Lisa Simpson

Biography

In one episode, Lisa was conceived in 1983 and born either during the 1984 Summer Olympics or the day the "Where's the beef?" debate between Walter Mondale and Gary Hart was reported in the newspapers. Later on however, Lisa and her older brother Bart were unfamiliar with 1990s culture. Bart said he was 2 years and 38 days older than Lisa. Lisa is quite eclectic in her knowledge and is notably more concerned with world affairs and problems than her cohorts, which has led her to alienate herself from her peers. Lisa also deeply values her integrity, sometimes at the expense of others' needs and happiness, as demonstrated when she cheats on a test in The Wind in the Willows to attain her highest grade of A-plus, but later admits her dishonesty to an unreceptive Principal Seymour Skinner despite the fact that such a grade allowed the school to gain the extra income it 'desperately' needs. (She later regrades the test as an F.) Also, Lisa was willing to tell everyone about Bart faking his own kidnapping to go to a rap concert (despite the fact that absolutely everybody involved in the case was better off) just because she could.

Appearance

Lisa has yellow skin, blue eyes (although the pupils look like 2 black dots just like the other characters), and a blonde "starfish" hairstyle that is styled into points and matches the color of her skin. She doesn’t have any visible hairline. She’s usually seen wearing a short, strapless orange dress with a zigzag hem, matching orange Mary-Jane shoes, and a white pearl necklace (given to her by Marge). She’s 4'2" tall. she has had two different outfits for church and family outings: a magenta long-sleeved dress with a ruffled collar and magenta pumps for church and a baby pink short-sleeved tutu dress with a darker pink belt, dark pink collar, and pink Mary-Jane shoes; and she occasionally wears a matching wide-brimmed hat. At night, she dresses in a turquoise nightgown with a frilly white collar and matching cuffs, as well as turquoise slippers; and in "Podcast News", she wears lilac footie pajamas with gray pads on the bottom of the feet. When Lisa swims, she wears a magenta or red swimsuit. Her hair has been styled out of its star shape a few times, such as in 4 episodes "The President Wore Pearls", "22 Short Films About Springfield ", "Teenage Mutant Milk-caused Hurdles ", and "Last Traction Hero". It is also shown to be about chin or sometimes shoulder length. In future appearances as an adult and teenager, her hair "points" are usually worn in a styled-back fashion. Lisa inherited her father's chubby fingers, which somewhat affects her dexterity. She seems to be self-conscious about her body; if what has been said in several episodes is to be believed, she has a very fat posterior, with several characters in a few episodes making fun of how fat it is, most notably in "Sleeping with the Enemy" and "Lisa's Belly".

Personality

Lisa is an innovative, insightful, a sometimes girly, cute and extremely intelligent girl, far exceeding the standards of a second grader especially in Springfield. Part of her intelligence is due to being so dissociated from her idiotic father whilst growing up and it was strongly implied that her brains were a result of her grandmother; Homer could never keep up with his daughter's startling intelligence due to his slow wit and stupidly, his laziness and their contradicting vices and opinions caused a strained relationship and she practically grew up without a father figure, specifically not a model one (although Homer probably wouldn't have been much help even if he was involved in Lisa's life). As intelligent as she is, her family never encouraged her gifts, and her school lacked the resources to blossom her IQ further but overall, Lisa has the most promising future. Since she was a baby, Lisa has displayed intellectual independence from changing her own diapers and solving mathematical solutions when she was only an infant. She could be classified as a child prodigy. Her overall role in the Simpson family is depicted as the voice of reason. Despite her young age, Lisa is a good girl and has a strong sense of right, wrong, and morality; and she is always there to contradict Homer, Bart and on one occasion Marge whenever they do something reckless, idiotic or illegal, doing her very best to sway them to the path of the righteous due to fearing greatly for her father and brother's immortal soul but her standing as an outsider in her own family cause her to be ignored despite her best intentions. In an argument, Lisa's ethical and logical viewpoint almost always gives her the moral high ground, her family also realizes that Lisa is usually right whenever they do something immoral but Homer's tendency to ignore her, uses the excuse of age to send her to her room when they realize that they are in the wrong. In earlier seasons, however, Lisa has been depicted as

