{"title":"Alternative TV: The Genesis of The Simpsons","authors":"M. Fink","doi":"10.5117/9789462988316_ch02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789462988316_ch02","url":null,"abstract":"The Simpsons emerged out of a unique moment in U.S. television history,\u0000 when Fox Broadcasting began to establish itself as the fourth nationwide\u0000 broadcasting network by targeting a young-adult audience with its brand\u0000 of “alternative TV.” In addition to interrogating Fox’s strategy, this chapter\u0000 introduces the central figures behind The Simpsons. More specifically, I\u0000 analyze the role of James L. Brooks, whose name and clout as a successful\u0000 writer-producer largely helped to launch the series. Furthermore, I\u0000 spotlight the show’s “father,” Matt Groening, an alternative cartoonist\u0000 who entered the television industry as a sort of “auteur import” from\u0000 alternative comics culture, thus furnishing the program with street cred\u0000 and a subcultural sensibility.","PeriodicalId":147065,"journal":{"name":"Understanding The Simpsons","volume":"296 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131470020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"List of Images","authors":"","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv1z9n0vc.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1z9n0vc.3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":147065,"journal":{"name":"Understanding The Simpsons","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125063005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"High Fives on Prime Time: Representing Popular Culture","authors":"M. Fink","doi":"10.5117/9789462988316_ch04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789462988316_ch04","url":null,"abstract":"An important reason for The Simpsons’ impact and longevity as a media\u0000 franchise has been the show’s dedication to representing popular culture.\u0000 From film and television history to sci-fi and comics culture, from rock\u0000 music to street art—popular culture has provided The Simpsons with a\u0000 wealth of figures, narratives, and themes to convert (sub)cultural capital\u0000 into commercial entertainment. As this chapter shows, one particularly\u0000 prominent domain of popular culture that The Simpsons invested in\u0000 was media fandom. Positive depictions as well as mockery of media\u0000 fans (including Simpsons fans) created both gestures of affiliation and\u0000 discipline that have targeted the tastes of fan consumers as a valuable\u0000 audience group for Fox and the Simpsons series.","PeriodicalId":147065,"journal":{"name":"Understanding The Simpsons","volume":"431 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125756589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"More than Just a Cartoon: Meta-Television Culture and the Age of Irony","authors":"M. Fink","doi":"10.5117/9789462988316_ch03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789462988316_ch03","url":null,"abstract":"The cultural climate of the 1990s has rendered irony the dominant mode\u0000 of both media consumption and production. This chapter highlights The\u0000 Simpsons’ pivotal role as a TV show contributing to the cultivation of what\u0000 I dub “meta-television culture” in reference to John Fiske’s key work in\u0000 television studies, 1987’s Television Culture. More specifically, I argue that,\u0000 by working elements of spectator culture into the parodic framework of\u0000 an animated sitcom, The Simpsons has both tapped into and reinforced\u0000 a cultural sensibility of meta-media humor, which characterized the\u0000 zeitgeist of young adults in the 1980s and 1990s.","PeriodicalId":147065,"journal":{"name":"Understanding The Simpsons","volume":"77 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127811484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conclusion: The Simpsons, Cultural Feedback Loops, and the Case of Apu","authors":"M. Fink","doi":"10.1515/9789048540334-011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048540334-011","url":null,"abstract":"The concluding chapter revisits the central idea behind this book—The\u0000 Simpsons’ trajectory into the age of convergence culture. More specifically,\u0000 the chapter discusses notions of the civic imagination and fan activism in\u0000 relation to The Simpsons, as well as the contested relationship between\u0000 the producers of a profitable media franchise and participatory culture.\u0000 In this connection, I interrogate the idea of cultural participation going\u0000 full circle and feeding back to the original text. Traditionally, the media\u0000 industries have resisted interference with what they consider their intellectual\u0000 property. But at the same time, they have to open up their work\u0000 to popular discourse in order for a product to remain popular and thus\u0000 to survive in the marketplace of convergence culture.","PeriodicalId":147065,"journal":{"name":"Understanding The Simpsons","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125861617","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bart Talks Back: The Politics and Poetics of Participatory Culture","authors":"M. Fink","doi":"10.5117/9789462988316_ch01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789462988316_ch01","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter traces the concept of participatory media culture as it has\u0000 emerged from the field of cultural studies and evolved through the work\u0000 of John Fiske and Henry Jenkins. Building on Fiske’s thinking, Jenkins’s\u0000 scholarship on media fandom has fundamentally revised cultural studies’\u0000 traditional neo-Marxist perspective of (sub-)cultural resistance versus an\u0000 assumed dominant ideology. In order to outline a theoretical framework\u0000 for this study, the chapter reconsiders the concept of participatory culture\u0000 and specifies its political as well as its poetic particularities. In addition,\u0000 I discuss popular culture’s participatory character in relation to Fiske’s\u0000 notion of popular cultural capital and what I call “popular semiosis.”","PeriodicalId":147065,"journal":{"name":"Understanding The Simpsons","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120999554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"At the Edge of Convergence Culture: Engaging in the Simpsons Cult","authors":"M. Fink","doi":"10.5117/9789462988316_ch05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789462988316_ch05","url":null,"abstract":"One of the main reasons behind The Simpsons’ success was the series’\u0000 conflation of fan sensibilities and mass appeal. This chapter traces the ways\u0000 in which The Simpsons’ producers created a prime-time television franchise\u0000 and merchandising empire that still managed to carry cult status for a\u0000 devoted fan community. In this context, I discuss strategies of fan marketing,\u0000 transmedia storytelling, audience interaction, and contested claims\u0000 of intellectual property. Finally, the chapter examines instances where\u0000 the interests and economies of The Simpsons’ producers and participatory\u0000 culture have converged, as well those in which they have clashed.","PeriodicalId":147065,"journal":{"name":"Understanding The Simpsons","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132105163","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Echoes of Springfield: The Simpsons in Remix Culture","authors":"M. Fink","doi":"10.5117/9789462988316_ch06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789462988316_ch06","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter analyzes the extent to which the series has become reworked\u0000 and repurposed in the realm of contemporary remix culture. Most notably,\u0000 the series’ semiosis has resonated not only with an avid fan community but\u0000 with participatory culture at large. In particular, “Simpsonizing”—the art\u0000 of translating people’s physiognomies into Simpsons characteristics—has\u0000 popularized a form of caricature and comedic representation. Besides\u0000 examining Simpsons-related fan productions exhibiting nostalgic sentiments,\u0000 this chapter looks into revitalizations of the show’s characters\u0000 and video remixes of The Simpsons’ intro sequence. Finally, I focus on\u0000 Simpsons imagery used in political contexts in Germany to provide a more\u0000 profound exploration of The Simpsons’ semiosis used in participatory\u0000 culture’s civic imagination.","PeriodicalId":147065,"journal":{"name":"Understanding The Simpsons","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123107625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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