Simpson and Delilah (aka You Are So Beautiful To Me)

So, when I spoke about "Life on The Fast Lane" earlier this month, I noted that there is a clever continuity nod in a later episode in which we see that Jacques has joined forces with Princess Kashmir, Lurleen Lumpkin and Mindy Simmons to form a bowling team called The Home-Wreckers. Their team name is a snide allusion to the one thing that all of these characters have in common - namely that by being their good-looking, charismatic selves, they each created a marital crisis for Marge and Homer, potentially triggering the breakdown of the Simpson household and the demolition of the series' status quo. In other words, each of these ostensibly harmless-looking characters is a walking apocalypse. Jacques, though, is the only one who approached things from Marge's end. The three women all had their sights set on Homer.* Which does call attention to just how unbalanced the tables are in this equation. Whereas Jacques represented a rare opportunity for Marge to have an extramarital relationship, we've seen the boot on the other foot with surprising frequency. Actually, it's probably only proper that we rule out Kashmir, given that she was technically just doing her job and there was never any hint of genuine attraction between herself and Homer, but Lurleen and Mindy were blatantly infatuated with him. Despite his never being played up as much of a prize catch, it seems there are multiple girls in Springfield who think that Homer is teh sexy. Heck, Edna Krabappel even hit on him in "Flaming Moe's", but then I'm guessing that she was very, very drunk at the time (given that she didn't appear to recognise Homer at all).

Marge being tempted to have an affair vs Homer being tempted to have an affair is, of course, an apples to oranges situation. I don't believe that anyone could reasonably have judged Marge if she had decided to go the full mile with Jacques, considering all she has to put up with from her oaf of a husband. With Homer it's an entirely different ball game, as he is lucky to have Marge and deep down inside he's painfully aware of that. There's not really anything Marge could conceivably do that could drive Homer to seek fulfillment elsewhere. So any episode in which Homer's loyalties to Marge are tested does have to play it very, very carefully, depicting Homer as either largely oblivious to his predicament (as with Lurleen, where Homer's attraction to the struggling country singer seemed to be happening on a subconscious level) or completely eaten up inside by it (as with Mindy). Still, long before Lurleen and Mindy entered the picture, I would argue that there was an episode in which we saw vague hints of Homer's affections extending beyond Marge and onto an altogether different target, and the situation was as innocent and endearing as could be. That episode is "Simpson and Delilah" (7F02), the second episode of Season 2, which received its first airing on October 18th 1990. This episode sees Homer resort to a tiny bit of under-the-table creativity with the nuclear power plant's medical insurance policy in order to reap the benefits of Dimoxinil, a baldness cure which really gets results. Equipped with a freshly-replenished head of hair, Homer discovers a newfound confidence and zest for living, but nevertheless feels intimidated when his handsome, energetic exterior earns him a promotion to the position of junior executive, a role his fragile interior feels ill-prepared for. That is until a fiery personal assistant, Karl, enters into the picture and attempts to teach Homer that he is entirely deserving of his new station in life.

A certain chemistry develops between Homer and Karl, although it happens at such a low level that Homer himself probably never even registers it as such. And Marge certainly never cottons on. We do see traces of spousal jealousy rearing its head during a scene where Homer telephones Marge to report that his search for a personal assistant isn't going so well, openly admitting that all of the applicants thus far have been flirtatious young temptresses. It dawns on Marge that Homer having his own secretary could well prove detrimental to their marriage later on down the line, so when she hears the next applicant enter and notes a male voice, she insists that Homer hire him, thinking him a safe bet. The joke being, of course, that Karl speaks with the fervid, gravelly vocals of Harvey Fierstein, which acts as a pretty clear shorthand as to his sexual orientation. Marge assumes she's dodged a bullet and in a way, she's right. This was 1990, baby, and the prospects of any explicit two-way homosexual interaction in a primetime sitcom were basically zero. But as Gladys Knight and The Pips assure us, love finds its own way, and Homer and Karl enjoy an emotional tightness that goes right above Marge's towering beehive.

