The Simpsons - Five Important Episodes about our Homer

The Simpsons - Five Important Episodes about our Homer

Homer Simpson is a complicated character, probably more so than would be assume by obvious traits such as his love of donuts, beer and his slobbish and arrogant, often rage-induced behaviour. Those are definitely key components to Homer – but there’s also a whole lot more about his paranoia, well-meaning but often exacerbating behaviour, impulsiveness and so much more which make him a really unique character in his own right. From, I felt like detailing five key episodes which reveal deeper insights into Homer Simpson as a character - which are as follows:

5. Homer’s Enemy

Homer’s Enemy is credited as being an episode about how a “realistic person would react to the insanity of someone like Homer Simpson” – but I find it’s way more about the feelings of discovering that a person you’ve either been nice to or is otherwise just a stranger to you, who for some inexplicable reason, hates you and everything you represent. This is probably one of the darkest episodes of the show, and there’s something to Frank Grimes where he’s ostensibly someone who is unlucky and screwed over – whilst also coming across as arrogant, vindictive, also showing this ultra-exaggerated view of Homer Simpsons as just this unbelievable slob.

I honestly feel people are way too sympathetic to Frank Grimes, and there’s something about Grimes where he’s driven way more by paranoia surrounding Homer than anything Homer actually does. That, and a lot of his actual issues with Homer are things that should be aimed way more towards Mr. Burns than anyone else – failing to recognise just how petty he is, or obvious problems like a research lab having a window that extends into the lunch room that people wind up placing beakers of sulphuric acid on (you can see where this goes wrong, but the visual focus is on the act of Homer grabbing the beaker than anything else.) Homer’s kind of a goof, but there’s a lot of humour derived from how Grimes fails to recognise the actual systemic problems of the plant – and just the disparities with the internal narrative he has about Homer running through his head, spending the whole episode winding himself up and getting frustrated without looking at the bigger picture.

John Swartzwelder also wrote this episode, and he’s someone who has a really reclusive reputation, a paranoid streak, and very conservative/libertarian opinions. He wrote a bunch of environmental themed episodes despite being described as an “anti-environmentalist” – and a lot of people wound up interpreting this episode like his interpretation of Frank Grimes was this ultra-conservative viewpoint of showing how decent hard-working people who try to work their way to the top get screwed over. Then in a 2021 interview he stated “Grimey was asking for it the whole episode. He didn’t approve of our Homer. He was asking for it, and he got it.” – which kind of makes all the extended tribades about this episode (such as the likes of Renegade Cut’s video) even funnier.

4. Homer Badman

Homer Badman was probably one of the earliest episodes of the show to deal with incredibly adult material, notable for its themes of sexual harassment and voyeurism that netted the series its first 12 rating in the UK – and it’s the kind of thing you sat back and watched in awe as a kid with just what’s suggested. The episode itself can be summed up with a single scene where Homer grabs a Gummy Venus de Milo off of a babysitter’s pants as he drools in ravenous delight at the candy, with one solitary frame capturing the mistaken but understandable viewpoint of a stranger making a sexual advance – which then spirals off into a media circus being covered by various sensationalist tabloid TV programmes, where Homer desperately attempt to prove his innocence.

The TV shows depict the acts in such a triggering, exploitative detail, and something where it manipulates audience reactions and targets someone based off of conjecture – and it’s also made explicitly clear that the shows don’t exactly care about the victims of harassment either. They’re just in it for the sensationalism, the audiences and the clout they get from reporting on stories like this – and they’re the main target from the episode. It’s definitely not a response to an equivalent of MeToo, alternatively where the episode isn’t about ‘evil feminists’ or that it’s a vile, callous response to accusations that victims of harassment are really “false accusers” – and I don’t really feel like this episode is really dated. It’s anything but dated, and I feel that it’s also confrontational about the mindset of believing everything that comes out of the tube. That, and when it shows a real predator with Groundskeeper Willie – it clearly shows him in a light where it’s way more complicated than how a tabloid news show would depict him, and this episode does capture this feeling of being put in all of these moral knots – whilst very funny, is also something that can feel a bit disquieting.

Though what crucially works about this episode is also how the character of Ashley is framed – where she is someone who reasonably would see Homer as a predator (pretty much only seeing him as a stranger who did a weird thing to her), something where said reaction is exacerbated and then some by the media. What Homer does in this episode is a bit suspicious, but there’s something to be said about how it challenges our own reactions to when someone is accused of harassment – and especially the sinking feeling it creates. There’s a level of absurdity behind it, but it’s not framed in a way where it’s totally unfounded. The point of the episode isn’t that Homer is totally an innocent victim of circumstance with regards to the incident, more that he’s a human being and not some sort of unrealistic monster like how he’s depicted on the media in the episode.

3. Homer the Great

Homer the Great plays with the idea of a secret society, where upon Homer stumbles across a conspiracy when noticing how other workers at his plant gain special privileges seemingly at random – noticing all of the disparities with people getting comfy chairs, discounts on vending machines and so forth – then discovers it’s all the result of an underground society called The Stonecutters. The framing here is really immaculate and precise, and it’s something that works in terms of peeling back all of the layers of a secret society – and just about how it connects with work culture and all of these seemingly arbitrary expectations.

