Smile

One of the most famous paintings in the world, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, has undergone much scrutiny, mimicry, etc in the centuries since it was originally created. In 1919, the famous DADAist Marcel Duchamp painted his own version, added a cheap mustache, and titled it “Elle a chaud au cul”, or, “she has a hot ass”. Since then, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, and what seems like half-the-internet have reinterpreted the mysterious lady. In the picture of the Mona Lisa as a character on the Simpsons, we see post-modernism as Frederic Jameson christens “post modernism”, that is it depicts “the effacement… of the older (essentially high-modernist) frontier between high culture and so-called mass or commercial culture, and the emergence of new kinds of texts infused with the forms, categories, and contents of that very culture industry so passionately denounced by all the ideologues of the modern”.

The Simpsons ‘Mona Lisa’ does not make the artful, modernist point found in either Duchamp’s or Dali’s Dadaism/Surrealism. According to Jameson, “postmodernism…[is] fascinated precisely by this whole “degraded” landscape of schlock and kitsch, of TV series”, and this interpretation is clearly revealing in the popular culture of the Simpsons art style. Even the name “Mona Lisa”, parallels the name of the Lisa Simpson, the show’s main female lead. No point is being made; the reference is created only for the mild, kitsch amusement of connecting one thing that contemporary viewers will appreciate with an absurd – thus amusing – subject.

According to Jameson, the Simpsons Mona Lisa is postmodern because it fills the capitalist need that post modernism thrives in. Jameson claims that postmodernism occurs from the fact that in today’s world , “aesthetic production … has become integrated into commodity production”: therefore, this Mona Lisa exists to fill the need for the short-term clever/pretty idea that can consumed and forgotten. It was quick, easy, and cheap to produce. So easy, in fact, that anyone could do it. On the Simpson’s website, browsers are given the option to create a character that looks like them. This Mona Lisa was formed out of a need to produce cheaply a maximum reward towards capitalist gains.

The value of the Simpson’s Mona Lisa is that it creates wealth. Jameson argues that the “truth of postmodernism, …is multinational capitalism.” With 449 episodes that have broadcast world-wide, the Simpsons stands for as an internationally franchise. There is a movie, merchandize, fans, etc. The creation of this new Mona Lisa merely glorifies the capitalist power of the original show.

Though its facination with pop culture, integration of aesthetics and production, and capitalist ends, the Simpson’s depiction of the Mona Lisa places the famous painting in its rightful place amidst post modern culture; as something to gain shallow enjoyment from before moving on to the next, money-making thing.