Homer Simpson has become a drag queen, and it was everything
Homer Simpson does the splits on a special drag episode of The Simpsons (20th Century Fox)
Drag queen superstar RuPaul has arrived in Springfield, giving Marge and Homer Simpson the drag experience of their lives.
The Simpsons‘ new episode “Werking Mum,” which aired on Sunday (November 18), sees the RuPaul’s Drag Race legend encouraging Marge Simpson to dress in drag to sell ‘Tubberware,’ before her husband Homer eventually follows suit.
Over the course of approximately 20 barrier-breaking minutes, the episode also introduces viewers to the drag personas of Krusty the Clown’s long-suffering sidekick Sideshow Mel and the show’s most prominent gay character, Waylon Smithers, who is known as “the Mysterious Waylon.”
Marge Simpson with her fellow drag queens on The Simpsons (20th Century Fox)
RuPaul’s character, Queen Chante, even sings a re-worked version of the iconic track “Glamazon,” which includes the explosive lyrics: “Come out of your mum shell / And become a bombshell.”
Marge gets into the spirit of drag, tossing out lines about tops on bottoms and even throwing a savage line in the direction of gossipy Helen Lovejoy, the wife of model train enthusiast Reverend Lovejoy.
She tells her captive audience: “All aboard—not Helen,” in reference to her allegedly lacklustre sex life.
“Drag queen Marge Simpson is life”
— @galaxy_mud
The drag queens help Marge to realise how terrible Homer’s been to her, but he proceeds to somewhat make up for it by dressing in drag and sashaying down a catwalk, with the help of Drag Race season three winner Raja.
Homer Simpson and Marge Simpson make up (20th Century Fox)
Homer’s friend Barney, his son Bart, Bart’s friend Milhouse and Homer’s dad, Abe Simpson, have all dressed in drag at some point in the programme’s 645 previous episodes, but never Homer or Marge.
Marge and Homer Simpson were drag hits
Viewers were delighted with the drag queen version of Homer Simpson, while others heaped praise on Marge and the show in general for embracing drag.
One person simply wrote: “Drag queen Marge Simpson is life.”
“Drag queen Marge Simpson is life” (galaxy_mud/twitter)
Another commented: “Maybe it’s the fact that I have really gotten into Drag Race in the last year but last night’s The Simpsons might have been the best episode in years.”
Another impressed audience member wrote: “The new Simpsons was about drag queens who helped Marge gain confidence and become the best version of herself. #SoHappy #LoveIt #DraggleRock #DragQueens .”
“The new Simpsons was about drag queens who helped Marge gain confidence and become the best version of herself” (shelleybee83/twitter)
Some were so moved that they ended up crying, with one fan tweeting: “ok that simpsons drag special episode was soooooooo cute, got me a lil teary eyed.”
Homer Simpson has addressed queer issues before
The Simpsons has a history of dedicating episodes to LGBT+ content, 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.
Drag Sideshow Mel in all his glory (20th Century Fox)
The cartoon, which first aired in 1989, also 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.
