Scenes From The Class Struggle In Springfield: An American Dream Come True?

     An episode of The Simpsons from season 7 entitled "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield" does its best to inform the viewers of the American dream as well as the dangers behind it. The dangers associated with the American dream include conspicuous consumption and tokenism, and the episode has a good mixture of both. Here are some of the particulars.

     To start off with tokenism, the rich women at the country club see Marge in her Coco Chanel suit and make an effort to add her to the club and its lifestyle under the assumption that Marge is already a part of the highest class of social values. The women have no idea that the suit was found at a vintage store and slashed for 90 percent of the original price because to them, they would not think of anybody buying an article of clothing like that at a major discount. This is considered tokenism because Marge and the rest of the family comes from an underrepresented group in society (the lower middle class), and the lifestyle to the Simpson family is uncomfortable to them as they are not familiar with the values of the rich, but make an effort, even if it is a minuscule amount, to fit in before ultimately deciding that their original way of life was much better.

     In terms of conspicuous consumption, it also goes back to the Coco Chanel suit that Marge purchases at the beginning of the episode as Marge likes the suit and wants to buy it, but she is unsure if she should for fear that it would make her stand out in an unpleasant way when it comes to middle class values and aesthetics. Under the encouragement from Lisa, Marge purchases the suit, and seems happy to do so, but it is with the suit that sets the entire episode's course of events.

     The episode delivers a Marxist critique in about as traditional of a way as one would assume from studying Marxism. The rich, though skeptical to even be associated with Marge due to her coming from an inferior background, try to recruit her to become "one of them" in a way. Marge, unknowingly, also changes herself in terms of behavior in order to meet the standards that the rich expect from her only to realize how bad she has become after overhearing her family talk about how bad they are for believing in what they believe. The episode ends with the rich basically continuing to go about their own way while the Simpson family has a family meal at Krusty Burger, about as low as one can get for a middle class family, as said by the restaurant's janitor.

     The episode does a good job of pointing out the Marxist critique of how the episode portrays a service to the rich while playing off the middle class as being less than them. A good example of this is when Montgomery Burns, Homer's boss, and "golfer" is caught cheating, yet has no consequences for his actions. Same thing with the rich women at the end as all they get is just some disappointment that Marge did not want to become a member of the elite.