Lisa the vegetarian

Despite her young age, Lisa is extremely passionate about ideologies and other social movements. She has been shown to support PETA (although she has eaten eggs and dairy) and the Free Tibetan movement, is highly against animal cruelty and has adopted a diet of vegetarianism from Season 7; she would later on become a full-on vegan, though this has shown to be more of an occasional feature rather than a permanent one. She encourages the idea of feminism, women's rights, and the crusade against objectification and stereotypes of women. Lisa's role models and ideals are based on Mohandas Gandhi's enforcement of nonviolent pacifism and Emmeline Pankhurst. While her social movements are generally considered to be heroic, Lisa's reasoning is not solely to make the world a better place. A life of being shunned and ignored by her family has developed attention-seeking traits and a desire to be heard, once going to a dig site solely for the basis to complain about it, an area where she is usually ignored further. She used to force her beliefs on others due to a sense of self-righteousness and moral superiority specifically her vegetarianism, but Apu also taught her a degree of tolerance for others' beliefs. Lisa is against the ignorance on others' behalf, believing the truth is the truth and is unable to be dissuaded no matter what it was, which she learned from Marge. Without anyone else caring she continued to pester that the town founder, Jebediah Springfield was in actuality a murderous pirate and only refrained herself from revealing the truth when she realized how it brought the town together.

Intelligence

It’s mentioned that Lisa has an IQ of 159. She’s a high-ranking member of Mensa Springfield. Lisa demonstrates an early intelligence by changing her own diaper as an infant and knowing advanced words to describe things. Because she is aware of how smart she is, Lisa often voices her disapproval of not being in a better school that could nurture her gifts and provide a better future for her. Lisa's intelligence lends itself to many of the situations the family faces, be it financial or chaotic shenanigans. Like the rest of her paternal family, she can pick up a new language fairly quickly, she was able to learn fluent Italian from Milhouse in a fairly short amount of time. Unfortunately, Lisa has a tendency to act in a know-it-all manner and tries to push her knowledge/personal beliefs onto others. Another downside of her intellect is assuming things will work out how she hopes/daydreams, such as believing a romantic relationship will turn out happily after making her own assumptions or thinking her projects and schoolwork will automatically be the top rank of the class. Because of this, if she receives any grade under an A/A+ she will often spiral into a frenzy wondering why she did not score higher and/or will judge others around her if they happen to score better than her or accuse the person who graded/judged her of not understanding her work properly or playing favorites.

Beliefs

Lisa's political convictions are generally leftist and rather liberal. She is a vegetarian and a supporter of the Free Tibet movement. Lisa yells "Free Tibet!" after winning the school spelling bee. An "End Apartheid" poster can be seen in her bedroom in episodes from the early 1990s. She, like her mother, supported Democrat Mary Bailey over Right-Winged Mr. Burns; the duo revealed that Mr. Burns was a liar and Mary Bailey wins in a landslide, the only known supporters being Waylon Smithers, Bart, and Homer. While still supportive of the Christian church she was raised in, Lisa is now a practicing Buddhist following her decision to follow the Noble Eightfold Path. Though apparently not an adherent, she mentions that she considers Wicca "very empowering". She also appears to be a big believer in science, even stating in one episode when she was scared of the graveyard outside her bedroom, that she only believed in science. Lisa is also a big believer of women's rights and has called herself a feminist.

Vegetarianism

When the family had taken a trip to a young children's fairytale land and visited the petting zoo, Lisa became so enamored with a highly adorable lamb that she became a devout vegetarian that same night. Because of her sudden change, she struggled with the change at first and nearly reverted back to eating meat after a few days but received support from Paul McCartney to stay a vegetarian. Coupled with her goal of ending animal cruelty, Lisa firmly sticks to the vegetarian lifestyle, but it did present drawbacks when she began suffering low iron levels and is implied to have been eating meat in her sleep. Despite going vegetarian for good intentions, this decision is not very accepted by her family, most notably Marge who had admitted to Becky that she slips meat juices into Lisa's food and wanted to blame the vegetarian diet for Lisa's iron deficiency.

Music

Lisa playing the Sax Lisa's musical abilities are extensive, she sings with a powerful voice (she once entered a singing competition and won) and has been seen playing the acoustic six-string, electric bass guitar, accordion and piano proficiently. But her great love is playing jazz on her baritone saxophone. Her musical inclinations were nurtured by her relationship with the late jazz musician Bleeding Gums Murphy. She most likely inherited her musical ability from Homer, who is also musically inclined. She can also play the trumpet in some intros as well as violin, tuba, and French horn.

Independent Learning

She is fluent in Italian (learned from Milhouse Van Houten before going to Italy), as well as some French and German verbs (with the help of a German verb wheel), as well as Spanish. In "The Great Simpsina" she studied under the great Raymondo to become a skilled magician.

