The President Wore Pearls

"The President Wore Pearls"
The Simpsons episode
File:The President Wore Pearls.png
Episode no.	Season 15
Directed by	Mike B. Anderson
Written by	Dana Gould
Original air dates	November 16, 2003
Episode features
Chalkboard gag	None
Couch gag	The shutter click of a camera can be heard as an undeveloped Polaroid photo floats to the couch and develops into the Simpsons family.

"The President Wore Pearls" is the third episode of the The Simpsons' fifteenth season, first broadcast on November 16, 2003. The episode was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Music (by Alf Clausen) And Lyrics (by Dana Gould).

Plot

Springfield Elementary holds a casino night as a fundraiser, the brainchild of student body president Martin Prince (elected such in "Lisa's Substitute"). Homer wins big, but when Martin points out that his winnings can only be redeemed for prizes and not real money, the angry casino patrons riot. After the chaos has cleared, Principal Skinner tells Martin he must resign as president. An election for a new president is announced, and Lisa signs up. However, initially popular Nelson Muntz is favored to win. During a debate in the school auditorium, she sings a song about how she will fight for student rights, winning them over.

Lisa easily wins the election. Worried by her determination and popularity, the faculty discusses how to control her. Following Mrs. Krabappel's suggestion that a woman's weakness is vanity, the school faculty tells Lisa that as President, she deserves a more glamorous look. Another song is sung (a spoof of "Rainbow High") as the teachers give Lisa a makeover into a fashionable Eva Perón lookalike. She is initially resistant, but gives in since she reasons she'll still be able to fight for the kids. The students love the new Lisa more than ever, but the faculty use her as a scapegoat for dropping music, gym, and art from the curriculum to save on the budget. Facing an outraged student body, Lisa realizes that she has been used by the teaching staff and had been seduced by glamor and power. After resigning as president, Lisa goes back to her old red dress and spiky hair, and leads the students in a strike.

The students leave school in protest and Michael Moore (voicing himself) shows up to take their side, stating that children who don't receive music, gym and art are more likely to become unemployed and end up in one of his movies. The police arrive at the school to handle the students with child-size batons, but Lisa soon convinces the police to take their side too. Several other labor unions, including goat milkers, newsroom cue card holders and theme park zombies join the strike. Even Groundskeeper Willie refuses Skinner's order to turn his hose on the students. Realizing there is no other way out of the crippling strike other than disposing of Lisa, Skinner has her transferred to a school for the "Academically Gifted and Troublesome". She waves goodbye to her classmates singing another parody song ("Don't Cry For Me, Argentina").

Just as Lisa arrives at her new school, Homer pulls up and refuses to allow her to attend, complaining that he won't drive 45 minutes each day to take her to school. He suggests she take up an activity like ice skating instead, but when she eagerly asks to do that, he refuses once again, complaining that he doesn't want get up early each morning.

At the end of the episode, subtitles state that Springfield Elementary was eventually able to restore music, art and gym by cancelling flu shots and selling loose cigarettes. The subtitle then states that the producers of the show, "based on the advice of their lawyers, have never heard of a musical based on the life of Eva Perón".

Cultural references

• Martin claims he got the idea for the casino fundraiser from an episode of sitcom Saved By The Bell, but no such episode exists.
• Martin's resignation as student body president mirrors the proposal of resignation by Richard Nixon in 1962.
• The episode is a parody of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita. It is a musical episode with five songs, most of them parodies of numbers from Evita. Also, the poster Lisa uses in her election campaign is the cover of the original Broadway recording, with Lisa's face instead of Eva Perón's.
• The episode also pays homage to the student-initiated strike of May 1968 in France.
• Lenny says "But I break just like a little girl," a reference to the Bob Dylan song "Just Like a Woman", which says "but she breaks just like a little girl".
• After Lisa walks off carried by the crowd in the auditorium, Nelson sings "I am Iron Man! Do do do do do do do vote for me!", a reference to the Black Sabbath song "Iron Man".
• The way in which the teaching staff and Principal Skinner divert Lisa from her program by introducing several "public appearances", and the way in which they trick her to sign a document mirrors the ways of government secretaries in the British sitcom Yes Minister.
• After winning big at the school's casino, Homer promises Marge that tomorrow, they'll buy a PlayStation 1. (The original PlayStation was outdated when the episode aired, as the PlayStation 2 was already released)

Reception

In 2007, Vanity Fair called "The President Wore Pearls" the tenth best episode of The Simpsons, the most recent episode on the list. John Orvted said, "It may seem ludicrous to include anything later than Season 8 in this list, but this one is brilliant. The musical numbers are astoundingly good, and Lisa's comeuppance is so well constructed it harkens back to the golden years of the show (Seasons 3 through 8)."

External links

• "The President Wore Pearls" at IMDb