The Construction of Reality in the World of 'The Simpsons' Applied to Theories by Jean Baudrillard and Others

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Duisburg-Essen (Department of Anglophone Studies), course: Literary and Cultural Theories, language: English, abstract: Maybe more than any other show on TV, the long-running series The Simpsons qualifies for a scientific analysis. The humanoid, yellow family and all their friends and fellow Springfieldians are citizens of a semi-realistic realization of a standard American city. As this paper will try to outline later on, there are incredibly many allusions to other pieces of art integrated within most of The Simpsons episodes. This paper will look at how this is done and why it works even if the spectator does not even realize these intertextualities. Moreover, it will try to apply some thoughts of the (literary) theories of Jean Baudrillard and Karlheinz Stierle to the setup of The Simpsons and thereby outline the depiction and structure of different realities or different levels of reality within the series.