A Streetcar Named Marge/References
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Cultural references
- The episode's title and plot parody the famous play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. The play had its 1951 film adaptation, which was highly acclaimed.
The Miss American Girl Pageant contestants are dressed in outfits that represent each US state
- Miss American Girl Pageant is a parody of Miss America, the annual beauty contest. Other references during the contest include:
- The sponsor of the contest is Meryl Streep's Versatility. The perfume has the shape of an Academy Awards statue and is a hint to actress Meryl Streep, who herself has won 21 Academy Awards.
- The contestants sing "At Seventeen", a song by Janis Ian.
- The girls representing each state of the USA:
- Miss Kentucky is dressed as a jockey, referencing the popular Kentucky Derby.
- Miss Vermont wears a hat of pancakes topped with maple syrup, a typical breakfast of the cuisine of Vermont.
- Miss Maine is dressed as a lobster in a reference to the Maine lobster.
- Miss Alaska is dressed as an Inuit surrounded by a tube leading to a can of oil, referencing Alaska's most important export.
- Miss Idaho is dressed as a potato. This is a reference to Idaho being known as "The Potato state". The state is best known for its potato crop, which comprises around one-third of the nationwide yield.
- Miss Texas is dressed as a blowout, referencing the importance of oil in the economy of Texas.
- Miss Illinois is dressed as Abraham Lincoln, who was Illinois state legislator and US representative from Illinois.
- Miss Kansas is wearing a tornado hat, referencing the state being prone to severe weather, including an average of more than 50 tornadoes annually.
- Miss South Dakota is wearing a Mount Rushmore hat.
- Miss North Carolina is being crossed by a cigarette. The production of tobacco was one of the state's biggest industries before the American Civil War.
- Miss Indiana references the famous Indianapolis 500 motor race.
- Miss Montana, to whom Homer says "a beaut from Butte".
- Miss South Carolina, although only mentioned, Homer's phrase "Nothing could be finer" is a reference to the song "Carolina in the Morning", specifically to its lyrics, "Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning".
- Mr. Boswell mentions American actress Goldie Hawn and criticizes her way of dressing.
- According to herself, Debra Del Smallwood made unfortunate remarks at the United Nations.
- Maggie plays "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky on a xylophone.
Many references to the play A Streetcar Named Desire are seen throughout the episode. Notably, the iconic "Stella!" scene is parodied in many occasions. In this case by Ned, portraying Stanley Kowalski
- Several references to A Streetcar Named Desire, including:
- Ned had the role of Blanche DuBois in a previous Oh, Streetcar! play.
- Llewellyn Sinclair chooses Ned for the role of Stanley Kowalski, a character known for his physical attractiveness and famously portrayed by a good-shaped Marlon Brando in the 1951 film adaptation.
- Ned practices the iconic "Stella!" scene where Stanley is yelling for his wife Stella Kowalski (Kim Hunter), sheltering at the upstairs neighbors after Stanley beat Stella, to come back to him.
- Marge gets the role of Blanche DuBois after Sinclair finds her speaking sadly on the telephone.
- The roles other characters have include: Helen Lovejoy as Stella Kowalski, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon as Steve Hubbell, Otto as Pablo Gonzales, Lionel Hutz as Harold "Mitch" Mitchell,
- The way Homer shouts "Marge!" from the Simpsons' house garden parodies again the "Stella!" scene in A Streetcar Named Desire.
- The song "Long Before the Superdome" sets the New Orleans scene from A Streetcar Named Desire. The Caesars Superdome and the New Orleans Saints are mentioned.
- According to the commentary on the Season Four DVD, the New Orleans song was inspired by the song "No Place Like London" from the 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
- The biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned in the song "New Orleans".
- Marge mentions the Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
- Apu's character, Steve Hubbell, is collecting money for the Evening Star. In the real play, however, Blanche flirts with an unnamed young man that collects for this newspaper.
- The preparation for the audition is similar to a scene in the 1979 musical drama All That Jazz, and the music heard is modeled after it.
- The songs sung in the audition include:
- "Hey, Look Me Over", composed by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh for the 1960 Broadway musical Wildcat.
- "(Won't You Come Home) Bill Bailey", composed by Hughie Cannon.
- "The Morning After", composed by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn for the film The Poseidon Adventure.
- When Lisa finds out her mother is an actress, she compares herself to Lucie Arnaz-Luckinbill, the daughter of actors Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
- Author and philosopher Ayn Rand is mocked throughout the entire episode.
- The daycare Ayn Rand School for Tots is named after her.
- Ms. Sinclair is reading The Fountainhead Diet, a parody of The Fountainhead, a novel by Ayn Rand.
- The Homer plays Bowling 2000 in a console that is very similar to a Game Boy.
- The scenes with Maggie trying to help the babies get the pacifiers back and later trying to escape from the daycare parody the 1963 adventure film The Great Escape.
- The piece "Main Title", composed by Elmer Bernstein for the film's OST, is used in the episode.
- The scene where Maggie plays with a ball in her "cell" to kill time parodies the scene where Captain Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) is thrown in "the cooler" as punishment.
- Lisa, practicing her Southern accent, refers to Homer as "Big Daddy", a character in the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof which was also written by Tennessee Williams.
- Homer considered a the use of the Lamaze technique during one of Marge's pregnancies a "kooky project".
- One of the kids that is warning Maggie that Ms. Sinclair is coming has a pop-up book that includes the character Sheba from Matt Groening's comic Life in Hell.
- When Homer, Lisa and Bart go to pick up Maggie from the daycare center, they see hundreds of babies sitting everywhere and sucking their pacifiers parodying the hundreds of birds sitting on perches in the 1963 horror-thriller film The Birds, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
- When Homer, Lisa, Bart and Maggie are outside the daycare, Alfred Hitchcock passes by with two dogs. This is a parody of a scene in The Birds where Hitchcock makes a cameo and exits a pet shop with two dogs.
- When Homer becomes uninterested during the play, he begins amusing himself by playing with a piece of paper, similar to the way a bored Joseph Cotten does in the theater audience while watching the opera in which Kane's mistress performs in Citizen Kane.
Trivia
- One of the objects Maggie tries to use to replace her pacifier seems to be a Bart Simpson toy.
Goofs
- As Marge is about to leave for her first audition, she walks across the room and she is wearing white slip-on shoes. Then her and Homer talk for a bit, then when it cuts to a wider shot after they talk, she now has her red flat-heels on.
- A shirtless Apu is incorrectly colored yellow in the background during the first Blanche DuBois audition.
