The unexpected absurdism of Marge Simpson
We must imagine Sisyphus a yellow housewife
Hello, long time no see! Whilst I have no planned schedule for this space - I appreciate I’ve somewhat abandoned it for the last couple of months. When I started writing on Substack, it was during a period of intense reading and researching for the short story collection I’m (still) writing. I’ve decided that that research is important to me here, and I’d rather make sure I can spend time reading, thinking and developing my ideas rather than sticking to a regular output.
I can’t promise I won’t disappear again (working full-time whilst also doing freelance work and writing on the side will do that to you), but I will do my best.
Anyway, here’s some thoughts about Marge!
Marge Simpson, you overlooked wonder. Lone suffering matriarch with repressed artistic dreams. More empathetic and daydreaming than you’re allowed to be. Overjoyed by something as simple as a potato.
Marge Simpson has been one of the most famous mothers since 1989, but she’s also been an artist, a policewoman, a waitress, a real estate agent, a pretzel saleswoman, a carpenter, a babysitter, a teacher and a body builder. In all her changes, she’s still not a self-insert character. Throughout her runs a bedrock of faithfulness, hard work, creativity, care and (sadly) generally being “put upon”. Despite this long-suffering status, Marge is not just a doormat. She’s also been prone to fits of rage, jealousy and pride. (Side note: “Scenes from a Class Struggle in Springfield” may be one of, if not the, best episodes of The Simpsons).
I love Marge. She’s undeniably fun to look at and impersonate. She’s also the homely centre of a cartoon that, for me, is always lodged in my brain with being a kid after school, watching TV alone before my parents took charge of the remote. Even now, when I see a clock at 6pm I think I should be doing something, and the something is eating dinner and watching The Simpsons. If The Simpsons had reliably taken up a spot in my brain, Marge is the core of that reliability.
Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, called Marge Simpson the hardest character to write, a statement which makes complete sense with only a little reflection on her character. She walks a tightrope of comedy and tragedy: think too much about crushed dreams and sacrifice and you’ll want to weep and phone your own mother to profusely apologise. Without that sadness, however, Marge would just be a crudely drawn stereotype of a woman made blissfully happy by doing all the unpaid work like a weird Stepford Wife. At the same time, The Simpsons, is a comedy and it cannot get too bogged down in the tragedy of its protagonists.
The internet has had its fun with Marge. Her dancing, odd hair and gravelly voice have been played with, remixed and reworked to both horrifying and hilarious results. More recently, the account MargieTheHun popped up on TikTok, amassing thousands of fans. Seemingly divorced from the world of The Simpsons (no other characters show up, but some of the other characters are trademark yellow), “Margie” is now a young English woman who loves her nan, trips to Costa coffee, watching Love Island and working as a nail technician. She’s so popular, she’s even been interviewed by Vice and has her own Patreon. (Another aside: MargieTheHun’s Hun Club costs £6 a month, which I don’t think I can justify, but I am desperate to know what the picks are for Margie’s Book Club).
I’ve spoken before about my issues with AI, but I can’t help but wonder if anyone involved in its creation could have predicted that it would be used to reimagine Marge Simpson raking through the bins at a charity shop or worrying about her mother’s pyramid scheme?
You could ask: why is this character Marge? Why not invent your own character? But Marge, despite her nuances, is ample playing material. In her video essay “The Absurd Horror of Marge Simpson”, YouTuber Lola Sebastian examines Marge in amongst the history of housewives in sitcoms, the rise of the modern tradwives1 and, of all things, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. Marge is both capable of shopping at B&M with a vanilla latte and 21st century feminist examinations. Perhaps because she is so grounded as a character, you can throw whatever you want - surrealism, tragedy, horror and existential angst - at Marge and all of it will stick in some way.
As Lola Sebastien points out, whilst The Simpsons subverts the ideas and tropes of American family sitcoms, each episode resets the characters to a neutral starting point. Over and over again, we watch Marge be betrayed by her husband and overworked by her role as a mother. In one episode, “Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious”, a spoof version of Mary Poppins comes to look after the Simpsons children after Marge becomes so stressed that her hair falls out in huge fluffy blue clumps. By the end of the episode, Homer promises he will change, but the viewer knows that he will never change. The very format of the show they exist in prevents it. So we tune in next week to see Marge fall apart all over again, or try to reinvent herself with a new job or hobby, only to be yanked back into her housewife life at 742 Evergreen Terrace.
Without going on too much of a tangent, it reminds me of time travel rom-coms like About Time or The Time Traveller’s Wife which promise a charming look at love overcoming all, but fill me with nothing but dread and anxiety at the idea of a man literally warping time itself to make sure he ends with the woman he wants2. In a more meta sense, Marge’s put-upon-ness is inescapable because of her constraints as a character. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Jessica Rabbit says she’s not bad, she’s just ‘drawn that way’. Marge is drawn to endure.
It is in our re-creations that Marge can escape her narrow confines. In Marge Simpson Anime, artist Soolagna Majumda reimagines Marge through watercolours, remixing the art of The Simpsons into something queer, surreal and slippery. As she said in an interview with Vice:
‘[My work] explores the idea of what would it look like if the Marge in our own lives, in ourselves, was truly free.’
Marge gives me comfort, as well as a fun-to-pick-at absurdist horror. At her core, she is creative, wants to see the best in others, and has an unending amount of love. This is what shines through when we reimagine or deconstruct her character. The “put upon mother” is such a tired trope that it has become the expected, the almost invisible for those not trying to look for it. If Marge’s tragedy is the lack of life outwith her family and home, the beauty of these re-imaginings is when fans give her one. In my head, Marge never left behind her art, or she stayed on the run with her neighbour Ruth in the Thelma-and-Louise-esque episode “Marge on the Lam”. In Majumba’s world, she destroys the town of Springfield entirely to build a new life with her children.
Wherever we put her Marge is capable of anything. In our dreams, Marge can be free.
With gratitude to the following publications:
“An Interview with ‘Margie the Hun’, the AI Marge Simpson Taking Off Online” by Helen Meriel Thomas for VICE
“Marge Simpson Anime” by Soolagna Majumda
“Soft Watercolours Imagine Marge Simpson’s Feminist Awakening” by Patrick Malborough for VICE
“The Absurd Horror of Marge Simpson” by Lola Sebastian
“The Bizarre Modern Reality of The Simpsons” by Super Eyepatch Wolf
“The Fall of The Simpsons: How it Happened” by Super Eyepatch Wolf
I literally cannot get into this here.
It’s literally just stalking!