Godfellas Presentation TV Cultures

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT IT

GENRE:

ADULT

ANIMATION

SCIENCE

FICTION

COMEDY

WHY THE NEED FOR ADULT

ANIMATION:

RISQUE THEMES

GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

DISPLAYS OF SEXUALITY

WHY THE NEED FOR SCIENCE

FICTION:

OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD

INVENTIONS

TO DEFY A FIXED SETTING

WHY THE NEED FOR

COMEDY:

TO GO OVER THE TOP IN

TERMS OF PLOT

TRANSNATIONALISM

VIA

AMERICAN CULTURAL IMPERIALSIM?

THE GODFELLAS EPISODE

KEY THEME COVERED IN THE

EPISODE:

RELIGION

HOW THE THEME WAS COVERED

MAIN PLOT

BENDER BECOMES A GOD FIGURE

(SERIOUS SIDE OF RELIGION)

SUB PLOT

FRY SEARCHING FOR BENDER

(LIGHTER SIDE OF RELIGION)

THE USE OF INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCES IN TV

“THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SIMULATIONS AND THEIR

ORIGINALS IS NOT SIMPLE OR STRAIGHTFORWARD, AS IT IS

OFTEN INTERTEXTUAL IN NATURE, INVOLVING PLAGIARISM,

QUOTATION, PARODY, AND INTERTEXTUAL HUMOUR.

UMBERTO ECO HAS TERMED THESE PRACTICES „AESTHETICS

OF SERIALITY‟” (NAFICY, 1989)

FURTHER EXAMPLES

„NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD‟ SHORT SCI-FI STORY BY

ARTHUR C. CLARKE (1953)

„MICROCOSMIC GOD‟ SCI-FI NOVELETTE BY THEODORE

STURGEON (1941)

THE TWILIGHT ZONE, - “THE LITTLE PEOPLE” EPISODE (1962)

THE VOICE OF "GOD" IS BASED ON VIC PERRIN'S "CONTROL

VOICE" FROM THE OUTER LIMITS

„PLAYING GOD‟ IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

NERD THEOLOGY - KEVIN KELLY

“WE HAVE BECOME MINI-GODS. AND THUS WE SEEK GOD BY

CREATING GODS”

CLOSE READING OF EPISODE

REFERENCES

“In Praise of Cultural Imperialism?”, by David

Rothkopf, Foreign Policy no. 107, Summer 1997, pp.

38–53