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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):
https://www-paleyicollection-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/Library.aspx#/Details/T:45330
https://www-paleyicollection-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/Library.aspx#/Details/T:45330
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The Simpsons’ use of references to pop culture and its intertexuality has been one of its greatest strengths as an animated program, while also making it a strong example of postmodern television. Caldwell describes The Simpsons as a show that’s “packed with smart cultural references, ironies, parodies, and intersexual paradoxes” (197). The show itself is actually a huge callback to The Flintstones, the first animated sitcom of its time and obviously a strong influence for Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon in the development of their show. In the subplot of “The Front”, it features many references to 1970s culture as Homer and Marge attend their high school reunion, with such shout outs to Happy Days, Good Times, “The Hustle”, Richard Nixon, Cheech and Chong, and Ed Sullivan. Most of these references come from the old class clown. The main plot involving Bart and Lisa is very self-reflexive and uses references to the production of the show itself. One subtle reference to the writing of the show appears as Lisa is reading a book titled, “How to Get Rich Writing Cartoons” by John Swartzwelder, who has been credited as a writer for The Simpsons more than any other writer in its history.
ReplyDeleteAnother scene from the episode makes reference to the animations style of the show as the Head of Itchy and Scratchy International, Roger Meyers, leads Bart and Lisa down the animation wing of the headquarters. As they walk, the same background and cleaning lady is duplicated multiple times because it is cheaper to animate, while Lisa makes the comment, “Wow it must be expensive to produce all these cartoons” to which Meyers responds, “Well, we cut corners. Sometimes our animators will reuse the same backgrounds over and over and over again.”
Itchy and Scratchy are what Caldwell describes as pastiche, or blank parody, which is a more specific term used regarding intertexuality. The fictional program is parody of animated cartoons from Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, and Disney, but most similar to Tom and Jerry as it is a show about a cat’s failed attempts to catch a mouse. While never directly referencing Tom and Jerry or other animated cartoons that depict the characters resolving their conflicts through violence, it is obvious that these cartoons are the influence for the program.
The episode also displays schizophrenic tendencies, as Caldwell would describe it, most obvious in the very end as The Adventures of Ned Flanders appears before the credits after the episode has concluded. This short was made to push the episode to its required time limit and has no context or purpose for the episode. Caldwell describes schizophrenia in television when “Signifiers are no longer coherent or continues” (208). The Ned Flanders short lacks any sort of signifier that deems it necessary to the shows plot. It is merely there to be funny and nothing more.
Caldwell's writing on postmodernism has particular relevance to "The Front", particularly in a few areas: his writing on aperture, and excessive visuality.
ReplyDeleteCaldwell frames his discussion of Aperture around "Pee Wee's Playhouse", discussing what Aperture is and how it is represented in the show. "[Aperture is] irresolution and openness" (203), he writes. This is seen in three different areas in "The Front". Each plot doesn't quite resolve itself fully...Bart and Lisa get a few episodes on TV, but their goal to improve Itchy and Scratchy ends almost as soon as it begins. They win an award, shrug off the entire affair, and just walk out of the theater (where the awards show was being presented). The Itchy and Scratchy show, having been set up as totally dependent on their writing, seems doomed after this, but nothing else is said about the matter. Homer "passes" high school, finally able to be proud of himself and no longer be embarrassed at high school reunions, but a flash forward to the future shows that he hasn't actually improved his life at all through his action. And, just like the cartoons shown in Pee-Wee's playhouse, Itchy and Scratchy is seen as snippets, unestablished and unresolved narratives that carry on for 30 seconds here and there.
Excessive visuality, another aspect of postmodernism discussed by Caldwell, can also be seen in "The Front". Color plays a major role in this (and all Simpsons episodes). The people in the show are primarily, not white, but rather bright yellow in complexion. Walls are not pale colors, whites, greys...they're bright pinks, reds, and blues. There is bright, in-your-face color at every turn. The absurdity of images only grows from here, with overly cartoonish violence depicted in Itchy and Scratchy, Homer walking around with a plunger on his head (a common accident, it seems), etc. The show is most certainly excessive in its visual design and characteristics. The lighting, too, lends itself to Caldwell's discussion of excessive visuality. Granted, this is a cartoon...but that means that the very bright, flat lighting must be all the more deliberate. There are no shadows to be found in most scenes, everything is flooded with light, and this serves to brighten the colors even further. And of course, being a cartoon, the word of the Simpsons is even more "2-d and flat", as Caldwell says, than Pee-Wee's playhouse. Rarely do we see characters move about in space aside from side to side. Everything is presented as a painting.
