Marge’s Worst Pieces of Advice, According to ‘Simpsons’ Fans

While her husband is a rage-filled simpleton and her son a notorious troublemaker, Marge Simpson has always been a fairly grounded, moral person. Unless she’s behind the wheel of a Canyonero, that is.

The vocal potato fan has had her share of off-days. Recently, on Reddit, fans were prompted to share their opinions about the “worst thing Marge has said or done.” In addition to some instances of objectively bad behavior, which include stealing Milhouse’s teeth and ignoring Homer’s consent after getting jacked, most of the Simpson family matriarch’s lowest moments have involved doling out bad advice — not including the advice that nearly leads Ned Flanders to a suffer a violent, baboon-based death. 

For starters, there was the episode in which Lisa develops a crush on Nelson. “Most women will tell you that you’re a fool to think you can change a man. But those women are quitters!” Marge claims, arguing that when she first met Homer he was “loud, crude and piggish. But I worked hard on him, and now he’s a whole new person.” 

When Lisa questions this, she desperately repeats, “He’s a whole new person, Lisa.”

Another fan pointed to the moment in Season One’s “Moaning Lisa” when Marge tells Lisa to smile all the time, regardless of her inner feelings, because “it's what shows up on the surface that counts. That’s what my mother taught me. Take all your bad feelings and push them down. All the way down, past your knees, until you’re almost walking on them. And then you’ll fit in, and you’ll be invited to parties and boys will like you, and happiness will follow.”

Of course, Marge herself soon realizes that this advice is regressive and awful. 

Then there was the time that Marge responded to Bart and Lisa’s concerns about Springfield Elementary’s cannibalistic faculty by telling them, “You're 8 and 10 years old now. I can’t be fighting all your battles for you. You march right back to that school, look them in the eye, and say ‘Don’t eat me!’” 

Sure it was in a nightmare from a “Treehouse of Horror” episode, but still.

Even darker, Bart came to Marge looking for guidance concerning his knowledge of Freddy Quimby’s innocence in “The Boy Who Knew Too Much.” Marge’s response? “Your Uncle Arthur used to have a saying: ‘Shoot ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.’ Unfortunately one day he put his theory into practice. It took 75 federal marshals to bring him down. Now let’s never speak of him again.” 

Yikes.

She does add that Bart should listen to his “heart” and not the voices in his head, “like a certain uncle did one gray December morn,” which, aside from the reference to a mass murder committed by a family member, isn’t the worst advice.