The Impact of Postmodernism and Live Art on the Simpsons - Essay Example

The Impact of Postmodernism and Live Art on the Simpsons [ID The Simpsons has long been beloved by the post-modern community for their incredible social satire, undermining of their own narratives, creative techniques for story-telling, transgressive nature of the presentation, and sophisticated philosophy and references (Alberti, 2003; Elder, 1989; Rebeck, 1990). Indeed, post-modernism and live art has clearly impacted the show in many ways, making it in some ways the first post-modern cartoon. A great example of the Simpsons transgressive nature, undermining of grand narratives, hyper-reality and intertextual parody is the recent Banksy opening. In most Simpsons episodes, and certainly virtually all of them past a certain age within the franchise, the scene opens to Bart writing on the board, writing something new, then moves on through the rest of the family until the last part where the family sits down to watch the show. The couch sequence and the board-writing sequence are always different, but tend to follow a circumscribed pattern The Banksy segment undermines this (Halliday, 2010). The board-writing sequence has Bart writing outside of the lines, and distorting the perspective, writing on impossible areas. For example: The writing goes over the clock without warping. This undermines the reality of the animation. Baudrillard reminds us that everything, even live television, is a simulation: It is showing some parts of reality and clipping off others, and in so doing providing a selective treatment of reality (1981). Kant might add that even our own senses are a simulation of the worlds simulacra, a representation of reality formed by the eyes, nose, ears, tongue, body and brain. The brain constantly edits and makes choices. The reality we experience, the phenomena, are all rather distinct from the underlying ontological reality, if there even is one. The Banksy opening in this regard undermines our belief in the “reality” of the representation of the cartoon and thus problematizes our assumption: Like Magrittes “Ceci pas un pipe”, it reminds us that we are not seeing a child writing on a chalkboard but a representation projected on our televisions (or monitors) of a drawing of a child writing on a chalkboard. Every moment of this opening is filled with inter-textual narrative, deconstruction of not only Western texts in general but also The Simpsons itself, layers of meta-narrative and meta-fiction. The beginning where we move through the clouds into Springfield has a raven holding a mouse, undermining the assumption the show makes of the sky being a placid place. A pile of burning tires deconstructs the idyllic suburbia that The Simpsons already satirizes with the waste of the power plant and the dysfunction of many of the families, then reconstructs by showing that, for example, far from Flanders being pathologically fundamentalist, he is kind, supportive and in many ways wise and sensitive. Eight to ten seconds in, two of the bully characters are cutting off the head of the Springfield statue. This references a famous episode where Bart did the same. Doing so simultaneously plays up and amplifies the fictional mythology of the show while also deconstructing it. Eleven to thirteen seconds in, the Lard Lad sign, itself a satirizing deconstruction of the Big Boy donuts and their iconic symbolism, is set aside the street from a Krusty Funeral Parlor. The Krusty name is often used to deconstruct and show the hidden pathology of capitalist industry and free market ideology. The most famous Krusty brand is Krusty Burger. Connecting Krusty and his burger chain to Krusty Funeral Parlor shows the unbroken chain of capitalist domination and violence from cradle to grave. It demonstrates and symbolizes the connection between the bad food, high-fat diet, salt and unnatural ingredients that Krusty Burger represents (a symbolic stand-in for McDonalds, Taco Bell, and fast food in general) and the ultimate fate of those who eat such food: Death. The Krusty Funeral Parlor sign is graffitied with Banksys name. This problematizes the author in a compelling way. Does Banksy exist within the fictional confines of The Simpsons, and did he graffiti the sign as a fictional character? Is this a signature, a sign of his authorship of the opening? Or did he graffiti the Simpsons, tagging it, adding onto the authorship? In post-modern thought, the author and the reader share the process of constructing the text. Reading is an active process: The reader constructs the symbolism, connects it to their own context. A