Homer's Enemy, or Why Grimey Deserved to Die For His Sins
Homer's Enemy, or Why Grimey Deserved to Die for His Sins
Something that's always interested me about Homer's Enemy is how it's sort of seen as this encapsulation of reactionary attitudes towards the American Dream - of the indignation some people feel of how people who work hard are not rewarded, yet some people just seem to get by on pure luck but, I think, the inherent truth of Homer's Enemy is just how it examines the logic of that. But I also know that Swartzwelder, as a writer, identifies way more with Homer than Grimey and sees Grimey as just an encapsulation of all the worst flaws of someone who is indignant towards this type of structure. Sure he's kind of right but he's right in a way where he just indulges himself in self-torture and revenge fantasies rather than getting at any sort of resolve. By seeing Homer as an encapsulation of all his frustrations, he misses out on so much stuff, in wake of just seeing this singular portrait of a buffoon that annoys him constantly - his main source of irritation throughout the episode, or what he comes to see as his main source.
Which is also weird with how people seem to think of the famously reclusive libertarian Swartzwelder as having these views he doesn't have. By his own admission "Grimey was asking for it the whole episode. He didn’t approve of our Homer. He was asking for it, and he got it." and yeah, with a running theme in this episode, you can't just presume things like that based off of vague information that you've heard about someone. But something that does seem so pervasive is how Grimey speculates on stuff to fill in what he can't explain, such as when he notes that Homer has a "son who owns a factory." But then we actually see this B-plot in action and it sort of touches upon how Bart manages to, by luck, purchase a factory for a dollar. Yet he's also a 10 year old and we see directly how him owning a factory (that the factory is well delipidated beyond repair) is the stark antithesis of what Grimey imagines. Heck, even the way in which Homer goes out of his way to make this nice dinner for him, only Grimey becomes so indignant that he presumes that this is an everyday, regular occurrence for him. Anything that's better than what Grimey has is framed as some sort of unusual, impossible luxury, and he can't have these chance encounters with celebrities and he can't have musical talent that can win him a Grammy. It's just impossible and there has to be some deliberate, grand reason as to why he has all this. Somehow.
"You're afraid to go to work because Frank Grimes will be there."
"It's not about me being lazy, it's about him being a crazy nut."
Actually, if you pay attention to the whole show, the Simpsons are very explicitly depicted as a working class family that definitely does struggle and it's interesting to me how Grimey has this perspective that "working class" kind of means impoverishment and that there's no honour or any sort of prospects or excitement in being working class etc. Grimey's alienation is self-indulgent and outright tautological in nature - in that it looks for things to be frustrated about, regardless of their veracity. Grimey struggles but it's an impossibility for anyone else around him to struggle - it's unseen to him and therefore non-existent to him. One of Grimey's explicit character inspirations was Michael Douglas's character in Falling Down (1993) and honestly, I think watching that movie is this experience of watching someone going on this grand adventure and this big statement on alienation, only it winds up deflating itself so heavily - it seeks to be way more indignant than precise. And that translates in just how Grimey sees Homer as just being an encapsulation of his frustrations and refusing to see the broader picture of, say, a beaker of acid being placed right next to a break room, or the unfair demands that Burns puts on his workers - because he feels powerless in such a situation, he's quite clearly unable to think on that level. With Homer he is also definitely powerless as well, but he feels some sort of tenuous grasp of power just with being imposing over him and trying to "prove the fraud that he is." and this consumes Grimey. It's all he can think about. He thinks of his indignation as scathing and lacerating but in reality it's pathetic. Homer is a cheap personification of all of Grimey's problems, someone who he can project onto, and it drives him to madness.
A large part of this episode is just about how Homer winds up seeing himself within that sort of lens - of someone who is subject to someone who sees him purely in negative terms and through over-the-top indignation. Grimey thinks he's being precise and lacerating but he's flustering with rage. He's just such an unpleasant person to be around and someone who just feels kind of repulsive and scary, always on edge and agitated for some reason. He's someone who enters into this paradoxical realm where by an attempt to impose his ideals onto people and an inability for reality to follow suit with that - the dissonance behind that, is what drives him insane. He can't accept this - and the obsession he has over this builds and builds into something unreconcilable. He splits as a way to cope and discovers the stark limitations of the black-and-white thinking predicated with splitting. Much like William H. Macy's characters in movies such as Fargo (1996) or Boogie Nights (1997) - his insistent need to and inability to control the situation around himself, is what culminates in his downfall. But he's also emblematic of a much deeper problem - that of this innate alienation complex where he has to compare and contrast his own struggles with someone who (ostensibly) hasn't struggled much to get where they're at, and just delving further and further into frustration - fuelled by nothing more than envy and a seeming lack of progress. The annoyance of seeing someone way more confident, way more self-assured, way further ahead in life and so forth, but actually being emblematic of just being trapped in that headspace. It feeds into itself regardless of veracity because the point is the psychology behind it, not what is literally stated with it. The need to feel immensely frustrated and flaccid fantasies of grand vindication is the point of it. Not that he'd admit that because, paradoxically, he sees Homer as being anti-aspirational - someone who he very much does not aspire to be like, although he definitely does want his status.
Homer is such a jerk for the first half of the episode, someone who just seems clueless towards the rude ways that he treats Grimey, and we get such a montage of him just doing these annoying things to him and interfering with his life. He eat his lunch and he chews on his pencils, but then about mid-way through there is some sort of reconciliation that Homer attempts with Grimey, only Grimey is someone who plans some sort of elaborate revenge with Homer. Grimey sees Homer as doing things with way more deliberate malevolence than he really is, because that's the only way he can comprehend it - even Homer's positive qualities are taken and twisted around to be in some way done to spite Grimey. Everything about Homer is irritating to him. He is unable to communicate through any other means other than indignation, smarm and condescension. Grimey is a poor communicator - very insulated in himself and unable to really talk to people in any sort of way that isn't imposing in nature. Nobody ever gets to really know anything about him, other than vague background details from a TV report. Homer seeks resolution while Grimey seeks indignation and revenge - this is what transforms Homer into the sympathetic character and Grimey into the villain.
What's so interesting about Grimey is how he's simultaneously relatable yet, at the same time, so deeply flawed and someone who is interesting to examine as a cautionary tale - someone who extrapolates all of these awful impulses into something much worse than even he can possibly imagine - self-indulgent in his validation over himself and of his self-perceived tragedies. It's deceptively easy to become someone like Frank Grimes, something that you can almost just find yourself slipping into - the point is to never become like him. He's a tragic villain with a pitch-perfect Shakespearian downfall through his inability to reconcile with his own tragic flaws - to himself he doesn't have flaws, other people are the problem. Homer and Grimey deserved each other. Grimey got what was coming to him. The ending isn't cruel - it's a deliverance.
Sources:
Screengrabs from: frinkiac.com [accessed March 10th, 2024]
TheRealJims, January 25th 2013, 60 Seconds Simpsons Review - Homer's Enemy, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aohu40PefI8 [accessed March 10th, 2024]
Sacks M., May 2nd 2021, John Swartzwelder, Sage of "The Simpsons", The New Yorker, available at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/john-swartzwelder-sage-of-the-simpsons [accessed: March 10th, 2024]
Homer's Enemy, 1997, The Simpsons, S08E23, FOX Network, May 4th 1997
Falling Down, 1993, Dir. Joel Schumacher, United States: Le Studio Canal+, Regency Enterprises, Alcor Films
Fargo, 1996, Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen, United States; Working Title Films
Boogie Nights, 1997, Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, United States: Lawrence Gordon Productions, Ghoulardi Film Company
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