Lisa, the Simpson!

Do you think that Lisa has been IC or OOC this season? From the episodes I've seen of season 18, Lisa seems to flit between being a straight man [woman?] to Homer or Bart's antics and the classic Lisa of the early years. Case in point: The Haw Hawed Couple, Lisa seemed to be very in character, and the sub-plot with Homer about Angelica Button was very well done and very season 3ish IMHO.


Just so you know, my favorate contempary Lisa episode is The Girl Who Slept Too Little.

I haven't seen any Simpsons episode from the 18th season yet (THOH is the only exception, but I guess I cannot refer to it here), so I cannot answer. But judging on recent seasons - 15, 16, Lisa's behavior looks okay to me. The biggest writers' faults so far, imho, are: 1) Lisa suggesting to legalize gay marriages (I'm not a homophob, but that was just so much not Lisa-like); 2) Ralph becoming infantile; 3) Homer's behavior is weird recently, though I cannot say what exactly is wrong. Apparently he's following Ralph :( But nevertheless, Lisa's characterization still looks nice to me. Episodes like "A Star Is Torn", "Smart And Smarter", "Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore", "The Girl Who Slept Too Little" were very good, I cannot ask for more.

What where your opinions on On A Clear Day I Cant See My Sister [if you saw it]?

Imo, even there Lisa acted alright, keeping in mind what Bart did to her in the beginning of the episode. It was plain cruel... imagine that: Lisa drowning in the lake, she could die there, and frigging no-one was going to help her, they were just standing and watching (and laughing). :mad: I was surprized she has found the strength to go to school again after that excursion. Besides, Lisa felt remorse and made things up in the end.

I didnt like it. I thought Lisa's treatment of Bart was overly-cruel and borderd on bullying to be frank. I thought the way she
forgave Bart was pretty contreved. All in all, that episode sucked.

Well, even if consider this episode as "worst Lisa characterization" (which can be true, I don't know), what exactly happened there? Bart acted cruel to Lisa, Lisa acted cruel back to Bart. Nobody died, there were no visible consequences. All that spoiled Lisa's "perfect reputation" a bit, but didn't ruin the whole episode imho. :) I cannot adore the perfect creature; episodes where Lisa acts unusual, only make her character more "real" to me.

A counter question: what do you think about Lisa wallowing in the cake in "Sleeping With The Enemy"?

One of the most bad taste moments in the shows history. On a par with Homer being raped by a panda IMO. It is made worse when you consider that Yeardley has bulimia.

I think that was way off, and so was the episode. It's not like Lisa to be worried about her appearance.
That's an off-characterization, IMO.

I think the main problem is that the producers once decided to make Lisa a "little adult", always acting wise and beyond her age. Now, whenever they try to show her acting like a child again, it just looks plain wrong. The scene with the cake is a prime example, that "one more bite before I lose my dignity" was so in-character for a child of her age! It's nothing wrong in making her smart - even smarter than her dad, but I for one like the moments when her true self breaks through, when she loses her temper a bit, yells, or maybe cries, as every kid would do.

dantheman40k
KDL
Aw... I'm sorry to know you didn't like that.
Imo, that was one of the cutest moments in the whole show... and very funny, too. I loved it to the bits, and watched many times afterwards. :)

Do you slow down for car accidents?

Uhm... explain what you meant here.

Do I sense a bit of sarcasm in this topic that I'm not understanding here. :???

You seem to have a very strange sence of humour if you find the Lisa cake scene funny. I thought that it was grossly disrespectful to the character to the point that it was unbearable to look at.

It kinda means the same thing as asking 'Do you drink and drive?'. Or... to put in the raw context of the question, 'Are you an idiot?'.

Which I find unnessesary conflict. If you disagree, respect his opinion. Dont start a flamewar.

(sorry for going offtopic)

Who me?
I don't want to sound like a meanie here.  :eek:
I didn't even think I was starting a flame war at all, All I did was ask if it was sarcasm or not...

