Homer and Marge have had their marital stresses over the years, but here's a poser - on how many occasions have those stresses reached such critical condition that we've seen their relationship enter DEFCON 1? By that, I mean episodes in which their marriage is clearly in very real, very imminent danger of ending (and liquidating the status quo of the series along with it). If we limit our selection for now to only the show's "classic" era (Seasons 1 to 8), then I'd say there are at least three (actually, I'm surprised that my count is apparently that low). Those are "Life on The Fast Lane" of Season 1, "The War of The Simpsons" of Season 2 and "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" of Season 5 (in "Secrets of a Successful Marriage", they have their most angry and dramatic dispute, but it's also the least convincing of the lot; the terms under which they reconcile are also the most hokey, but I'll save that for if/when I cover that episode). There are numerous other episodes in which they have their momentary fall-outs, and occasionally their very bitter blowouts, eg: "Bart Gets Hit By A Car", where Homer gets awfully sulky with Marge in the third act, but you don't really sense that they're likely to hold it against one another forever. Then you have those episodes like "A Milhouse Divided", where Homer thinks their marriage is in danger but this isn't corroborated by any hard evidence from Marge's side. There are also episodes where Marge does seem quite prepared to stick it to Homer, such as "Some Enchanted Evening", but is easily dissuaded. On any of the occasions cited, we might have gone into DEFCON 2 or 3, but the situation doesn't quite seem critical enough to suggest that The End is nigh.
The three episodes I realise I haven't included are those in which Homer has his fidelities tested by any of the female Home-Wreckers (as they self-identified in "Team Homer") - Princess Kashmir of "Homer's Night Out", Lurleen Lumpkin of "Colonel Homer" and Mindy Simmons of "The Last Temptation of Homer". In fact, the universal running theme across all three instances of DEFCON 1 is that it was invariably Marge who was tempted to hit the destruct button on their relationship; the reverse would be utterly unthinkable. There's a lot in Homer's life that isn't perfect (his dead-end job and his troubled relationship with his father, to name only two), but as far as his wife is concerned he really hit the jackpot; there aren't many who would put up with even half of the nonsense that Marge does from Homer, and she causes him so little grief in return. I touched on this already in my coverage of "Simpson and Delilah", but due to the highly uneven nature of their relationship, it's so much trickier to have Homer contemplating infidelity than it is Marge, and any episode where Homer does take an interest in another woman has to deploy some form of buffer in order to make the situation seem marginally less dire. "Homer's Night Out" flat-out doesn't fit the bill because Kashmir and Homer aren't seriously entangled, and even though Marge and Homer do have a serious dispute (in which Marge, again, would have been the one more likely to initiate the end), the focus ultimately seems to shift more toward Homer's relationship with Bart. "The Last Temptation of Homer" sees Homer caught up in a mutual infatuation with Mindy, but he doesn't like the situation one bit and attempts to resist it every step of the way, only the universe won't let him be. Before that, though, we had "Colonel Homer" (8F19), where Homer befriends aspiring country singer Lurleen (voice of Beverly D'Angelo, who also had a major hand in writing Lurleen's music), who in return falls passionately in love with him, and here there's a bit more ambiguity as to what Homer wants out of the deal. Are we in danger of tipping over into DEFCON 1 territory? Well, Marge certainly seems to think so, but Homer straddles such an indistinct line between blissful innocence and lurid desires he doesn't know he has that it's difficult to gauge exactly what's compelling him to get so involved with Lurleen.
