Season 20, Episode 15--"Wedding for Disaster"

In this episode of “The Simpsons,” I found three main ideas to be particularly interesting. The episode begins with the news that the Minister who married Marge and Homer for the second time was actually not licensed at the time that he had married them. Therefore, they were not legally married and would have to go through another ceremony. What was very interesting to me, though, was the fact that Homer had divorced Marge at a previous point in the series, and that was why they had to get remarried. As I have said before, I never followed the show before this class, and I was somewhat disturbed by this new information. Divorce rates in America are such a problem now, and to see that even this cartoon couple was temporarily divorced is somewhat disheartening. Despite everything that Homer puts her through, it seemed to me as if Marge and Homer always stuck by each other.
Regardless, the two had plans to be remarried by the same Minister, now that he was licensed again. They were planning a romantic wedding, and it was nice to see that even Homer was being sweet and thoughtful. Homer had hired a violinist to play for them in the candlelight when he proposed to Marge before their upcoming wedding. Amidst all of this wedding excitement, however, Marge turns into a so-called “bridezilla,” becoming obsessed with everything being perfect, no matter if it was what Homer wanted or not. This seems to be a stereotype of many American women, thinking that they all go crazy with spending money and thinking only of themselves while putting together the “happiest day of their lives.”
The last issue that was very interesting to me was the fact that Marge’s sisters captured Homer right before the wedding because they didn’t want their sister to be with him. This is a very common theme on television shows—it seems like the wife’s family almost never approves of the man that she marries. On “The Simpsons”, however, the fact that the sisters don’t approve of Homer isn’t enough—they have to capture him and put him in an atmosphere almost like one from one of the “Saw” movies. When Homer recites his vows that he wanted to read to Marge at the alter, the sisters realize how much he loves Marge and let him go, however, he never finds out who had captured him on that day.