Marge Simpson

Marjorie Jacqueline "Marge" Simpson (née Bouvier) (born October 1, 1956), the deuteragonist of The Simpsons, is the homemaker and full-time mom of the Simpson family. She and her husband Homer have three children: Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Marge is the moralistic force in her family and often provides a grounding voice in the midst of her family's antics by trying to maintain order in the Simpson household. Aside from her duties at home, Marge has flirted briefly with a number of careers ranging from police officer to anti-violence activist.

Early life
Marge Bouvier stated she has the same birthday as Randy Quaid (October 1). In another episode, she stated that her birthstone would be emerald if she had been born three months later. She is the youngest daughter of the Bouvier family. Marge was raised by her parents, Jacqueline and Clancy Bouvier. She has a pair of older sisters, the joyless twins, Patty and Selma, both of whom passionately disapprove of Homer.

Meeting Homer
Marge attended Springfield Elementary school and in her senior year, she met Homer Simpson. She was wary of Homer at first, but agreed to have a study date with him, only to find out that Homer was only doing this to get her to go to prom with him. She ended up going with Artie Ziff. She regrets going with Artie because he tried to have sex with her afterwards. Artie takes her home and she later picks up Homer, who she finds walking home, in her car. Marge tells him how much she regretted going to the prom with Artie instead of him, causing Homer to somewhat repair the strap of her dress with the corsage he got her. After that decision, her sisters showed their discontent towards him and ultimately thinks he was just wrong for her. However, Selma does show that she is willing to make a sincere attempt to like Homer for Marge's sake, causing him to have a higher opinion of her. Whereas Patty has never attempted to try and is always on Marge's case to leave Homer, thus it is why she and Homer hate each other. (Marge actually met Homer when she was at Camp, but he didn't call himself Homer and she burnt her hair so that it was brown.)

Marge has always been rather innocent and has also been said to be rather awkward in certain scenarios, especially when she is drunk.

An example of this is when Marge is taking place in a magic show as a contestant and at this time, she is rather drunk so she keeps blabbering about certain things. The magician, Diablo, finds this annoying and pulls out a ball gag and while Marge is blabbering shoves it into her mouth so her drunken talk becomes muffled sounds. This could also link to Marge's famous voice which throughout the Simpsons has been considered annoying.

Marge continues to make muffled sounds from her gagged mouth while a sack is put over her head during the magic trick.

Marriage
After the two started dating for several years, Marge discovered she was pregnant with Bart and she and Homer were married in a small wedding chapel across the state line. Lisa was born soon after and Homer's father Abe purchased their house for them.

Married life
Marge is the mother of the Simpson family, who spends most her time doing housework, caring for Maggie, being supportive of and indulging Lisa and either disciplining or protecting Bart from Homer's wrath. Marge is the only member of the family who encourages church attendance. She also appears to have significant athletic ability. She is bilingual, being fully fluent in French. Her marriage with Homer is also very strong. They once spurned to participate in a key party as soon as they realized what a key party was and promptly left, although Homer also took the key jar with them, most likely to find his car keys.

Wild Escapades
Despite these tendencies, Marge has had her fair share of wild escapades throughout the history of the series. She worked as a police officer in Springfield, took therapy for flight fear, was a real estate agent, sold pretzels, was a painter, was imprisoned for shoplifting, became a gambling addict, showed alcoholic tendencies, was at one time known as The Listen Lady,  was an unwilling participant in a cross-country police chase, overdosed on steroids, cheated on a cooking competition and developed amnesia.

Although not a chain smoker like her eldest sisters Patty and Selma, Marge has engaged in smoking twice. One of these times, however, she was implied to be an attempt to drown out the smell of the Annual Chili Cook-Off to hide it from Homer as long as possible due to realizing if he was to find out he had immediately want to go there, as she was motivatied to go with Homer after their last visit resulted in humiliation on her part when Homer, while drunk, stripped naked and proceeded to "bathe" himself in a cotton candy maker under the delusion he was a puffy pink cloud.

