciate the review. I got style now? Hot shit.
Rated 4.5 / 5 stars
Ditto SJD.
You got a natural path to excellent music what with all the original composition you be doin. Impressively unique and stylish, almost always. Keep it up. I looove weird, unorthodox sounding beats
Thanks! Next time I'll go weirder.
Rated 5 / 5 stars
You reallly have a genius style. I'm not kidding.
Wow, thanks.
Rated 5 / 5 stars
Ha! This jawn gave me stank face.
Mad raw.
Thanks, man, I'm glad you liked it. Stank face, eh? I'm wondering what a stank face looks like.


text:
User Statshot
- Community Stats
Level 4 Blank Slate
Garbage Whistle
Ranked as Civilian
Latest News
2010: P. Rock's Year
2010-02-14 02:02:27 by P-Balla
Down N Dirty Entertainment presents P. Rock: back with a brand new, re-designed and established image, flavour, and style.
Stay posted because this year you'll see exclusive footage from live shows and links for new music will be uploaded soon.
Recent Game Medals
25 Points
Sit there, shut up, and watch the entire thing...ALL THE WAY TO THE BITTER END.
Medal Stats.
25 Points
Crush the Mini-Helictopter
Medal Stats.
25 Points
Crush the Sheriff-Helicopter
Medal Stats.
Total Medals Earned: 3 (From 2 different games.)
Latest Audio Submissions
16 Bars of Heat by P. | Hip Hop - Olskool Song |
I'm Back - P. Rock | Hip Hop - Modern Song |