Methods: Watch South Park’s “Stunning and Brave” and explain it through framing theory

• Because satire frames information  to be ambiguous, messages framed through satire can reach broader interpretive communities within a large audience population. Work from scholars such as Balcetis & Dunning (2006), Kunda (1990), and Long & Toppino (2004) have proven the age-old chestnut that people see what they want to see. 

  Satire as a tool for political messaging may influence popular debates.

"Satire is an elevated form of comedy that is often designed to affect social change. 28 Satire achieves its socially corrective purpose by holding a mirror up to our society and ourselves, and demanding that we improve both. Authors use satire to rebel against an over-codified society and to liberate themselves from a 'stultified' world.29 Indeed, satire has the coercive power to attack hidden "absurdities" in social custom, unmasking fallacies and undermining the hypocrisy of our society. 30 "The Simpsons" is a pop culture icon, which, by Groening's own acknowledgement, has been heavily influenced by the American countercultural movement of the 1960s. While lampooning the law and legal actors, the series depicts a range of problems confronting the American legal system. The series' commentary is certainly comical, but it goes further than mere comedy to "unmask" the flaws in our social systems. The series ventures into the realm of socially corrective satire; it is not only reflective of a flawed legal system, but also represents an attempt to change the system as well."

norms in these animated sitcoms?

2. How key is political, cultural and/or social commentary to episode plot lines?

3. Do the views represented in the animated sitcoms come from a single perspective

or are they from multiple perspectives?

4. How are American societal norms and mores presented in the episodes?

5. How do the comments in these shows differ from what could be presented in a non-animated show?

Animated sitcoms push the boundaries in order to help take advantage of the medium and make their rhetorical statements obvious.

"While episodes of The Simpsons do convey a message, it is easy to question the impact that the messages have. Many argue that an encoded message sent to viewers who may or may not be paying attention has little or no impact."

• “Not only do the citizens of Springfield have the opportunity to make decisions and deliberate on matters of public concern, but the citizens also staunchly portray themselves as being morally equal participants in this decision-making process.”

“ This episode can be used to discuss a variety of political issues that touch on what should, and what should not be censored, and could provide for an interesting discussion of, for example, Mill’s ‘harm principle’ (the idea put forward by Mill in On Liberty that the sole basis for preventing a person from doing what they wished is to prevent harm to others (Mill, 1993, p. 78)). Homer was clearly harmed by being hit on the head by a mallet; however, was this harm a direct result of Itchy and Scratchy, or could it be said that Maggie was the only one directly harming Homer. Likewise, the discussion could be broadened to look at whether being offended by something constitutes harm, and therefore if we should ban something because it offends people.

“For the next component, the satirist chooses a method to approach the issue, which includes two phases, the setup phase, which is neutral in character, and the incongruity phase, which creates a change in the original meaning. This phase is connected to the concept of frame-shifting, where Fillmore defined the frame as a system of categories whose structure is rooted in some motivating context (Coulson 2001), frame shifting can be understood as the violation of the listener’s expectations.”

“One of the satirical devices employed here is metonymy, where the college bar represents the college campuses in the USA as a whole, a microcosm of politically correct culture. Another device employed here is allusion: the aggressive and violent college bros is a reference to real life protests by students against speakers whom they deem not deserving of the right to speak at college campuses because of their views, where a lot of these events are canceled for security reasons. “

RQ2: What types of characters are represented as senders of derogatory messages?

RQ3: What types of characters are represented as recipients of derogatory messages?

RQ4: Will derogatory messages frequently be reciprocated by the reciprocated by the recipients of the derogatory messages?

While acceptance of this hypothesis would be purely subjective, it seems fair to argue that an average of eight derogatory messages expressed per 22-minute episode equates to derogatory messages being very prevalent in Family Guy discourse.

“While cultivation analysis would suggest that replication is problematic for all populations, normalization of derogatory language that is presented as comical and with no consequence may be amplified amongst a younger generation of viewers that do not have the experience to understand the negative connotations of such language.”

“The Simpsons is genuinely parodic. Indeed, this view seems generally agreed on in much academic discourse, where The Simpsons is variously referred to as one of the “most daring cultural and political satire[s] in television history,” (Alberti xiv) “providing both a parody and a critique of organizations,” (Rhodes 375) and “inextricably bound with the more active practice of parody” (Henry 91)”

From the subtextual to the overt, portrayals of social issues are often woven into the fabric of these shows using satire as both a storytelling tool and a tool to get the message across to the audience. studying how shows use satire will be key to my research into how shows portray social issues and to what effect.

• “Marge rarely falls short as a mother or a wife. Her unconditional love for both offspring and spouse often serves as the show’s nod to genuinely moving moments of familial affection. Critics point to Marge’s exemplary mothering as one of the most important ways The Simpsons embodies traditional values.”

Animated sitcoms such as The Simpsons and Daria tend to acknowledge gay and lesbian identities, while presenting same-sex desire as ludicrous or beyond the realm of possibility. Conversely, surreal cartoons such as Rocko’s Modern Life and Spongebob Squarepants tend to ignore gay and lesbian identities but present same-sex desire as ordinary and even vital and worthwhile.

“Or Homer, who in “Bart Gets Famous” and many other episodes openly expresses homoerotic desire (“Oliver North was just poured into that uniform!”), but in “Screaming Yellow Honkers” he refuses to drive his new Canyonero SW because it might imply that he is gay. He pleasantly reflects on a new acquaintance, “What a nice guy. I wonder if he’s gay?’ but threatens violence at the thought of a cartoon cat and mouse being gay. Virtually every male character has both expressed homoerotic desire and made homophobic comments.”

Working within the economy of hyper-irony and manic-satire, both animated series promote dominant and conservative viewpoints while simultaneously targeting and ridiculing them.

“Animation has long relied on one-dimensional representations such as stereotypes for narrative shorthand and comedy. This is due in part to the practice of cartooning that often used satirical caricature as a precise design strategy (Van Buren 2006: 539). Animated representations lend to iconographic construction, offering viewers a set of verbal and visual traits by which to identify racialized characters (Dyer 1984).”

“Both shows tend to get away with dialectic themes of dominance/subordination, xenophobic patriotism/challenging state power, and criticisms of racial essentialism/reification of racial representations.”