It plays heavily on the contrast of an absurdly self-serious society and a goofball like Homer Simpson, and also just about the paranoid of having friends that are only just there to put up with you and that’s it. Homer’s rejection from the society is met with stark childhood memories of him being rejected from a club with ‘No Homers (plural) allowed’ – and when he finally does enter the Stonecutters, it bounces between him being kicked out of the club, coming back into the club only to be exploited, him alienating himself from members of the club again, only for them to celebrate him after they realise that he’s actually the so-called ‘Chosen One’.

There’s definitely an underlying childishness here – especially with the conflicting feelings Homer has where he knows for a fact about how unfair and phony the whole society is, yet he’s still thrusted by these underlying feelings that he simply doesn’t want to be excluded. When he gains power, he winds up exploiting it himself, something that it all but encouraged by members of the club. It’s really absurd, but it also winds up showing just how arbitrary a lot of the actual foundation of the club is – and how it also intersects with these deeply felt anxieties that people might not actually be friends with Homer, but that they’re actually manipulating him and using him for convenient purposes. This doesn't end as cynically as you'd expect, but it does kind of reveal artificial relationships for what they really are.

2. HOMR

Homer discovers that a crayon lodged in his brain reduced his IQ down to 55, and when removed in an emergency operation it’s raised by 50 points to just above average intelligence – coming across as a genius to everyone around him. This inspires a much greater connection with his daughter Lisa – but then this is also something where he finds that it alienates himself from the people around him, and subsequently he finds himself becoming more miserable as the episode goes on. This is one of those later episodes of the show that I feel is on par with the show during its hay-day – especially with how it uncompromisingly plays with such a simple concept.

There’s something really funny just about how it shows the lengths of stupidity behind Homer – and there’s a lot of fun this episode has with showing Homer acting like a really intelligent guy. However, there’s also something to be said about how a supposedly smart child Homer manages to lodge a crayon into his brain – and I feel there’s something here where there’s still this underlying sense of impulsiveness behind him. Also, a funny aspect of this episode is how he starts to share a lot in common with Lisa, but there’s also an aspect of him where he really feels like pointing out all of the stupid or wrong aspects of the world – finds himself alienated from the world, and desperately searches for a way to become stupid again as a last resort.

I would also like to point out that there’s a gag where Homer mathematically proves there is no God, somehow managing to prove this case to Ned Flanders in just a single page. Said page is also complete gibberish but the underlying concept is extremely funny. Although, the whole episode basically demonstrates a great what-if scenario of what if Homer was actually intelligent – but there’s still these underlying traits of arrogance and ignorance running with him and is somehow totally not out of character for Homer. There’s a lot of funny stuff in this episode, but there’s also a surprising amount of emotional beats this episode has – and it certainly makes you feel for Homer, even when the inevitable conclusion is something that would come as a massive disappointment to Lisa with the progress he makes.

(Also of note is the episode Lisa the Simpson with establishes ‘The Simpson Gene’ where male Simpson family members become more stupid as they get older, but it doesn’t exactly overwrite this episode. If anything, Bart is clearly smarter than Homer, and there’s definitely a lot of other factors at play as to why Homer became so stupid – with this being a big one.)

1. The Last Temptation of Homer

Homer comes across a woman named Mindy in his work who he develops an infatuation with and seems to share a lot in common with her and starts questioning his own relationship towards his wife Marge. This is one of those episodes that seems like it would walk a tightrope – but is actually way more confrontational about feelings of infatuation than it sets itself up to be like. Homer tries to deny his feelings but it’s something that keeps building like an intrusive thought process – the more he tries to push it away, the more that it seeps itself into his life and interferes with it.

This episode is surprisingly sweet, and I think that what works about this episode is the compromising tension it creates and just about the feelings Homer has where he really doesn’t want to cheat on Marge – and just of these abstract reminders which tip them off again. There’s a recurring gag with how Homer seems to have all of these large, cosmic revelations – only to reveal just out of sight that it was a total coincidence. Even then the only reason why Mindy comes in contact with Homer was because of an arbitrary decision from how the plant was required to hire a woman after being indicted by the Department of Labor for hiring an illegal alien to exploit – and the whole story kicks off with Homer trying to find meaning from a string of coincidences.

It’s funny both in terms of absurdity value, but also about how it’s used heavily to confront the often irrational feelings that can kick off – and it never strays towards a line where there’s a string of misogynistic reasons why Homer is seemingly no longer infatuated with Marge, but then also showing a string of justifiable reasons as to why he doesn’t want to reveal these feelings – mainly that he doesn’t want to inadvertently hurt people or deal with catastrophic scenarios. This episode is really good because I feel it definitely touches on a lot of deeply embedded feelings – both in a way that’s understanding, but also heavily absurd in the way only The Simpsons could really deliver on.

Sources:

Interview with John Swartzwelder (2021), New Yorker - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/john-swartzwelder-sage-of-the-simpsons

Simpsons screencaps, Frinkiac - https://frinkiac.com/

Renegade Cut’s Frank Grimes – The Cult of Work - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P40sJOkxnac