Fuchs Michael: The Simpsons

The Simpson family has been a frequent visitor to millions of households around the globe for two decades and the TV show centering on the yellow family is arguably the most successful TV series of all time. But THE SIMPSONS is not only economically successful, it is also intelligent. Recent publications have investigated the show‘‘s philosophical and psychological implications and have thereby proven that the show is more than an ‘‘ordinary‘‘ animated cartoon. The show has perfected the postmodernist aesthetic, an aesthetic that is characterized by meta-referentiality and intertextuality. The incessant references to TV shows and movies past and present may lead some academics to claim that THE SIMPSONS is the kind of fiction that only springs from and leads to fiction, but John Barth already noted some twenty years ago that "all fiction about fiction is in fact fiction about life." Following this line of thought, THE SIMPSONS has to say a lot about the society that makes the show successful. The book at hand discusses the TV show THE SIMPSONS from two related perspectives: its relation to postmodernism and its relation to the postmodern American society.