Let’s Break Down A Very Gay Simpsons Poster

Eric Kostiuk Williams is a cartoonist and illustrator in Toronto who recently shared a poster he created for an upcoming “Simpsons-themed dance party,” an event I cruelly cannot attend because my passport is expired. I have, however, spent hours dissecting every reference and implication of this poster, which rules. 

The party takes place at a Toronto club called The Black Eagle, but the poster is a recreation of The Anvil, the gay steel mill Homer accidentally takes Bart to in “Homer’s Phobia,” the groundbreaking 1997 Simpsons episode featuring John Waters. Over email, Williams tells me, “The episode makes a wonderful mockery of middle America's moral panic around homosexuality, and in its depiction of The Anvil, also delivers a hilarious send-up of hypermasculinity within the gay community.”

(If you, like me, wonder exactly how this translates into a dance party, Williams explains, “David Kraft, a beloved local party organizer and fellow Simpsons fanatic, threw this event once a few years ago… He mounted Simpsons-y props throughout The Black Eagle and gave out a bunch of hard hats to attendees, really transforming the space into a gay- ass steel mill.”)

There’s so much to love in this poster. I’m particularly fond of a couple of Simpsons deep cuts: Homer ogling Flanders in an assless version of his snowsuit from the 2000 episode “Little Big Mom,” which brought us the iconic line “Stupid sexy Flanders.” I also like that Bart is wearing the stripper costume from a brief fantasy Marge has in 1992’s “Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie.” Williams says he’s a “total freak for The Simpsons… I first gravitated towards the show for the surface-y jokes, and over time, gained an appreciation for its deeper irreverence and critical perspective.”

While the poster features the obvious pairings of Smithers/Mr. Burns and Lenny/Carl, there are some more aspirational twists too. Williams says, “I took great pleasure in having Hank Scorpio (not canonically queer, but sexy, and would make for a stunning sociopathic queer villain) squeezing the nipple of Mr. Pettigrew, the guy who say ‘yyYyyEeeEeeSssSSs?!’”

Williams also pointed out his inclusion of Karl, Homer’s assistant from 1990’s “Simpson and Delilah.” Voiced by Harvey Fierstein, the show never explicitly outs him, but the choice of voice actor and the scene where he kisses Homer definitely stuck with me as a young queer kid. Williams says it was “very important” to include Karl, continuing that “Although [Karl] fits into a few stereotypical tropes, the depiction isn't at the character's expense. A lot of those tropes are fierce! When I watch back, I'm like, ‘oh, this queen has his shit together and is kind of amazing.’”

While The Simpsons has changed a lot over its 34-years-and-counting run, through early characters like Karl and episodes like “Homer’s Phobia,” it addressed queerness in ways we often didn’t see on TV at the time. Williams says, “The Simpsons is inherently queer in its critical outlook on the nuclear family, and, aesthetically, in its technicolour flamboyance. The genius of the show's first decade was its various access points for different audiences: hilarious sight gags, with cutting political and class commentary beneath the surface, and several specifically queer references--delivered in sly, 'wink-wink' moments--beneath another surface."

Willams also draws a lot of things that aren’t making everyone in The Simpsons queer. He  recently released 2am Eternal, a collection of queer nightlife posters. He says, “A good poster generates anticipation and a promise of what the party aspires to deliver, and then lives on as material evidence of the experience. They're precious ephemera from slippery moments that often can't be historically preserved in any conventional way.”

In an era when you’re more likely to see an event poster on Instagram than taped to a light post or handed to you at a club, Williams thinks poster art has had to change with the times. “When illustrating posters, I have to be keenly aware of what sort of material gets flagged by censors, and what type of image communicates effectively when viewed on a tiny phone. While I'm grateful for the reach offered by Instagram, having to tailor my work to it can really suck. I'm also disheartened to see more party promoters using AI to generate imagery for flyers. Aside from AI's worrying implications on my livelihood and the fate of humanity itself... those flyers also just look ugly as fuck, and will age like milk.”

If you’re near Ridgewood, NY, you can buy a limited run of the poster at Topos Bookstore, and Williams says he hopes to make it available to buy online soon too. I, meanwhile, will continue revelling in this poster’s implications for Simpsons canon. 

Williams says, “I'm proudly gay for Moleman, and hope anyone who sees the poster considers becoming so too!”