Some imaginary animated characters have all the luck. In last night’s episode of The Simpsons, pacifier-loving, speaking-adverse baby Maggie found her voice. And that voice was Jodie Foster (who also happens to be AfterEllen.com Hot 100 hottie No. 39). See what I was saying about lucky?
The two-time Oscar winner voiced Maggie in fantasy sequence imagining the tiny tot as a budding female Howard Roark from Ayn Rand‘s The Fountainhead. Little Maggie as a rugged individualist? As Lisa worries: “Mom, isn’t that book the bible of right-wing losers?”
But, really, who cares what she’s espousing; she sounds like Jodie Foster. And in her grown-up incarnation she also looks a lot like Jodie, too, circa The Accused.
In the episode “Four Great Women and a Manicure,” Lisa and her mother Marge trade stories while debating whether women can be “smart, powerful and beautiful” all at the same time. They parody Queen Elizabeth I, Snow White and Lady Macbeth, before Maggie demands her own allegorical tale.
In her sequence, Maggie’s nonconformist architectural building blocks work is discouraged and destroyed by her mediocrity-loving daycare teacher. She goes on trial for being extraordinary and pulls out the pacifier to defend herself by saying:
Throughout the ages, the finger painter, the Play-Doh sculptor, the Lincoln Logger stood alone against the daycare teacher of her time. She did not live to earn approval stamps. She lived for herself, that she might achieve things that are the glory of all humanity. These are my terms; I do not care to play by any others. And now, if the court will allow me, it’s naptime.
Jodie isn’t actually the first actress to voice Maggie – that honor went to Elizabeth Taylor in 1992 – but she does continue the show’s stellar-lineup of supporting female voices this season, which so far have included Ellen Page, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt. Geez, between all the great women and Marge kissing another woman (albeit in Homer’s imagination) this season, the show has practically become required lesbian viewing.
So, what did you think of the episode? And did you recognize Jodie’s voice immediately? Oh, keep in mind that a “no” answer to that last question will dock six points off your lesbo street cred card. Hey, don’t blame me. Those are the terms, I do not care to play by any others.