Like Jacques, there is an air of unreality about Karl, in that he seems just a little too perfectly tailored to suit the needs of the individual Simpson for whom he develops an affinity. Just as Marge needs someone who's exciting, romantic and willing to shower her with devotion, Homer needs someone who'll talk him up at every turning and is altruistic enough to cover for his numerous indiscretions. But unlike Jacques (or Kashmir, Lurleen or Mindy for that matter), Karl is not an aspiring Home-Wrecker; to the contrary, he takes it as his personal duty to help prop up Homer and Marge's marriage by sending a singing telegram with a bouquet of roses to Evergreen Terrace to account for the wedding anniversary he (accurately) foresees Homer forgetting. Although Karl clearly has enormous affection for Homer, he's so selfless and wonderful that he'd far sooner channel that affection into maintaining Homer's current picture of domestic bliss instead of attempting to win Homer over to himself. In fact, Karl is selfless and wonderful to the point where he doesn't quite seem human - there are numerous points throughout the episode where he could have revealed that he was really Homer's guardian angel all along and I honestly could have bought it.

This depiction of a LGBT character as an almost super-human force of good in an otherwise cold and judgemental world is, on the one hand, extremely touching, and remarkably bold and progressive for its time, but it does provide ample grounds for criticism, as we can see from Nathan Rabin's review of the episode on The AV Club. Rabin notes that Karl is a tremendously positive representation of a queer character in many regards - "the smartest, most capable and efficient character in this episode, if not in the series as a whole" - but he also accuses the episode of falling into the trap of making Karl "the gay equivalent of the Magical Negro archetype: the sexless gay martyr/sidekick", in that he "has no agenda of his own. He exists solely to help a hapless heterosexual character learn life lessons." In some respects, this is entirely typical of the decade we were then entering, for the 1990s was a time when whatever visibility homosexuality was gaining in the mainstream media tended to be skewed through a distinctively heterosexual lens. Gays were usually there, at worst, to inspire panic in straight characters or, at best, to be colourful sidekicks cheering on their heterosexual friends (Rupert Everett's character in the 1997 film My Best Friend's Wedding is a good example of the latter). The needs and interests of the gay community were seldom at the forefront of mainstream entertainment, as these were not thought to concern heterosexual audiences. Thus, the implicit tragedy of Karl's predicament, his "unrequited, frankly unfathomable crush on Homer" in the words of Rabin, is downplayed entirely, and his unflinching altruism could just as readily be viewed as emblematic of his having no needs and interests beyond assisting Homer (the closest we get to learning about Karl's wider, non-Homer interests is in the fleeting reference to his friendship with the girls in the typing pool).

I think that Rabin is half-right, in that Karl seems entirely resigned to the fact that his own sexual preferences preclude him from any genuine first-hand gratification. He seems content in living out his own affections for Homer vicariously through Homer's marriage to Marge, as if a gay man's only taste of a traditional lifestyle comes in experiencing it second-hand by observing a heterosexual relationship from afar. I think that Rabin's at least somewhat wrong, however, in describing Karl's crush on Homer as unrequited. I mean, there's a pretty obvious Freudian slip when Homer goes to hug Marge, after accepting Karl's gesture of the singing telegram, and declares, "I love you, Karl!", before hastily correcting himself. Clearly, Homer does reciprocate Karl's affections. Am I seriously suggesting that Homer is secretly gay and that his marriage to Marge is all a big charade? Nothing so radical, although as I see it Homer does develop a strong attachment to Karl, one that almost seems to supersede his affections for Marge, and yet one that's equally as chaste and asexual as can possibly be. And one that can only really be lived out vicariously, within the safe confines of his relationship to Marge (poor Marge effectively ends up being an unwitting proxy throughout the entire episode). And let's not forget that Homer and Karl actually do kiss at the end, and that it's a tremendously glorious moment. There's a sort of double-edgedness to the characters' interactions that seems aware and entirely accepting of the limitations of this set-up while being equally determined to push it just slightly beyond the expected boundaries, with that gutsy (albeit entirely asexual) man-on-man kiss being the culmination. In the end, the real implicit sadness of Karl's relationship with Homer comes in the tantalising glimpse it gives as to what might have been. For what might have been is all that it can be, something the episode both takes as a given and, as that triumphant kiss would imply, seems a smidgen wistful over.

