Studying the Simpsons

Gender, Sitcom & Satire

This article was written by Rob Mcinnes and first appeared in Media Magazine 10 on 10th December 2004.

The article discusses wether The Simpsons is a 'recipe for trash' or an 'insightful social satire' and also raises the question of that 'can satire be dangerous?'. 

The article argues that the Simpsons celebrates and revels pop culture whilst mocking high art and that most of the jokes and narratives are driven through celebrity cameos. This clip shows Justin Timberlake behind the scenes one of the many hundreds of high profile celebrities who have appeared on the Simpsons over its course, Timberlake first appeared on the show with his band 'Nsync' were at the peak of their career and topping the charts. The appearance of the band lead Bart and his friends to become a succesful boyband which drives the narrative and triggers a chain of events, This being one example of cameo appearances driving the episodes.

I do believe that The Simpsons does use a lot of celebrity cameos but i wouldnt agree with the statement that they single handedly drive the narrative as a lot of Episodes are often triggered or driven by Homers stupidity or Barts behaviour, perhaps there is a slight overuse of celebrity guests in The Simpsons but the show embraces the view that they overuse celebrity guests and use it for a joke. 



It argues that the characters Revered Lovejoy and Ned Flanders are only there to lampoon attitudes to religion and that the characters Comic Book Guy and Professor Frink are a demonstration of their preoccupation with movie parody and intertextuality.