For this essay I am going to be studying the popular animated TV series The Simpsons and saying why I think that it is a classic example of popular culture texts. The programme is twenty-five minute animation about a family at the bottom of the social ladder, the Simpsons. Revolving around the central family the show takes a sideways look at the life of ordinary American people. The family has five main members; Homer the father of the family is a blue-collar worker at the local nuclear power station. Marge the mother is a housewife who stays at home all day, then there are the children.
Bart (a mischievous prankster) and Lisa (school swat) are pre-teens and lastly there is baby Maggy who doesnt do that much at all. Every week the family get into various and amusing scrapes and generally carry out the activities that a working class family are supposed to do. There are many factors that could categorise The Simpsons as being popular culture, one of them being its intertexuality. The show makes great use of both parody and pastiche as a reference to other popular culture texts such as Star Wars, Psycho and the James Bond films.
The programme also features guest appearances by stars of popular culture, such as actors, sports personalities and musicians. Very few people in these roles could be classed as examples of high culture. The other major factor in The Simpsons being termed popular culture is the fact that the show is in animated form. No form of animation has ever been seen as a worthy piece of culture by academics and those who decide what is significant and what is not. To establish just why The Simpsons can be termed as popular culture we have to define just what it is that we mean by the phrase popular culture.
To put it in its most simple form popular culture can be anything that isnt categorised as high culture. Academics and members of certain social groups look down on anything termed popular culture as dumbed down entertainment for the masses and something that isnt worthy of reading. These people attack popular culture as being vulgar and brash, they say its texts are insignificant culturally and that they are only superficial forms of entertainment. Popular culture on the other hand strives to include all forms of entertainment and cultural texts.
Raymond Williams defines popular culture in four basic points; 1, its well liked by many people, 2, inferior kinds of work, 3, its work that deliberately sets out to win favour with the people and 4, culture actually made by the people for themselves. So lets take these points and use them to see if they can define The Simpsons as popular culture. Ok then point 1, something thats well liked by many people, well The Simpsons certainly is that. Its takes up one of the highest positions in the ratings charts, which are published in the Radio Times magazine as well as on their website.
These figures can also be obtained from the BBCs site, and American audience figures are freely available on the web. During this summer the Auntie screened a Simpsons night, an evening dedicated to the show, something which is very rare and shows us how significant a show it is for the BBC. Point 2, an inferior kind of work. Well the show is an animation, a form of entertainment which until recently was seen as something just for the kids.
The only artistic merit going to the drawing skills of the animators. work that deliberately sets out to win favour with the people. Right from the start The Simpsons was intended as something that everyone could enjoy. It began life as a small segment on the Tracy Ullman show, which was very popular in the USA, so you can say that it was targeted to be something that was hugely popular. And finally point 4, culture made by the people for themselves. Creator Matt Groening was never a culturally snobbish academic; he was an ordinary person who wanted to create something that would appeal to people like himself.
So we have used an experts opinion to show how The Simpsons can be termed popular culture but it goes a lot deeper than that. Lets take a look at the programmes target audience. The show is targeted at ordinary people, with story lines that are relevant to their lives, but The Simpsons is a lot deeper than that. It is a text that can be read on different levels, so it appeals to a much wider range of viewer. On a basic level it is a bright colourful cartoon about the adventures of a mischievous boy and his family.
This is the side of the show that appeals to children. For older viewers there are references to things children wouldnt get, the homages to classic films etc, and we have Homer struggling to support his family, something which a lot of us can relate to. On another level though the programme plays on these things and the dominant ideologies that go with them, showing some of them up for being as stupid and outdated as they are. For example the idea that men are the strong ones in a crisis, here we have Homer loosing his head and needing Marge to clam him down.
And its not just through role reversal that we see this challenge to the dominant ideals, we have Bart the naughty lad and Lisa who is as good as gold. This situation is rarely swapped over; instead it is played up to a degree that we know that the shows makers are trying to subvert this view. This works in a similar way to the hit comedy The Royal Family in which a certain view of how working class people live their lives is played out in a way that shows just how stupid the whole idea really is, thus subverting the dominant ideology of those in power.
