Reading the Ungraspable Double-Codedness of
The
Simpsons
Abstract: Reading the interplay be-
tween text, audience, and institutional
context, this article critically examines
the distinctiveness of The Simpsons. It
explores how the animated series uses
textual strategies that are interesting to
and challenging for both (postmodern)
critical theory and processes of inter-
pretation, including existing critical
writing on the program.
Key words: animation; double-coded-
ness; Hutcheon, Linda; Jameson,
Fredric; parody; postmodernism; The
Simpsons
When embarking on research on The
Simpsons, it is surprising to discover
the relative scarcity of existing critical
discourse on the show. There is some
scholarly writing, but considerably
less than might reasonably be expect-
ed, given the long-standing popularity
of the series, whose three hundred and
sixty (and counting) episodes, after all,
provide the opportunity for viewers to
watch a different episode every day of
the year, including leap years.1 Of the
critical writing that does exist, some is
not actually located within television
studies specifically (e.g., Franks
Seven Deadly Sins) and tends to use
The Simpsons as a reference that illus-
trates ideas relating to other topics.
However, even highly relevant dis-
course that explores the program does
not always pinpoint the distinctiveness
By SIMONE KNOX
of it; something often seems left over
in analyses of The Simpsons as a text.
Some of the more obvious reasons for
the general lack of scholarly writing
on The Simpsons may include the dif-
ficulty in analyzing a comedy that
might be classified within either ani-
mation or television studies and that
the show is a vast entity whose gener-
ic and textual identities are far from
homogenous. However, these reasons
do not fully explain this dearth. By ex-
ploring the textual strategies and prac-
tices of the show, this article will tease
out what makes watching The Simp-
sons such a distinctive viewing experi-
ence and suggest how this distinctive-
ness makes it difficult to fully grasp
the show, which in turn contributes to
the lack of discourse on the series.
Even the most cursory research into
the show inevitably faces a rather im-
posing set of statistics that demon-
strate how The Simpsons enjoys com-
mercial success that far exceeds its
ostensible cultural function as twenty-
two minutes of engaging television
material per week (Koenigsberger
44). With a production cost of more
than $1 million per episode, the syndi-
cated showthe longest-running
prime-time animated series in televi-
sion historyis arguably the ultimate
televisual commodity, reaching more
than sixty million viewers in more
than seventy countries per week and
thereby helping to embed both Fox
73
Network and Sky Television as impor-
tant and lucrative components of Ru-
pert Murdochs News Corporation
media empire. Since its inception in
the late 1980s,2 this copyrighted brand
has been firmly entrenched in con-
sumer culture as a multibillion dollar
global merchandising phenomenon.
At the same time, marking itself as
knowing and clever, and lauded for its
satirical wit, the series has become ac-
cepted as a vital part of both US and
global culture, enjoying considerable
critical acclaim that includes winning
an Emmy Award for Outstanding An-
imated Program as early as 1990, a
Peabody Award for providing excep-
tional animation and stinging social
satire, both commodities which are in
extremely short supply in television
today in 1996, and being named the
Best TV Show of the century by
Time magazine in 1999. It is this dou-
ble-coded identity of being both a crit-
ical and commercial success, of being
a superior TV show according to two
different sets of criteria, that consti-
tutes my exploration of the implica-
tions of this double-codedness. The
term double-codedness has become
prominent in discourse on postmod-
ernism, particularly through the works
of Charles Jencks and, subsequently,
Linda Hutcheon, whose writing has
been drawn on within discourse on
Copyright 2006 Heldref Publications
74
The Simpsons. The series has been
characterized as postmodern by a host
of sources, which have referred to it as
among the most consistently creative
and intelligent of the many postmod-
ern television programs (Weinstein
62) and as the high water mark of
postmodern television (Wallace 248).
Usefully, Jason Mittell questions that
terms expediency for studying The
Simpsons (193), but he conceives of it
only in terms of a formalist approach
that matches up the show to a fixed set
of markers. However, when the term is
employed more flexibly and reflexive-
ly as a reading strategy that moves
back and forth between text and (post-
modern) theory, it becomes a useful
means to explore the shows textual
strategies. The series can be un-
derstood as postmodern not only
in the sense that it displays quali-
ties commonly regarded as post-
modern (e.g., a sense of know-
ingness and self-consciousness),
but also in that it addresses itself
to (issues pertinent to) postmod-
ern theory.
The Simpsons as Postmodern
Television: Double-Codedness,
Invisible Quotation Marks,
and Intertextuality
To begin exploring how The
Simpsons displays a distinctively
postmodern inflection, it is help- With this behind-the-scenes look hosted by Troy sonss house (which has been
ful to briefly consider how the You may remember me McClure, The Simpsonss use made to look like a live-action
show itself underwent a shift, of invisible quotation marks helps to build a close bond studio set, complete with live
with its audience.
