The Simpsons: Miserable but still trying…
Homer: Kids you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try.
(“Burns Heir” – Season 5, Episode 18)1

Carl’s Matheson’s essay “The Simpsons, Hyper-Irony, and the meaning of life” is a critical analysis of the animated family comedy show The Simpsons. The essay delves into how the show is failing miserably on humoring its viewers and the idea of promoting positive social purpose is not really what it seems after all. According to Matheson, as the show infuses its episodes with heavily induce quotations as a way to humor its viewers. In the process, the show ceases to be funny at all. From these observations, Matheson points out that while the show employs a great deal of quotations and hyper-irony as a form of comedy, it also detaches itself from its viewers in the process. Therefore, losing its audience shared sense of humor as well as the audience itself in the end.
The shows critics’ reviews of the early episodes praise the show for its wit, realism, and intelligence. However, in the late 1990s, the tone and emphasis of the show began to change.
Some critics started calling the show "tired”. By 2000, some long-term fans had become disillusioned with the show, and pointed to its shift from character-driven plots to what they perceived

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http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/the-100-best-classic-simpsons-quotes#.woxOwzdRev

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as an overemphasis on zany antics.2 Fast forward to Season 26, the show becomes the longestrunning American scripted primetime television series and I haven’t seen newer episodes lately not until today.
The “Walking Big & Tall" is the thirteenth episode of the twenty-sixth season of the
American animated sitcom. It aired on Fox on February 8, 2015.3 The show opens up when Moe returns from his vacation in Tuscaloosa and shocks the city by revealing that their anthem is a generic one which is used by many cities across the world. Furious with what they have learned, the residents’ ties up Hans Moleman (who admits that he bought the anthem from a salesman) and put him on a horse which gallops into the desert.

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The show’s opening features historical

appropriations (e.g. My Tube, Twitter hashtags and Pharrell Williams) that refers to the popular culture of today. Although, entertaining as it seems putting together these devices, I find the shows use of this technique as a way to incorporate what is happening in the current times is really unnecessary. The show as Matheson mentions, one can definitely notice right away how it overuses quotations (e.g. Moe: Our song has had her lips on half of America, even... Des
Moines! ) as an extender of a simple scene which is about people being deceived of their beloved
“original anthem”.
Additionally, it manages to insert lines of the characters that don’t really have any relation with the opening scene at all. In the scene, a cowboy resident all of the sudden talks about
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_Big_%26_Tall

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http://www.nohomers.net/showthread.php?80566-The-Simpsons-and-family-values-The-function-ofthe-emotional-moments-in-the-show

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guns during the commotion – “guns are for celebrating, what do you do with them when your angry?” Even though, it provides the allusion to covertly talk about the issue of violence on the act of celebratory gun firing. As important as it seems’ to talk about these issue, the intentional insertion of linear and one-dimensional quotation for the purpose of unspoken metaphorical elaboration and commentary fails to relate to the whole scene itself. Therefore, the scene leaves you scratching in the head with a question on why it was connected at all with the issue about deception. Towards the end of the opening scene, the show throws cruelty when the former Mayor is sent away in the dessert even though he was old and did great things for the town.
By employing its moral agenda, the show maneuvers to steer away from its cold humor
(sending the old man in the desert) by employing its moral agenda on values through the main character (Lisa). Lisa, as the epitome of good deeds tries to cheer up her town folks and even volunteers to make a new song for the town. However, the show undercuts her character as a self-promoting little girl that is only willing to help out as she tries to stresses that she’s the only who can do it anyway since she’s a musician with the dreams of being in the Broadway. A kind of technique as Matheson noted, that seems like another case of the show’s reaffirmation of family values as echoed on Lisa’s speech about positivity only to be undercut it by exploiting her to add humor to the scene.
The show also manipulates to employ its humanity through Bart by helping out his sister compose the new anthem. Eventually, the show manages to cut the heart-warming cooperation between the siblings with its added hyper-irony and ridicule as Bart plays pranks on her while she was asleep and exhausted from writing the song. Furthermore, the scene successfully recy-

