Marge Simpson Anime: The Liberation of Marjorie Bouvier

[history79]

"I wanted to distance Homer Simpson as far away as possible from Marge. I wanted her to be Marjorie Bouvier – I wanted it to be a story about her coming home to herself. It’s called the Marge Simpson anime because it’s a play on what anime means to our current culture, and who consumes anime the most in Western culture. The title refers to Marge Simpson because of how we identify with her, but the subtitle is ‘The Liberation of Marjorie Bouvier’ because that’s the end goal."

"There’s nothing in place to stop male mediocrity from being as successful as it is. Everything we’ve constructed in our society to this very moment – that hot combination of compulsory heterosexuality, patriarchy and capitalism – refuses to provide any punishment for being a mediocre man. And when I speak of male mediocrity, I’m not referring to someone who isn’t as intelligent as an astrophysicist or as attractive as a hot actor. When I speak of male mediocrity, I’m referring to someone who doesn’t challenge the space they exist in or who has never looked at the world critically. There’s no punishment for that."

"My art project was me asking the question, ‘What if I told you Homer Simpson wasn’t good enough? What if I could tell you that I could give Marge a better reality than the one she’s been offered? What if I told you that she could still be an incredible human being if Homer wasn’t in her life?’"

- Soolagna Majumdar

Source: http://www.uwastudentguild.com/damsel-marge-simpson-anime-and-the-liberation-of-women-words-with-soolagna-majumdar/



Source: https://margesimpsonanime.tumblr.com/

episode 12: Bouvier Uprising pt. 4



episode 16: gal pals



episode 26: all about my children



episode 27: the soft exultation of Marjorie Jacqueline Bouvier

Comments

[jlbarnett]

Marge may have some talent but she isn't held back by Homer. She'd make her own little box to contain herself if there was nothing else to do it

[janegray]

I understand and support the general sentiment, but I think that she phrased it in the worst possible way.

It's true that male mediocrity is commonly rewarded. As the saying goes, "you have to work twice as hard to get half of what they have."

But there is a huge difference between "stop rewarding someone that didn't earn it" and "punish someone for not earning something."

The idea that not challenging the space you exist in should be, in and of itself, reason to punish out, as opposed to simply withhold a reward you didn't earn, really rubs me off the wrong way. It sounds too much like the "punish people for being lazy!!!111" right wing rhetoric. I'm pretty sure that's not what she means, but that's how she comes across.

[alicemacher]

Why not Marge Simpson Doujinshi or at least Marge Simpson Manga? Although the manga and anime media are of course closely related, the latter tends to involve characters, y'know, moving around on the screen.

Nerddorky nitpicking aside, I applaud the idea behind this project. Marge really does get the short end of the stick within canon in terms of focus and characterization, compared to her husband, son and daughter. Probably due to this lack of focus, the show's writers, even during the earlier, superior seasons, couldn't seem to agree on whether she was generally oblivious or insightful; content as a traditional homemaker or longing for a career outside the home; heartwarmingly accepting of her husband warts and all, tragically self-deluding about his flaws, or perpetually this close to divorcing him.

In contrast, Lisa, while somewhat of a "love her or hate her" phenomenon within the fandom, at least has had a more or less consistent characterization as an intelligent, outspoken, against-the-grain, progressive activist since at least the fifth season. And because none of her relationships, when she even has one, last more than an episode ("Milhouse doesn't count" *shared giggle between her and Marge*), she isn't primarily defined as someone's life partner, the way Marge tends to be.

[cyberghostface]

Hasn’t “Homer isn’t good enough for Marge” been a plot point that’s been addressed numerous times in the actual show?

[arilou_skiff]

Yeah, it feels a bit like kicking in an open door here, when the show itself routinely points out that Homer doesen't actually deserve Marge.

[lordultimus]

I don't know about this. I know it's unintentional, but there's a real undercurrent of "a heterosexual woman can never find fufilment with a man".

[gnarll]

Punishing people for being mediocre? Like, average? I don't think a society that punished people for being average would be a very nice one.

Statistically, most people are average or below.

My view is biased because I myself am a mediocre male* often rewarded for doing nothing, but...

[deh_tommy]

"What if I could tell you that I could give Marge a better reality than the one she’s been offered? What if I told you that she could still be an incredible human being if Homer wasn’t in her life?"

I think the answer would probably be that Marge will thank you for the opportunity, but she rejects your reality because she doesn't want to live in a world that doesn't have Homer, as a life without him simply isn't worth living.

That's not a case of patriarchal oppression or rewarding male mediocrity because she's scared of the alternative or anything like that; she loves Homer with all her heart, and Homer loves her with all his. Of course she could still be an incredible human being without him in her life. The simple matter of fact is that she wants him; much more than that, she wants him. That's a neat enough idea, but this "liberation" doesn't really mean much (at least in my opinion) because she doesn't need to be liberated from anything. She's already where she wants to be.

I'm reminded of that one scene from Sonic Boom where Amy's told she shouldn't be cooking.

[thezmage]

So I read the supplied paragraph and maybe it’s my reading comprehension that’s lacking but all I got from it is “I know a lot of big words” and “I want to sleep with Marge Simpson,” but why are they misusing the term “anime?”

[thanekos]

Take art created to challenge a status quo, drop it into a fandom space consisting in part of pedantically defending personal status quos, and what do you get?

Several of the comments to this post.

