I have  recently gone back through my essay and have begun to move on to the media part of my essay but Because of the Christmas peroid and January exams I have decided to take abit of a break from the extended project. I will still be taking notes but will not be adding to my essay for a while.

Recently online  television critic Nathan Rabin on the AV club has gone back to review every episode of The Simpsons. Although some of the reivew is more the quality of the episode it still provides a good commentary and refers to refrences and in-jokes about certain historical events I wasnt aware of. Heres a review for one of the episodes which I talk about lots in my essay http://www.avclub.com/articles/two-cars-in-every-garage-and-three-eyes-on-every-f,45838/). I need to ask my tutor whats the best way to refrence internet websites.

I have taken notes on information of the DVD commentary tracks and will add them to my essay, one commentary on 'The Joy of Sect' has given me alot of information regarding media and religon which I can use. I have also taken out another book from the city libuary called Simpsons Confidentail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons:_An_Uncensored,_Unauthorized_History) although its 100% unofficial it does provide lots of comments and quotes by the behind the scenes people that I can use for my essay.

I have now completed my very first draft of the whole essay and have came to 4500 words. I will add the resources I have used to it and it should bring the word count up. I am using the harvard refrencing generator which my tutor sent me (http://www.harvardgenerator.com/).

My tutor has sent me a link to Mahara (https://mahara.org/) which I'm using to help me structure my essay and to help me present my refrences in an approaite way. I have also been using my form tutor blogs which offers many resources and links about how to go about writing the essay and giving examples.

The Simpson archive (www.snpp.com) which I have refrenced before also has published articles and interviews with writers. This is very helpful and a good way of having lots of resources and potential refrences in one place. Heres the link (http://www.snpp.com/misc.html)

I have just found another documentary this one presented by Oprah which I can use to refrence and use to back up my statements espicially those concering how its related to popular culture. Heres a limk to part of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLTqFZMlbRI.

I have refrenced the Mogan Spurlock documentary and have found a useful BBC documentary on youtube about The Shows creator, about influences and creation of The Simpsons, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX4L1DGtdKU.

I have been working on getting more refrences and have started to look round for more newspaper articles in peritculer. I have also found the DVD commentarys to provide more quotes. I have also ordered more books from the Bristol libuary for the same reason.

Tomorow I am meeting with my tutor, and am going to ask a few questions about the structure of the essay and title page. I will also do my planning review after seeing her.

I have used the Guardian to help me with lots of my topics since they have a number of Simpsons articles. I found this a useful general analysis of pop culture and politics merging http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/video/2010/apr/01/observer-conversation-novels-politics. Which benefits the political part of my essay.

So far this weekend I have completed my first draft for the representation of politics and religon. Its a very rough first draft and will have to go through a lot more times to improve English of it. The Frost on Satire documentary turned out to be quite useful in given me a wider scope of langauge to use on the topic of satire. I may also have the opportunity to talk to a former Simpsons writer over the phone, but can not confirm this for sure yet.

Having done my first draft for some of  How Relgion is represented, I have noticed that this topic has potentially the most about it that I can write about. I may have to reconsider my structure so far since I can talk about Religon alot more than my other topics. This is mainly due to how popular it is in the show or the loads of articles written about the religious aspects of The Simpsons. Article I have found useful and may quote from are;
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2113- a very in depth look at the idea the Simpsons have soul, which goes perfectly with one of my points.

http://www.simpsoncrazy.com/articles/religion - this fan run website is also formative on this subject

http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/2008/09/D-Oh-Top-Ten-Plus-One-Religious-Episodes-on-The-Simpsons.aspx - this spirtual website gives it top 10 episodes with a brief paragraph about the meaning of each episode.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6872394/What-The-Simpsons-can-teach-us-about-life.html - is a British article which is useful in all aspects of my essay

I am now choosing to move on to the next part of my essay which focuses on religon. I have bought the Ebook  The Psychology of The Simpsons by Chris Logan and Alan S  Brown. Its perticularly good for the religon aspect. I have also been using the www.avclub.com for its in depth sophisticated reviews.