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cles its old parodies from previous episodes not for the purpose of reference but only to be riduculed. In the scene, Lisa tries to compare Bart’s creativity as a songwriter to the guy that they met before who thought he was Michael Jackson. The scene uses an old episode about a crazy guy who thought he was Michael Jackson by not only referencing his creativity but also to throw jabs on his character since Bart’s recalls that he was actually surprise that their parents let him stay with him alone in his bedroom all night. The scene didn’t just make a reference about the past by trying to make a commentary about what is happening on the scene but also questioning the character of Michael Jackson in reality. Therefore, the show sacrifices the scene for the purpose of throwing skepticism on someone’s character as humor by blurring the lines between non-fiction and fiction.
Then the story shifts to its second plot, Homer has difficulty sitting in his seat at the performance due to his obesity. When he must stand to give a standing ovation, he tears out his row of seats, causing destruction to the theater. Marge demands that he joins a weight-control group, but the one he joins, run by the mobility scooter-bound Albert, states that obesity is beautiful.
They cause a disruption outside a fashion store which they claim promotes unrealistically thin figures, and all are arrested.

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As the story moves into the second plot, its moral commitment

also transitions its focus from social values to a more in-depth commentary about a current social issue. Although, these shift can be taken as a sign that the show is aware of the current reality about the nation’s growing issue on obesity, it just ends up exploiting its cause ironically by using obese characters. Therefore, repeatedly defeating its social purpose all for the sake of humor

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons

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regardless who else is undercut in the process. The second plot also employs parody from the movie “Fat Albert” in reference to the scooter-bound Albert. Despite the fact, that both has the same characteristics of being obese the show fails to show the contrast between the two characters relevance to each other. Thus, making the parody more than just a straight-forward character shaming while referencing another work of popular culture.
In the final scene, Marge arrives to bail Homer on condition that he leave the group and start a diet, but he refuses and returns to jail with his obese friends. Lisa and Bart try to compose a song to convince Homer to leave the group, but argue so much that they never perform it.
Marge points out that Homer should not follow Albert, who she says is too lazy to walk. He attempts to get up from his scooter to prove her wrong, but suffers a fatal heart attack. Homer delivers a eulogy at Albert's funeral, where on learning that the deceased was only twenty-three, pleads for the obese people to lose weight. He and Marge walk home as he promises to yo-yo diet, and a montage shows Homer's physique changing drastically with his age.6
The final scene of the show manage to mash-up a great deal of information’s that undercuts everything that the show tried to establish from the beginning. From the establishment of the siblings cooperation on composing the anthem only to be questioned with both arguing in the end. Through the time that Homer pleads for the people to lose weight only to be undercut it with his promise of a yo-yo diet. More importantly, the use of parody as reference to Fat Albert on a scooter that totally depicts the stereotype of African-Americans obesity problems and using scooter as an excuse for their laziness and not because they have difficulty walking. The show

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons

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ended just like each scene by taking a stand on values about family and social issue but only does it half-heartedly as it attacks its character with cruelty and shaming over and over again that in the end it loses its value.
Growing up back then, Sundays are always reserved for watching The Simpsons until those Sundays became a thing of the past. Maybe, I have outgrown its style of comedy just like other people do. Although, the show still employs funny antics through it’s opening act and employ social issue that offers heartwarming resolution. I find myself questioning the show’s commitment and agenda as Matheson noted on his observations. Amidst, it’s desperate attempts to reaffirm values to adhere to its genre as a family comedy and prime-time spot. The show undeniably suggests heavily induced quotations and hyper-irony that only its cult followers would only be able to understand and enjoy. The show somehow suffers from identity crisis as it constantly pushes and pulls away allusions altogether with its pervasive moral agenda. Although, the show tries so hard to keep a moral commitment to keep the network bosses happy, its cruel intent toward its characters and issue still lingers throughout the show.
Nevertheless, let’s not forget that the Simpsons was born out of satirical depictions where vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement. In spite of what’s happening lately with the shows desperate attempts on making us laugh. I find myself looking back from its earlier episodes when the show was the epitome of a middle class American lifestyle.
Where it is meant to be humorous, and its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. In the end, the show

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abandons its essence as a comedy in favor of another and stops being funny altogether leaving the viewers confuse whose flashes of amusement wither under the latter’s plot mean-spritzed succession of fat jokes. 7I just miss itchy and scratchy.

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http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/simpsons-walking-big-tall-214963

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