Of course, it is the jealous machinations of a jilted romantic that provides our main source of antagonism and ultimately spells an end to Homer and Karl's professional relationship, although that romantic has stakes in a different relationship altogether, one that happens to intersect with our hero's. The grand irony of "Simpson and Delilah" is that as we have one LGBT character who's great and amazing and holding Homer together throughout the episode, it's another LGBT character who all the while insists upon throwing a spanner into Homer's gears. Although Homer's downfall is ultimately caused by Bart accidentally depleting his entire supply of Dimoxinil, causing his hair growth to recede, Waylon Smithers makes a number of attempts to cut Homer down throughout the episode, culminating in an underhanded bid to have Homer fired once he's able to dig up sufficient dirt on him. This is because he recognises that Burns' increasing enthusiasm for Homer represents a threat to his own personal status as Burns' right-hand man, and that status is all that Smithers has going for him in life.

One of the really startling things about "Simpson and Delilah", in retrospect, is that it does show an uncharacteristically mean and vindictive side to Smithers, who not only actively conspires against Homer but revels in any opportunity he gets to make Homer feel small. This is one of the very few episodes (if not the only episode) in which Smithers is portrayed as a straight-up villain, as opposed to the sober yin to Burns' raging yang, as Burns himself so aptly put it in "Blood Feud", the Season 2 finale. Later episodes would cement Smithers as an extremely mild-mannered guy whose docile, non-threatening demeanor provided the perfect foil to Burns' unbridled tyranny. In fact, "Blood Feud" sees Smithers putting his career and personal standing with Burns on the line in order to help Homer, so you could say that by the end of the season we'd seen his characterisation come full cycle. For now though, he's not above resorting to some seriously ugly tactics in order to drive a potential rival for Burns' affections from his territory. When I think about it, it's a shame that he and Karl end up on conflicting sides in this equation, as the two characters actually have a lot in common and would probably be great friends under the right circumstances. They're both miraculously dedicated personal assistants who would unquestionably give their lives to protect the bosses they love so dearly. When Karl claims responsibility for Homer's insurance fraud there's a moment where Smithers indirectly asks him why he has chosen to protect Homer, to which Karl responds, "My reasons are own" - touching, if not a little ironic given that Smithers is the one character who would certainly understand. Although Smithers technically "wins" at the end of the episode, what he ends up with is the reinstatement of a relationship that's paradoxically his entire world but also sad and stifling, for his infatuation with Burns is entirely unrequited and he's long resigned himself to the fact that getting to assist Burns must be the reward in its own right. Smithers is Rabin's gay martyr/sidekick to a truly tragic degree (although the one thing Smithers is not is sexless - he's allowed to have a kinky fantasy life about Burns).

