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| Domesticity of The Simpsons |
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| 发布时间：2015-03-23 点击： 次 |
Domesticity of The Simpsons
The Simpsons movie satirizes and twists the mythology of situation comedy outskirts families and the character of Marge Simpson shows the televised fictional housewife in blatant and subtle ways, and she illustrates that the domesticity that performed by televised house-wives is fantastic, unrealistic, and human beings cannot reproduce domesticity like that. However for all its postmodern satirizing and twisting of both its content and its form, The Simpsons provides a mild critique of gender roles of domesticity relatively. It humorously and playfully questions the American nuclear family’s function in modern society, while it embraces the female domesticity’s centrality to the definition of ‘‘family’’ ultimately.
From the first season in 1990, The Simpsons derided the satirized the past family sitcoms: the bickering Simpson family was like the very antithesis of the well-ordered, placid families in postwar family situation comedy like The Donna Reed Show, Leave it Beaver, Father Knows Best, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Although these shows never achieved more than mediocre to fair ratings when first aired in the 1950s, they all achieved substantial cultural influence and notable longevity in syndication (Leibman). Jones states that the Simpsons share a locale with the Father Knows Best’s citizens, however the Simpson family’s Homer is lazy, greedy, boorish, clumsy and often doesn’t know what his family needs. Even the families which are upper middle-class on modern TV have their share of bumbling, inept, wisecracking men married to women too good for them, like Tim on Home Improvement and the title character of Everybody Loves Raymond (Gates)
The Simpsons provides audiences more than a cynical, sad portrayal of modern life. The Simpsons humorously and thoughtfully satirizes the life’s troubling of life in US at its best. The Simpsons asks ‘‘people to re- examine their world, and specifically, the authority figures in their world’’ (Turner). But sentiment is very important to The Simpsons’ success and may be the broad appeal’s source. For all its well-documented and numerous faults, the Simpson family finally often affirms the important values that postwar situation comedy families took for granted. According to Heit, commentators and scholars find that the Simpsons family is the only situation comedy family to discuss God frequently and faith and to attend church regularly.
It may be more important that, despite their conflicts, arguments, and even physical violence toward one another, the Simpsons also demonstrate affection, loyalty, and love regularly. In recent years, a lot of critics and journalists affirm The Simpsons’ ‘‘traditional’’ values (Cantor), negating the movie’s criticism effectively, particularly Bart’s antiauthoritarian, rude attitude to teachers, parental discipline, and manners. There are lots of aspects of Marge’s character as mother and wife that brilliantly, and deliberately, satirize the televised cheerful homemaker’s stereotype. All the discussion of Marge almost always refer to her hair (Zeheme) and in a funny series of Dove hair products’ advertisements, her hair is very flowing and soft, likely freed from the control of sticky and stiff hair spray. The baldness of Homer surely shows his buffoon persona and is a part of his image, while the scant comb-over represents baldness fairly. The gravelly voice of Marge, the amazing creation of actor Julie Cavner, is another element of the body of Marge that teases the earlier housewives’ televised versions. Meehan states that it is different from the musical tones of Harriet Nelson who is an good wife, Marge’s voice completely fails to obey the maternal domestic woman’s idealized standard.
The Simpsons provides audiences humorous but powerful and pointed critiques of virtually every aspect of American society. Disdaining the sugary family sitcoms of the Reagan era, The Simpsons ripped apart lots of aspects of the idealized images of domesticity so common to television. The Simpsons is the most influential, most successful, darkest, satire of cherished American values ever to appear on TV. However, from Marge it can be seen that the ‘‘housewife’’ role’s sporadic satire, and only domestic gender roles’ partial critiques; conflicts which are often resolved when Marge goes back to homemaking. There may be simply nothing funny about a wife and mother who resist the domestic gender roles’ limitations. That will explain the lack of the humorous situation comedy which feature a lady truly struggling to balance family life and employment. However, it is more likely that it is difficult for the writers and creators of The Simpsons to image a home without a female homemaker. Even on one of the most broadly satirical and the most innovative shows on TV, it is home that is a woman’s place.
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