both in terms of content and
style, toward this particular in-
flection. While the first few sea-
sons were similar to more convention-
ally wholesome sitcoms such as The
Cosby Show, this gave way to increas-
ingly self-conscious, fragmented, and
deliberately inconclusive narratives,
with earlier attention on the character
of Bart and his catchphrases shifting
toward Homer and the peripheral char-
acters. Simultaneously, the style of the
animation also noticeably changed
when Film Roman replaced Klasky-
Csupo as the programs animation stu-
dio at the end of season three. Groen-
ing had originally intended The Simp-
sons to mimic live-action representa-
tion as much as possible,3 but while it
JPF&TJournal of Popular Film and Television
still largely eschews exaggerated ing camera shot that shows Homer
grotesquery of style, the shows ani- floating in the cockpit of a spaceship,
mation style has turned to exploiting in pursuit of beautifully choreo-
the possibilities of the form of anima- graphed, airborne potato chips in the
tion more fully. This includes making 2001: A Space Odyssey-inspired
use of the distancing factor of draw- Deep Space Homer sequence.
ings compared with live action, the po- While this ability to exceed more
tential to suspend conventional laws of conventional forms of live action rep-
physics and budget restraints, as well resentation does not automatically
as to exceed a variety of film tech- entail an ironic perspective, the
niques such as slow motion and elabo- episode demonstrates how The Simp-
rate camera movements, plus the sons uses the animation form to fea-
sheer visual capacity to crowd an ture a heavily self-reflexive and inter-
abundance of information into the textual aesthetic that displays a sense
constituent animated cells. of ironic knowingness, often consid-
To give a specific example, this vi- ered a quality of postmodern televi-
sual style abounds in season sevens sion. When the shows mock matinee
The Simpsons 138th Episode Spec- idol Troy McClure announces that the
tacular, a clip show that looks back show wants to pay tribute to every-
one who makes The Simpsons
possible, the subsequent cred-
its scroll hurriedly up the
screen before coming to an
abrupt stop. The elaborate cam-
era shot of Homer in the space-
ship is ironic because it is such
an exaggerated parody of 2001.
A further look at this episode il-
lustrates that The Simpsons iron-
ic detachment frequently em-
ploys invisible quotation marks:
hosted by Troy You may re-
member me [. . .] McClure, the
resident washed-up celebrity,
who here appears in the Simp-
audience and applause signs),
The Simpsons 138th Episode
Spectacular is not a clip show,
over the programs highlights from but a clip show that looks at the se-
preceding seasons. Exploiting rela- ries with a sense of hyper self-con-
tively recent entertainment technolo- sciousness about its own textuality.
gies, such as the pause/frame-advance The episode mocks the standard sit-
buttons on VCRs and DVD players, com anniversary show by celebrating a
this episode features numerous im- completely random milestone and by
ages full of easy-to-miss details, such making exaggerated use of the con-
as a glimpse of Groenings office ventions of traditional highlights
(which features posters of The Simp- shows, such as a grand introduction
sons and his comic strip, Life in Hell), and relentlessly showbizzy host. Ex-
fast spoof credits, and the trademark plicitly disrupting the illusion that the
public display notice.4 The featured program does not know it is being
clips also employ camera techniques watched from an extra-diegetic world,
that exceed the live action norm and the episode further marks cut-out
call attention to the limitations of classics from preceding episodes
photographic realism, such as a rotat- with a white tint that mockingly draws
 The Ungraspable Double-Codedness of The Simpsons
on the viewers knowledge about the
effects of age on film stock. As they
are rich, complex, and elaborately in-
tertextual, and therefore probably new
footage, these deleted scenes are
deleted scenes that direct the view-
ers attention to the processes of en-
coding and decoding.5
This use of invisible quotation
marks underlines The Simpsons affini-
ty with postmodern theory, given that
several theorists suggest that the
essence of postmodernism is the place-
ment of items between them. Susan
Sontags influential 1964 essay Notes
on Camp argues that camp sees
everything in quotation marks. Its not
a lamp, but a lamp; not a woman, but
a woman (109). Linda Hutcheon
virtually echoes Sontags ideas, when
she argues that postmodernism
takes the form of self-conscious, self-
contradictory, self-undermining state-
ment. It is rather like saying something
whilst at the same time putting inverted
commas around what is being said. The
effect is to highlight, or highlight, and
to subvert, or subvert, and the mode is
therefore a knowing and an ironic
or even ironicone. (Politics 1)
This nudging commitment to
doubleness (Politics 1) can be under-
stood in several ways. It can be
viewed, to quote Kaja Silvermans re-
lated argument regarding the use of
retro clothing, as avoiding the pit-
falls of a naive referentiality (150)
and acknowledging that no cultural
project can ever start from zero
(151). Indeed, the very title of the
episode The Simpsons 138th Episode
Spectacular suggest that the show
wants to understand itself as a product
of previous codings, pointing to the
coded nature of all cultural messages
(Hutcheon, Politics 123). However, it
is also important to consider that this
technique of using invisible quotation
marks potentially inoculates the pro-
gram against being read too straight
(Hill 101) but also works to make the
show popular with its audience, as the
viewers get to share in the cool hip-
ness of this ironic detachment.
