Something that I very rarely talk about in these Simpsons episode coverages are the couch gags, but I couldn't possibly let the one preceding "Lisa The Beauty Queen" (9F02) pass without comment. It's a sequence that I'm sure tells a fascinating story - we enter the living room to find Maggie already seated on the couch, as Homer, Marge and Bart rush past her, overshooting their mark so drastically that they almost run off the film strip altogether and into the white abyss beyond, only to pivot in the nick of time and make it back to the couch, at which point Lisa finally shows up and takes her place beside them. Even as a child, the gag always stood out to me as weirdly incomplete. The intention is clear and charming enough. It's a tribute to the kind of fourth wall-breaking antics that were endemic to the golden age of animation, in which characters appeared to interact with their theatrical surroundings (for one such example, see the ending to the 1948 Bugs Bunny short Rabbit Punch). But it always seemed profoundly odd that only Homer, Marge and Bart were permitted to participate in the homage, when ordinarily the family are in these couch gags as a team. Wouldn't it have made more sense for all five of them to have run off the strip in unison? What is the purpose of having Maggie be already seated, and then for Lisa to appear only when the joke's already over? Unless there's an additional reference that I'm missing, I would hazard a guess that something went awry with the animation in this sequence, and that removing Lisa and Maggie from the main action was done either as a cost-cutting measure, as a result of the full sequence not being completed in time, or perhaps because the effect simply looked too cluttered with all five characters running off the strip at once. The pairing of couch gags and episodes is usually arbitrary, but doesn't it have that extra tang of curiosity that Lisa should be good as omitted from the sequence preceding an episode she headlines?
"Lisa The Beauty Queen" was in an interesting position when it debuted on October 15th 1992, arriving at a time when The Simpsons was undergoing something of a tonal retooling. There is, in my opinion, a discernible gulf between "A Streetcar Named Marge", the last holdover from Season 3, and "Homer The Heretic", the first of the Season 4 batch proper, signalling the end of one era in the series' history and the dawn of another. "Streetcar" was as bold and ambitious an episode as The Simpsons had ever attempted at that stage, but its foremost strengths lay in the quieter, melancholic qualities that had grounded the family's earlier adventures, and in that regard it plays like a finale to the show's original phase (the point at which, in a parallel universe, it might plausibly have bowed out for good). "Heretic", meanwhile, loudly announced the direction the series would be taking in Al Jean and Mike Reiss's second year as showrunners - brash, outlandish, and driven more by gags than emotional honesty or plotting (notice how dragged out the resolution is, once Ned has saved Homer from the blaze?). Following it up with a relatively unassuming entry like "Lisa The Beauty Queen" was a smart neutralising move, demonstrating that this new era was still capable of crafting sensitive dramas that were in tune with the characters' vulnerabilities, even if they didn't hit quite the same melancholic notes as before. "Lisa The Beauty Queen" isn't exactly the most down-to-earth of Simpsons yarns - some of that trademark Jean-Reiss outlandishness seeps its way in, including a plot development that, at the time, might have been the darkest in the show's history - but it approaches a relatable topic in a meaningful way, exploring Lisa's quest to recover her self-esteem when it is brutally eviscerated by the sketchy dealings of a carnival cartoonist. Homer's solution is to enter Lisa in a local children's beauty pageant, believing that a girl as beautiful as her couldn't possibly lose. Lisa has her reservations but is persuaded to go along with Homer's plan and, with the support of her family, rises brilliantly to the occasion. Unfortunately, the pageant is being funded by a cigarette company, Laramie Cigarettes, who unbeknownst to her have a more sinister ulterior motive than simply circumventing advertising restrictions, in hoping to bag themselves an eminent young spokesperson for a campaign explicitly aimed at getting children into smoking.
