First Simpsons Episode

Although meant for older kids and younger teenagers, the first episode of the Simpsons contains deeper themes and topics that extend to a much older age group. There were many social stereotypes represented in the episode, from rich people being a weak, snobbish group, shown by the bumper car collision, to the racial stereotypes of Germans, where Marge cooks every type of German meat and type of sausage for dinner for the girl’s dad. Not only social stereotypes are shown, but many gender stereotypes are displayed in the episode. When Bart and his girlfriend go to the basketball game or some game, all the men, Bart, Homer, and the girl’s dad all cheer and stand up for a score, while the girl sits there staring blankly at the game. Girls are shown to unable to comprehend sports, while in contrary, boys are shown unable to understand relationships. Later, Lisa explains to Bart about how much the girl loves him, yet Bart seems clueless about the subject. After Bart leaves the girl because his lack of relationship understanding, his friend Millhouse takes the girl as his own girlfriend. Bart begins to regret his decision to break up with her, because now he has suddenly fallen in love with her. The idea of a mimetic desire is shown here, with Bart only wanting the girl now because his friend has her in his hands. Although aimed towards a relatively younger audience, the Simpsons episode contained much deeper themes. I can not really say that it is not problematic to show and introduce such themes, since they might actually shape and show to the younger viewers social and gender stereotypes which they might undertake themselves. Maybe it did not do anything other than show to the older viewers the problems existing in our society, but I think that a show like the Simpsons is generally not taken seriously enough to have such mental effect on the target audience