More than Just a Cartoon: Meta-Television Culture and the Age of Irony

Abstract

The cultural climate of the 1990s has rendered irony the dominant mode of both media consumption and production. This chapter highlights The Simpsons’ pivotal role as a TV show contributing to the cultivation of what I dub “meta-television culture” in reference to John Fiske’s key work in television studies, 1987’s Television Culture. More specifically, I argue that, by working elements of spectator culture into the parodic framework of an animated sitcom, The Simpsons has both tapped into and reinforced a cultural sensibility of meta-media humor, which characterized the zeitgeist of young adults in the 1980s and 1990s.

A bus as a compressed public space: Everyday multiculturalism in Milan

“…In this direction, some existing studies were considered: Wilson’s (2011) work on intercultural relations, differentiation and exclusion on buses in Birmingham; Koefoed et al’s (2017) work on cross-cultural encounters on a bus in Copenhagen, and on the tension between familiarity and difference, inclusion and exclusion where encounter is also a bodily experience; and Bacqué ’s (2018) and Poiatti’s (2019) work on how more experienced passengers develop tricks to pass the time, avoiding crowds, or territorialise some seats to feel at home in their routine on the RER B train line in Paris. The ethnographic study on the social life of rapid and local transit networks in Los Angeles realised by Fink (2012) has also been a relevant reference point in this work. Fink puts under observation transit spaces as a particular type of public space where passengers are exposed to contact with very different individuals and groups.…”

“…The article aims to expand the understanding of public transport as a public space by exploring through mobility the city and its diversity. In particular, the 90/91 trolleybus in Milan, as a ‘compressed’ (Fink, 2012) public space of everyday multiculturalism, is the focus of attention. As we will further explain, this specific transit space was chosen because it is the only public transport means offering a 24-hour service, riding in a circle around the core of the city (Figure 1).…”