reader can then turn around and write fan fiction, or blog posts, and engage in the authorship process themselves. Banksy is reminding us that The Simpsons is not just the property of FOX, or Matt Groening, but the property of everyone who watches it. Bart leaves on his skateboard after writing on the wall, landing on Barney as he goes through the leaves that Groundskeeper Willy is scooping up. This reminds us that Barts lovable antics could, with slightly different contexts, really hurt someone, and causes the audience to reflect on laughing at those antics. At about thirty to thirty five seconds in, Homer gets struck by the car and hurled through the door. This again undermines the traditional opening where Homer is either run down or barely manages to escape the other car, and problematizes our enjoyment of the violence. Cartoon violence is one thing, but as Baudrillard points out in Simulation and Simulacra, people watching the Gulf War on television were treated to a cartoonish simulation of the conflict that also lionized violence and mocked peaceful solutions. Finally, as the family sits down to the couch, instead of going into the television, we pull away, reminding us that we are watching a family watching the television. At this point, we are treated to a fictionalized interpretation of a Korean sweatshop. “It then pans to a dark, dilapidated factory where dozens of workers animate sketches of the family. Cats are shown being thrown into a wood chipper to create stuffing for merchandise such as Bart Simpson dolls. A unicorn, chained to the factory wall, is used to punch holes in DVDs” (Halliday, 2010). After this satirizing of their own production processes, the way that their animation is complicit in Third World oppression while also helping in the liberatory project, normalcy is restored: We see the TV again, but only after the factory is revealed to be 20th Century Fox, satirizing their own employer. The very fact that The Simpsons turned to Banksy, a graffiti artist, to design this opening shows the way that postmodernist and live art influences have characterized their work. But even the classic Simpsons episode is itself a post-modern treat. Every episode, Bart writes something new on the board, and the family rushing into the couch changes. Most openings are pre-packaged, never changing, artificial in their stasis. Even though every episode of most shows are different, their openings and closings as well as their credits retain the same format, an island of sameness despite radically different contexts. But The Simpsons is different. The family watching itself is a good example of self-referentiality and meta-narratives. The family looks at the credits for their own show, showing that they are actors in a play. This makes the Simpson family meta-actors. The Simpsons also rejects the grand narratives Lyotard criticized so strongly. The Simpsons frequently establishes a point about society then criticizes or undermines it through self-satire, providing a caveat. This means that they recognize that some narratives, while locally little t-true, should not be treated as big-T true globally. A lineal descendant of The Simpsons in this regard is Family Guy. Take the episode where Peter realizes he is black, descended from a slave, and gets reparations. At the end, Peter realizes that “the only color that matters is green”. This satirizes the way that the black community, for whatever justified reasons, in the episode was seeking the reparations money from Peter. Family Guy was first defending and justifying reparations, noting that they were community reparations, then notes that there is a fine line between greed and community support. Undermining their own points in this fashion lets The Simpsons avoid grand narratives and make arguments that are real and defensible. It is easy to exaggerate the ways that The Simpsons represents postmodern and live art, however. For one thing, The Simpsons is now establishment. It is a cash-cow, filled with marketing and tie-ins. This itself has some transgressive potential, but it is very difficult to continue to deconstruct texts or escape simulation while being a television establishment and needing to remain profitable and marketable. Further, The Simpsons has a much shorter turn-around time than other shows like South Park. The Simpsons have constantly been forced to offer more generic, vague social criticism, since they cant respond to salient issues immediately. South Park, meanwhile, is capable of turnaround within a week: They were able to create two episodes, one where McCain won and where Obama won. As Newsweek