[servant_iskandar]

I get what you say, in broader terms. We often talk about what is canon and what is not, what is "in character" and what is not. So we, too, can be agents of the status quo as in sharing a frame of reference, or at least a set of shared/acknowledged/agreed upon viewpoints about oft-beloved narrative and fictional characters.

That said, however...do no take offense, but I believe your statement is off the mark, and that dismissive tone does not help to corroborate your point.

Simply put, I doubt people such as Jane, Gnarli and Tommy, who all have a rich and positively progressive posting history in this community, are voicing their legitimate criticism as a way to enforce conformism.

Change is good, but change for the sake of change without substance and substainability to back it up have already been one of the big issues in the comics industry for decades.

It's frankly a bit upsetting to see the creators of this new generation falling back to the old tricks, including fanning the flames of controversy, or seeking that Grand Statement that will make them the shepherds of the next flock of yes-persons. Sometimes, it's just fragility. Others wrote in better detail than I ever could here about what's happening to Tom King, who was probably fagocitated both by personal problems and a sudden, perhaps too fast rise to prominence.

A final note - being Italian, like Jane, and especially in the times we've been living in recently, I'm always wary when someone starts advocating against "being average" and "mediocrity" in such an oblique way. Nurturing a feeling of superiority helps to win the complacence of the silent majority: as in, there's always Others to make us feel good, and as such we won't regret someone stomping down on them, until we're the ones under Orwell's boots.

If there's a thing I expect of this community, is to keep our heads high and reject that kind of mindset.

[servant_iskandar]

That I don't exactly get. Anime and manga are broad containers and models based around sets of artistic and narrative techniques - they're vehicles. But you still need to put the fuel in, the actual story and art, so conflating them so closely puts you at risk of sounding too generic for your own good.

In both cases the content can be both extremely challenging, vibrant and rich of progressive ideas, or depressingly ideological, conservative, uninspired. So good or just so awful, and the list goes on and on. And this happens to all genres - which are, again, only marketing classifications - across the entire range, from shonen to shojo and seinen and whatever.

To clarify even further, there are several manga and anime I do love dearly, but that's because (IMHO) of their worth as stories and art first, not because they're "different from what we do". They may propel us to do certain things differently, but ultimately, stories are stories.

Just as with comics.

[laughing_tree]

Bingo.

[deh_tommy]

...sorry.

[deh_tommy]

I'm bemused by the idea my ramblings are in any way rich or progressive, but thanks anyway for the compliment.

[bravest_spinja]

Wait, I thought the story just had Marge hooking up with Manjula, (Which is kind of a crackpair, but fine) but if the whole thing is a self-insert, well, we can't say that hasn't gotten heavy criticism when straight white men do it. (Hello, Terry Long.)

[bravest_spinja]

I’m referring to someone who doesn’t challenge the space they exist in or who has never looked at the world critically.

Yeah that is a monkey's paw of a wish, right there.

[tianyulong]

You said what I felt about that quote better then I ever could. Thank you. The only thing I'd like to add, is that this bothers me especially because Homer has been implied to have brain damage in multiple episodes. Please note I'm not trying to imply Homer is entitled to Marge, nobody is entitled to the love of anyone else. But saying Homer should be punished for not looking at the world critically, it strikes me as... I'm not sure if I'm using the term correct exactly... but vaguely ableist. Homer is about as far from a role model as you can get, but he genuinely loves his family. Punishing him for not doing something that is probably beyond his ability to fully understand, feels cruel to me.

[thezmage]

Honestly I can’t really tell. In the second scan it’s clearly Manjula (she’s wearing her outfit from the show) but I don’t really see the character in the last scan as the same character (her face is a little rounder, her features a little different), and the quote attached derides Homer and then says “I could give Marge a better reality,” implying a relationship. However I just googled the artist and apparently she draws herself quite a bit more different than the picture here

[thezmage]

She says something about “what anime means to our current culture, and who consumes anime the most in Western culture,” and I don’t know what she’s referring to here. Is she referring to the shonen ideal of young boys watching muscular men fight each other in adolescent power fantasies or is she referring to (not as) young girls who watch the same anime and write steamy fanfic of the boys getting it on? Both ideas have their status in Western culture. Neither of which I really see commented on here.

[thezmage]

What status quo is it challenging? Just the specific Simpsons one where Homer and Marge are married and love each other? I’m not sure that’s a status quo that deserves much challenging.

Is it the status quo where the disabled are treated as less than? Because the talk of punishing Homer for having brain damage and/or a genetic disorder seems to be enforcing that.

It’s not challenging the status quo where women are treated as objects? The supplied quotes talk about “punishing” Homer more than they talk about Marge. When they do talk about Marge it’s as something to be earned and won, not as a person with her own choices. Homer deserves Marge every bit as much as Manjula or the artist or Moe or Disco Stu does: not one bit. She is not “deserved” or “won,” she makes her own choices. She’s not blind to Homer’s faults and, despite what the quote would say, she’s been given plenty of choices over the past thirty years. Smarter people, richer people, people who “challenge the space they exist in,” and I’m not sure but I’d be willing to bet by now women as well. Every time she chooses Homer. Regardless of how it may feel some times, Marge is not trapped in her marriage, she chooses to be in it.

And I know that, being a fictional character, she doesn’t really have choices, but looking at it this way only exacerbates the problem. Through that lens Marge is truly an object, no more able to be “liberated” than a rock. Not able to “come to herself” and definitely not “an incredible human being” whether Homer were in her life or not. Unless we can look at her as if she were a human being capable of making her own choices and deserving respect for the choices she makes there is no “liberation [for] Marjorie Bouvier.”