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The Simpsons Key Message Essay

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In the episode of The Simpsons, ‘The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star,’ there are many explicit examples of religion. Therefore, this paper will explain the main messages that are in the episode, under the lens of Key Concept number five. It will begin with an explanation of the Key Concept and the episode. Next it will depict the various messages of the episode beginning with the encouragement of religion, following it will articulate how it discourages people from religion and finally it will describe how the episode portrays religious understanding and tolerance, thus proving that through this episode certain ideological messages were disseminated.
Key Concept number Five holds that media messages contain ideological and value messages …show more content…

The episode makes various jokes at the expense of Christianity. One example being; how St. Peter is represented as vulgar and rude as he spits on Father Sean and calls him various insulting names in the episode (The Simpsons, 2005). This not only portrays the Holy Saints in a bad light, but also treats a core aspect of the Catholic religion as a joke. Marge also refers to Catholics are a ‘peculiar bunch’ as they abstain from birth control and various other things (The Simpsons, 2005). She also depicts their ways of worship as a game of ‘Simon says’ (The Simpsons, 2005). The episode also discusses the role of women, for example when Bart says “this is the Catholic Church, chicks have no authority here’ (The Simpsons, 2005). This portrayal shows that women do not have a space within Catholicism. Thus these issues can be seen as aspects of discouragement towards Christianity. Therefore media can be perceived as a realm in which ideological messages and value messages are disseminated, that being in this case the discouragement of the Christian

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