put it, To deflate pomposity is the raison dêtre of the modern nighttime cartoon. All the heavyweights—The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, not to mention the Adult Swim universe—revel in zealously ridiculing athletes, politicians, and pop icons, or anyone who can be treated like a piñata without inviting a lawsuit. But theres often a disconnect between the large game and the satirical cartoons ability to accurately target it. Each passing day brings a fresh opportunity for satire—Randy Neugebauers "baby killer" outburst, for example. But animation is lengthy, painstaking work. The Boondocks, which debuted in 2005 and returns in May, will only be on its third season due to the mammoth undertaking of animating it. South Park, however, has a distinct advantage. By localizing all its production and using computer animation exclusively, the South Park team can produce an episode in as little as four days, giving them flexibility to pursue the latest-breaking oddities as they develop. But as of late, the streamlined production seems as much a gift as a curse, as South Park has gone from weekly satirizing to satirizing weakly (Alston, 2010). South Park is capable of satirizing issues immediately. The Simpsons cannot. The very point of live art is that it is live: Connected to an audience, happening immediately. The Simpsons is much more like watching a video of a live show than being there. Similarly, The Simpsons retains a traditional narrative structure in many ways. The plot unfolds and develops, and while it may split, join, or veer, it always converges back. Compare it to Family Guy. In Family Guy, asides and unrelated jokes are fired off rapid-fire. Sometimes these jokes are referenced in the main narrative, sometimes not. Sometimes characters and themes recur, sometimes they do not. Family Guy is far more post-modern in this way, though whether it is a superior piece of social criticism or entertainment is obviously up for discussion. The Simpsons also famously satirizes the intellectual and liberal elite. But again, they do so sensitively. Lisa, for example, is a stock liberal, but she also has interesting and unique ideas, and is very sensitive and fun. The Banksy opening is a masterpiece of transgressive work. It demonstrates the severe debt that The Simpsons has to postmodernism and to live art. The Simpsons has managed to stay as relevant as it is by constantly undermining their own tropes, satirizing themselves, breaking out of staid convention and embracing flux and change. Works Cited Alberti, John. “The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture”. Leaving Springfield. Wayne State University Press. December 2003. Alston, Joshua. “The South Park Death Knell?” Newsweek. March 24, 2010. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Editions Galilee: France. 1981. Björnsson, Björn Erlingur Flóki. “Postmodernism and the Simpsons”. The Simpsons Archive. 2006. Bybee, Carl and Overbeck, Ashley. “Homer Simpson Explains Our Postmodern Identity Crisis, Whether We Like It or Not: Teaching with, for and against "The Simpsons"”. University of Oregon. May 13-17, 2000. Coe, Steve. "Fox Hoping Simpsons Will Boost Slow Start." Broadcasting (Washington, D.C.), 8 October 1990. Corliss, Richard. "Simpsons Forever!" Time (New York), 2 May 1994. Elder, Sean. "Is TV the Coolest Invention Ever Invented? Subversive Cartoonist Matt Groening Goes Prime Time." Mother Jones (Boulder, Colorado), December 1989. Freeman, Mike. "Fox Affils Deal for Radical Dude: Simpsons Pricing Appears to Remain Apace of Big-Ticket 80s Sitcoms." Broadcasting & Cable (Washington, D.C.) 1 March 1993. Halliday, Josh. “Banksy takes Simpsons into sweatshop”. The Guardian. October 11, 2010. Henry, Matthew. "The Triumph of Popular Culture, Situation Comedy, Postmodernism and The Simpsons." Studies in Popular Culture (Louisville, Kentucky), October 1994. Larson, Mary Strom. "Family Communication on Prime-time Television." Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media (Washington, D.C.), Summer 1993. Lyotard, McConnell, Frank. "Real Cartoon Characters: The Simpsons." Commonweal (New York), 15 June 1990. Ozersky, Josh. "TVs Anti-families: Married....With Malaise." Tikkun (Oakland, California), January-February 1991. Rebeck, Victoria A. "Recognizing Ourselves in The Simpsons." Christian Century (Chicago), 27 June 1990. Turner, Chris. Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation. Da Capo Press. 2005. Waters, Harry F. "Family Feuds." Newsweek (New York), 23 April 1990. Zehme, Bill. "The Only Real People on TV" Rolling Stone (New York), 28 June 1990. Read More