The Simpsons employs a further
strategy to create a bond with its audi-
ence that needs to be explored, one that
concerns the series use of intertextual
references and allusions. The Simpsons
features an almost overwhelming num-
ber of references, which range from
pop culture to poetry, politics, and liter-
ature. This conspicuous presence of ref-
erences within the texts of The Simp-
sons has caused much academic debate
concerning its significance (see Irwin
and Lombardo, Allusion; and Ott,
Identity (Re)Construction),6 and
given Groenings often-quoted state-
ment that The Simpsons is a show that
rewards you for paying attention (qtd.
in Irwin and Lombardo 81)it can be
viewed as part of an infinite commodi-
ty circulation within expansive capital-
ism. Presupposing a high degree of
media literacy in its audience, the series
works to construct an expert puzzle of
intertexts and in-jokes. This puzzle of-
fers the viewers the pleasure of recog-
nizing these references and working out
hidden jokes, like the credits spoof.
This is a potent strategy that works in
conjunction with the invisible quotation
marks to enlist audiences by address-
ing them asand rewarding them
forbeing culturally conversant and
in the know. As Irwin and Lombardo
point out,
[t]he clear advantage of making allu-
sions that draw on information that not
everyone possesses is that they strength-
en the connection between the author
and the audience. Author and audience
become intimately connected; they be-
come, in effect, members of a club who
know the secret handshake. (86)
As such, a mutually agreeable sense
of closeness is created between the
text and its viewers,7 which is contin-
ued in The Simpsons-related merchan-
dise like DVD Easter eggs and offi-
cial episode guides bearing the caption
Characters, Episodes, and Secret
Jokes You Might Have Missed.
Answering Jamesons Question
To move beyond the traditional
scholarly analysis of The Simpsons that
applies postmodern theory to the show,
I examine the relationship between the
text and audience. Although many
episodes would be of interest here, sea-
son eights The Itchy & Scratchy &
Poochie Show is a particularly rele-
75
vant point of reference that has been
discussed by Robert Sloane (in relation
to two other episodes, Homers
Enemy and The Simpsons Spin-off
Showcase) because it is marked by a
certain double-edged criticism
(Sloane 160) that critically addresses
the sense of closeness between audi-
ence and text. The major plotline of the
episode is summed up by the official
episode guide as follows:
The ratings of [cartoon-within-a-car-
toon] The Itchy & Scratchy Show
plummet, sending producer Roger Mey-
ers, Jr., on a market-research mission to
discover the reason. When Lisa tells
him that the characters in the show have
lost their impact, Meyers creates a new
character, Poochie [the dog]. Bart and
Lisa convince Homer to audition for
Poochies voice. He gets the part and is
teamed with June Bellamy, who does
the voices of Itchy and Scratchy. To-
gether, they make publicity appear-
ances, fielding questions from nerdy
fans. Poochies debut is not well re-
ceived by the shows viewers. When
Homer finds out that his character will
be killed off, he refuses to cooperate and
creates his own lines instead of reading
from the script. Homer thinks he has
succeeded in convincing Meyers to keep
Poochie alive, but in the next episode,
the character is edited out. (Richmond
and Coffman 226)
The Simpsons episode The Itchy &
Scratchy & Poochie Show is typical
in that it engages in a critique of the
network, form, and medium on which
the series depends for its very exis-
tence, sending up the way television
shows often desperately try to prolong
their (shelf-)lives by grafting on to
new trends, like conducting focus
group research and tossing around
buzzwords like proactive and para-
digm. The result is the first Itchy &
Scratchy & Poochie episode that fea-
tures rap music and plugs for recy-
cling. This is arguably very postmod-
ern for The Simpsons, having made
the notion of running out of ideas the
central theme. The episode begins its
usual satirical commentary by mock-
ing how contemporary society is dom-
inated by the cultivation of a conspic-
uous consumer lifestyle through the
importance of the idiot culture that
Ugly American Homer Simpson re-
lates to so well. (His suggestions for
76
improving the show: Poochie needs
to be louder, angrier, and have access
to a time machine.) At the same time,
however, this episode exceeds the se-
ries more commonly found tendency
of using the hyperviolent The Itchy &
Scratchy Show as a point of com-
mentary for the characters within The
Simpsons, by using the cartoon-with-
in-a-cartoon as a metaparodic device
to play with the boundedness of the
text as a text. It points to its own com-
plicity in the growth of the very same
consumer culture it intends to satirize
(e.g., the depicted Poochie and Krusty
the Klown merchandise, such as the
Poochie Brillo Pad and Krusty lunch-
box, is, of course, reminiscent of The
Simpsons collectibles). Informed by a
hyperawareness of the series cultural
status, function, and history, as well as
of the conditions of its circulation and
reception (Collins 335), The Itchy &
Scratchy & Poochie Show is one of a
growing number of episodes invested
with a pronounced meta-status, but
what specifically demarcates this
episode is the dark tone in its parodic
treatment of itself and how it inscribes
a challenge to its own existence as on-
screen and intraframe with a criticism
by and of its own fans.