Sex appeal
Marge has been less than a sex symbol in the show. She is beautiful, but looks even better with her hair down rather than up in a beehive. She has not had any flings or cheated on Homer, much opposite to Lois Griffin. She can be considered one of the Sexiest Cartoon Women, making her somewhat of a sex symbol. Marge is very lovely when she gets all dressed up and wears lipstick and earrings. She is a very good example of what housewives can be like.

Jobs
Marge has had many jobs, most of which lasted temporarily, these include:
 * Queen
 * Pretzel Wagon creator and saleswoman
 * Police Officer
 * Trade Show Model
 * Estate Agent for Red Blazer Realty
 * Power plant employee
 * Baker for an Erotic Bakery
 * Teacher at Springfield Elementary
 * Maid
 * Novelist
 * Guardian
 * Babysitter
 * Creator and owner of Shapes, a gym for women
 * Janitor
 * Waitress in Berger's Burgers
 * Worker at La Maison Derrière
 * Meteorologist and anchorwoman at Channel 6 News
 * Driver for a transportation app service
 * Crime scene cleaner

Personality
Marge is a foil to her reckless and impulsive husband. She has high morals and a tendency to be a 'wet blanket' as Homer puts it. She dislikes and tries to avoid taking any sort of risk, can be fearful of new things and has set her life to a routine to the point she has actually worn a groove into the carpet going from the kitchen to the bedroom and the basement from her constant housework. In one episode, it is revealed that, if Marge were to be removed from the town (she was in jail), the entire town of Springfield would fall to bits. Although her level-hotheadedness is often not appreciated, she is needed by everyone in order to maintain stability.

Marge tends to consider anything that is not completely plain to be amazing or exotic, even if they are not all that special, such as deviled ham opposed to normal ham and buttered noodles opposed to unbuttered noodles. She has also been depicted as a killjoy and attempt to prevent activities that other characters otherwise find fun. She always believes she has a good reason for doing so even if it is only her that has a problem. She once had Itchy and Scratchy banned because Maggie injured Homer after imitating a scene from the cartoon. She tried to demolish a burlesque house, and she outright says that if something isn't to her taste then no one else should be allowed to enjoy it. Homer sums up his wife when he tells her: "If it were up to [Marge], all we would ever do is work and go to church". Marge's plain attitude and love for her family are brought down many times including when she finds a Channel suit and openly admits after going to a country club party that the rich are better than the way her family acts.

In addition to her killjoy tendencies, Marge has also been shown to be a hypocrite on several occasions such as secretly keeping Homer's handgun for herself after disapproving of his use of it so much that he eventually chose to throw it away. Other occasions of her hypocrisy include using violent methods in order to protest against the violent Grand Theft Scratchy video game, as stated by Lisa. In the Simpsons Comics #100 - Clip Clip Hooray, it is revealed that Marge would occasionally team up with Luann Van Houten, Agnes Skinner, and Sarah Wiggum in a sacred motherly conspiracy called "The Motherlode", where mothers throw away the comic book collections of their children, whenever they get big enough, then sell them off a bit at a time and use the money to buy motherly accessories. It is also revealed that the reason why no one can ever buy the Simpsons comics in Springfield is because Marge is so embarrassed by how the artists draw her that she buys all of the comics on New Comic Day and at Comic-Cons, while Bart and Lisa are at school. In Dead Putting Society, Marge scolded Homer, Bart and Lisa for laughing at Ned Flanders' apology letter, only to go to the next room and giggle herself.

There have also been occasions where Marge's wishes and demands have led to trouble at the expense of her family such as:


 * Forcing Homer and Larry Burns to turn themselves in, after they fake a kidnapping.
 * Forcing Bart to apologize to Lisa for "making her" miss the Isis exhibit, due to Marge backing out on her promise to take her there, in order to get the comedy props that Bart glued to his face removed.
 * Forcing Bart to attend Nelson's birthday party, after he convinces his classmates not to go.
 * Playing Maggie's Roofie CD 24 hours a day around the house despite everyone else showing obvious hatred of it.
 * Sending money and a letter revealing her husband's crime to a film studio getting him arrested for Copyright Infringement.

