Jerrel Holloway

Intro to Sociology

3/4/11

Marge Be Not Proud

Upon watching the episode of the simpsons, “Marge Be Not Proud,” a sociology

student would recognize many deviant behaviors throughout the episode. A few of the

behaviors noticed in the episode include Bart cussing at his mother, the child in the store

yelling at his mother, the mothers lack of discipline, and Homer’s reaction to Bart

stealing. In this brief report, I will analyze the situations of Bart stealing, and Bart

swearing at his mother.

In the case of Bart stealing, according to mainstream society, stealing is wrong.

In fact, stealing is seen as criminal due to its detrimental affects on society. Some of the

social controls observed in reaction to this behavior include someone making the

statement, “That boy’s parents must’ve gone wrong somewhere.” In Bart’s situation, he

was not taken to jail because he is a child. Had he been an adult however, he would have

been taken to jail. In the case of a child, the social reprieves will not be as severe as they

would be for an adult. Generally they will include, as they did in the situation from the

episode, a phone call to the child’s parents, and a ban from entering the store. Any

further punishment is generally the responsibility of the parents. In this case, Bart’s

parents reacted in different ways. Homer immediately started yelling at Bart, and

chewing him out. Marge on the other hand didn’t seem to know how to react to the

situation, and just began to ignore Bart for the majority. This turned out to be the more

effective reprieve in the end because it made Bart want to make up for what he had done.
When this situation is analyzed, it matches up well with the Social Conflict Theory quite

well. According to the Social conflict approach, deviance results from social inequality.

When Bart saw that another child was getting a copy of the video game that he wanted,

he became jealous of the child getting the game. This made Bart decide to steal the video

game because he couldn’t afford it. In this case, the Child at the store would be the

dominant group, and Bart would be the subordinate group.

The second example of deviant behavior that will be discussed is from earlier in

the episode where Bart cussed at his mother. In our society, It is considered deviant for

children that are as young as Bart to swear. When Bart said, “Buy me Bulletstorm or go

to hell!” Marge immediately responded with a gasp, and a reprieve of Bart’s actions.

However in the case of homer, the reprieve was, “Young man, in this house we say

please,” completely disregarding the fact that Bart had cussed. Both of these responses

are negative sanctions, and they respond to the same statement in different ways. When

the symbolic interaction approach is applied to the situation, it is easy to analyze. The

statement, “Any act or person may or may not be considered deviant,” applies here. In

this situation, Bart’s swearing is labeled as deviant due to his age, however, had Homer

said the same thing, it would not have been labeled as deviant.

Many behaviors in society are viewed as deviant behaviors depending on who

commits the acts. In many cases there are double standards applied to people based off

of social class or age. Our nations youth tends to not be as heavily reprimanded for more

severe crimes as adults, however adults can get away with things unscathed that children

are heavily reprimanded for.