Is modern-day American pop culture ruining the show?

Santa Shoz

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John Swartzwelder aimed The Simpsons to be a parody and reference to "Classic America" pop culture. However, the show eventually started to drift away deeper into modern-day pop culture ever since Mike Scully and Al Jean changed the direction. Then there's the fact that many of the classic Simpsons episodes or at least aspects of it are based on several members of The Simpsons Staff's childhood and teenage years before The Simpsons existed. Now, you see many writers and producers praising celebrities, trends, and popular icons as inspirations for several Simpson episodes. It's pretty obvious that modern-day American pop culture does not mix well with The Simpsons but is it one of the bigger issues?

To keep it short, do you think modern-day American pop culture is one of the biggest issues with the show? Do you also think The Simpsons could've still retained some of it's quality if the show focused on John Swartzwelder's vision for the show instead of Mike Scully's and Al Jean's vision?
 
Not at all, and you're ignoring how much the classic era referenced and parodied then-current pop culture. Lazy writing and bad characterization are what has been ruining the show for several seasons. The show has had an AWFUL track record with writing female characters for quite some time, turning Marge and Lisa into very one-dimensional beings and introducing other one-time (occasionally returning) female characters to be nothing more than love interests for Bart. The kids are written more like teenagers now because the show doesn't really have any teenagers and they want to tackle teen issues... and it does NOT work. Plots are recycled constantly; find me a season from the last 6 years without both a "Marge and Homer have a marriage crisis" plot and a "Bart gets a girlfriend/falls for a girl" plot.

People will criticize the use and prevalence of iphones and ipads (sorry--myphones and mypads, made by mapple) but those are only a problem when they become a crutch for--again--lazy writing. Otherwise, despite what some people assume, it is actually *more* realistic for a blue collar family to have tablets and smartphones, yes, even apple/mapple brand, because they are cheaper than and preform most all the functions of laptops and desktop computers.
 
I do think that the show can appear to be trying too hard to reference popular culture and fad-trends which make the show sometimes appear pretentious when we consider more subtle pop-culture references used in classic simpsons. I think that earlier versions of the show featured clever usage of references to pop culture, whereas now they seem too forward and in your face, and can be dwelled on for too long.

In a way I think that maybe SImpsons is just following culture trends, whereas when the show was new and fresh it was very much creating trends. Now other cartoons are parodying pop-culture more and more often, The Simpsons doesn't appear as pioneering as it once did.
 
No. I don't give a shit about American pop culture of any decade, yet I love the classic era of The Simpsons.
 
John Swartzwelder aimed The Simpsons to be a parody and reference to "Classic America" pop culture. However, the show eventually started to drift away deeper into modern-day pop culture ever since Mike Scully and Al Jean changed the direction. Then there's the fact that many of the classic Simpsons episodes or at least aspects of it are based on several members of The Simpsons Staff's childhood and teenage years before The Simpsons existed. Now, you see many writers and producers praising celebrities, trends, and popular icons as inspirations for several Simpson episodes. It's pretty obvious that modern-day American pop culture does not mix well with The Simpsons but is it one of the bigger issues?

To keep it short, do you think modern-day American pop culture is one of the biggest issues with the show? Do you also think The Simpsons could've still retained some of it's quality if the show focused on John Swartzwelder's vision for the show instead of Mike Scully's and Al Jean's vision?

Where exactly did you assume The Simpsons reflect John Swartzwelder's views?

First and foremost, the show is Matt Groening's. His vision trumps all others, including the showrunners. Swartzwelder was a mid-level writer/producer who happened to write fast and delivered solid first drafts for the producers (and therefore tended to write more episodes than other writers), but he was never the show's creative supervisor.

And how do you know today's episodes don't have some basis on the writer's lives? For all we know, last night's A-plot may have easily been based on Carolyn Omine's seven year old son. He's at the right age to experience the joys of having a new teacher, as he moves up the ladder on elementary school.
 
Everyone else who knew Carolyn Omine had a 7-year old son, please raise your hand.
 
The references themselves, lazy as they may be, aren't necessarily the problem. The problem is how and why they're used by the writers. In the classic era, pop culture references were used as an occasional sight gag, or once in a while the jumping-off point for a good episode. By contrast, the current episodes seem to simply start with the pop culture reference, and try to figure out how to shoehorn in as many gags involving that trend, and simply telling a good story seems almost an afterthought.
 
