The Representation of the Orient and the Orientals in the American Animated Sitcom The Simpsons
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Date
2018
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
This Magister dissertation has investigated the representation of the Orient and the Orientals
in the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. It took its theoretical bearings, substantially,
from Edward Said’s works on Orientalism then from Linda Hutcheon’s postmodernist
theories on parody and irony. It also leaned upon Roland Barthes’s “Rhetoric of the Image” in
analysing the snapshots, especially the usage of colours to convey non-verbal messages. The
representation of Orientals in the sitcom is characterized by ambivalence, polyvalence and
proves to be replete with social and political satire. Furthermore, parody which is a form of
intertextuality constitutes the fuel to the sitcom’s representation. The portrayal of Oriental
spaces and people is based on preconceived images of The Arabian Nights, inherited from the
early French and British Orientalist literatures and powered by contemporary American
Islamophobic stereotypes of terrorism, despotism and aberrance. The sitcom proves to be
intertwined with American geopolitics and adheres to the main Hollywood satiric and ironic
Pop art stream. The comparison between the three Oriental communities, the Arab and
Muslim, the Indian and the Jewish communities has shown to what extent the sitcom, at least
the target episodes, is ambivalent and characterized by bias and double standard discourse,
since the Arab and Muslim are depicted as outsiders and foreigners to the American “Salad
Bowl” represented by the emblematic city of Springfield. The Simpsons belongs to the type of
the strong and influential satiric shows, which are too direct and most of the time irreverent
and sensibility-hurting.
Description
128p.; 30cm. +(CD-Rom)
Keywords
Representation, Orientalism, Parody, Irony, Satire, The Simpsons, Animated Sitcom
Citation
Cultural Studies