The Simpsons: a cartoon that deals with important issues

By Núñez, Melina and Villaverde, Florencia

The Simpsons cartoon was created by Matt Groening in the ´80s and made its first appearance on television in 1987. Nowadays, it has become the most popular cartoon around the world. The main characters of this cartoon are the members of The Simpson family: Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart and Magie who live in a city called Springfield. 

Each member takes a particular role in the family. Homer is the husband/father who does not like working and enjoys drinking beer; Marge is the housewife/mother with an unexcited life; Bart is the rebel of the family; Lisa is the most intelligent of the three children; and Maggie is the baby that does not speak. However, all the characters make use of irony and parody in similar ways, dealing with topics such as religion, politics and racism. According to the Oxford Dictionary,  Irony means “the use of words that say the opposite of what you mean, often as a joke”; and parody means “ a piece a writing, acting or music that copies the style of somebody or something in order to be amusing”. Both irony and parody are not only used by Matt Groening as tools for making people laugh but as a means to convey important aspects of modern society. This is the key for the success of this cartoon. 

Religion is one of the major topics in the cartoon. The creator of The Simpsons uses parody and irony in several occasions when dealing with this topic. Some clear examples are the followings: Homer does not think that religion is important to his life but he believes in God when he is in troubles. He practises the Protestant religion although he believes that going to the church is a waste of time. Many times he confuses God with a character of a comic strip (Superman). 

Although religion is a quite delicate matter, most people do not take Homer behaviors or actions as offences. With the use of irony people take it less seriously and many times laugh at Homer jokes and also discover hidden messages in his phrases. 

As regards politics, corruption goes hand by hand with it for Groening. He shows us that politicians can be corrupt when they have money and power through the character of the Mayor. Groening uses parody to make people aware that the Mayor is like most politicians  and does not care about the citizens´ problems, but only about getting more money. 

Sometimes people find many coincidences between the Mayor in the cartoon and the politicians of real life. People take for granted that corruption appears easily in the field of politics, but instead of feeling angry about it as they would in real life, they laugh at this situation. 

Racism can be seen in many episodes of The Simpsons. Apu, an Indian shop assistant, is sometimes discriminated by the citizens of Springfield, especially by Homer. Groening uses parody when he represents Apu as those immigrants who come to America looking for new opportunities in a way that is humorous.  For example, the episode when the Springfield´citizens discover that Apu is an ilegal immigrant and start discriminating him for this cause. 

The Simpsons success lays on the ability of Groening to make people laugh at situations that appear in this cartoon and are similar to the ones of real life. The use of irony and parody contribute to this success and help Groening developing topics that are important in the modern society.