On the DVD commentary, the crew joke about how the episode lacks a consistent through line, observing how it lurches from offering a humorous look at the world of child beauty pageants into an outspoken attack on the cigarette industry - which, as they concede, was hardly the bravest of possible targets (Jean notes that networks allowed you to go after cigarettes because they couldn't advertise on television, but a similar diatribe would never have been permitted toward the alcohol industry). It's clear that the beauty pageant story didn't yield enough material to run past the second act and they needed to manufacture a way to keep it going for a few more minutes, hence the participation of Jack Laramie. But as a journey for Lisa I've always felt that it made perfect sense - she's so desperate to gain the town's approval that she's willing to go along with all of these dumb and performative rituals, until she's thrown into a scenario so egregiously wrong that she can't ignore it. What the cigarette angle does mean is that Jeff Martin's script gets to go somewhat easy on the subject of child beauty pageants, regarding them as more of a smokescreen to an evil than an evil in themselves. There have certainly been far more cut-throat depictions in other media - compared to, say, the pageant featured in the movie Little Miss Sunshine (2006), the Little Miss Springfield contest seems like a positively wholesome occasion, a celebration of the town's radiant young girls and their individual talents. If not for that insidious cigarette sponsorship, you might wonder what the harm is. But then this was 1992, and while child pageants had long attracted attracted their share controversy, they weren't quite so hot buttoned an issue at the time. A few years on, and public perception would take a massive swing toward the negative following the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, a six-year-old girl from Colorado who had been very active in the pageant scene, but for now the general aura was a little more innocent. The greatest charge The Simpsons sees fit to level against such competitions is that they are highly vacuous and patently ridiculous affairs, being baby versions of the Miss America contest the family were watching a couple of episodes back in "A Streetcar Named Marge". Ideally, they're not exactly the first place you'd want to go if you're seeking reassurance about your appearance, something else that gets jokingly acknowledged on the commentary, but perhaps Lisa's ability to weather that particular challenge is a testament to something else entirely.
Lisa's crisis originates over something ostensibly small, but the hurt it causes is completely palpable. She pays to have a caricature drawn of herself at the Springfield Elementary carnival, and is aghast at the result, which she interprets as an accurate representation of how the rest of the world sees her. By the nature of the beast, anybody who signs up to be caricatured can expect to come out looking a little bit silly, but this specific cartoonist has taken a troublingly crude approach that makes zero attempt to flatter her, depicting her as goofy, wall-eyed and causing a miniature boy to flee in terror. Every time I watch this episode, I'm always astounded at the sheer callousness of this guy, since he is well within earshot when Lisa draws the expressed conclusion that she's ugly, and he does nothing to reassure her. Implying that it actually was his intention to make her feel that way? Or that he'd sooner she arrived at that conclusion than the more obvious one, which is that he's just a lousy artist? Either way, not a good look for him. It does make you wish that the giant pack of cigarettes that shows up in the third act had landed on him as well as Menthol Moose. What's more, there are a bunch of onlookers, kids and adults alike, who laugh uproariously at the drawing, and while it's not clear if they're laughing at Lisa or just the inaneness of the caricature, the fact that they're partaking in the humiliation of an eight-year-old child, who won't have the resilience to shrug this off, is seemingly of no odds to them. In reality, Lisa is no more freakish-looking than the next Springfieldian, but the damage is done. A subsequent scene shows her checking out her reflection on the underside of a spoon; it shows an obviously distorted image, but by this point there is no distinguishing between that distortion and how she perceives herself in her own mind.
Elsewhere at the carnival, we find Skinner being accosted by a team of Disneyland lawyers for his infringement of their trademarked slogan, "The happiest place on Earth" - and yes, it is difficult to watch this sequence nowadays without musing on the irony that Disney has since gotten its hands on The Simpsons, along with a formidable proportion of popular culture, in spite of the viciousness of some of the anti-Disney sentiments they once expressed. My favourite joke, which might not have been intentional, is the sneaky, misshapen way they've drawn the Mickey Mouse ears on the blue-haired lawyer's briefcase, so that the series as it stood in 1992 wouldn't court any actual accusations of copyright infringement, and to my mind it kind of looks like a nuclear reactor symbol (coincidence, or underhanded satire on the animators' part?). Homer, meanwhile, is having a prosperous time of it, winning first prize in the school raffle, a ride on a Duff-themed blimp (a rare occasion on which he's able to one-up Ned Flanders, who has to settle for the raffle's second prize in the form of a shoe buffer). His elation is undercut when he realises how miserable Lisa is about her caricature, and is unable to convince her that she shouldn't see herself in that way - she dismisses his encouragement as the kind of meaningless babble that all parents are obligated to say to their children, even as he proves his point by asking his own emotionally abusive father to comment on his appearance ("Dad, am I cute as a bug's ear?" "No, you're homely as a mule's butt!"). Homer initially tries consulting Moe for advice, but Moe insists (somewhat suspiciously) that he has no experience in feeling unattractive. Then, a promotion for the upcoming Little Miss Springfield pageant feels like a godsend, for what better way to lift Lisa out of her despair than for her to compete and be crowned the winner, thus demonstrating how beautiful she really is? The possibility that it might not work out that way never so much as crosses his mind. He believes so strongly in the idea and is so determined to put his daughter first that he's willing to fund the extortionate $250 entry fee by selling his ticket for the Duff blimp to Barney, who has recently been making a killing as a human guinea pig.