Life as a student

Lisa attends Springfield Elementary School alongside students such as Bart Simpson and Milhouse Van Houten, and alongside other gifted pupils, like Martin Prince and Database, she is one of the most academically advanced students at the school, and is often praised by staff members for her achievements yet at the same time is so successful that her accomplishments no longer surprise or inspire anyone. She is normally well-behaved; however, despite this, she has received detention a few times: Elizabeth Hoover in Sorry Not Sorry, from Dewey Largo and an unnamed teacher (in "Grift of the Magi" and "Lisa's Date with Density", respectively).

Criminal record

Despite her stance as a good-natured girl, Lisa has indeed committed some crimes.

Theft

In "Separate Vocations", Lisa stole books belonging to the teachers of Springfield Elementary School.

Trespassing

In Grift of the Magi, Bart and Lisa sneak into Kid First Industries unnoticed. Also in "'Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky", Lisa, along with Bart broke into the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in order to turn off the generators found within it.

Abuse, particularly with her siblings

Throughout many episodes and in her childhood, Lisa would hurt and seriously injure Bart, and vice versa. A notable instance of this came about when she was babysitting Bart while her parents were out at the Springfield Squidport - having had enough of Bart's antics, she tried to charge at her brother, only for him to fall down a flight of stairs and severely injure him - his arm had been dislocated and the impacts of his head hitting the stairs gave him a severe lump, all of which Dr. Hibbert attributes to bad babysitting.

Relationships Family

Homer Lisa has a somewhat labored relationship with Homer. Like many others, Lisa knows Homer and his behavior well. She can often tell when he has ulterior motives or is doing something that will mainly benefit himself. She has expressed hurt when he does not show genuine interest in spending time with either herself, her siblings, or Marge, and is very concerned about how much fatty foods he eats and high consumption of alcohol. During the times they are able to truly connect, Lisa and Homer work well together and stick up for one another. Even knowing Homer's flaws, Lisa does love Homer.

Relationships Family

Marge Lisa and her mother Marge generally get along well, with both being logical and wise women to a more impulsive and short-tempered man (Bart and Homer, respectively), although there have been moments of friction between the two. When Lisa decides to become a vegetarian, Marge, along with the rest of the family, makes fun of her by, unintentionally, participating in a conga line with Bart and Homer chanting "You don't make friends with salad!". During the moments when Lisa had several permanent changes, such as religion and vegetarianism, Lisa found Marge to be one of the those she received less support from as her mother firmly believes she is just going through phases. Similar to Homer, Lisa knows Marge very well and how she tends to act or think during certain moments. However, she does respect and admire Marge far more than most others.

Relationships Family

Bart Being siblings, Lisa and Bart constantly get into brawls, one time after Bart destroys Lisa's centerpiece for Thanksgiving. The two once competed against each other in hockey and tried to win over Homer's love. However, the two have teamed up together many times, and they genuinely love each other. This is shown when the two were placed in the third grade in the same class (Lisa was moved up from Second Grade and Bart was moved down). The two got lost in a field trip in Capital City, forcing them to work together to survive. When Milhouse temporarily left Springfield, Bart spent more time with Lisa and the two developed a stronger bond When Milhouse returned, Bart tried to keep their new bond intact by promising to do her chores and giving her a hug. In one episode, Lisa almost tells two college girls that she thinks Bart is cute but takes back the statement after remembering that she is talking about her brother. While Bart and Lisa have had their share of rivalry, Lisa has been shown to be less than a good sister to him on several occasions, such as boasting about how she and Maggie have a sisterly bond that Bart will never have (due to not having a brother of his own), leaving him in a chasm instead when he needed medical attention after the bullies chased him, treating Bart poorly at the school's medieval festival and blaming him for a prank he didn't commit, and kicking him down twice in Season 21. Despite treating Bart poorly on several occasions, she has shown several times that she really does care about him and his well-being. She often gives Bart advice when he needs it and will help him with any situation he's put in. Also, as a baby, her first word was "Bart" after hearing it so many times.

Relationships Family

Maggie As Lisa's baby sister, the former undoubtedly cherishes Maggie and is usually seen getting along fine with her, such as in "O Brother, Where Bart Thou?", where they play dress-up in the dark together during the snowstorm, and even mocks Bart for not being able to enjoy such sisterly activities. However, in "Smart and Smarter", Lisa becomes jealous when Maggie is crowned as the smartest person in the Simpson family, and even has a dream of her and Maggie as adults and ends up killing the latter in the dream. Lisa then decides to run away from home in order to not let Maggie's intellect outshine hers, although by the end of the episode, when it's revealed that Lisa was only helping Maggie pass the tests she was given by telling her the answers from the sidelines. The sisters are able to rekindle their relationship without any long-lasting damage to it.