I have finished my first draft for the politics part of my essay. I will need to make it longer and add more refrences to what situations it represents in real world politics. I am also showing it to my tutor next week to see where I can improve. I have also put a bbc four documentary on record called 'Frost on Satire' its description is 'Sir David Frost presents an investigation into the power of political satire with the help of some of the funniest TV moments of the last 50 years.' After watching this I may add more information to my essay.

I have just started writing my first draft for the introduction and how politics is represented. I have found the Simpsons and Philosphy book very useful on this topic. I have also used the recent elections in part of my essay to make it as relevant as I can. This Blogger page I have found useful in showing key scenes and episodes to use http://michaels-rant.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/favorite-simpsons-political-quotes.html.

I have now began writing the basics for all my topics. Because with all the Simpson episodes theres so much material I have decided to use a few episodes and on charcter to use as case studys when writing each topic. I have also found a very helpful video on youtube of former showrunner and current producer of the Simpsons Mike Scully being iterviewed on student radio about satire which was very helpful, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8JNS2mL9Hs

After struggling to find much resources on how the human condition is represented in the Simpsons. I have choosen not to include it in my essay. I have also found that every episode of the Simpsons on dvd comes with a audio commentary in which the writers, producers, directors and all other parts of the creative team behind the simpsons talk about that perticular epiosde. I have found these really informative and useful in giving me what events or trends they were inspired by, how the the story was thought up of and public reaction to episodes.

After reading 'The Simpsons and Philosphy' book I have decided on my other topics to talk about. These include religon, media, politics and human condition. I will start a rough plan of each of there topics. I have also found this website http://www.nohomers.net/ , which is really helpful forum with knowledgable fans who answer questions.

This week BBC aired a documentary called 'What Sitcoms say about America' it was really helpful and I have taken note from it after watching it on iplayer. It talked mainly about how they relate to American politics an focused on The Simpsons representation of religion, and showed me there is enough material about religon in the show to use this as one of my topic areas.

Topics that I could potentially talk about, representation of media,politics, society, Western culture, law, religion, human nature, the modern family, human condition, enviroment, treatment of civil servants and the elderly.

I have decided to focus my whole essay on The Simpsons because with over 500 episodes there are plenty of themes and messages that are seen. The keys issues and themes usually have mulitiple message and are usually presented the same way through out. I am now going to read up on the Simpsons in some of the many published academic papers on it, and get an idea of what sort of topics and how in depth in satires them.

After the amount of content and topics I could write about with just one of the  shows , I have decided that it would be more approaite to choose one show and discuss it more in depth, rather then only lightly touching into the subjects.
 With a show like South Park or The Simpsons I could go really in depth into issues such as how law is represented. And if I did one of these shows only I could go into alot more detail of not only how perticular social aspects are represented but also the underlying messages being conveyed.

I'm thinking about doing a comparitive essay comparing and contrasting how animated shows present different and similar themes and messages. Like Comparing how youth is represented across many of adult animated shows like South Park, Beavis and Butthead and The Simpsons.

Having further looked into specific TV shows or films to do my essay, I have looked through film books and on the internet I have seen thats satire and relfection of soceity are talked about the most are, Charlie Chaplin films (Specifcally Modern Times and Great Dictator), Oliver Stone films (Specifically, Natural born Killers, W.), StanleyKurbrick Films like Dr Strangelove. Other films that are frequently used as example are Bonnie and Clyde, Citizen Kane and Taxi Driver.
 Telovision shows that are said are discussed the most about being satires and reflecting soceity are mainly adult animated shows like The Simpsons and South Park.

After doing research through the internet and reading notes on my case studys for film last year, I see that the most widely represented themes are law, love, poverty, woman and race. Whereas most films play satire more to media, politics andpop culture.

 I'm thinking now that rather then focusing on one topic, I would focus on a a few films or a telovsion show and all the themes they bring up and represent. As I believe this would give me more to write about and is more intresting.

Initial Idea

I wanted to do a topic which is unlike most my lessons and something I find more enjoyable. So I'm thinking of doing a analysis of  films or TV shows satire on a perticular subject or its representation of the times eg representation of woman, representation of war.