EDIT: Ohhhhh... You mean the person who said Do you slow down for car accidents right?
Sorry for the misread.

dantheman40k
So, everyone whose opinion doesn't match yours, has "very strange sense of humor" now? ;)
Okay, explain me if you can. What so gross was in that scene and why it was unbearable to look at.
I hope you understand the difference between plain wrong things (i.e. hurting someone, killing someone, mocking someone badly etc) and the things, perception of which depends on your own personal measures.
Right now I see only one point from you: you didn't like that scene personally, so everyone who did are idiots. :D

in short, freedom of speech :p i guess :confused:

[admin mode on]

Guys, please refrain from quoting the whole message of the previous poster for the sake of just adding a short unreasoned phrase. Nobody needs posts like that here; we even have a note about that in the Forum Rules (http://www.lisa-simpson.net/topic/1.0).
Please understand, I don't want this place to turn to another KLS; I'm sure Marco doesn't want it as well. Addressed both to dantheman40k and thatmargesimpsonfan.

[admin mode off]

yeah KLS is pretty much a wreck a bout the quote thing... my bad :marge:

Maybe my car aciedent quip was OTT. I take it back, when ever I see something that prortays Lisa in an unflattering light I go nuts. I have a lot of respect for the character, so seeing her....degraded like that just made me cringe. And no, I dont think you are stupid.

is truth?
As everything in the life nothing is perfect…
The humans are not perfect…
on Lisa.... she is not perfect either….
all the episodes of simpson are not perfect…
it is a question of pleasures…
but most important it is to respect the opinion of each one of the members of the forum…
Lisa is a personality created by all who we thought about her… if people isolated decide the personality of a personage. we will arrive lamentably at the two-dimensionality from this…. to a reflection of the imperfections of the creator… nevertheless if we took the positive that has been obtained during these seasons… we will have the affability to remember to this personage with happiness in the future…. personally the scene of the cake…. she is very comedian… it reflects that Lisa she is still a girl… in spite of its great spirit she can lose the judgment in a desici?n of that type… or to laugh to outbursts of laughter when seeing a cartoons in the TV…. like all the living beings… we have high and low moments…

PS:hmmm.... cake..... and lisa :p….

dantheman40k
Accepted ;) I hope you will be more tolerant to the others' opinions next time.
I will try to explain my personal position about "Lisa wallowing in the cake" moment, and it's up to you whether to agree or to disagree. Who knows, maybe I will even convince you in something, and you will be able to accept such moments in the show more light-heartedly... I don't expect you to enjoy them like I do, but at least your reaction could be not so harsh.

Anyway, like I said before, there was nothing too bad/wrong in that moment. I even liked it, because it was very natural for everyone on Lisa's place. Lisa did only one "stupid" thing in that episode: listened to Sherri/Terri's mocking and took it too close to her heart. But things like that are always hard to ignore - especially if you're little kid... you have to be very selfish person to ignore such things directed towards you, and Lisa is not.

So she believed Sherri and Terri and put herself on a diet... dunno if that decision was good or bad, but she did her best to follow it. IIRC, she ate almost nothing for several days (dunno where Marge looked)! It's not an easy thing to do, and I can only adore her will-power. But when you don't eat for days, when you hear another portion of mocking every day in school, when your mind don't have enough energy to make good decisions, you became obsessed with the idea, and Lisa fell a victim to her diet. In the real life, she'd have only two possible ways: to break the diet immediately or to land in the hospital.

Fortunately, she decided to check her own strength. I cannot judge what exactly happened to her during that scene; I'm not a psychologist. But it looked like a temporary craziness; Lisa couldn't control herself. And it was great! All blocks she built in her mind, broke that moment, she enjoyed eating that cake after the days of starving, she immediately lost her obsession and went back to normality. Heck, I can swear that moment she was happy like never before. :) How that could be bad? Lisa cured herself.

Another very interesting moment in that scene was when Nelson entered the kitchen and talked to Lisa. He reacted very tolerant and calmly to Lisa's actions, that was a nice thing for him to do. He even helped Lisa afterwards... and did it well, because there was the only one possible way to stop the mockers, and Nelson has found it on the fly.