This appeal to a broad ranging audience is also reflected in its broadcast time slot. Both on the BBC and SKY the show airs in an early primetime slot, this way reaching the widest possible audience. At this time children are still not in bed and most adults are back from work. Another way in which The Simpsons is representing ordinary Americans is the name of the town in the series, Springfiled. There is a town called Springfield in all but two of the American states, this way people can relate better to the series as it could easily be about them. This sense couldnt be created if the show was set in New York or L.
A. The Simpons is a text that has a basis in hegemony. Hegemony is the continued promotion of the dominant ideals by those few people in power and those with the money. The theory was developed by Antonio Gramsci (a neo-Marxist) while serving time in an Italian prison. Hegemony in The Simpsons is present in several different ways. Firstly is the way it pokes fun at the people in power such as Bill Gates. It makes jokes about how he has a lot of power through is monopoly of the computer markets and the fact that he is the richest man on Earth, and how he uses this power to influence people.
Yet the show doesnt mention media mogul Rupert Murdoch, much criticised character who exercises a great deal of control over what we view. The Simpsons is made by the Fox Network, a television giant owned by Mr Murdoch, well you dont want to bite the hand that feeds you, do you? In his book Investigating the media Paul Trowler said, The hegemonic model basically argues that the media portray only one view of the world. It is the one subscribed to by societys privileged classes and it is the dominant, or hegemonic set of ideas.
In a similar way we have the character of Krusty the clown who has a merchandising range so large it makes Pokemon look insignificant (a Krusty crowd control barrier baring the legend Krusty Sez Get Back anyone? ). Its strange how the show has this parody of a money grabbing greedy conglomerate yet do you know somebody who doesnt own a pair of Simpsons socks? The model of Gramscis Neo-Marxist perspective can be linked to The Simpsons. By this I mean there is a clash between the dominant ideals and the ideas of the programme makers, in the end there is a form of consensus achieved with the incorporation of the makers beliefs.
Another way in which The Simpsons attacks the dominant ideals in its use of representation, and in particular stereotypes. It uses these stereotypes in a playful and knowing way; again this is a way of subverting the old ideologies. For example the way foreigners are portrayed; British people are either cockneys or upper class twits, the French have berets and stripy tops, while Aussies have hats with corks bouncing about on them. Stereotypes are also prevalent in the shows main characters. Take the character of Apu the shop keeper, who is Hindu.
How many times have we seen Asians as the owner of the corner shop, like in the episode where Apu leaves the baby in charge of the shop and it says that it has waited for this moment all its life. Then we have Marge, the housewife, a woman who stays at home most of the time. There was an episode were the family moved into a state of the art home where robots did all the housework; Marge was left with absolutely nothing to do, as she had no life outside of the home. Then we have Homer the dumb blue-collar worker, chief Wiggum the incompetent policeman, Fat Tony the Italian mobster, and the fat Star Trek fan that runs the comic shop.
All of these serve to blow apart such ideas about what people are like or what we think they should be like. Elements of the carnivalesque are also present in The Simpsons with its over the top nature and its bright styling. There are also elements of an in your face nature although the programme prefers to go for the subtle approach. This bright, exaggerated style is often found in popular culture texts, and in particular game shows. Another element of The Simpsons is its use of patriarchy. All the positions of power in the town are held by men.
The Mayor, Mr Burns, police chief Wiggum, and Kent Brockman the news reader. Once again this is really a challenge to the dominant ideals. It uses these ideologies and turns them on their head in order to show that they are both wrong and irrelevant in modern society. In conclusion we can term The Simpsons as popular culture because it is loud and brash. It goes against the dominant ideologies of our society, except were it has to conform for both its own financial reasons and where it cant go against the boss.
It is both entertainment for the masses and something that can be read on a higher cultural level. It appeals to a wide audience and doesnt restrict its self from certain audiences, as opposed to high culture, which is seen as being the sole domain of the upper classes and academics. It is made by ordinary people for ordinary people. It is full of intertextuality with references to many other popular media texts, and events. All of these things according to experts are what can be defined as elements that make up popular culture.