I've been meaning to talk about "Colonel Homer" for a while because, of the episodes in which Homer is seriously tempted by another woman, this one is the most obvious successor to "Life on The Fast Lane". The two episodes follow a near-identical story structure, wherein a non-isolated incident of marital strife leaves one adult Simpson feeling unappreciated and disaffected. Disaffected Simpson goes to a venue outside of their comfort zone, where they encounter a friendly Home-Wrecker who is instantly smitten with them. Disaffected Simpson enjoys the companionship of Home-Wrecker so much that they prioritise them over the rest of the family; meanwhile, the spouse of Disaffected Simpson grows increasingly suspicious about the situation and fearful for the future of their marriage. However, when Home-Wrecker gets serious about wanting to take their relationship to the next level, Disaffected Simpson faces a dilemma and ultimately rejects Home-Wrecker in favour of upholding their marriage. The key factor separating the two scenarios has to do with how well-attuned Disaffected Simpson is to the reality of their situation. Whereas Marge understood exactly what she was getting herself into with Jacques, here Homer spends the better part of the episode cheerfully oblivious to all three corners on this awkward love triangle; he has no idea why his spending so much time with Lurleen should bother Marge so, no awareness of the signals he's potentially sending Lurleen, and above all, no attunement as to what's really driving him the whole while. Homer is an innocent who doesn't realise just how culpable he is, and it's fascinating how much of a difference this makes to the tone of the episode overall. "Life on The Fast Lane" relies heavily on understatement and what the characters are unable to verbalise - there, a lot was made of the fact that Homer could never find the words to confront Marge directly about the situation with Jacques, and the best defence he could make for his marriage was a very muted compliment of Marge's sandwich-making technique. "Colonel Homer", by contrast, requires the characters to be much more forward - here, Marge very explicitly asks Homer if he is having an affair with Lurleen. Lurleen, meanwhile, openly flaunts her feelings for Homer in her music, and only when she sings "Bunk with me tonight," several times to Homer's face does the penny finally drop (about sixteen minutes into the episode).
This onslaught of overstatement is necessitated by Homer's complete lack of self-awareness; he's too dim to appreciate the meaning of his own narrative, so it's down to the two key female players to spell it out for him, and much of the drama, and indeed the humour, arises from the three of them having somewhat different interpretations of the same scenario (as opposed to "Life on The Fast Lane" where everybody was basically on the same page). It's for this reason that I think a lot of people seem to come away with the impression that Marge was overly defensive and kind of a stick in the mud throughout this episode. If I had a penny for every time I heard someone suggest that Marge was in the wrong, and that she should have just shut up and let Homer enjoy the thrill of being manager to a rising country star, then I'd at least have enough for a matinee and a small soda by now. But to those who think that Marge should have been contented being Homer's unquestioning cheerleader, I would implore you to listen closely to the lyrics of Lurleen's song, "I've Finally Bagged Me A Homer". She clearly isn't singing about baseball - not to mention that the "homer", or home run to which she ostensibly refers is also used as a popular sexual metaphor. What person in Marge's position wouldn't have ground their teeth like hell? Another factor that I think convinces some people that the threat is largely in Marge's head is that she's basically having to ruminate on it alone. Unlike "Life on The Fast Lane", which took time to illustrate how the increasingly realistic prospect of domestic upheaval was affecting all of the family (sans Maggie), "Colonel Homer" focuses almost exclusively on the adults in the equation; the closest the kids come to having any voice in this is in Bart's reflection that he's angry with Homer but can't help but love his swanky manager's suit. Actually, Moe gets to express more vulnerability than Bart and Lisa; he's pretty wounded to learn that Homer parked his keister on someone else's bar stool.
We've seen Marge become manifestly jealous of Homer in the past - in "Simpson and Delilah" she was disgruntled at the prospect of Homer getting a female PA and insisted that he hire a male applicant (unbeknownst to her, a gay one who also harbored feelings for Homer), but this is after Homer admits to her that all the young women he's interviewed have made kissy faces at him; her jealousy doesn't arise from nowhere. You could argue that Marge was here a little hasty in expressing her disapproval of Lurleen. You could also argue that Marge's own experience in being on the other end of this scenario has perhaps left her hyper-vigilant to the possibility that Homer could, under the right circumstances, do the same to her. But I don't believe that Marge's jealousy here is of her own making, or at all out of proportion. Just as it's clear that Lurleen is fixated on Homer, so too it's clear that Homer is fixated on her, even if he doesn't yet understand the true extent of his fixation. Marge is simply ahead of Homer in this particular game. She's is also a lot more vocal on the matter because her sense of indignation is stronger than was Homer's in "Life on The Fast Lane". One of the reasons why Homer there puts up such a limited fight for his marriage is because he knows, deep down, that he's possibly had this coming for some time. Marge, though, has long done her best to stand by Homer, and the possibility of him ditching her for another woman is simply unthinkable.