All in all, that moment was very complex and interesting to me. It can look gross and unbearable at first sight, but if you feel for Lisa and try to understand her behavior, you see that all happened there was very natural. Again, that's my personal opinion.

OK, thats your opinion fair enough. Perhaps on repeated viewing it wont be so bad but from what I can remember I was just begging it to stop. I even covered my eyes!

Yes but this episode took it to the extreme.I mean a restraining order? Come on! Compare this to Duffless and you see the difference. Lisa's revenge on Bart in Duffless was more balanced and within the boundaries of believeability as opposed to getting a restraining order on him.
 
You can say that about any God-awful gaffes the show has pulled in the past, The Principal and the Pauper, Ned being sixty, jockey elves, panda rape, Maude dieing ect.
 
I'm sorry, I know your supposed to respect other people's opinons but I think you have your hand firmly grasped on the wrong end of the stick about Lisa. If you dont understand the analogy, I mean you dont understand Lisa at all, either that or you have low tolorance thresh hold for craptacular episodes.

Please dont take this the wrong way, I'm sure youre a nice guy and all but your opinions on Lisa Simpson leave much to be desired.

Jeez Dan, just as the thread had seemed to get back to a sensible discussion you go and post that.  :rolleyes:
Well Maude died didn't she?   And the restraining order pales into insignificance compared to those others you mentioned (apart from Ned being sixty, a bit daft but not that bad...).
I'm pretty far from being a fan of the shows more recent output but that's just my opinion and opinions can't "leave much to be desired", they're just opinions, they'll differ, such is life.
This site wouldn't exist if Serge didn't hold Lisa in high esteem.   Enough said.

dantheman40k

Restraining order is something to prevent the cruelty, not to raise it even more. It's a law act. What so wrong in that? Lisa had all reasons to call for law in that episode (just remember the beginning of it), I agree that the method was unusual, but like janglewolf said, comparing to other things happened in the show throughout these years, it wasn't that significant. Really, you're acting like you was restrained from Lisa, not Bart. :p

Apparently you have no idea what the real cruelty is... read "Lisa Fitzgerald" story, and compare Jack's behavior there with Lisa's one in the "Can't See My Sister" episode. Also compare that episode with the "My Sister, My Sitter". :) One of the best Simpsons epsodes, to my opinion. But the level of brutality was even higher there! At least Bart was never traumatized in the "Clear Day" episode you hate so much.


Well, Homer and panda scene was bad indeed. (We didn't see it fully though, so I guess we cannot say for sure that Homer was raped... so even the badness of that episode can be disputed, but I don't want to discuss it. ;)) The same with Maude's death; that was unnecessary, and plain cruel. But... everything else you mentioned? Come on. I have nothing even against the "Principal And The Pauper", because it still was interesting to see, had unusual idea, and in the end, it changed nothing. Yes, we know now that Agness and Skinner aren't relatives - so what? Nothing changed in their lives, and the same with our lives, I guess. I fail to understand how anyone can hate this episode only because it made such a little change to the show's flow in general.


Hm... I wonder why you created this topic in the first place, if you're telling things like that to the first person whose opinion doesn't match yours. Did you expect everyone to agree with you? I hope not. It's perfectly fine when people have different opinions, especially on public forums. Remember, when many people have exactly the same opinion, that usually means that most of them cannot think by themselves and just repeat someone else's words. I believe this forum is not the case.

Anyway, if you're saying that I don't understand Lisa at all, explain why; without any explanation your words aren't too believable and look like an unreasoned insult. What so wrong in my perceptions towards Lisa in particular, or the show in general? Can you explain? I'd say the opposite: if watching the show nowadays makes you suffer so much, and the same episodes make me like them and watch again, I'd say my view makes more sense. I still enjoy watching the show, and there's nothing bad or wrong in that.

Okay, just a little reminder:

Remember the starting point of the thread: It's about Lisa's Characterization, not the whole show.  ;) If you bring the discussion onto the entire show, other that being off topic, it will also become one of those unfinished topics were everyone tries to get others to like/dislike certain aspects of the show... We can discuss that in another time/thread.