This episode sees The Simpsons deal
with the aporias that arise from its dou-
ble-coded identity, which result in in-
teresting moments that might not be
readily reconcilable with the series
commercial logic, and presents a chal-
lenge to critical analysis. It is in doing
this that the series taps into the writings
of one of the most high-profile theo-
rists associated with postmodernism,
namely the cultural critic Fredric
Jameson. To contextualize briefly,
Jameson defines postmodernism as a
periodizing concept whose function is
to correlate the emergence of new for-
mal features in culture with the emer-
gence of a new type of social life and a
new economic order (Consumer So-
ciety 113). Dating the emergence of
postmodernism to when high mod-
ernism and its dominant aesthetics be-
come established in the academy
(Jameson, Consumer Society 124),
he holds that one of the main disconti-
nuities between modernism and post-
JPF&TJournal of Popular Film and Television
modernism involves the very different
positioning of postmodernism in the
economic system of what he terms
late capitalism.
On the premise that different cultur-
al styles are dialectically related to dif-
ferent stages of capitalist development,
Jameson argues that postmodernism is
best understood as the cultural domi-
nant of the logic of late capitalism
(Late Capitalism 46), the end result of
postwar capitalisms unprecedented
commodification and penetration of
not only culture but virtually all
realms of social and personal life, pen-
etrating all spheres of knowledge, in-
formation, and the unconscious itself
(Best and Kellner 185). Characterized
by new consumption patterns, by an
ever faster turnover in the areas of
fashion and styling, by planned obso-
lescence, [. . .] by the demands of stan-
dardization (Bertens 162), late capi-
talism to Jameson particularly involves
the institutionalization of the formerly
subversive and embattled styles
(Consumer Society 111) of high
modernism leading to the loss of their
critical edge. This at once empties
them of any of their older subversive
power (Jameson, Consumer Soci-
ety 124), finally resulting in a new
kind of flatness or depthlessness, a new
kind of superficiality in the most literal
sense (Jameson, Late Capitalism 9) in
postmodern culture. The Simpsons, by
addressing its double-coded identity in
such a way as to explore the texts re-
lationship with its audience, seeks to
address and provide a response to the
following question Jameson himself
poses and leaves unanswered:
My own conclusion here must take the
form of a question about the critical
value of the newer art. There is some
agreement that the older modernism
functioned against its society in ways
which are variously described as critical,
negative, contestatory, subversive, oppo-
sitional and the like. Can anything of the
sort be affirmed about postmodernism
and its social moment? We have seen that
there is a way in which postmodernism
replicates or reproduces reinforces
the logic of consumer capitalism; the
more significant question is whether
there is also a way in which it resists that
logic. But that is a question we must
leave open. (Consumer Society 125)
An answer emerges within The
Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show,
beginning with the scene showing the
focus group composed of some of
Springfields children, including Bart
and Lisa. Lisa assures producer Roger
Meyers that, theres not really any-
thing wrong with The Itchy &
Scratchy Show. Its as good as ever.
But after so many years, the characters
just cant have the same impact they
once had. However, while this scene
is, as Robert Sloane argues, a rare mo-
ment of vulnerability for the show, and
stands out for the statement it seems to
make about the shows continued suc-
cess (145), it still portrays the viewers
as knowing consumers through the ex-
ceptionally clever Lisas insights into
the processes determining the develop-
ment of a show and keeps its focus on
satirizing the problem of remaining
popular. Thus, it leaves intact the inti-
mate, mutually advantageous commu-
nity between makers and audience that
The Simpsons works so hard to
achieve. This rather gentle and good-
natured mockery is in stark contrast to
the moment when Homer (who is ap-
pointed to provide the voice of
Poochie) meets the supposedly grown-
up viewers of The Itchy & Scratchy &
Poochie Show, the blessing and bur-
den of any television series that is the
hardcore fan base. This audience is
(unsurprisingly) depicted as compul-
sive nerds preoccupied with ridiculous-
ly minor details, which echoes the ob-
sessions that The Simpsons own hard-
core fans have with flaws in animation
and logic. The series has Homer re-
spond to these concerns in a (for him)
uncharacteristically intelligent manner,
with a reply that is reminiscent of
William Shatners (Captain Kirk on
Star Trek) infamous Get a life sketch
on Saturday Night Live: Why would a
man whose shirt says Genius at Work
spend all of his time watching a chil-
drens cartoon show? This response to
the kind of critical attention that has
helped make The Simpsons the success
it is marks a shift within the texts satir-
ical metacommentary. What this mo-
ment in the episode begins to do away
with is the indulgent encouragement to
obsessed viewers not only to watch it,
 The Ungraspable Double-Codedness of The Simpsons
but also to study it intently (Ott 71) by
the producers of The Simpsons. How-
ever, since the fans at the question and
answer session only criticize minor as-
pects, such as the editing and not, say,
the writing, the program here retains its
usual fairly gentle self-satirizing and
affirms a sense of warmth the cre-
ators and fans are essentially still on
the same side.
This sense of a community between
the creators and viewers of the show is
finally shattered in the climactic con-
frontation between Bart and Spring-
fields most obsessive-compulsive
nerd, the Comic Book Guy, who has
become a sort of shorthand for criti-
cism of the producer-receiver
relationship (Sloane 162).
Here, the text becomes tem-
porarily detached from the
ostensible diegesis and steps
outside itself, functioning as
an explicit inscription of the
tension between the produc-
tion and reception of the text:
Comic Book Guy: Last nights
Itchy & Scratchy was, with-
out a doubt, the worst episode
ever. Rest assured that I was on
the Internet within minutes,
registering my disgust through-
out the world.