You can see the uneven nature of Homer and Marge's relationship in how the two instances of near-marital breakdown get started. In "Life on The Fast Lane" Marge gets mad at Homer because he forgets her birthday and buys her a gift that he does not even attempt to disguise was purchased for his own use (the episode makes it clear that this is just the tip of the iceberg). In "Colonel Homer", Homer gets mad at Marge after she calls him out for his boorish behaviour during a public screening of taut political thriller The Stockholm Affair, and their fellow theatre patrons very forcibly take Marge's side. Given that Homer's behaviours consisted of nosily slurping on his soda, loudly riffing on the movie's poor special effects and going so far as to announce the movie's plot twist so that the entire auditorium could hear, I don't think any reasonable viewer is going to hold Marge accountable for what happened. Nevertheless, it leaves Homer feeling pained and humiliated enough to want to drive far, far away from the family home, ultimately ending up at a seedy redneck bar where he meets Lurleen. Before he goes, Homer tells Marge that he has always carried himself "with a certain quiet dignity", which she deprived him of this evening. We know that this assertion is ridiculous - there was nothing quiet nor dignified about his behaviour at the Googolplex - so why is he so cheesed off at Marge? Homer's wounded pride stems from much the same obliviousness that carries him through the greater part of this episode - he didn't comprehend how his behaviour could be problematic for the other threatre patrons and was clearly was shocked by Marge's declaration that nobody wants to hear what he thinks, with the theatre audience confirming it. This strikes a particularly bitter nerve with Homer because it ties in with his deeper feelings of failure and personal disappointment; he tires of always being the screw-up, and he feels let-down by Marge's apparent failure to appreciate that. Which is where Lurleen comes in. Whereas Marge left Homer feeling small and insignificant, Lurleen validates his innermost pains by performing a song about them. Lurleen's song may be a downbeat ode to the quiet sorrows of everyday life, but her expression of solidarity fills Homer with an enormous sense of buoyancy. He feels justified in the knowledge that there is someone else out there who truly gets him.
"Colonel Homer" was written by series creator Matt Groening, who gets writing credits on the show relatively rarely, although on the DVD commentary track he admits that he received a lot of help from the rest of the writing team. The episode was inspired by the 1980 film Coal Miner's Daughter, in which D'Angelo portrayed country music superstar Patsy Cline (hence her casting here). Obviously, this episode takes multiple swipes at the world of country and western music, and in that regard there's probably a lot that goes over my head since it's a genre about which I know very little (although I recognise a dueling banjoist when I see one). But I get the distinct impression that Al Jean and Mike Reiss, then working as the series' showrunners, have this observation that country musicians are perhaps a little too candid about their personal lives within their music. I say that because there is a very similar joke in an episode of The Critic, "Sherman, Woman and Child". There, Jay befriends Alice Tompkins, a single mother who recently moved to New York from Knoxville, Tennessee after leaving her husband Cyrus, a country singer whom Alice suspected was cheating on her. What tipped Alice off? Cyrus was singing about it in his lyrics! He even went so far as to title his album I'm being unfaithful to my wife, Alice Tompkins. You heard me, Alice Tompkins. And you thought "Bagged Me A Homer" was a bit on the nose.
On the commentary track, Groening states that his intention here was to write an episode in which Homer is tempted away from the Simpson household by the prospect of a glamorous new career, but ultimately chooses to remain with his family. I've got to say, I'm not sure if that particular dilemma actually comes across in the finished episode - although Homer does talk about it being his life-long dream to manage a country singer (but, of course, he changes his life-long dream every week) and he clearly enjoys flaunting his space-age cowboy suit, it doesn't really feel as if it's the glamour that's pulling him on. The final dilemma feels closer to that of "Life on The Fast Lane", wherein Disaffected Simpson has the opportunity to redefine their lives, if they're able to trade in their current spouse for a suitor who could potentially take them in a whole new direction. Homer obviously doesn't get a lot of fulfillment out of his job at the plant, and it follows that he prefers managing Lurleen's career because it gives him a chance to do something with a bit more pizzazz, but given that this new career path is so heavily tied up in one individual it's somewhat challenging to separate his passion for the job over his personal feelings for Lurleen, and ultimately it is the latter that seems to take precedence in terms of the choice Homer has to make. (And since I've broached the subject, I have far less to say about that other unanswered question that hangs over this episode, concerning how Homer is able to balance his new career as a country music manager with his regular 9 to 5 job at the plant - perhaps he still has the same supervisor from "Dancin Homer", who was just as willing to get temporarily shot of him as they were back then. It's as good an explanation as any.)
