Marge Simpson, matriarch of the long-running animated show The Simpsons on Fox, apparently posed in various stages of undress for the November issue of Playboy magazine. The magazine will hit newsstands Oct. 16.
Say what you want about The Simpsons: It can be crass. It can be infantile. It can be incredibly inappropriate. It has also become one of American television’s most important media touchstones—a satirical juggernaut that’s been offering commentary on American society for two decades.
I doubt it would’ve lasted as long without Marge. For 20 years, she’s been the show’s sweet, understanding voice of reason: While Homer and Bart fight and scheme and underachieve, long-suffering Marge—much as mothers everywhere do—served as the family backbone, doling out hugs and advice and, occasionally, a much-needed scolding. If Homer represents some of our basest instincts unleashed, Marge is a reminder that we’re all called to be better than that.
So I was heartbroken to hear of Marge’s pictorial. This is a mother who, if she found Playboys in Bart’s room, would surely toss them (if not burn them) and give the boy a lecture about the demeaning message of pornography. This is a woman who apparently instilled in her daughter, Lisa, a strong sense of what’s right and wrong, and fostered within the girl a sense that women should be respected and appreciated for who they are inside, not ogled at for what they look like.
In short, the Playboy pictorial is completely out of character for this blue-haired mom. Marge, the character, would never do such a thing. Not only would it demean her, but it would shame her family and undercut all the lessons she’s been so patiently trying to teach her family all these years. What would Rev. Lovejoy think? What if Milhouse got a copy? What if …
Let’s face it: Springfield in The Simpsons was a pretty dysfunctional place to begin with. The last thing it needed was one of its more clear-thinking residents to show her most personal wares at the local Kwik-E-Mart.
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