Bart: Hey, I know it wasnt Homers meeting with the hardcore fans still retains the
great, but what right do you close bond between text and audience.
have to complain?
Comic Book Guy: As a loyal
viewer, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What? Theyre giving you thou-
sands of hours of entertainment for free.
What could they possibly owe you? If
anything, you owe them.
(Pause.)
Comic Book Guy: Worst episode ever.
Referencing The Simpsons-related
newsgroups on the Internet, the Comic
Book Guys dismissal of the first
Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie show as
worst episode ever explicitly embod-
ies The Simpsons fans critique. Again,
the episode features a direct reply to
criticism of the show, this time in the
form of Barts exasperated reply to the
Comic Book Guys complaints: What
could they possibly owe you? If any-
thing, you owe them. What comes
through in this confrontation is that
The Simpsons has invested so heavily
in creating a community between cre-
ators and audience as members of a
club who know the secret handshake rather than commercial. The episode
(Irwin and Lombardo 86), that it has
created a kind of dilemma for itself.
The attitude of the Comic Book Guy,
the ideal fan with his demonstrably
comprehensive knowledge of popular
culture that tells of much time spent
watching television programs and
solving their puzzles, indicates that
some fans can become so reaffirmed
that this leads to, as Robert Sloane sug- people involved in the production of the
gests, an under appreciation of the
shows larger project. There is no room
for error in the minds of these fans
(148).
As The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie
Show suggests, the fans criticism ne-
glects to consider the essentially dou-
ble-coded identity of The Simpsons as
both critical and commercial. The con- Simpsons Archive episode capsule
frontation between Bart and the Comic
Book Guy ends with the Comic Book
Guy blankly repeating the words
worst episode ever, without any of the
detailed justification that the profound-
ly unfunny Itchy & Scratchy &
Poochie Show provides. This reluc-
tance of fans to consider The Simpsons
inherently commercial nature seeming-
ly ignores the readily available extra-
textual discourse surrounding the show,
such as Matt Groenings statement that
merchandising is part of the whole ex-
77
perience (qtd. in Loves the Toys).
The reason for this reluctance may sim-
ply be that it is more flattering for these
fans to think of the show as critical
shows a breakdown in the community
and communication between creators
and viewers, and it is interesting to note
here the conspicuous absence of The
Simpsons usual explicit swipes at the
Fox Network in The Itchy & Scratchy
& Poochie Show. Given that The
Simpsons uses these swipes to humor-
ously oppose itself to Foxs business-
show and thereby reinforces the bond
between the creators and viewers, this
absence is not surprising. The
episode cannot feature these
explicit swipes because it in-
tends to shake up this bond
between creators and audi-
ence, revealing that, although
the writers of the Poochie
show are shown not to get on
too well with the employees
of the fictional network, the
makers of The Simpsons and
Foxs business executives are
actually much more closely
positioned than the series
usually likes to admit. In
The Itchy & Scratchy &
Poochie Show, The Simp-
sons briefly drops the invisi-
ble quotation marks that help
to bond it with its audience
and engages in a very committed de-
fense (rather than defense) of itself.
While it is not unreasonable to assume
that some of these hardcore fans
would be flattered by this attention, and
indeed, some of the comments in The
suggest this,8 there is also evidence of a
very negative response to this episode:
No plot, full-fledged unpressidented
[sic] attacks at people who rightfully
observe The Simpsons decline [. . .] If
you stripped it of its bitter flames, it
would be an empty 10 minutes of noth-
ingness. As Comic Book Guy said One
of the worst ever. (The Itchy &
Scratchy & Poochie Show episode
capsule)
It is in this aggressive and bitter satir-
ical treatment of its fans that The Simp-
78
sons provides an answer to Jamesons
question, because it challenges one of
his major claims regarding the per-
ceived complicity of postmodernism as
a cultural correlate of late capitalism,
namely the supposed predominance of
pastiche. One of the significant features
of postmodernism, pastiche expresses
the inner truth of that newly emergent
social order of late capitalism (Con-
sumer Society 113). He distinguishes
it from the related concept of parody as
follows: both pastiche and parody in-
volve the mimicry of other styles, but
while parody depends and capitalizes
on the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities
of the original and the sense of a norm
in terms of which one could ridicule
(Consumer Society 114) these idio-
syncrasies, pastiche is a neutral prac-
tice of such mimicry, without parodys
ulterior motive, without the satirical
impulse. [. . .] Pastiche is blank parody,
parody that has lost its sense of humor
(114). With a use of irony that, as has
been shown, is anything but lacking in
satirical impulse, The Simpsons is
genuinely parodic. Indeed, this view
seems generally agreed on in much aca-
demic 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 cri-
tique of organizations, (Rhodes 375)
and inextricably bound with the more
active practice of parody (Henry 91).
