Pop Culture: The Use Of Satire In The Simpsons

The campaign against being a normal family sitcom continued for The Simpsons because they did not stay in their “sitcom” universe with the use pop culture references, satire, parody and intertextuality. Pop culture breaks a TV show out of the “sitcom” universe because pop culture is referencing anything currently marketed towards the majority of the public that reflects popular ideas, phenomenon, images and attitudes in a country’s culture. In 2017, any meme would be deemed pop culture. Thus, something referenced in the all ready existing world rather than the “sitcom” world. The Simpsons use pop culture in almost all of their episodes. For example, in “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacey”, the episode begins with the family at the grand opening of

As one learned previously, Bart is recruited to join a boy band, but none of the members of the boy band can actually sing well. To fix this, their manager uses machines to makes their voices sound better. Importantly, their was multiple scandals in the 1990s of boy bands being caught either lip synching or using machines that changed their voice. One of he most famous being Milli Vanilli at the turn of the 1990s. More importantly, to further the point of the satire they used caricatured versions of the members of In Synch. Satire in The Simpsons breaks the show out its “sitcom” universe because with the use of Barbie and 1990s boy bands the TV show makes social commentary about pre-existing things in real

The Simpsons implement parody quite often, and one of the better examples is any Tree House of Horror. Other then the first season, as season of The Simpsons has an episode where they parody three different horror movies, psychological thrillers or TV shows. One instance of this is the short “The Shinning” (pronounced like Shin), which is from “Tree House of Horror V”, parodies The Shining. The episode is a parody because like the in the real film and book, the father or Homer goes crazy while hotel sitting and tries to kill their family. The difference between both the parody and the film or book is that Homer goes crazy from no beer or TV. Along with other minor things like grounds keeper being a Scotsman, Willie, or Homer continuously entering into the wrong room while trying to kill his