Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 29

‘The Whole World’s Gone Gay!”

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to work alongside Homer at the Springfield nuclear plant because the family needs
money for home repair. Like an evil overlord, Bums watches his employees on the
TV monitors installed in his office, berating them all for their shoddy work:
‘‘Jackanapes, lolligaggers, noodleheads...” But when he sees Marge, he is
captivated: ‘"Enchantress,” he exclaims. Infatuated, Bums begins to court Marge
an d in short order offers her both a raise and the adjacent office, which supplants
Smithers. Later on. Bums, acting like a smitten schoolboy, attempts to express to
Smithers his depth of feeling for Marge. When Bums asks Smithers ‘"You know
that dream where they fly in through the window?” we see for the first time a clear
acknowledgment and direct representation of Smithers’ erotic desire— in Smithers’
dream, it is Mr. Bums who flies in the window. This overt representation of desire
is then repeated in equally direct ways in subsequent episodes, such as “Rosebud,”
which appeared the following season. In this episode, Smithers laments not getting
what he wants for his birthday: namely, Mr. Bums popping out of an oversized
birthday cake, clad in nothing but a sash, and doing a bad impersonation of Marilyn
Monroe’s breathy rendition of “Happy Birthday.” What I find intriguing about
these three sequences I also find a bit disheartening: they each relegate Smithers’
homosexual desire to the realm of fantasy. And the show is often guilty of such
relegation. It does not regularly represent homosexuality as a livable lifestyle;
instead it positions it as unsatisfied sexual desire and/or unrequited love. As
Smithers’ coming out process was increasingly foregrounded, the creators of the
show increasingly pushed the issue into the periphery by making it literally fantastic.
Though visually and textually overt, the show seemed fearful of being politically
overt with the issue of sexuality.
However, the show has since offered us images that move gayness out of
the periphery and make it a more substantial aspect of Smithers’ "‘actual” life.
Perhaps the best example of this attempt to portray an actual gay lifestyle is from
an episode in which Homer teaches a community college class on marriage, ‘"Secrets
of a Successful Marriage” (1995). Deep into the fifth season, the producers decided
to make it clear—at least to those who can understand the literary allusions—that
Smithers is indeed a gay man. Homer initially gets the class to share personal
secrets and reveal the failings of their marital relations. Smithers speaks up, saying
“I was married once. But I just couldn’t keep it together.” We are then given a
flashback scene showing Smithers having an argument with his wife over Mr.
Bums and Bums himself passionately calling out for Smithers. This flashback, a
wonderfully rendered parody of scenes from two of Tennessee Williams’ most
famous plays. Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire, has great
resonance within the context of The Simpsons. To fully appreciate it, one must
know something of not only the two plays cited but also of Williams himself, of
his own stmggles with both heterosexual and homosexual desires and the ways in