The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie
Show, with its shaking up of the com-
munity between creators and viewers in
particular goes beyond a sense of
pseudo-parody (Culler 150), a term
that was originally discussed by
Jonathan Culler, and which Mittell
briefly considers in reference to The
Simpsons. Culler suggests that, with
pseudo-parody,
the text shows its awareness of its own
artificiality and conventionality [. . .]
only to forestall a possible objection on
the readers part (the reader need not
himself think what the narrator has ex-
plicitly admitted and thus can focus his
attention elsewhere) and to garner addi-
tional authority (the narrator is fully
aware of possible attitudes towards
verse and thus may be presumed to have
good reasons for writing in verse). (150)
JPF&TJournal of Popular Film and Television
In this bitter episode, the text cer-
tainly does not seem to say only what
we want to hear (Culler 157) and
there seems very little left of a level
of goodwill with an audience (Mittell
193), making way for a definite sense
of (parodic) criticality that cannot be
taken back.
Challenges to Both Critical Theory
and the Processes of Interpretation
The Simpsons, it appears, is critical,
which ostensibly answers Jamesons
question. Yet, given the other half of
the shows double-coded identity, at
the same time, this episode, too, unde-
niably works to make a profit for the
show and its network. Answering
Jamesons question inevitably brings gitimized by the very act of inscribing
up another question that Jameson him-
self would be likely to ask, namely,
how can this double-codedness be
squared theoretically? This question
touches on the formative assumptions
of much critical theory and has attract-
ed much debate, such as the insightful
edited collection Leaving Springfield:
The Simpsons and the Possibility of
Oppositional Culture. A possible an-
swer to this question, which acade-
mics are compelled to grapple with
again and again, can be found within
The Simpsons itself and its particular
conception of parody.
The way in which The Itchy &
Scratchy & Poochie Show addresses
and defends its double-coded identity
matches closely the writings of Linda
Hutcheon. Despite her tendency to dis-
miss television in favor of cinema, im-
portant affinities between Hutcheons
work and The Simpsons have been no-
ticed and argued for by a variety of
sources (see Mittell; Henry; Knight;
and Mullen). Hutcheon contests the
Jamesonian interpretation of postmod-
ernism as offering a value-free, deco-
rative, de-historicized quotation of past
forms (Politics 94), and disagrees
with what she sees as the historically
limited definition of parody as ridicul-
ing imitation (Poetics 34) to which
Jameson refers.9 She shows herself
conscious of the range of differing,
often contradictory, meanings that
have defined parody and particularly
draws attention to the etymological
root of the term in the Greek noun par-
odia (Theory of Parody 32). The
Greek prefix para can mean both
counter or against and near or be-
side (Hutcheon, Poetics 26). It is this
double-codedness that would seem es-
pecially apparent in The Simpsons and
its highlighting of its profoundly dou-
ble-coded identity as critical and em-
bedded in that which it criticizes.
Hutcheons work is particularly
helpful, because she points out that par-
ody, depending on recognizable con-
ventions as rules that are to be broken,
is granted a special license to trans-
gress the limits of convention (Theory
of Parody 75). However, it can do so
only within the controlled confines le-
the backgrounded parodied text, albeit
with critical distancing of various de-
grees (83). The Simpsons is complicit,
involved in the production of the very
culture it satirizes (Henry 86) and, as
the episode reflects, it not only admits
its complicit critique, but also defends
it by responding to the critical reception
of its viewers. The defensive critique of
the fans criticism in The Itchy &
Scratchy & Poochie Show can be read
as a defense of the necessary complici-
ty of its parodic transgressions, a de-
fense of the fact that The Simpsons does
not aim to destroy neutralized, closed
systems of authority, because the series
is both dependent on the capitalist sys-
tem for its existence as a commercial
product and the dominant order for its
critical enterprise, for without its object
of criticism, its criticism would not be
possible. Concerning this sense of de-
pendency, Hutcheon argues that post-
modernisms complicit nature is per-
haps necessary (or at least unavoidable)
in deconstructive critique (you have to
signaland thereby installthat
which you want to subvert) (Politics
152).
Following the Derridean line of
thought that oppositions are never
pure oppositions, but require an absent
Other for their presence and mean-
ing, it is through this foregrounding of
its own undeniable nature as a multi-
ply reproducible mass medium that
The Simpsons ultimately challenges
the binary oppositions of purity/conta-
 The Ungraspable Double-Codedness of The Simpsons
mination and criticality/conformity.
This problematizes the whole project
of criticism (i.e., the assumption of the
possibility to occupy a position out-
side from which one can theorize cul-
tural phenomena as ideological illu-
sion that, among others, Jameson fails
to recognize). As such, it challenges
the formative assumptions of much
critical theory dealing with mass cul-
ture, in particular the Frankfurt
Schools concerns regarding the inher-
ently regressive potential of mass cul-
ture. As Robert Sloane states:
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer
[. . .] maintain that texts produced by the and ungrounded approach found all too
culture industry always bear the
marks, and support the logic, of capital-
ism. [. . .] However, once it is de-
cided that television texts and their
production are always supportive
of the dominant culture, we can
only study the ways in which audi-
ences take up texts [. . .]. This ap-
proach forecloses any other possi-
bilities to analyze the logics at
work in the production of televi-
sion texts. (139)
What The Simpsons seems to
ask for, then, is for critical theory
to allow for the existence of its
own critical undertaking and con-
sider the actual strategies and
practices the text employs and di-
alectically account for popular
culture as a mix of forces from Scratchy cell with the production code of the embed- fend the double-codedness of
both below and above; marked ding episode is a gesture of reconciliation to The Simp- the show, revealing that gaps be-
by both resistance and incorpo- sonss fans.
ration (Storey 150).
