SCENES FORM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN SPRINGFIELD- Blog Post #2

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

BLOG #2

The Simpsons SEASON 7, EPISODE 14 

The Simpons Show is a TV series that focuses on similar satirical life events that impose as controversy, political topics, as well as every day societal struggles. Specifically in this episode we see Marge's desire of wanting the approval from one of her high school classmates who is now a high class societal wife who is apart of a country club. 

Earlier in this episode we see the family go through the struggle of considering possible TV system options for their home because of their tight budget. As a result the family takes a drive to a lonely and abandoned store thats thousands of miles outside of springfield to get a good deal on knock off TV systems. Once they arrive Marge and her daughter Lisa stroll through the clothing section to see if they find any good deals.

Lisa then finds a one of a kind Chanel suit thats worth ninety dollars. Lisa then convinces Marge to splurge on herself since she never buys anything for herself. In society as shoppers we tend to have the mentality that,"we work hard for our money so we are allowed to splurge or buy something for ourselves that we normally wouldn't buy in our everyday shopping". This idea of conspicuous consumption is instilled into our way of shopping based on the marketing strategies business make to target their shoppers. From not only seeing the price markdown from twenty-eight hundred dollars to ninety dollars and Lisa persuading her mom to buy herself something she makes the drastic decision to buy the Chanel suit. 

Once Marge buys the suit she then runs into a high school classmate who is considered to be high end in the social class tier. As they make small talk Marge's high school classmate, Evelyn, had not recognized her with her suit and complemented her on "looking great". Once she complemented her it made sense to Evelyn that Marge had not married Homer, Marge's husband, based on her appearance. Marge then corrected her as said she had married Homer.  

Evelyn then quickly invited Marge to her and husband's country club to join in and have fun while mingling with other high end members of springfield. 

After the first visit Marge goes through protocol with her family and forces them to not act as themselves once they foot in the country club. Marge hopes and desires for the approval of these high class members because she hopes to get the acceptance of being a part of that high end society. Because Marge and her family never had such luxury of actually enjoying themselves with cocktails being served left and right and being able to enjoy these high end activities like riding horses and playing golf, she begs the family to try and fit in with this "American Dream" of making it to this prestige membership and not having to worry of any other responsibility. 

Towards the end of the episode Evelyn then invites the whole family back to initiate them as official members as Evelyn and her family sponsor the Simpson family. As they enter the country club Marge then realizes that she loves the way her family is as well as her old green dress. "She wouldn't want to be a member in their country club if they couldn't accept the real marge". When in fact they were being nice and wanting to accept them as true members. 

Evelyn definitely revealed tokenism toward the Simpson family due to their financial social class. This idea of tokenism just shows us that society can have judgement on this idea of acceptance toward others' exclusive memberships.