The Simpsons vs South Park
By contrast South Park relies on our knowledge of subjects outside the realm of elevation. South Park’s humor is heavily dependent on the fact that its audience is consuming media and observing culture outside of traditional television shows. The Simpson family is, literally, a middle American family. The town in which they live, “Springfield” Is constantly shown to be In the center of the country in any of the shows maps. The family consists of Homer and Marge, he’s an overweight, undereducated couch potato and she’s the long suffering loving wife.
Together they have three children Bart, Lisa and Maggie. The trouble-maker, straight a student and doodler respectively, just the composition of this family shows that the creators are seeking to lampoon the average American family. The stupidity of Homer and the children’s antics and the ridiculous nature of the world around them are strictly for laughs. In show advertisements mock sexism and religion in American culture. Within the show, the television often reflects criticism of news and popular action movies and issues of children and violence.
But for all this satire, there is not much bark to the Simpson bite. The show itself must depend on advertisement revenue. Its network, FOX, Is one of the Top 4 networks In the country. In the late ass’s, the Image of Bart Simpson was synonymous with Butterfingers candy bars. There were two music Cad’s released with official music videos, that would play at the end of the episodes. It’s parody too point. And Its parody that many American’s are well aware of already. It’s as if the creators wink and nudge at the audience and say ‘You’re smart and we know it.
Now please, buy our products. ” South Park attempts to do something beyond just simple parody of our consumption and violence. Trey Parker and Matt Stone attempt to create new meaning out what we have already viewed. The very meaning of the parody is derived from what you already know of the target of ridicule. This is what Jerkiest and Fiske refer to as intellectuality. They attempt to relate the Simpson to this dynamic but I believe this realm is where South Park is actually operating.
The Simpson may use this intellectuality when playing with genre, but South Park uses it when conveying the very meaning of the parody. Even this season alone, South Park had covered the topics of social media sites Like Faceable, celebrates and sex scandals and the hypocrisies of the media concerning such events, and marijuana legalization debate. All of these topics are lampooned by critiquing the media’s covered and both sides of the social and political debate on TV.
You have to be critically aware to understand the finer points of South Parks humor that lies beneath the crude language and crass Jokes. The irony is that those that think Homer Simpson is a cutting edge satire of American life, are most likely a carbon copy of Homer himself. It’s easy to criticize South Park on the surface, but those that are media literate will “get the Joke” more than its critics. The Simpson are entertaining but ultimately, too safe.
