a discussion of self-reflexivity in postmodernism

"television and postmodernism" by jim collins:
a paradigmatic example of [self-relexivity] is the opening scene of the simpson's thanksgiving special, in which bart and his father, homer, are watching television in their living room on thanksgiving morning. as they watch the thanksgiving day parade, bart keeps asking homer to identify the balloon float characters, complaining that they could use some characters that "were made in the last fifty years." his father tells him that the parade is a tradition, that if "you start building a balloon for every flash-in-the-pan cartoon character, you'll turn the parade into a farce." at this point the television-within-the-television depicts a bart simpson balloon floating by while the "real" bart simpson looks on.