Homer Simpson is a drag queen in new RuPaul Simpsons episode
Homer and Marge Simpson (Fox)
Homer Simpson is set to break new ground on The Simpsons—by appearing in drag.
The US’s favourite cartoon family will appear alongside RuPaul’s Drag Race season three winner Raja and RuPaul himself in the episode, which is set to air on November 18.
“Werking Mum” will see Marge embark on her umpeenth foray into a different world of work, this time as a plastic container-selling drag queen.
Marge is a container-selling drag queen (Fox)
At some point, Homer joins her in wearing drag, seemingly using oranges to enhance his bust—a move which attracts his best friend Barney’s attention.
In more than 640 episodes of the show—which is now in Season 30—the dad has never dressed in drag. His son Bart, Bart’s friend Milhouse, Barney and Homer’s dad, Abe Simpson, have all donned women’s clothes, but never Homer himself.
He will wear a blonde wig and a black dress and, according to pictures released before the episode airs, attempt to perform the splits on a catwalk—with predictably painful results.
Homer tries to perform the splits (Fox)
RuPaul is set to appear on the show as Queen Chante, and posted an image of the character to her Instagram page, with the caption: “So excited about this!”
Raja, who is now a celebrity make-up artist and performed this role on America’s Next Top Model for several seasons, has also posted about her guest spot on The Simpsons.
She emotionally wrote on Instagram: “The best part is…I play myself in a scene with Homer.”
RuPaul will also star in the episode. (Fox)
“I’ll never forget crying my eyes out, as rain came pouring down on the sidewalk outside the recording studio. Tears of joy,” she added.
“The Simpsons was a huge part of my childhood, being asked to be on an episode was surreal and mind blowing, to say the least. ❤️”
“The Simpsons was a huge part of my childhood” (sutanamrull/instagram)
Has The Simpsons included LGBT+ content before?
The Simpsons has a history of addressing LGBT+ issues, notably in 1997 with the Emmy and GLAAD Award-winning episode “Homer’s Phobia,” which showed Homer coming to terms with homosexuality and the idea that Bart could be gay.
Last year, former showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein revealed that the episode was initially deemed “unacceptable for air” by Fox, before a new censor was brought in and gave them the green light.
Waylon Smithers and Mr Burns (Fox)
The cartoon, which first aired in 1989, finally showed Mr Burns’ assistant Waylon Smithers coming out as gay in 2016, after countless moments down the years in which his sexuality—and attraction to his boss—was made implicitly clear.
Homer even tried to set Smithers up with a man called Tom Collins in that episode, though Burns’ longtime employee quickly rejected the offer.