On the commentary, they discuss how inherently unpalatable it is for Homer to even contemplate an extramarital affair, although they acknowledge that it's an entirely different kettle of fish where Marge is concerned, with which I obviously agree. They also observe that Marge's anger with Homer at the start of the episode is entirely justified, as most people in her position would have wanted to strangle Homer, which I think is likewise true. Finally, they state that the situation here remains wholesome, where Homer is concerned, because he's entirely oblivious to Lurleen's feelings and does not actually reciprocate them, aaaaand I'm not so sure if I agree with that. It seems to me that Homer IS attracted to Lurleen, only this attraction doesn't register on any conscious level until Lurleen makes her highly unambiguous move on him. Before then, Homer's infatuation with Lurleen plays out in his typically giddy, kid-like fashion, manifesting purely as boundless enthusiasm, and without him ever stopping to think about why he's so drawn to her and her music. And what Groening and his commentary buddies don't acknowledge is that Homer does indeed return to Lurleen after her initial attempt at propositioning him. He also rejects the first offer he gets from the representative of Rebel Yell Records who makes a bid for Lurleen's contract. For the final four minutes of the episode, Homer knows that he's playing with fire, and yet he's reluctant to let go of Lurleen, which implies that he is still undecided as to what he really wants. This begs the question as to what Homer supposes Lurleen could give him that Marge can't, considering that he already has such a sweet deal with her. I said in my coverage of "Simpson and Delilah" that there's nothing Marge could conceivably do that could drive Homer to seek fulfillment elsewhere, and I guess this episode puts that to the test. Despite Groening's words on the matter, I don't think it is the prospect of getting to accompany her further into stardom that has Homer momentarily tempted, but rather Homer's intuition that Lurleen, with her honeyed voice and sensitive song-writing abilities, has a better window into his soul than Marge. After all, Lurleen first wins Homer's attentions with her repeated insistence that, "Your wife don't understand you, but I do." Homer feels a connection with Lurleen because he senses that she, more so than Marge, empathises with what it's like to be a perpetual loser, forever disappointed with one's achievements (or lack thereof) in life. And yet, in the end it's Homer's perpetual loserdom that convinces him that he couldn't have asked for a more wonderful partner than Marge. When Lurleen makes her second attempt at propositioning him, she causes him to flashback through his pitiful history of non-stop romantic rejection, which culminates in Marge finally accepting him for who he is, and Homer realises that there is nobody more empathic and supportive than she. What ultimately prompts Homer to cut ties with Lurleen is not the realisation that she likes him, but rather his coming to terms with the fact that he feels the same way, and if he sticks around any longer, he'll end up crossing a line from which there can be no going back with the woman to whom he owes everything. So he removes himself from the situation, telling Lurleen that all he set out to do was to share her talent with the world, and leaving her future in the hands of the representative from Rebel Yell Records.