To briefly return to Jameson
and his influential work, this analysis
of The Simpsons obviously raises some
important objections to his ideas, par-
ticularly his correlation of stages of
culture with specific stages of capital-
ism. Jamesons reason for asserting the
primacy of the economic over the cul-
tural (and for relativising postmod-
ernism as a stage in the development of
capitalism) is his intent to rescue
Marxism as a relevant theoretical
framework. However, as his strategy is
rather reductive and deterministic, it
has generally been identified as one of
the major problems with his argumen-
tation (Hutcheon, Politics). The Simp-
sons paradoxical double-codedness as
both commercial and critical asks of
critical analysis to investigate the inter-
connections between the economic,
political, social, and cultural instead of
reducing (postmodern) culture to a
mere symptom of more fundamental
economic processes. Specifically, with
its complicated relationships between
encoding and decoding, The Simpsons
calls for a criticism that theorizes cul-
tural developments in accordance with
actual practices and concrete instances.
Nevertheless, Jamesons work is valu-
able and important for approaching a
text like the double-coded The Simp-
sons, because he avoids the ahistorical
often in writing about postmodern film
and television, bringing to the fore the
The in-joke of inscribing the crudely lifted Itchy &
material conditions of this apparently
immaterial world of postmodernity
(Homer 188), and a commercial
leviathan like The Simpsons certainly
belies any notions of a postmodern text
as some kind of free-floating entity of
empty signs that is divorced from ma-
terial circumstances.10
What The Simpsons appears to pre-
sent is a challenge to theory and
analysis, to comprehend that it is both
critical and commercial, able to
speak to a discourse from within it,
but without being totally recuperated
by it. (Hutcheon, Poetics 35) This
potential for final nonrecuperation
can be understood within the essential
double-codedness of and use of paro-
79
dy by the show. As Gruteser, Klein,
and Rauscher state, what is interesting
about The Simpsons is that as object
of criticism [it] is itself critical (12;
my translation). The Simpsons invests
its parodic energies so that it always
simultaneously is and observes/ana-
lyzes itself. If parody describes a re-
lationship between two texts: the par-
odic text itself and the parodied or tar-
get text (Knight 101), then within
The Simpsons, the distinction between
the two has folded in on itself.
Marked by both an inward-directed
self-reflexive investigation of the dis-
course of art and, due to parodys po-
tential to investigate its own processes
of production and consumption, also
an outward-directed confronta-
tion with the problematic rela-
tion of the aesthetic to the
world of significance external
to itself, (Hutcheon, Poetics 22)
The Simpsons is both parodying
and parodied text at once. The
Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie
Show is both a text (that is)
and metatext (that critically ex-
amines itself). In its constant
slippage between the two, what
slips out are moments, such as
the confrontation between Bart
and the Comic Book Guy, that
in this episode explore and de-
tween creators and fans remain,
despite the obvious efforts to-
ward the end of the episode to
reaffirm the community by offering its
attentive fans traditional pleasures
(such as the in-joke of the inscribed
production code of The Itchy &
Scratchy & Poochie Show in the de-
liberately crudely lifted cartoon cell,
when Poochiein the worn-out
clich and only genuinely funny mo-
mentleaves to his home planet).
In these moments, the double-
codedness of the text is a site for both
authorial inscription and interpretative
reading to come together to such an
extent that they superload and disrupt
the textness of the text. These mo-
ments, when the sense of double-
coded identitycritical and commer-
cial, text and metatext, site of inscrip-
80
tion and interpretationrequire an
analysis that can deal with the fact
that The Simpsons analyzes itself first.
In these moments, The Simpsons is a
text so on the edge, that, although the
application of (postmodern) theory
(such as Hutcheons) fits the show
and furthers a deeper understanding
of its texts, The Simpsons can never
quite be pinned down, precisely be-
cause its double-codedness afford its
texts the capacity to flip-flop between
textual meaning and metacommen-
tary. With an unknowable and ungras-
pable residue remaining within the
epistemological game it plays, which
brings to mind Derridas logic of the
supplement (Of Grammatology), The
Simpsons poses a challenge to theory
because something always escapes.
As Christopher Norris puts it,
something must always escape in the
reading of a text, no matter how subtle
or resourceful that reading. Any com-
mentary that aims to speak the truth of a
text will find itself outflanked or outwit-
ted by a supplementary logic which de-
feats the best efforts of criticism. (116)
This ineffable thing that escapes in
The Simpsons is the ungraspability
that is both a supplementary, evanes-
cent effect easily missed by critical
analysis, and a challenge to the theo-
retical ideas that have been posed
about the series in existing discourse.
This makes watching The Simpsons
such a distinctive experience.
