Homer Simpson



Homer Jay Simpson, formerly known as Max Power,[1] is the father of the Simpson family, and the main protagonist of the TV show, The Simpsons. He is an overweight, lazy, and ignorant individual, but is strongly devoted to his wife and children. Despite this and his below average intelligence, he has shown moments of great intellect, and can be a caring parent and husband at times. Homer Simpson works as a low level safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear plant, in Sector G7, although he is often incompetent and mostly sleeps on duty and eats the doughnuts that are provided. He spends a great deal of his time at Moe's Tavern with his lifelong friends Barney, Carl, Lenny, and bartender Moe. At home he can often be found sitting on the sofa mindlessly watching TV while snacking on food and drinking Duff. Homer is the only son of Abe and Mona.

Appearance
His appearance is that of an overweight balding man. He has a perpetual five-o-clock shadow that can regrow itself at a very quick rate if he ever shaves. Despite his overweight status, and hate for excercise, he has on occasion shown surprising physical prowess and agility for a man of his stature, such as when training for Whacking Day and he hits several pop-up Snakes with kicks and even backflipping. His baldness is contributed by several factors. Upon finding out whenever Marge was pregnant, he would tear out a substantial amount of his hair. Another contribution is working at the nuclear plant for so many years that the exposure to radioactivity has caused most of his hair to fall out. In one episode, he learned that if he repented for all of his sins and became Catholic, he could go to Heaven when he died. During his confession, he states that he has masturbated eight billion times and that he doesn't plan to stop and that he doesn't regret it. Excessive masturbation can lead to hair loss as well.

Personality
Homer's personality is one of frequent stupidity, laziness, and explosive anger; one might say it is that of the "Average Joe". He also suffers from a short attention span which complements his intense but short-lived passion for hobbies, enterprises and various causes. Homer is prone to emotional outbursts; he gets very envious of his neighbors, the Flanders family, and is easily enraged at his son, Bart Simpson, and strangles him in an exaggerated manner. His trademark phrase to strangling Bart, "Why you Little...!" and on one occasion,"Why you little bastard!" [10]. He also spanks Bart sometimes and, in one case, Lisa. One time, he was too busy to spank them, so he told them to go to their rooms and spank themselves. He shows no compunction about this, and does not attempt to hide his actions from people outside the family, even showing disregard for his son's well being in other ways, such as leaving Bart alone at a port[11], or allowing Bart to go court for skateboarding naked on his dare when all he would have to do is attend a 1 hour parenting class signifying not only his disregard for Bart but his extreme laziness [9]. While Homer has repeatedly upset people and caused all sorts of mayhem in Springfield, these events are usually caused by either his explosive temper or lack of foresight. Except for expressing annoyance at Ned Flanders, Homer's actions are usually unintentional. Most of his explosive anger is targeted on Bart, because of something stupid or bad he had said or done. Despite their disadvantages, these common outbursts saved Homer from dying of a pent-up rage-induced heart attack.[12]

While Homer's stupid antics often upset his family, he has also performed acts that reveal him to be a surprisingly loving father and husband, such as selling his cherished ride on the Duff Blimp and using the money to enter Lisa in a beauty pageant so she could feel better about herself[13] ; giving up his chance at wealth to allow Maggie to keep a cherished teddy bear[14] ; spearheading an attempt to dig Bart out after he had fallen down a well, even though he hates doing physical labor[15] and arranging a surprise second wedding with Marge to make up for their lousy first ceremony, even going so far as to hire one of The Doobie Brothers as part of the wedding band and getting a divorce from Marge, essentially making their second wedding a "real" one.[16]

Homer tends to derive amusement from the misfortune of others. He is a chronic petty thief and borderline kleptomaniac, stealing everything from TV trays to power tools and air conditioners, even an entire room of the Flanders House from Ned Flanders. He has also stolen golf balls from the local driving range, office supplies (including computers) from work, and beer mugs from Moe's Tavern. Homer has a vacuous mind, but he is still able to retain a great amount of knowledge about very specific subjects. He often shows short bursts of astonishing insight, memory, creativity and fluency with many languages. Homer is also extremely confident; no matter how little skill or knowledge he has about anything he tries to do, he has no doubt that he will be successful. However, his brief periods of intelligence are overshadowed by much longer and more consistent periods of ignorance, forgetfulness and stupidity. Homer has a low IQ due to many factors: his hereditary "Simpson Gene", his alcohol problem, exposure to radioactive waste, repetitive cranial trauma, and the crayon lodged in the frontal lobe of his brain. He also implied that he would have been at least a bit smarter, if not by a substantial amount, if his father had tried to give him encouragement rather than beat him down [17]. The crayon in his brain is possibly the largest causal factor in his stupidity. Homer's intelligence was said to jump up fifty points when he had the crayon removed, bringing him to an IQ of 105, slightly above that of an average person (though he showed far above average intelligence), but he went back to his old self when he had it reinserted, presumably lowering his IQ back down to its original 55.[18] This IQ score is, however, likely a joke or oversight on the producers' part, as someone with an IQ of 55 would be unable to look after themselves and would be classified as severely mentally handicapped. Also from the level of intelligence he showed it's much more likely that his IQ was boasted to 135-155. Despite his handicap, Homer does have a degree of long term, calculated planning of what might happen, such as when, shortly before taking his "forget-me-shot" from Moe Syzslak, requested for their anniversary party to have a Moon Jump due to realizing exactly what will happen afterwards.[19]

Homer has at times debated against his brain. Occasionally, a specific body part such as his face, stomach or liver is also shown debating with his brain. In one notable scene Homer's mind actually leaves his body out of boredom, causing him to collapse. Homer is also inclined to retreat into fantasy, such as daydreaming of Germany as "land of chocalate". Homer's attitudes toward woman, romance, and sex are occasionally shown. While Homer's marriage with Marge is occasionally strained, it seems generally happy. Despite this, Homer is often tempted with other women, and usually shows no qualms with gawking at (and drooling over) attractive women. Homer almost had an affair with, but ended up not wanting to. He has made the occasional remark denoting his attraction to other women (including his Neighbor's wife), even in front of Marge on a occasion, but always shows his devotion to Marge in the end.