Despite many of Springfield's occasional riots and animosity against any given member of the Simpson family, Marge is still shown to be very trusting, even towards her fair-weathered friends and acquaintances who criticize her family and her tastes on a weekly basis.



Physical appearance
Marge has yellow skin and blue hair styled into a tall curly beehive hairstyle. She usually wears a long strapless green dress, red shoes, and a red pearl necklace. The necklace is a family heirloom and she is seen to have a big drawer full of them. Doctor Hibbert revealed that she has webbed toes in "Marge in Chains". Marge remarked that she used to have a "perfect 36-26-36" figure. In The Simpsons Movie, she wore strapless white lingerie with pink frills and bows under her dress.

As a teen, Marge had waist length hair that she always wore down, but wore it in her trademark beehive for senior prom. In flashbacks showing Marge as a child, she is portrayed with her hair worn tall, which probably means she straightened it when she got older. Her hair is thick enough for her to keep objects like the family savings in it. Her hair is once shown close to her knees, consistent with the logic that a lot of hair would be needed to create her tall beehive. It was revealed by Homer that Marge dyes her hair with blue dye #56, stating "She’s been gray as a mule since she was seventeen." Marge herself has made reference to blue not being her natural color, telling this once to the private camera on a reality TV show. Though, she obviously doesn't want anyone know this as she instantly tried to steal the tape. Because of her unusually large hairstyle, her height is reported to be 8'6", as noted by Apu. Her hair was blue before she met Homer and was brunette the first time she met and kissed Homer. He didn't see her in her usual appearance until they met in high school. This is due to Marge ironing a part of her hair for too long and it turning brown, so she chose to do the same to the rest of her hair to keep it even.

In future appearences, she has the same hairstyle and clothing, except she has wrinkles on her mouth and eyes. In Holidays of Future Passed and Days of Future Future, she does not have visuable wrinkles on face, her hair is a bit smaller and has gone grey, and her dress has a collar and a black belt around it.

Political views
Politically, Marge generally aligns with the Democratic Party. She once mentions that she voted for Jimmy Carter ("twice" according to Lisa) and supported the candidacy of their state's progressive governor Mary Bailey, and also claimed to have been extremely depressed when Lyndon B. Johnson passed away. She, however, appears to be a Conservative Democrat, unlike the Left-Winged Lisa.

Talents
Marge is a very talented painter. When she was a teenager, she had an intense crush on Ringo Starr and painted a large number of portraits of him. She also wrote to Starr, but only received a reply 25 years later. After Homer discovered her old paintings, Lisa encouraged Marge to enroll in an art contest in which her portrait of a drunk Homer asleep on the couch won a local art competition. She was then hired by Mr. Burns to paint a portrait of the tycoon. After many attempts, she almost gave up until a belated response from Ringo Starr (stating that she had talent) inspired her to continue. The resulting portrait won even Mr. Burns’ praise, a massive feat in itself, and was placed at the Springfield Art Museum's Burns Wing. In fact, she does show artistic prowess in other areas, such as being able to make life-size sculptures of many of her peers out of popsicle sticks.

Marge is also a very talented cook. She once bought a pretzel business, which flourished with the aid of the mafia. She has entered various cooking challenges, although circumstances such as vengeful competitors and overheated ovens cause her to lose and once, sabotage other competitors. Marge says she feeds the family on twelve dollars a week, using sawdust to pad Homer's food. Generally she is regarded as a very good cook, despite the unusual fact that she knows of fewer than eight spices and apparently constructs terrible ice cream sundaes. She is especially renowned for her pork chops, Homer's favorite dish. She once worked in Au Naturel, an erotic bakery in Springfield.



Marge also occasionally displays superhuman strength. She has been seen lifting Homer off the ground easily several times, including picking him up and throwing him through the bedroom door to show him that Moe taught her the bum's rush and swinging him around in a circle during a dance contest; she also once effortlessly tossed a motorcycle to Homer up a flight of stairs. She also knocked Snake out with a garbage can lid.