Although the Homer-Lisa dynamic isn't exactly front and centre for a large chunk of the "Beauty Queen" narrative, it is where the emotional thrust of the episode lies, cementing it as part of an already rich tradition of stories dedicated to demonstrating how these two characters, who on the surface seldom appear to be on the same wavelength, could be bound by such a fundamental tenderness. Previous entries had tended to focus on Homer's repeated failure to meet his daughter's needs, either because he was too apathetic in general ("Lisa's Substitute"), unable to prioritise them ("Lisa's Pony") or exploiting them for his own selfish ends ("Lisa The Greek"). "Beauty Queen" offers an interesting variation on the formula, with Homer once again putting Lisa's feelings on the line through a questionable decision, but his heart is always shown to be in the right place. His actions, while boneheaded, are driven by a steadfast belief in his daughter's worthiness of taking that crown - when Marge puts it to him that the judges are going to hold Lisa to a very different standard to a parent, he responds in the most grotesque yet wholesomely loving of terms: "If I could gouge out somebody else's eyes and shove them into my sockets I would, but to me she's beautiful." What's more, he is actually vindicated by the episode's end; by then, even Homer can't fathom what he was thinking when he filled out the application, supposing that he must have been drunk, but Lisa assures him that he has, in his unorthodox way, enabled her to see herself more positively. She stops short of explaining why she feels better about herself and doesn't resent the final arrangement, which is a big part of what makes the ending so impactful. It isn't exactly hard to figure out, but the episode's final message feels all the more valid for the fact that it is essentially shown and not told.
More than just a Homer and Lisa story, "Beauty Queen" is really a tale of how all of the family is able to come together to help one of their own in a time of crisis. I'm not sure how readily I swallow the specific moment where Marge persuades a reluctant Lisa to participate in the pageant by explaining how Homer funded her application - it feels reminiscent of the scene from "Lisa's Pony" where Marge comes clean with Lisa about the financial realities of owning a horse and the sacrifices made by Homer for Princess's upkeep, except in this instance Lisa didn't ask to be entered into the pageant, nor did Homer consult her before making the application, so it seems unfair that she should feel pressured into shouldering any of the responsibility. Not to mention that this is a major 180 from Marge's earlier stance that entering an insecure Lisa into a contest of this nature was a dicey proposition at best. You've got to keep the story moving somehow, but I think it might have felt more authentic if Lisa had discovered how Homer got the money and made the decision to take part on her own terms (alternatively, have Homer's sacrifice be framed as a testament to how much he believes in her, rather than something she potentially owes him for). Otherwise, the episode is a shining example of Simpsons solidarity at its mightiest, with all of the family getting to play their part in Lisa's becoming a force to be reckoned with. Marge takes her to a salon to show her to how to make the most of her appearance, Maggie role plays as her opponent in practice sessions, while Bart teaches her several cosmetic hacks that he's inexplicably well-versed in ("taping a swimsuit to your butt, petroleum jelly on your teeth for that frictionless smile, and the ancient art of padding"). He also points out that it is a much awkwarder business for siblings to pay compliments to one another than it is parents to their children, but assures Lisa that she isn't ugly. Amid all this preparation work are various smaller character moments, including the continuation of a running gag where Homer will make some teasing allusion to what we presume to be Bart's sexual innocence, only for us to get a direct window into Homer's thought processes and it to be revealed that he wasn't thinking about sex at all (prior examples showed up in "The War of The Simpsons" and "The Otto Show"). On the flip side, there's an early instance of another running gag that allows us to glimpse into Marge's thoughts and her private lusting over male celebrities (in this case professional golfer Jack Nicklaus), and I'm not sure, but Bart's surprising mastery of the high-heeled strut might be the first occasion on which we've seen him cross-dress. It certainly wouldn't be the last.