What complicates the scenario, and makes "Colonel Homer" such a powerful and multi-layered episode, is that Lurleen, for all her determination to come between Homer and Marge, does not come off as the villain - in fact, if you look at the episode from her perspective then it's a pretty heart-breaking affair. All of the Home-Wreckers except Kashmir end up facing rejection, but Lurleen's story is probably the most tragic of them all because she comes at it from such a stark position of vulnerability. Once again, it's up to the candidness of her song lyrics to do the talking, with titles such as "Don't Look Up My Dress Unless You Mean It", "I'm Basting A Turkey With My Tears" and "I'm Sick Of Your Lying Lips and False Teeth" going some way to reveal just how desolate her life has been up until now. On the DVD commentary, they joke about how ludicrous it is that Lurleen should be so infatuated with Homer when an attractive young woman like herself should be seriously out of his league, but to me it makes sense that Lurleen would like Homer because he's the only man who's ever shown her kindness, and she misinterprets his support and generosity as signs that he's interested in her (at one point Lurleen tells Homer that the concept of men being nice to her without expecting something in return is basically alien to her). She possibly also has Jacques' outsider perspective of Homer and Marge's marriage, in that it's based more on senseless attachment than on anything logical or functional, only from the opposite angle, as Lurleen assumes that Homer is the one who's grown weary of the situation and wants out. (I note that Lurleen - who is, incidentally, the only Home-Wrecker who gets to meet their rival first-hand - doesn't seem at all intimidated by Marge; not only does she kiss Homer right in front of her, she casually tosses off Marge's attempts to lay down her marital territory with that "MRS Homer Simpson" assertion). This is what makes her "Bagged Me A Homer" song so painfully double-edged. On the one hand, this very brazen declaration of her feelings for Homer and her assumption that he's going to be packing in his old life for her confirms Marge's worst fears and indicates that there is a very nasty collision course coming up on the horizon. But it also represents a very sudden, upbeat change in Lurleen's style, which speaks volumes about the shakiness of Lurleen's newfound optimism. She thinks that her life is about to turn around, not because her career is taking off, but because she's finally found a man who cares about her. Lurleen rallies her back-up musicians into the recording with the battle cry "Let's break some hearts!" and it's sadly obvious that the one heart she's setting up to be broken is her own. The ending, when it comes, is not going to be pretty.
Lurleen does actually get closure (which is more than Jacques received), and it's every bit as searingly poignant as we'd expect. Homer realises that he has to wash his hands of her, so he dumps her unceremoniously with the record label representative for the low, low price of $50. Homer misses out on the opportunity to at least squeeze a handsome sum from this emotionally traumatic experience, but accepts that he has something bigger at stake. The final sequence has Lurleen on TV, performing her final song, "Stand By Your Manager", in which she admits defeat, while Homer retreats from the public eye and back to Evergreen Terrace, where he reconciles with Marge. Lurleen gets her big televised break and is now presumably headed for greater things, while Homer willfully embraces his life of humble domesticity. The eyes of the world are now on Lurleen, and yet she's the one who ends up alone. Hard road for her, but then the status quo's a bitch.
So, to answer my initial question, we were certainly in DEFCON 2 for much of this episode, but did we ever cross over into DEFCON 1? It's a tough call; Homer's overall obliviousness and the ambiguity as to what he really wants with Lurleen can only provide a buffer for so far in; the potential tipping point occurs when Homer initially refuses to negotiate the ownership of Lurleen's contract. Not to mention the whole device of Homer's love life flashing before his eyes, which has associations with death. I don't think there's a point where Homer is ever totally convinced that he wants Lurleen over Marge (compared to "Life on The Fast Lane", where Marge did initially accept Jacques' invitation to get physical), which is why I'd still lean toward keeping it in DEFCON 2, but I do think we've gone as far up to the edge as we possibly can.
Finally, I want to say something about the line-up at the Googolplex, which is a really loving tribute to the inanity of the movie-going experience in the early 1990s (although I can't work out if I'll Fry Your Face III is meant to be an action movie or some kind of cannibalistic horror). If I had to choose between this dubious lot, then I would certainly be headed into The Smell in Room 19. It seems that the most popular movie is Look Who's Oinking, which is an obvious dig at the Look Who's Talking films starring John Travolta and that lady from Cheers that were hot at the time. Ordinarily, I'd make some kind of Philistines remark, except that I recently came dangerously close to purchasing the full set of those at a junk shop for the bargain price of 50p. I put it back when I realised that it was missing the disc with the movie where Herb Powell plays a talking dog. I guess I've forfeited my right to call anybody a Philistine for at least six months.
No comments:
Post a Comment