Overall, "Simpson and Delilah" is ambiguous as to just how much authentic talent Homer exhibits during his short-lived tenure as junior executive. Yes, he is exceedingly dependent on Karl (but then Burns can't even function without Smithers, so it seems unfair to penalise him for that much) and Smithers probably does make a valid point when he argues that the decreased number of accidents and increased productivity around the plant since Homer's promotion could just as likely have to do with Homer's removal from the plant floor. And yes, he does pronounce résumé as "resume". Then there's Homer's tartar sauce initiative, which sounds like the kind of moronic suggestion he would make in lieu of an actual constructive one (see his candy machine talk in "Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk"), but it's a sincere observation which stems from his being in touch with the needs of his fellow workers in a way that the other higher-ups are clearly not. Homer knows how to make the lower employees feel happy and valued because in his heart he is still one of them, so maybe Smithers should cut him some slack. Is Homer the classically clueless simpleton who, much like Chance the gardener, is able to bumble his way through good fortune for a while because the rest of the world sees exactly what it wants to see, or does Karl see something in Homer which Homer himself has underestimated? In his final scene, Karl assumes the role of Glinda the Good Witch, his ultimate goal being to convince Homer that it wasn't his hair, but his self-belief which enabled him to get as far as he has. It's such a powerful, moving moment that every time I see it I genuinely want to believe it, and there's an extent to which, as much as I love this episode, I have to begrudge it for proceeding to shatter my illusions so harshly. Actually, I think that Karl is entirely correct when he tells Homer that he has the kind of potential that could go far in life if he's willing to follow it through. The part that Karl gets wrong is that the rest of the world, basically, is petty, shallow and nowhere near as open and wonderful as he. Ultimately, it doesn't matter how thoroughly Homer believes in himself, or how much he genuinely has to offer as an executive. The world will not take him seriously because he doesn't have hair, and that's that, apparently.

"Simpson and Delilah" ends on a thoroughly bleak note, which Burns' rare show of empathy (he demotes Homer from the role of junior executive but stops short of firing him because he's been through this whole hair loss thing himself) and Marge's final consoling words only partially relieve the sting of. Comfort is sought yet again in the reaffirmation of the status quo, which is as stifling as it is reassuring. Homer laments that he's once again stuck in his dead-end job and can't give his kids everything he's promised them, but Marge reassures him that they will get by and that the kids won't hold it against him forever. Above all, she loves him whether he has hair or not. We fade out with a reprise of the singing telegram's ditty from earlier, this time performed by Marge to Homer. Marge gets to reaffirm their relationship as the bedrock upon which he can always depend, but in a way this is also serves as Karl's parting message of alleviation to Homer. After all, Marge is, unbeknownst to herself, reiterating the same words that Karl had previously delivered indirectly to Homer, via the telegram and ostensibly to Marge, as a gesture of his own love and affections. Now Marge, forever the unwitting proxy in the middle, gets to recite these very words back to Homer on Karl's behalf. The sense of doting adoration between two males ultimately endures, albeit through the safe trappings of a heterosexual marriage. Ah well, baby steps, people. This was 1990 after all.

As an epilogue, I'd note that The Simpsons has frequently been ahead of the pack when it comes to queer representation in a mainstream sitcom, even if some of those efforts inevitably look a little timid and dated now. In addition to "Simpson and Delilah", the Season 8 episode "Homer's Phobia", featuring the legendary Pope of Trash John Waters, netted a ton of praise for its upfront exploration of the subject in 1997. In recent years, however, the show's long-running depiction of Smithers' sexuality has come under scrutiny, in that it's another characteristically 1990s gag that the series has succeeded in preserving in amber for well into the 2010s (albeit with less publicity than the Apu controversy). Back in the 90s, this kind of oblique, wink-wink nudge-nudge method of incorporating a LGBT character was seen as the way to go, but the world has moved on and nowadays it seems regressive for Smithers to be perpetually stuck in the closet. In fairness, this is something that the show has attempted to address, chiefly in the Season 27 episode, "The Burns Cage", in which Smithers finally gets to come out.

Before I sign off, I'd like to share another observation I have about "Life on The Fast Lane". There's a scene where Marge and Jacques caress one another's hands above the ball return system and their balls roll together like they're kissing. It's an obvious visual metaphor for where Marge and Jacques' throbbing biological urges are pulling them. Except that Marge's ball has Homer's name engraved on it, and earlier on in the episode, the ball was quite plainly used as a metaphor for Homer himself. So I just can't shake from my head the notion that that's actually a visual metaphor for Homer kissing Jacques. Well then, that's all the evidence I need. Homer confirmed gay after all!

* When you think about it, that must have been one heck of an awkward game for the female Home-Wreckers, which is possibly why they fared so badly against the Pin Pals. Although Kashmir's reaction would suggest that the loss was Jacques' fault.