In the essay entitled, "Black Bart" Simpson: Appropriation and Revitalization in Commodity Culture, the author Peter Parisi states that people take something that is culturally one way such as ethnicity and make it a way in which they can easily relate to it. This essay attempts to show that people of any background will do or try anything in an effort to communicate with a certain image or object. .
In this essay, they tell of how right after the television show the Simpson's came out, "Innumerable blacks, men and women, young and middle-aged, appeared in cities nationwide, wearing T-shirts adorned with the bootlegged image of Bart," the only boy of the household besides the father and is considered a militant underachiever, "but now dark skinned and posed in a variety of black identities" (Parisi, 125). This is an example of how Parisi feels that people are manipulating an image they like to fit it more securely into their own culture making it more identifiable. As in this case, portraying a black Bart Simpson could possibly help African Americans relate to the show itself. This essay relates to popular media in many different instances but in this case the best scenario to compare it to would have to be the television show The Cosby show.
The show "The Simpson's" is a cartoon play on American culture. The race is undefined to this family because mainly they are cartoons, and secondly they are yellow. The main character, Bart Simpson is a mischievous and defiant teen that terrorizes his school, friends and family. Because of the parody of American culture, we have come to love this awkward, dysfunctional family, so much so that it has been running for 14 seasons. This show was so widely popular that The Simpson's merchandise became a hot commodity. Bart, the main character of the show, became widely popular on items such as t-shirts, posters and other apparel. Teenagers related to him and adults wished they had their childhood back.