Personally, i didnt watch many episodes of the new seasons, but *overall*, Lisa's characterization was, how to say, interesting. It wasnt dull, or stereotyped, or insipid, like she was in earlier seasons... Lisa had many particular moments, like the ones you mentioned in this thread. I appreciate the effort that the writers have placed into our favorite character this seasons, but they are different than us. They can do mistakes, or find something funny that we would find not. The important thing is that Lisa is again an important part in the Simpsons family and episodes, and they remembered that. With all her quircks, and little girl "obsessions", and wrong moral decisions, sometimes anger driven, sometimes other.

If we start discussing about how much some particular moments were bad or good, depending on the idea we made ourselves of Lisa (or what we would EXPECT her to act), i'm afraid this thread will go on for long. I'm not against it, if you keep being reasonable and supportive with each other. :) So i'd suggest everyone to keep the discussion above more general standards. Getting into particulars is always quite tricky :p

Over a decades worth of character development chucked out the window for the sake of a cray-zay storyline! Thats whats wrong with that.
 
Ok forget the RO. Lisa's treatment of Bart in that episode was not justified, forcing him to live in the back yard, poking him with a stick. I know you like Lisa and all but some of your comments are, to be frank, bordering on fanboyishness.




While I adored L-Fitz we arnt talking about fanfiction here. The way Lisa was treated in L-Fitz went above and beyond anything that the show has ever done. But L-Fitz, is not canon, hell, its set in an alternate reality!
 
 Did Lisa break Bart's arm? No. Did she through him down the stairs?No. If I recall, she pushed Bart's unconcious body in a weel barrow several miles to the hospital. No cruelty there on Lisa's part.



Altering the dynamic of a character for a !Kewl!Story! is a bad thing and even the writers, to their credit, admitted that the episode was a mistake.



Oh stop acting the victim, this is a debate, people with opposing views explaining why they feel the way they do. Dont winge and try and act like I'm victimizing you just because I am countering your opinion.



No. I expected a nice, friendley debate.

 
I think this forum has some of the most eloquent and thoughful people in the Simpsons Community.




[qoute]Anyway, if you're saying that I don't understand Lisa at all, explain why; without any explanation your words aren't too believable and look like an unreasoned insult.[/quote]

What it boils down to is this: You either dont understand Lisa or you have a liberal attitude towards character consistency.

 
More acting the victim. Nowhere did I say you were wrong, I said, in no uncertain words that I dont agree with you. There is a difference.


 

Don't forget that Bart has been teasing and bullying Lisa for a very long time. It was just a matter of time before Lisa would get pissed off so much that she wanted to get revenge. And instead of thinking of some zany plan to get revenge on Bart, she just got a restraining order.

Lisa's treatment of Bart might not have been justified, but neither is Bart treatment towards Lisa in most episodes. This was just one of the few times she could get back at him for teasing and bullying her. And siblings can be very mean towards eachother.

Dagdamor asked you to explain it, not to post another one-liner that doesn't explain anything.

DantheMan, Dagdamor, and everybody else: it's good that you want a nice and friendly debate and i cant but appreciate that from you, but please: You can state your opinions and debating without the need to specify if other posters are being victims or attackers. I'm sure everyone here is clever enough to see that and make their minds up about it, so leave those terms for things that are more worth it. And they arent usually nice things.

This topis is nice, keep it that way ;)

That's a very good point.   Thinking in those terms, I'd have to say that Lisa's characterisation in the latest seasons is actually closer to the "classic" early seasons than it was in the Scully era.   In the early days (and I'm thinking up to season 7 or maybe 8) Lisa was always a very complex and often conflicting character.   This (to me at least) made her the most interesting, likeable and believable character.   Then unfortunately she morphed into a very one dimensional parody of her former self (along with the rest of the family).   Personally, I think this was a greater disservice to her character than either the cake scene or the RO, because she lost so much depth and humanity.
By exploring the flaws in Lisa's character the writers seem to be trying to restore some of it's complexity and depth.   OK, in my opinion they're going about it in a pretty clumsy way, without the subtlety and intelligence that was used in the past but it's still an interesting development.   I really must check out some of the recent eps.