THE SIMPSONS

The Simpsons

Documentaries, Theatre, Motion Picture

I choose to analyze The Simpsons for this part of the essay. The episode is about Bart not believing in souls until he thinks he really lost his. It was quite humorous and I enjoyed watching it. The first approach I am going to use is socio-culture analysis. I choose this method because I think this particular episode offers lessons on society, values and social norms, most of them indirectly. The Simpsons are a family and their roles are quite stereotypical of families. Homer, the father, goes off to work to support the family, while Marge, the mother, stays home to raise the family. Bart and Lisa, two of the three children, constantly fight like most brothers and sisters do. Their attitudes and behaviors are also quite typical, if a little exaggerated. Homer usually goes to the local bar for a beer with the guys and Bart is always playing jokes on his family, but they do go to church and this is where this episode starts. Bart goes about his normal day and begins to realize that something is not right. He isn't finding the Itchy and Scratchy show funny like he usually does, electric doors won't open for him, he has no breath in cold weather and his own cat sneers at him. Lisa and Bart decide to really test his soul and they set up Homer to trip over Bart's skateboard.

The social lessons here are obvious. Lisa teaches us, indirectly, that we do have souls and how important they are to us as a person. I also think this is an important lesson for children who watch the show. Bart, in some children's' eyes, is a role model. He and Lisa are teaching them that Bart believes in God and believes he has a soul. This is a subject that is subject to questions. Some people may not believe in God or souls, but what Lisa is saying is that everyone has their own identity and is entitled to it (Fink, 2008).

The second approach I used is discourse analysis because I want to show how the text is related to the social world. The topic of this particular Simpson episode is a very important social issue and I feel through discourse analysis I can show the relationship of the text and the social world. We, the viewers are identifying with either Lisa or Bart. They are on two opposite sides of the coin when discussing ones soul. Lisa, on one hand is appalled at Bart for selling his soul for $5.00 telling Bart "your soul is the most valuable symbol of everything fine inside us. Your soul is the only part of you that lasts forever". On the other hand we have Bart telling Millhouse "there is no such thing as a soul. It's something adults made up to scare us kids". We eventually identify with Bart because he so badly wants his soul back when bad things start to happen to ...