The Simpsons is enabled to flip-flop
so much, because animation as a form
can be accepted as being on the
edge: while it conventionally strives
toward the impression of verisimili-
tude, animation, with its lack of a ref-
erent, is at the same time freed from
the constraints of liveaction represen-
tation and verisimilitude.11 The Simp-
sons is able to make use of animations
inherent spectacle in the freedom of
its graphic vocabulary (Wells 50)
when it flip-flops between setting up
and disrupting audience expectations
to make this shift at any moment. As
one of the shows producers com-
ments, animation is very segmented,
so we just lift things in and out. If you
watch an old episode of I Love Lucy,
[sic] youll find it laborious because
JPF&TJournal of Popular Film and Television
they take so long to set something up
(Jean qtd. in Rushkoff 114). The Simp-
sons is ungraspable in both the sense
that something escapes (and as a re-
sult cannot be pinned down) when the
program flip-flops, and that this flip-
flopping itself isbecause of the ani-
mated formunpredictable (and as a
result cannot be pinned down). As far
as the specificity of animation as a
form is concerned, there is, of course,
another case of double-coded identity
at work here, in that the animated
form, more than any other genre,
could be logically exploited across a
variety of retail outlets. Theme parks,
toys, clothes, magazines, CDs, and
musicals-on-ice are better suited for
Scooby-Doo, for instance, than Saved
by the Bell (Sandler 94).
Conclusion: The Deeper Logic of
The Simpsons
The Simpsons proposes that a main-
stream television show is able to be
both commercial and critical, which
possibly does confirm Jamesons
claim that postmodern cultural forms
express the deeper logic (Con-
sumer Society 125) of consumer cap-
italism, but it hints that this deeper
logic itself might be more double-
coded than is often assumed. The
Simpsons relationship to critical theo-
ry far exceeds that of being illuminat-
ed by theory, taking up and problema-
tizing theory and analysis with its
analysis of itself. In this shaking-up of
traditional epistemological order (in
which media texts are something that
can be easily unpacked by theory), The
Simpsons and its double-coded mo-
ments of slippage challenge the
process of its own reading by the
viewer and make demands of critical
analysis to employ a reading method-
ology that looks not only from theory
to text, but also from text to theory,
working from inside the program.
Through their potential resonances
and tensions, text and (postmodern)
theory can illuminate each other.
NOTES
1. This relative scarcity becomes even
more apparent when considering the level
of scholarly output on more recent and less
long-lived television programs, such as
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
2. Paul Germain, a former producer of
The Simpsons, notes how the show was
created within a thoroughly commercial
context: The Simpsons was developed in-
stead of the initially planned animated ver-
sion of (Groenings already established
cartoon) Life in Hell, because the involved
parties couldnt reach an agreement about
using Life in Hell, [sic] because Fox want-
ed to own certain kinds of rights that Matt
Groening was unwilling to give them
(qtd. in Neuwirth 6).
3. In the 2000 BBC documentary The
Simpsons: Americas First Family, Groen-
ing discusses the conscious rejection of
what he calls rubber band reality, which
includes avoiding the clich of characters
walking off a cliff and only falling once
they realize they are walking on air, the use
of mickey mousing and drawing eyeballs
cross-eyed.
4. The density of The Simpsons visual
style is further enabled by the use of the
animatic, a machine that synchs key ani-
mation and layouts to the dialogue track
and provides more scope for adjustments
and fine-tuning.
5. Although the DVD audio commentary
for this episode suggests that these are ac-
tually deleted scenes, it is important to
consider The Simpsons creative makers
tendency toward self-mythologizing and
that these scenes have not appeared as ex-
tras on previous DVD box sets.
6. Although the program mostly expects
its audience to get these references,
William Irwin and J. R. Lombardo discuss
the possibility that some viewers will re-
alize [. . .] that an allusion is being made
although they do not know to what it
refers. Still, this does not have the effect of
making the viewer feel lost. Rather the
viewer may chuckle, realizing that some-
thing funny is going on even though he
cant fully appreciate it (89).
7. At the same time, this strategy of cre-
ating an expert puzzle also creates a sense
of elitist separation within the audience,
i.e., a competition among fans to get the
most (and the most obscure) references.
The community between the text and its
audience is predicated on a basis of exclu-
sion and elitism: There is, to be sure, a
certain elitism and exclusion involved in
the use of allusion. To cultivate intimacy
with some is, sometimes, to exclude oth-
ers (Irwin and Lombardo 87).
8. Finally, they tackle US! [. . .] I cant
see how any of us can hate this oneI
mean, its always nice to see yourself on
TV. The first classic episode of the season
(The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show
episode capsule).
9. For a more comprehensive discussion
of parody than space allows here, see
Gray.
 The Ungraspable Double-Codedness of The Simpsons
10. That The Simpsons is embedded
within a very real context is reinforced by
the fact that the animated show is produced
using cheaper labor in South Korea to
clean up drawings and ink individual cells.
11. Interestingly enough, Jameson him-
self briefly refers to animation as in some
way inherently on the edge: for details of
how he argues animations materialistic
[. . .] specificity is at least two-fold (207),
see Video-text.
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SIMONE KNOX is a postdoctoral re-
search fellow in the department of theatre
and television at the University of Reading
in Berkshire, UK. She has written articles
for Encyclopedia of Buffy Studies and Eu-
ropean Studies Research Institute.