With the support of her family, Lisa's confidence slowly regenerates, giving her the moxie make her best effort at the pageant, although at this stage she's still compelled to stake her self-worth on whether or not she'll win. Her chances of doing so seem in serious doubt when she learns that she'll be competing against one Amber Dempsey, a seasoned beauty pageant contestant with such mass appeal that she was crowned Pork Princess in the same week as she became Little Miss Kosher. The figure of Amber is about as cut-throat as "Beauty Queen" is prepared to get in its lampooning of child beauty pageants; all things considered, she is a fairly mild caricature of the kind of kid who gets dragged around the pageant circuit (one of the major controversies surrounding child beauty pageants has to do with the sexualisation of contestants; Bart's padding remark notwithstanding, this is something the episode steers well clear of, with Amber's presentation being cutesy rather than sexualised). But she's also the kind of pandering little terror who can get to the top through the most egregiously hollow of tactics, jeopardising all of Lisa's hard work with a single bat of her illegally-implanted eyelashes (well, not illegal in Paraguay). I do wonder if the episode might have gotten a little more mileage out of the pageant side of the story if it had delved a little more into the psychology of her character - as it is, Amber is really more of a plot device, getting only minimal dialogue (courtesy of Lona Williams, who worked as a writing assistant on the series) and barely any interaction with Lisa. Then again, it may be the point that she never comes off as very much more than a vacuous, perfectly plastic baby doll whose only real function is to flutter her eyelids up and down in an endearing manner, making it especially galling that she should have the edge over a performance as impassioned as Lisa's. (I also like the small glimpses we get of Amber's mother from the sidelines, looking every bit as glitzy as her daughter, which I guess tells its own story.) The only other contestant who gets any degree of focus during the pageant is Apu's niece Pahusacheta, a relatively obscure character who would later get another speaking cameo in "Grade School Confidential" of Season 8, and whose valiant attempt to perform the entirety of "McArthur Park" on the tabla wins her little support among the audience, but enables Krusty, on top form as the pageant's presenter, to make one of his most hilarious observations (for years, "That just kept going, huh?" became something of a stock response in my household to anything interminable). Also of note is that the panel of judges consists of the woman at the ice cream parlour from whom part had wheedled a free sundae in an earlier scene and, even more randomly, Jake the barber, another relatively obscure character who had nevertheless been a part of this world since the Ullman days (and isn't it weird how he showed up to the panel in full barber attire?).
Lisa's gusto, sincerity and determination shine through, allowing her to make a strong impression with the judges and be named a finalist along with Amber. Alas, such laudable qualities are no match for those freakishly extended eyelashes, and Amber gets to bask in the glory while Lisa has to make do with the reserve position, to be called upon only in the instance that Amber is unable to fulfil her duties. (Krusty points out that there is precedent for this, alluding in his typically sleazy way to the case of Vanessa Williams, who was crowned Miss America in 1983 but forced to relinquish her title to runner-up Suzette Charles the following year over a scandal regarding nude photographs.) After this, Lisa becomes despondent once again. That she came second out of all the contestants is of little consolation - she failed to get the validation she'd convinced herself was most important, thus reinforcing her old insecurities that she simply isn't good enough. But a dark twist of fate comes to her aid, when Amber makes her first public appearance as Little Miss Springfield and is struck by lightning and hospitalised (it's a proper day for disasters, since Barney had just prior crashed the Duff blimp and caused it to go full Hindenburg, yet this gets comically little attention). With that, The Simpsons flashes some almost uncharacteristically morbid fangs - it would be a slippery slope from here into Frank Grimes' miserable demise - mitigated by script making it crystal clear that Amber survives and is on the road to recovery (according to Dr Hibbert, she has already been named Little Miss Intensive Care), even though she doesn't reappear for the rest of the episode. One way of looking at it is that it represents an act of divine intervention, with a bolt from above striking down the unworthy recipient and procuring Lisa her rightful position. Another is that it is Amber's sceptre, one of the key symbols of her glory, that attracts misfortune her way, which might have clued Lisa in that the title is something of a poisoned chalice.
