The Simpsons cleanup

I would say they count as Creator's Pest.

I... may actually know the person who added those from elseweb.

Either way, I haven't watched the show for decades. My gut feeling is that the complaints about Sherri and Terri's Butt-Monkey status are exaggerated, but I can't say for sure.

This was on The Simpsons S 10 E 3 Bart The Mother:

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Just like in "Marge Be Not Proud", there seems to be some emotional blackmail going on in this episode. In both episodes, Bart does something terrible, Marge pretty much gives up on him rather than punishing him for it, only showing him love and affection when he does a big gesture.

I feel like accusing Marge of emotional blackmail is going a little far. For context, the reason she was mad at Bart was because he killed a bird, so her feelings seem justified. Are there fans of the show who think she emotionally blackmailed Bart in this episode?

Calling her reaction blackmail feels like a stretch.

This was on The Simpsons S 16 E 2 Alls Fair In Oven War:

• Broken Aesop: The moral of the story is summed up as "don't cheat", but it falls apart because a) Marge only cheated because of the horrible way all the other contestants were treating her, with one of them destroying her meal and mocking her over it, and not because she was insecure about her cooking abilities or something similar, b) she only cheated to level the playing field rather than gain an unfair advantage as they destroyed her creation to the point her only reasonable option to stand a fair chance of winning was to cheat, c) that the other contestants cheated first but would suffer no repercussions for their behavior and could enjoy their unfair advantage scot-free unless Marge cheated back, and d) Lisa is appalled when she learns that Marge had cheated in the contest, but not only did she not call out the contestants who were blatantly trying to sabotage Marge, she didn't do anything to stop them even though she witnessed their behaviour first hand. All of this makes Marge look like she has an actual reason for cheating, and also makes Lisa come off as a huge Hypocrite.
• Double Standard: Lisa is appalled by Marge sabotaging the other contestants, yet she is not bothered at all by them sabotaging her prior.
• Honor Before Reason: Lisa as usual. She calls out Marge for sabotaging the other food entries despite witnessing all the other contestants blatantly trying to sabotage Marge all throughout the contest beforehand.
• Hypocrite: Lisa is disgusted with Marge for sabotaging the other contestants' entries, but she herself never did anything when the other contestants sabotaged Marge's entries earlier on.
• Made Out to Be a Jerkass: Lisa is disgusted with Marge for sabotaging the other contestants' entries, while ignoring that they started the whole thing to begin with.
• Moral Myopia: Lisa doesn't call out the other contestants for trying to sabotage Marge and cheating, but the instant Marge does so in order to give the contestants some well deserved Laser-Guided Karma, Lisa is disapponted in her and tells her to tell the truth.
• No Sympathy: Lisa is rather indifferent to the other contestants mistreating Marge. For bonus points, she is disgusted with Marge when the latter rightfully does so back to them.
• Selective Enforcement: Lisa does nothing when she witnesses the others harassing Marge, yet is quick to call Marge out when she decides to get even with them.

There's a lot of Lisa bashing and I feel like this mischaracterizes her as being okay with what the other contestants did. She's not. If you watch the episode, she clearly isn't happy that the other contestants are sabotaging Marge's food, she just doesn't say anything. A lot of these were added by the same troper, Noob Master. The thing is, we almost got into an edit war over complaining on another Simpsons recap page before and I'm worried if I start removing those examples it might look like I have a vendetta.

Lisa-bashing is something we have to watch out for, given that she is a major Base Breaker among the Simpsons fandom.

Yes, I'm a huge fan of Lisa.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Feb 13th 2022 at 7:59:29 AM

I take special issue with the framing of Lisa's actions in this episode. The entries imply that she was okay with everyone else cheating. That's not the case. She didn't speak up, but her facial expressions were of disapproval. But I don't want to delete anything because of my history with this troper.

Something to look out for in examples: Leftover complaining about "That '90s Show" for retconning Marge and Homer's '70s years, along with premature And the Fandom Rejoiced. I bring this up because episodes since like "Do Pizza Bots Dream Of Electric Guitars", the one where Homer is a millennial, and "The Star of the Backstage" where Marge is in a musical about the Millennium Bug, indicate that the Simpsons operate on a sliding time scale. You can see both in this example on YMMV.The Simpsons S 19 E 11 That90s Show:

• Fanon Discontinuity: The episode depicts the lives of The Simpsons throughout the 90s, completely ignoring that the events of episodes which aired during the show's earlier seasons that took place in the 90s, and completely rewriting canon as a result. This may have been upgraded to Canon Discontinuity in later seasons, since they continue to depict Homer and Marge as having gotten together in the mid-1970s. More charitable fans view the episode as "What if Homer and Marge first met in the 90's?" rather than replacing their well-established love story.

Edited by harryhenry on Feb 15th 2022 at 5:46:01 AM

The show has always operated under a sliding timeline so that might be Franchise Original Sin.

Some complaining about Marge came up on The Simpsons S 16 E 13 Mobile Homer. For reference, the episode clearly portrays Homer as irresponsible with his money, while Marge's attempts to save money amount to buying cheaper food and getting clothes from Goodwill. Homer and Marge's argument show that Both Sides Have a Point: Homer points out that Marge is going too far and there's no point in saving money if you'll never use it ("you can't enjoy money when you're dead, so why not have fun now?"), while Marge shows how much money Homer burns on pointless luxuries (over $7500 in the past year alone) and is mainly concerned over what will happen to the family's finances if he dies.

So... are you asking about an entry on specific or...? If it's being overly bashy (such as calling her a bitch, etc) then you're free to delete or reword it.

Mainly the "financial abuse" bits; it's clear that she's just saving money so Homer doesn't waste it. Homer's absurd spending is justified with him saying that it is his money.

Well yeah, nothing Marge has ever done is "financial abuse" because even the series itself admits that Homer spends an astronomical amount of money on absurd crap. Was it 30 Minutes over Tokyo? All I remember is that they went to a 20 cents store and Homer ate some bad plankton.

There was also that time Homer was about to burn his and Marge's wallet because of Krusty's anticapitalistic rants. So yes, she's justified to keep watch over him.

Edited by Edgar81539 on Jun 5th 2022 at 2:12:17 PM

I want to ask about this example from The Simpsons S2 E20 "The War of the Simpsons"

So, not sure exactly how this is showing any double standard. And I especially don't understand the justification at the end saying "It also goes to show who has placed who on a pedestal in this marriage." Because it's true that Marge still has some faults... So that means Homer is the one who put her on a pedestal... Which still means that he is the one who has more of the blame.

I agree that it does not describe a "double standard", and it's also confusingly written. I would delete that example.

Forgive me for bringing up this old thread (I'm not sure what standard protocol is, I might've been on this site for a while but I rarely touch the forums), but about two thirds of recap pages from Season 33 could use some attention. Simply put, they're a bit too cleaned up, on account of being started up by a ban evader. So, can we get something done about recreating those recaps? Perhaps use an archived version of those pages as a base and rewrite whatever is needed to be rewritten?

Edited by PantaroP on Apr 10th 2023 at 9:51:37 AM

Season 34 lost a lot of episodes too.

You can recreate the pages, but make sure not to include any of the ban evader’s contributions.

That could be difficult, because even ban evader's edits can be valid. At least some of them.

If they’re worded differently, then it might be fine.