ReplyDeleteIn The Simpsons episode entitled “The Front,” the audience can see blatant similarities to Caldwell’s post-modern term of Extreme Intertextuality, characteristics of other media inside the TV text. When Homer and Marge go to their reunion, they are noticeably dressed up for the occasion, and we see them dancing together happily. All in all, it looks like a stereotypical high school reunion. However, when the time for giving out awards rolls around, we expect the awards to be more meaningful than they turn out to be. Homer wins awards such as “most weight gained” or “most improved body odor,” and we can’t help but think of how other films handle showing high school reunions as a throwback to the good ol’ days, or how they celebrate the most popular people in high school (instead of the least popular and the least successful). At the reunion, we also see the “class clown” doing impersonations of famous people, like Ronald Reagan. (And Homer is sure to spell out that reference for us by explaining the reference to Marge). Later, at the cartoon awards show, we see a merging of the Simpsons world with the real world when Krusty the Clown and real life actress, model, and former child star Brooke Shields give Abraham Simpson his award for The Itchy & Scratchy Show. Voiced by the actual Brooke Shields, the audience’s reality is crossed over with the reality of the show that they are watching.
This episode of The Simpsons also interacts with Caldwell’s definition of Extreme Specularity, or the ways of watching something/spectatorship. Although this is not episode-specific, each episode of The Simpsons opens with the Simpsons family in a different scenario as they prepare to watch TV together, and several of the opening credits are superimposed on their TV screen. This episode opens with Krusty the Clown’s TV show, and the image zooms out until we realize that we are watching the show that Bart and Lisa are watching, too. The writers of The Simpsons also mess with their audience when they have Bart and Lisa take a tour of an animation studio, and they make a joke about how animators use the same backgrounds over and over again, and then they proceed to do so. The viewers interact with this joke, and it changes how they are viewing the episode. Lastly, Lisa, Bart, and Abe go to an awards show to receive an award. We see multiple views of the awards show, and some of the angles are not from the POV of any of our main characters. The audience feels like they are watching this awards show on regular TV because of the award show camera angles provided, which makes the animated world easier to relate to.
In general, postmodern television involves a blurring of boundaries. With a pastiche historical amnesia, bright colors, expressionistic-esque shapes, quick cuts, opposing viewpoints, aperature, and on the surface seems to not provide much real content. On a basic level, a TV show that is so ridiculous that it acknowledges that it is not real. In the episode of “The Simpsons” we watched, "The Front" (April 15, 1993), a myriad of these postmodern elements can be found. The aesthic style of the show, specifically the title sequence is in line with Caldwell’s descriptions of postmodern television with bright unnatural colors, awkward shapes and quick cuts - making very little sense.
ReplyDeleteIn the episode, Bart and Lisa Simpson find that the episode of “Itchy and Scratchy” they watched was pointless and disappointing – stereotypes of postmodern television. As such they decide to write their own script for the show. After writing a script for the show and going to the “Itchy and Scratchy” headquarters, Lisa and Bart comment on the money and time it must take to produce the show, and the “Itchy and Scratchy” producer explains, “Well, we cut corners. Sometimes our animators will reuse the same backgrounds over and over again.” As he explains this, the episode does just that kind of background repetition.
The b-storyline of this episode is Homer and Marge’s high school reunion. During the high school reunion scenes there are references to many old school television shows, such as Happy Days and Good Times, icons like Ed Sullivan and Nixon, and stereotypical dances like “The Hustle.” This is what Caldwell describes as pastiche – or randomly pulling from a particular time period, and retrostyling an empty parody.
Besides the fact that the colors and shapes and cutting sometimes allude to the postmodern ideals of “schizophrenia,” that Caldwell discusses, there is also a sense of this mindless jumping from random plot point to unconnected instance throughout the story. In particular the sequence at the end of the episode of The Adventures of Ned Flanders, which had literally no continuity or relation to the proceeding plot of the episode.
Another term discussed by Caldwell is aperture. Caldwell states in his Trash TV essay that, “Along with narrative causality and motivation, final resolution is a fundamental component in the orthodox wisdom on narrative. Works that do no fully and finally resolve themselves fail according to such standards.” In this episode of The Simpsons, each subplot fails to have a comforting resolution really and the episode ends relatively flat. This is also related to Caldwell’s arguments of postmodern television not providing much real content. At the end of the episode, although the audience has been entertained, they’ve really not gained much in their viewing. If they missed this episode of the Simpson’s, it would not effect their enjoyment of the next episode.