vote

John Waters is probably my all-time favorite guest star.

we work hard and we play hard

Homer's Phobia

Needing money to pay for a repair after Bart damages the gas line, the Simpson family visits "Cockamamie's", an offbeat collectibles shop, hoping that it will purchase one of the family's heirlooms (an "authentic" civil war doll which turns out to be a decorative liquor bottle). Homer meets John, the antiques dealer, who explains that much of the merchandise is there because of its camp value. Bart and Lisa take an instant liking to John, and Homer invites him to the Simpsons' house to see the campy items that the family owns. The next morning, Homer tells Marge that he likes John and suggests they invite him and "his wife" over for a drink some time. Marge tries to hint repeatedly to an oblivious Homer that John is gay, and when she eventually can't she tells him face to face and Homer is horrified. Homer's attitude towards John changes completely, and he turns against him, refusing to join his tour of Springfield. The rest of the family joins John and has a good time, but Homer is upset with the family upon their return. The rest of the Simpson family continue to enjoy John's company, especially Bart, who starts wearing Hawaiian shirts and dancing in a woman's wig. This makes Homer uneasy, and he begins to fear Bart is gay.

Homer endeavors to make Bart more masculine by forcing him to look at a cigarette billboard featuring scantily clad women in hopes Bart will be attracted to girls, but instead Bart gets the urge to smoke "anything slim." Homer then escorts him to see a steel mill to show Bart a manly environment; however, much to his surprise and dismay, the entire workforce is gay, and during their breaks they turn the mill into "The Anvil", a gay disco. A desperate Homer insists on taking Bart deer hunting with Moe and Barney. When they cannot find any deer, they decide instead to go to "Santa's Village" and shoot the reindeer in the corral, despite a tearful Bart being reluctant to do so. This backfires when the reindeer attack them. John, with the help of Lisa and Marge, uses a Japanese Santa Claus robot to scare off the reindeer and save the hunting party. Homer accepts John, more or less, and tells Bart, who is still unaware of his father's concerns, that any way he lives his life is fine with him. After Lisa informs Bart that Homer thinks he is gay, Bart is stunned. The episode ends with everyone driving off in John's car.

Just before the end credits a dedication to the steelworkers of America is shown, reading "Keep reaching for that rainbow!"


Lisa the Beauty Queen

Springfield Elementary School holds a school fair, where Lisa purchases a caricature of herself drawn at a carnival booth. She is horrified at the unflattering drawing and the reaction of the surrounding crowd. Homer wins the fair's raffle, with the grand prize being a ride in the Duff Blimp. Back at home, Lisa is in tears because she feels unattractive. Homer sees a TV advertisement that says Laramie Cigarettes is sponsoring this year's "Little Miss Springfield" pageant, and decides to enter Lisa to boost her self-esteem. The entry fee for the pageant is $250, so he sells his Duff Blimp ticket to Barney to raise the funds needed. Homer excitedly tells Lisa he has entered her in the pageant, but she refuses. However, Marge tells Lisa that Homer sold his Duff Blimp ticket to pay the entry fee, and she realizes her father's sacrifice and enters the pageant.

At the pageant's registration, Lisa meets a formidable competitor named Amber Dempsey, a blonde girl who cheated by using eyelash implants from Paraguay to make her look cuter. In preparation for the pageant Lisa receives makeovers at the beauty parlor, training from her brother, and encouragement from her family. The day of the pageant arrives, and on-stage Lisa explains her aim to make Springfield a better place, while Amber wins the crowd's adoration by batting her large eyelashes. Lisa's talent is a jazzy medley of "America the Beautiful" and "Proud Mary". After Krusty the Clown's interview segment, Lisa is announced as the runner-up and Amber the winner. At Amber's first official appearance, a thunderstorm creates a lightning bolt which strikes her metal scepter. She is hospitalized for her injuries, and Lisa is crowned Little Miss Springfield.

One of Little Miss Springfield's duties as spokesperson for pageant sponsor Laramie Cigarettes, is to lure a younger demographic into smoking. Instead, Lisa protests against the dangers of cigarettes at her appearances, and also vows to target the corruption of Mayor Quimby. Quimby and the Laramie officials look for a way to dethrone and silence Lisa. They find a technical error on her entry form: Homer wrote "OK" underneath the instruction "Do not write in this space". Amber is recrowned Little Miss Springfield. At home, Homer is upset that he cost Lisa her title, but Lisa reminds Homer that he entered her in the pageant to help her self-esteem, and thanks him because it worked. Homer requests that she remember it "the next time I wreck your life", to which Lisa gladly agrees and embraces him.

Homer's Phobia is an easy vote.

I like lots of the gags in Homer's Phobia, and like LV I love me some John Waters in it. But Homer's really militant homophobia always seemed to come out of left field for me--it didn't seem like a misunderstanding or ignorance, but a real malice that didn't fit with him.

On the other hand, I LOVE the "Ok" gag from Lisa the Beauty Queen and the fact that the episode features an 8 year-old getting struck by lightning, so I'll vote for that.

it was a different time from when being gay was colloquially seen as icky

Right, and I think they had a tough act to follow because Seinfeld took on the subject perfectly in the "Not that there's anything wrong with that!" episode, which acknowledged the absurdity of the social stigma of homosexuality without ever giving voice to crazy homophobes. But Homer doesn't see John--who's written and played perfectly as a normal guy, not some over-simplified charicature of a gay man--as icky, but rather as an existential threat to his son. Just a bit over-the-top for me; I think it woulda been more interesting to see Homer overcome unconscious instead of conscious prejudice.