Homer Simpson
Marge seems to love Homer a lot, however their relationship has been put through countless strains and tests in the series, such as Homer's accidental marriage with Amber and Marge's flirtation with Jacques. Homer and Marge have been divorced and remarried again a number of times.

Bart Simpson
Marge says that Bart seeks attention, and is the troublemaker of the house. She is often disappointed with Bart, but still loves him. Instead, with a heavy heart, she accepts Bart's bad behavior. Marge usually makes Bart do community service to control his wayward attitude.

Lisa Simpson
Lisa and Marge generally seem to have a good relationship. Marge often gives Lisa advice about a variety of matters. Lisa and Marge often tend to side with each other especially when it comes to Homer's foolish antics. Like Bart and Homer, Lisa and Marge fight as well. Despite their close relationship, Marge, like Homer, fails to understand Lisa when she explains her point of view in a more intellectual manner.

Maggie Simpson
Marge has mentioned of herself and Maggie sharing a bond. Maggie often helps her mother with housework and goes out shopping with her. They give each other looks when Homer, Bart and Lisa antics come in.

Moe Szyslak
It has often been hinted that Moe had a crush on Marge, such as when Moe had Homer and Marge's wedding album and he painted his head onto Homer's. Although she treats him well, it is obvious Marge doesn't return his feelings.

Future
In the future, Marge leaves Homer after he blew the family savings on an underwater home. She then dates Krusty the Clown. Homer tries to win Marge's love back by beating him up, and is beaten up himself. Marge then gets back together with Homer.

Behind the Laughter
Marge is voiced by Julie Kavner, who became famous for her role on the TV series Rhoda. In fact, Rhoda premired in 1974, the same year Marge and Homer met.

The episode "That '90s Show" (season 19, 2008) contradicted much of the established back-story; for example, it was revealed that Marge and Homer were childless in the early 1990s although past episodes had suggested Bart and Lisa were born in the 1980s.

As with many Simpsons characters, Marge's age changes to serve the story.

Creation
Matt Groening first conceived the Simpson family in the lobby of James L. Brooks's office. He had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts, and had intended to present his "Life in Hell" series. When he realized that animating "Life in Hell" would require him to rescind publication rights for his life's work, Groening planned to go in another direction. He sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, and named the characters after various members of his own family, with Marge being the name of his mother. Marge then made her debut with the rest of the Simpsons clan on April 19, 1987 in the Tracey Ullman short "Good Night".

In The Simpsons Season Four DVD commentary, Matt Groening states that the original idea behind Marge's hair was to conceal large rabbit ears. The gag was intended to be revealed in the final episode of the series, but was scrapped early on due to inconsistencies. It did however make it in The Simpsons Arcade Game.

Reception
Julie Kavner received a Prime time Emmy Award in 1992 for voicing Marge in the episode "I Married Marge". In 2004, Kavner and Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer) won a Young Artist Award for "Most Popular Mom and Dad in a TV Series". For her performance in The Simpsons Movie, Kavner received a nomination for "Best Voice Acting in an Animated Feature" at the 2007 Annie Awards, but lost to Ian Holm in Ratatouille. Kavner's emotional performance in the movie got positive reviews and one critic said she "gave what must be the most heartfelt performance ever".

Merchandising
Marge is featured in much Simpsons-related merchandise, including T-shirts, baseball caps, stickers, cardboard stand ups, refrigerator magnets, key rings, buttons, dolls, posters and figurines. She has appeared in all of The Simpsons video games, including The Simpsons Game. Besides the television series, Marge regularly appears in issues of Simpsons Comics. Marge also plays a role in The Simpsons Ride, at Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood.

Playboy Shoot
In October 2009, it was announced that Marge would be featured on the front cover of the November issue of Playboy. The edition was first published on October 16, 2009. The cover and a three-page picture spread, as well as a story inside entitled "The Devil in Marge Simpson", is a celebration of the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons, but is also part of a plan to appeal to younger readers. Chief executive of Playboy Enterprises, Scott Flanders, has said that the cover and centerfold were "somewhat tongue-in-cheek".

