Date: February 2-4
Topic: Bridging Gaps of Time with Oral Tradition
In the introduction of Revolutions in Communication, Bill Kovarik states “without a sense of the past—without some concept of the lives, triumphs, and mistakes of people who have lived before us—we are merely groping blindly into the future” (Kovarik, p. 1). It seems that the group of people in Acts I and II of Mr. Burns were attempting to weave that thread through time, post-apocalypse. They knew that civilization was experiencing an extreme loss, and in that desperation, they tried to preserve something. An episode of “The Simpsons” was perfect for that, because it’s probably the best reflection of pop culture over the past (almost) three decades. On top of that, it’s humorous, and seemed to provide them with some relief… But the episode they chose was also somewhat reflective of their situation. In “Cape Feare,” Bart is cornered and about to be killed by this menacing force… But he uses theater (specifically an unplanned reenactment of a theatrical work) as a distraction tool, and it ultimately saves him. In a way, this is what the group is doing around their campfire.
In the first chapter of Theatre Histories, we are introduced to the concept of differing oralities. It seems that the characters and events in Mr. Burns exist somewhere between primary and secondary orality. They have encountered writing before, and they keep some notes on people in their notebooks, so their orality is not entirely primary (absolutely no encounters with writing at all). But their orality post-apocalypse is no longer “sustained by telephone, radio, television, and other electronic devices” (Zarilli, McConachie, Williams, and Sorgenfrei, p. 17). They’re in this liminal space where, again, the pressure is on to carry some thread of pop culture into the future, and they must do it completely from memory. The result of this 75 years down the road is a totally twisted and darkened version of what the episode was originally and when they were first recalling it, which shows that the apocalyptic event has definitely pushed the orality of civilization back toward “primary” on the spectrum. Otherwise, with written records as in secondary orality, the reenactment of the episode would be nearly perfect.
Some questions: How similar is this “post-electric,” apocalyptic scenario depicted in Mr. Burns to the early oral/theater traditions that first appeared in early human history? Did the apocalypse effectively set media back to such a point?
What is the point/metaphor in exchanging Sideshow Bob for Mr. Burns (Homer’s menacing boss at the nuclear plant) in the production 75 years after the apocalyptic event?
-Phoebe Thompson