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Sunday, November 17, 2013
Deconstructing the Simpsons
Analyze two examples of postmodern style in the Simpsons episode "The Front" (April 15, 1993; available on Paley) using terms from John Caldwell's essay. (Responses of 200 words will count as one blog post, 400 words as two blog posts; due 11/25):
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https://www-paleyicollection-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/Library.aspx#/Details/T:45330
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One of the first and most obvious styles of postmodernism in the Simpsons episode that is linked is reinforcing spectatorship. This reinforcement, defined by Caldwell, is spectatorship being encourage in the episode, such as a screen within a screen for the viewer to look at (212). In the Simpsons, this technique starts at the beginning of the episode. Bart and Lisa and sitting down in front of the T.V. watching their favorite show, Itchy and Scratchy. Already, the Simpson’s producers are reinforcing spectatorship because we are watching Bart and Lisa watching television. Then the scene cuts to us watching the show ourselves. We can see that the screen is framed by the Simpsons T.V. set and we get to watch the Itchy and Scratchy Show (which is being cross cut with Bart and Lisa watching). We are forced to see the show rather than just watching Bart and Lisa’s reaction to it. Another time that this happens is when Bart, Lisa, and their grandfather are sitting at the television award ceremony and watching the nominations for the category they’re competing in. We see clips of the competitors and Itchy and Scratchy just as the audience of the ceremony are seeing it. This moment also ties in with the next style by Caldwell that is seen in this show.
ReplyDeleteAnother style of postmodernism shown in the Simpsons is Pastiche. Pastiche allows the real world to be connected to the world of the Simpsons using references that the viewer would recognize. As Caldwell explains, Pastiche is like a blank parody that has no regard of the intent or significance of the work that is being parodied (210). There are multiple examples of these parodies in the Simpson’s episode, the most obvious would be the Itchy and Scratchy Show. This show involves a cat and a mouse playing tricks on each other which are the main actions of the real cartoon Tom and Jerry. Tom (the cat) is usually tricked by Jerry (the mouse) and usually never gets what he wants in the end, which seems to be the same with the cat in Itchy and Scratchy. Yet, one of the big differences which sets these two shows apart is how much more violent and gruesome Itchy and Scratchy is compared to Tom and Jerry. The violence is disgustingly bloody and horrendous. Most of the violence in Tom and Gerry is comical and blood is never seen. The producers of the Simpsons are taking a popular show from our world and putting it in the fictional world of the Simpsons, and just making it more violent. Other moments that are seen in the episode is at the award ceremony. We see clips of other (real) shows, but are parodied and made fun of. This goes beyond the context of the Simpsons show itself and makes it relevant to the real world.
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ReplyDeleteThe Simpsons debuted in 1987 on The Tracy Ullman Show and has been a staple to network television ever since. After 25 seasons the series is still going strong. From the very start, a majority of the Simpsons comedy is from a postmodern viewpoint. Ideologically, postmodernism is almost impossible to escape in mass culture. The Simpsons truly embodies postmodernism in how almost everything is a pastiche and the blatant ties to late capitalism presented in both the production and content of the film.
ReplyDeleteOf the many pastiche that are present in the film, two stick out to me as recurring themes. The first is the cartoon Itchy and Scratchy. Itchy and Scratchy are a cat and mouse that play (not so friendly) pranks on one another. Tom and Jerry was a popular Warner Bros cartoon that aired in 1940 and continued all the way until 1961. The show featured the same premise that Itchy and Scratchy features. However, Itchy and Scratchy takes the playfulness and family oriented subject matter of Tom and Jerry and makes it for adults, with blood and gore and outright violence. The fact that Itchy and Scratchy are a carbon copy of the dynamic already presented in Tom and Jerry and is doing so in a “tongue in cheek” context creates the pastiche that scholars (Jameson) have written so extensively about.
Another topic that The Simpsons uses that rings true with postmodern ideals is the the focus on capitalism. The episode that we watched was about Bart and Lisa making money off of their television show. They even make self reflexive reference to the fact that artists will reuse backrounds to save money, then they reuse backrounds. It's as if they are saying “Hey, this is a money making endeavor, we need to make money off of this television show.” The commercialism that The Simpsons uses is not necessarily intention, it is a product of the society of the time. It was a subconscious topic that could not be avoided, a postmodern technique so ingrained into television by this point. A later episode of the Simpsons shows the title sequence with the Bart merchandise being made in a sweatshop and cartoons being drawn in a similar sweatshop setting. This is another example of self reflexive commentary on the capitalist nature of television and the Simpsons.
Below I have attached the Simpsons alternate title sequence. Notice the sweatshops and desolate conditions that are directly caused by the show, showing the self reflexivity of the destruction caused by commercialization of television.
http://youtu.be/DX1iplQQJTo
A style of postmodernism that can be seen in the Simpsons is effective consumerism. Caldwell defines this as “the desire to consume more goods … triggered by the planned obsolescence of manufactured goods … the viewer is trained and encouraged to anticipate the acquisition and accumulation of more goods” (Pg 217). While the Simpsons as a series has used effective consumerism in order to sell its own products, portrayals of effective consumerism are also parodied in the show. In the episode “The Front” this specifically happens during the award ceremony scene. When Brooke Shields is reading off the nominees for the animation writing award, one of the nominees is for “Action Figure Man, the How to Buy Action Figure Man” episode. The clip that is then displayed shows a kid in a store begging his mom to buy him the action figure, this clip is an obvious parody of Saturday morning cartoon shows such as GI Joe, which use effective consumerism to get children viewing the show to persuade their parents to buy toys related to the show for them. The clip is even animated in a different style than what the Simpsons is animated in, bearing more of a resemblance to the old GI Joe cartoon.
ReplyDeleteAnother style of poster modernism that is prevalent in the episode “The Front” is Pastiche. This is described as “a blank or disinterested form of parody that typifies postmodern culture.” (Pg 208) The Simpsons contains many parodies in all of its episodes, but not all of them fall into the style of Pastiche. The most prevalent example of a parody in the episode is obviously the Itchy and Scratchy show which is just a very extreme version of the Tom and Jerry show that we have in real life, however this parody might be considered to be exposing the somewhat violent themes of Tom and Jerry and thus it can be argued that it might not be a form of Pastiche for certain. The episode also featured a small clip of a He-man parody during the award ceremony, this parody followed along the lines of Pastiche and being a disinterested parody in a greater sense. The show also directly parodies the role (or lack thereof ) that writers play in animated shows. It also does a parody of animated shows cutting corners when the owner of the Itchy and Scratchy show talks about how “animators will repeat backgrounds over and over again” yet in the background of the Simpsons at that very moment the background repeats itself about 3 times over.