Midterm Question

After watching the Simpsons episode, I think its easy to see the different ways that the episode not only satirizes the workers but the owners as well. Starting off with the workers, you could see the first example right away. You see Homer Simpson sitting on the couch watching TV. In my opinion this was well overlooked because it has blue collar workers playing the role of the couch potato when they are not working. You see that as that is where the episode starts off. Now going over to the second example, I think you could see the episode use satire when reflecting the intelligence of the working staff, you see the workers get offered some beer and completely disregard the fact that they were having one of their main benefits being splashed. If you look deeper into it, it had me thinking if they did that because usually blue collar workers are not college graduates and if that tied into it. Going into a third example, you could look at the negotiation skills of Homer when hes at the dinner table. You look at how he tells Lisa that he just needs to be the better negotiator but follows that up with trading Bart a doughnut for a "delicious," door stopper. looking deeper into this, you could see the reflection on workers having to represent themselves and not having the same knowledge that big time corporate bodies have, eventually leading to the big disadvantage. this could serve as a transition into #4 as we look into the satire being inputted into the joke of the workers representative going missing along with the workers not expecting him to turn up. The satire lays in humor mirroring the workers and the union not being able to have a good representative or they would end up missing. Now looking into #5 for the workers/union, you look at Homer celebrating not having to be the president anymore. I feel like you could look deeper into that and see that there is some type of stereotype that workers want their rights but do not have the ability to lead that fight. The episode used satire to make it comedy and play well with the Simpsons show.
Now lets look at satire being used to reflect the owners and the management of the big corporations.
The first moment of the episode is the very beginning  where you see the rich people in the show that Homer is watching. You see ice sculptures and shrimp cocktails while everyone drinks their expensive wine with their pinkies up. Its using humor to represent the upper class where corporation owners land. Example #2 is also the very beginning where Homer says, "Nobody is that evil," and then it cuts to Mr. Berns laughing very obnoxiously while his power plant worker is about to fall from his work space. The humor is being used to represent the cold bloodlessness that is so often used to describe big owners. The third example is when Mr. Berns begins to have a flashback and his grandfather fired a worker for having a few atoms in his pocket. This moment is mocking the greed that corporation owners are known to have with no wanting to share any of their wealth. not even several atoms. #4 is in the same exact flashback where the worker says he is going to form a union and come back for him until they become corrupt. This is the mockery of big time unions, letting money suede their priorities from the people, to the money. Its saying that eventually that worker is going to be seeing the money that can be made, only to the expense of the workers of course. Finally #5 is where Mr. Berns has his goons kidnap Homer. That alone was the mockery of how dirty these corporation owners really are. To have goons sent out to kidnap a worker so they could discuss the new deal. Satire was used to make it fit in with the Simpsons humor. Those are the 5 examples for each.

Now we look at how the episode normalizes capitalism. Well first off it normalizes it because it all comes back to money. Even when Homer accepted the job as the union leader, the first question he asked was what does the job pay. Which he only accepted his job so he could get his daughter braces, who was a victim of capitalism as the dentist used a book to scare the family in order to get them to spend more money. Then you look at Mr Berns trying to play the sketchy way in order to make more money by canceling out the dental plan as he winked at Homer and tried to get him to accept some bribes but of course, Homer took it the wrong way and ended up refusing. The whole episode is about money and that is the biggest normalization. None of this stuff is crazy to us because it just seems like life today. That is why the episode affirms capitalism.

Taking a look at why the episode challenged capitalism, is by looking right at the union. The union wasn't becoming corrupt and stayed on agenda when fighting for their dental plan. It wasn't about making more money anymore, it was only about being taken care of. And then you look at Mr Berns and he did not end up murdering Homer or keep this going to take their dental plan away. Capitalism is definitely challenged in this episode. The union workers were not even fighting for more money but in fact got their attention shifted by some beer. If this episode was really affirming capitalism, Homer would be accepting some huge boatload of cash to stay in position allowing an ability to grow with Mr Berns while union workers believe that they are being fought for. It was definitely a challenge to the affirmation of Capitalism.