[MENTION=65804]ThatsAGobblin[/MENTION]

I don't think it's unrealistic that they have them use tablets and smartphones--it's the fact that it's shoved in our faces. Almost every HD episode has a scene where a character is shown using one and there's usually a poor joke associated with it as well. That's why it comes off as an attempt to be relevant. If they are just shown using them occasionally, I wouldn't have a problem with it. In the older seasons, there are a couple instances where characters have cell phones and I believe one scene where Homer has a pager, but it wasn't every single episode and it wasn't so in-your-face . Also, the fact that they use Apple is just because Apple is the most recognizable and it's "cool". If it was just some generic brand (like when Homer gets a computer in "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes") it'd probably bug me less.

The show can reference pop culture (as it always has) without becoming a "fad of the day" show (with episodes like "YOLO" and the Google Glass episode). The bad writing nowadays is what makes the pop culture references seem worse.
 
Almost every HD episode has a scene where a character is shown using one and there's usually a poor joke associated with it as well.

Whoa, that might be true. It might be interesting to see a complete list of episodes where Apple/Mapple technology is shown and referenced (I know the first iPod reference is in season 16's Future-Drama), but I don't think anyone would want to do that.
 
yes i do think modern day American pop culture is one of the issues with the show, but i do like John Swartzwelder's episodes, i think hes the only guy to make a Huey Long joke funny.

 
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Mike Scully was the one who embraced it like his predecessors with that Macarena joke in homer vs. new york but all in all American pop culture was always used in the the simpsons even in the early days of the show with the Michael Jackson references and constant movie Parodies, al jean brought the show more realism which saw modern day American pop culture being more of the life blood of the show with the social media and the constant pop music and movie references so yeah i think it kind of ruined it.
 
People who claim that a decline in culture from the '90s to the present day is why The Simpsons have been declining probably don't understand what made The Simpsons so great in the first place. As much as The Simpsons ripped on pop culture back in the classic era, they had a solid foundation of characters, plots, timeless humor, and genuine emotion to back it up. Those aren't as present anymore in the latter-day seasons, so the show isn't as good anymore. Simple as that.

As for the pop culture references, I'll have to echo what others have said; it's not the pop culture that has declined, it's the writing. Instead of products like Duff and Laramie Cigarettes that were blended naturally with Springfield and satirized broad aspects of commercial products (the commercials featuring scantily-clad ladies, the exploitation of addiction; Duff Zero, anyone?, etc.), we are left with lazily-produced parodies of specific products that are anything but ripe for satire (Mapple, Funtendo Zii, MyTube). If there has been a pop culture decline in the last ten years, it could be argued that the writers actually have more problems with society that they can satirize. Instead, they choose not to, and we're left with lame pun titles.

The Simpsons heavily relying on technology doesn't bother me nearly as much as it does most of the people here; it's not out of the ordinary for an average American class working family to own iPhones and tablets. Again, the problem lies entirely in lazy writing. Society's overdependence on these products is ripe for satire, but for the sake of convenience when writing plots, the writers buy into this overdependence and have whatever character pull out a tablet whenever it's needed to advance the plot.

Everyone else who knew Carolyn Omine had a 7-year old son, please raise your hand.

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That's what I've noticed about modern Simpsons; they often don't satirize these things, they just take part in them.
 
Pretty much. Modern Simpsons celebrates pop culture trends and happily includes Simpsonized versions of trends in episodes to collect reference hits and me-too back patting. Any attempt at satire is in over-the-top heavy-handed fashion usually in the form of a Homer rant where he clubs us over the head blatantly - see Politically Inept, with Homer Simpson or his freemium games lecture from the well-received Simpsorama a week ago for token examples of this. Well-done satire is a rare event these days and we celebrate it accordingly when it happens (Steal this Episode, The Book Job).

Modern-day American pop culture provides an endless fountain of topics to satire and mock intelligently. Look no further than South Park for a cartoon that continues to do it expertly after 18 years.
 
It seems to me that at some point, Al Jean must have heard some critics suggest that the show is no longer relevant after being on TV for so many years, and this is all a ham-fisted show of saying something like "See! Look at that cutting-edge modern reference! See how relevant The Simpsons is???"
 
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