Satire In The Simpsons

Why our principal media of mass communication is the TV shows? This is because in our century, people use more TV or Internet as media of information than a physical newspaper (paper).

Television help to develop many cultural norms that societies experience in everyday life. In the 1970’s viewers are introduced to a revolutionary change that became popularized and broadcast in most American homes. That type of television discusses civil issues that focus on topics that influence media dissimilarities such as racism, poverty, sexuality to sexism. These particular television shows pave the way for any show that one can view today that exudes diversity. Family Situational Comedies introduce an interesting, unique and unbiased point of view that presented the lives of different families you could actual find in America who weren’t perfect and face real struggles.

The past decade has not seen any notable family sitcoms that has surpassed such leaps of social justice as some had in the 1950’s or 1970’s. While that may be disappointing to some, this is also a great feat for all television audiences. So many issues that were once considered, “taboos,” now, can be the premise of the sitcom altogether. Even the little things like interracial couples, married partners in the same bed, and even mentioning a pregnant woman is considered normal. Yes, the family sitcom is still no direct comparison to the modern family arrangement, but it is as close as were going to get for

Satire exposes and criticizes errors of an individual or a society by using irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose its stupidity or shortcomings. These comedies are important because they shed light on serious topics that would otherwise be too uncomfortable to talk about. Two television shows that exhibit these characteristics well are Larry David’s, Curb your enthusiasm, and Stephen Colbert’s, The Colbert Report. Satire in television shows can be used to entertain and inform by getting personal to connect with the audience, provoking meaningful thought, and make fun of the absurd.

Television situational comedies have the ability to represent different values or concerns of their audience, these values often change every decade or so to reflect and highlight the changes that the audience is experiencing within society, at the time of production. Between the years of 1950 and 2010, the representation of gender roles and family structure has been addressed and featured in various sitcoms, such as “Father Knows Best” and “Modern Family”, through the use of narrative conventions, symbolic, audio and technical codes. These representations have transformed over time to reflect the changes in social, political, and historical contexts. The 1950’s sitcom “Father Knows Best” traditionally represents the values of gender roles and family structure in a 1950’society, with the father, held high as the breadwinner of the family and the mother as the sole homemaker.

Option 2: “Family Guy” Keniesha Lake SOCI 1010-C21 Murphy University of Memphis   There are many ways to show the world your ideas, and the main way people tend to go about it is using different forms of media. Media is all the print, digital, and electronic means of communication” (OpenStax College 2015). The most used form of media is television. You can use television to find out the news, watch sports, and be entertained. The form of media I am using for this paper is the popular comedy show “Family Guy”.

Some cartoons are for entertainment and others try to evoke emotions connecting you to the illustrator. The cartoon tackles both of these at once, taking a sensible and serious concern in society and making it seem ridiculous. This satirical cartoon criticizes the serious concern in today’s society – obesity. The view taken from the illustrator is that it is a ridiculous problem made famous by the obese populations’ stubborn attitudes, and their complete reluctance to make a change in their lives for better health. The further you dig into this satirical cartoon, the more you understand the effort that was put into making this an extremely sophisticated illustration.

The show Family Guy portrays a middle-class family, which has a stay-at-home mother (Lois), a working father (Peter), two children in school (Meg and Chris), a baby (Stewie), and a pet dog (Brian). For a long period, a typical American family was regarded as a family structure that consisted of a man, his wife, and one or more biological or adopted children. By viewing the Griffins family from a psychological viewpoint, it will be able to demonstrate whether the Griffins family is not an accurate portrayal of the typical American family. Evaluating the Typical American Family and The Griffins’ Families in America have increasingly become more diverse, and more complex, compared to the “Leave it to the Beaver” ideal, where the perfect family

Television programs often retain an aspect of reality in order to relate to the audience and commentate on social issues. Although both The Goldbergs and The Twilight Zone address controversial issues such as gender roles, insanity, and ethnic stereotypes, genre differentiates their approach and their audiences’ receptiveness to change. Whereas The Goldbergs, an ethnic sitcom, addresses the external world using comedic relief, The Twilight Zone, a science fiction program, delves into the human mind using imagination. Despite their common efforts to direct social change, the programs are inverse images of one another, and The Twilight Zone’s genre structure allows it to resonate more with the audience. From 1949 to 1956, The Goldbergs dominated television as the first televised sitcom.

Gender roles in the past decades When watching The Simpsons family interact, their family depict what a ‘nuclear family’ look like with the father being the breadwinner and the mother staying at home doing the cooking and looking after the kids. It sends a message of what a ‘traditional’ family look/ed like in the past. “Gender roles are the product of the interactions between individuals and their environments, and they give individuals cues about what sort of behaviour is believed to be appropriate

Challenging Stereotypes: How “Modern” Is Modern Family? The show won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in each of its first five years and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series four times. If you have never heard about “Modern Family," you have never seen comedy. Modern Family is an American television show that portrays the ‘Modernism’ in families nowadays in America.

Despite the creator’s of Modern Family effort to portray a progressive view of American families, the show still accentuates outdated female stereotypes and gender roles; reinforcing gender characteristics, patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity. In contrast to its title, Modern Family promotes traditional gender roles and stereotypes of women, which result in the portrayal of an inaccurate image of the female, and weakens the stance of women in today’s U.S. society. Gender stereotypes are prevalent throughout the Modern Family; the women are all portrayed as wives and mothers, promoting a continued male dominant family ideology. Claire and Gloria are throughout the show acting on our society’s “assumptions about women’s ‘appropriate’ roles” (Dow 19).

Satire is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. A literary work in which human foolishness or vice is attacked through irony, derision, or wit. Mockery is teasing and contemptuous language or behavior directed at a particular person or thing. Also the behavior or speech that makes fun of someone or something in a hurtful way. “The Rape of the Lock” by Alexander Pope and “My Satirical Self” by Wyatt Mason from The New York times are both about satire and mockery. Therefore, after reading the above sources, one can infer that the satire reflects today’s society in many ways.

Modern Family is a hilarious sitcom that depicts the diversity of today’s American family and is one of the highest rated comedy shows on TV. The show, which is produced by ABC was a success from the first season with over seven million viewers and grew to more than fourteen million views by season three. The shows underlying message, that there is more than just one kind of family and that we are all crazy is done with a kind humor that is a refreshing change from the modern reality TV we now see on most nights. The comedy combined with diversity and great acting makes this show attracting to a broad range of viewers and proves that everyone loves a good laugh. One reason Modern Family has been a continued success over the years is their dedication to what the show was made to be, a comedy.

I am also better able to see that deep down, the show produces positive messages about family, relationships, risk-taking, and self-discovery. In essence, the environment of Family Guy is existential, where characters have the ability to make extreme choices; this allows episodes