ABSTRACT
Thematically, The Simpsons often directly comments on its own textual and commercial functions so that stardom, merchandizing, the race for television ratings, corporate branding and a wider set of political and economic issues, find themselves regularly lampooned. The show exudes awareness of the ways in
which these systems are precisely what facilitate its success and the consequent celebrity of its characters. But The Simpsons also implicates the audience in this self-reflexive mockery, since their anticipated desire for stars and celebrities is identified as narcissistic and naive. How then does one begin to make sense of the enormous success of a show that mocks its own audience's relationship to stars and celebrities?