Trivia

 * Including her hair, Marge is eight foot six. Without her hair, Marge is about six foot four, five with her usual heels.
 * Marge's hair is two feet and one inch long.
 * Marge has hazel-colored eyes.
 * Bouvier is the maiden name of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
 * She was at first left-handed or south-pawed, but she usually uses her right hand for everything, so she is ambidextrous. She is also the only known ambidextrous character.
 * Her favorite singer is Tom Jones.
 * Her shoe size is 13AA.
 * According to Marge Gamer, her birthday is the same as Randy Quaid's (October 1st).
 * Marge's worst fear is never being a grandmother, but Homer believes it to be Lisa getting a beard of bees.
 * As shown in "Kill Gil: Vols. 1 & 2", Marge has trouble saying "no". As shown when she was about 7, Patty and Selma told Marge to hide their cigarettes in her dollhouse. She refused and got stuffed into the dollhouse.Glasses.png
 * Marge also needs to wear glasses, but doesn't want to wear them as she thinks they make her look dowdy.
 * Marge's middle name is Jacqueline, another nod to Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
 * Marge's number one concern is being hit in the eye with the rubber band around her morning newspaper when she takes it off.
 * In Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield, it is mentioned that her hair is around eighteen inches long.
 * In $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling), it is revealed that Marge has a gambling addiction. In Family Guy 's The Son Also Draws, Lois Griffin also ends up developing an slight gambling addiction.
 * Another thing she shares with Lois Griffin, is that she and Lois are both shoplifters.
 * According to Matt Groening, Marge's hairstyle was actually intended to hide rabbit ears to be revealed in the last season 1 episode, but in the end, it was chosen that the hairdo was totally ridiculous, even for the Simpsons. However, it's still briefly seen in The Simpsons Arcade Game.Marge's_bunny_ears.png
 * The Simpsons Movie is the only time Marge's lingerie was shown.
 * She has aviophobia (fear of flying) and probably also acrophobia (fear of heights).
 * She is sometimes seen eavesdropping on other people. Rod, Tod, and Lisa all complained about her eavesdropping on their prayers.
 * She is referred to as Midge by Moe.
 * She once had her hair done like Sideshow Mel's hair.
 * Marge breastfed Lisa for nine months as mentioned in The Day the Earth Stood Cool. Lisa is the only child Marge has breastfed.
 * There is a goof in multiple episodes where for one scene, Marge's pearls are white, instead of red.
 * It has been shown multiple times that Marge is incapable of recognizing sarcasm and jokes and believes them to be true. An example of this would be in E. Pluribus Wiggum, when she mentions Bart making a joke about Homer's weight disrupting satellites, but she was still convinced it was possible, despite Homer telling her it was a joke. An example of her not recognizing sarcasm would be in The President Wore Pearls, when Marge believed Bart was applauding and supporting Lisa, but was corrected by Bart who told Marge he was using sarcasm, but Marge then became confused.
 * There is a running joke involving Marge being subject of attraction from Milhouse and other children such as Nelson, causing Bart to become aggressive as shown in Simpson Tide and in The Blue and the Gray.
 * Marge was the first character to speak in the entire series.
 * Along with Lisa, Marge was present in every episode, but only had a non speaking role in one episode.
 * In Married to the Blob, Marge tells Jeffery Albertson she married Homer to get back at her mother, though that is part of the Treehouse of Horror series, so it is non-canon.
 * She always says the word snuggle/snuggling instead of the word sex. She never uses the word sex and if she has to she will only spell it out. The only time she said the word is when Patty and Selma were emailing Artie Ziff and she said you can't say sex on the Internet. She also said it in the episode about Valentine's Day.
 * Marge is 34 years old.
 * In the season 1 box-set's audio-commentary for Homer's Odyssey, Jay Kogen said that when he was writing the script from the episode with Wallace Wolodarsky they called Marge Juliet, based on Romeo and Juliet, because Matt Groening didn't tell them that her name is Marge.
 * In the episode "Boy Meets Curl ", Marge states that she is left-handed, and that she has been using her right hand for years because she didn't want to seem unusual, and since she is able to use both her right and left hand so well, she is now ambidextrous (both left and right handed).