Entertain? Inform? Change our thinking? Confirm what we already know? What is television drama designed to do and how does it do it?

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Entertain? Inform? Change our thinking? Confirm what we already know? What is television drama designed to do and how does it do it?

In the early days of television, serious dramas sitcoms, and other mainstream TV genre’s emerged as shows which affects its audience by re-enforcing socially accepted values and attitudes, they did this, in most cases, by taking advantage of the stereotypes of “lesser” social groups. Producers of T.V dramas soon found that by reinforcing socially acceptable values and attitudes they attracted higher ratings, and as a result, not only did they portray these values, they emphasized their importance to society in the changing world. Even in this modern day we are still seeing conservative values being reflected in some of the modern television dramas. The Simpsons is a highly stereotypical representation of American life, it uses satire and commonly held stereotypes to entertain its intended audience. Its importance is due to the conservative values it portrays. This essay will focus on the episode when Bart (son of homer and Marge Simpson, aged 10) brings Abe (aka grandpa Simpson, senile father of Homer Simpson) to school in a special day for grandparents and he proceeds to embarrass Bart by lying. After the experience Abe finds out that another flying Hellfish has died and this leaves just Him and Mr. Burns in the running for the “Hellfish Bonanza” a cache of paintings recovered during WW2. Mr. Burns hires a world-famous assassin to take care of Abe, but none of the attempts work. When Abe goes to “lay low” at the Simpsons place, he tells Bart the story of the Hellfish, but Bart is skeptical. Mr. Burns comes in the night to steal Abe's key. When Bart sees this, he decides to help Abe stop Mr. Burns from taking the treasure. After recovering the keys, and the treasure (with a boat chase in-between), the authorities come to take the treasure back its rightful owner, a rich German.

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Satire is a powerful way in which to influence and entertain viewers of T.V drama. It can present powerful and sometimes shocking views, but, because of the humorous nature of this convention, it is ok. In the Simpsons we see in the opening section that the whole family rushes in from school, work and errands to watch T.V. We laugh at this but the irony is that we are watching the Simpsons on our televisions, so it is actually making fun of us. Also, during the “graveyard scene” where Monty and Abe are talking about the Hellfish bonanza burns ...

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