Having been sworn in as Amber's replacement (in the style of Lyndon B. Johnson after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, with Marge dressed up as Jackie O, an inspired allusion to their shared maiden name), Lisa discovers that there is indeed a dark side to the vapid smile and wave rituals in which she's expected to partake. She finds herself powerless in the face of the endless chaos and despair unfolding around her, be it in the form of the mournful deportees she's expected to see off at the Springfield docks or the rioting troops during Bob Hope's appearance at Fort Springfield, angry that Tony Randell cancelled and that they got stuck with Little Miss Springfield. The full magnitude of what she's signed up to doesn't completely kick in until Jack Laramie unveils his nefarious plans for Lisa to become the new face of Laramie Cigarettes, citing a need to replace their depleted clientele with young smokers and thoughts that it might be time to put their current mascot, Menthol Moose, out to pasture. Menthol Moose is of course a parody of Joe Camel, the infamous mascot of Camel brand cigarettes, who at the time was the subject of a deluge of controversy, when studies suggested that he'd emulated the same level of cultural recognition among children as Mickey Mouse, and that his popularity had coincided with an increase in young smokers (and it's just dawned on me that Menthol Moose has the same initials as Mickey Mouse, making that particular allusion all the more razor-edged). Menthol Moose is every bit as much a tool for evil, as is confirmed during a parade where Lisa is required to ride atop a float shaped like a packet of cigarettes, while the man in the Menthol costume rides at the front, dispensing free cigarettes indiscriminately to adults and children alike. Even Maggie gets hold of one, and is prepared to trade in one orally fixated habit for another. Lisa is at first inclined to fall in line with her duties, until she looks down and sees her legions of adoring young fans (and at least one pregnant woman) staring up at her with those addictive cancer sticks protruding from their mouths, and finds that she can no longer hold her tongue. She realises that with a position of influence comes tremendous responsibility; at the pageant she had expressed a desire to become Little Miss Springfield so that she could help to make the town a better place, and in order to do so she needs to be more than just a pretty and inoffensive face. She finds her voice and takes a stand, kicking the giant packet of cigarettes down onto Menthol Moose below - an unusually violent move on Lisa's part, but then this is essentially The Simpsons giving the middle finger to Joe Camel and all that he stood for. The moose (or camel) totally had it coming.
Lisa's refusal to be a corporate shill, or to remain silent about any form of injustice that she brushes up against, quickly makes her a liability for the powers than be, rather than a testament to the community and its ability to demand something better. Before long the town's officials are baying for an excuse to oust her from her post, and ultimately resort to disqualifying her on a pedantic technicality - on her application form, in an area marked "Do Not Write Under This Space", Homer had written "Okay". Homer expects Lisa to be angry with him that his blunder cost her her title, but she takes it in good spirits, reminding Homer of why he entered her into the pageant in the first place. He wanted her to feel better about herself, and she assures him that does. We see here a subtle evolution in Lisa's priorities from the beginning of the episode - the crown, the esteem and the official recognition of her beauty aren't important to her, as she's no longer looking to the approval of others to validate her self-worth. In the end, that kind of needy dependence would only have opened her up to being easily exploited. Having the rest of the family behind her gave her the resolve to put herself before the judges, but she's since gone a step further and realised that true confidence can only come from within. She's seen what she's capable of and how she had the courage to speak her mind when it would have been easier just to keep on waving, and therefore has no reason to doubt herself. And she's thankful to Homer for enabling her to go on that journey. It's a thoughtful statement on the superficiality of society's notions of beauty and on the importance of being able to value one's own virtues, delivered with a gentle conviction that doesn't need to sell itself upfront. It's also a deeply heartwarming moment that's tempered by just the right level of subversion and self-awareness, with Homer asking Lisa if she'll remember this the next time he wrecks her life. "It's a deal" she gamely replies. As we'd already seen from the likes of "Substitute", "Pony" and "Greek", things go in a cycle with Homer and Lisa. Sooner or later Homer, who can barely remember how the events of this particular story got in motion, will let his daughter down all over again, but that underlying connection that allows them to see past their differences will assuredly prove as much of a constant. "Beauty Queen" begins with Homer seeing the best in Lisa, even when she feels she has cause to believe otherwise. The ending demonstrates how that goodwill goes both ways.
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