Lisa Simpson

Lisa Marie Simpson (voiced by Yeardley Smith) is a fictional character on the animated television series The Simpsons. Matt Groening, the creator of the series, named her after his sister.

Lisa is an extremely bright girl, with an IQ of 159. Officially, her highest grade is an A+++ which she earned by cheating in a test on The Wind in the Willows. She later re-marked the test as an F. She once invented a perpetual motion machine while suffering from a sort of "knowledge withdrawal", and gave it to Homer, who thought it was against the laws of thermodynamics.

Her musical abilities are extensive: she sings with a powerful voice, and has been seen playing both the acoustic six-string and electric bass guitar proficiently. However, her great love is jazz blues performed on her baritone saxophone. She uses a 4&frac12 reed, a fairly stiff reed for an 8 year old. Her musical inclinations were greatly nourished through her relationship with the late jazz musician Bleeding Gums Murphy. She is also fluent in Swedish, and understands Chinese as seen from listening to Yao Ming.

Lisa is both a lacto-ovo vegetarian and a practicing Buddhist, although she pays lip service to her family's Christian denomination. In addition, she is a supporter of the Free Tibet Movement. She also dabbles in Wicca, which she finds empowering as a budding feminist. This explanation of hers seems very likely, because she has a strong skepticism against the supernatural, applying Occam's Razor when the rest of the family fails to. She is seen by some to whine at times or to have a persistent sense of superiority that often grows into self-aggrandizement, but she retains a childlike impressionability despite her intelligence, for example, she would love to have a pony and enjoys her mother's homemade waffles (and is disappointed when they turn out to be square pancakes). She has solved various problems around Springfield, often in tandem with her brother Bart.

Lisa's future has been revealed in three episodes, by a fortune teller in a medieval carvinal, by a Native American who is in charge of an Indian casino and by Professor Frink. The fortune teller reveals that Lisa will fall in love with a British man who matches her intellectually, but her marriage will be cancelled because of a dispute over his dislike for the Simpson household. The American Indian reveals that Lisa will become the "first straight female US President" (with a balding Milhouse van Houten working for the Lisa Simpson Administration). Her administration's main issue is the massive foreign debt. She appoints Bart as the "Secretary of Keeping it Real" as a way to keep him out of the way at Camp David. Professor Frink shows that she is to take Milhouse to her Prom.

Lisa is someone who is very eclectic in her knowledge and shows a deep understanding of the world around her. She may be seen as a child prodigy. Critics have also pointed out that the character of Lisa is a hint to the slighting of children in the real world though they may be a lot more knowledgeable and perceptive than the adults. Lisa's abilities have been linked to the "Simpson's Gene" (which makes males under-achievers and females over-achievers), and to her grandmother Mona Simpson, with whom she felt an instant rapport.

Like every young girl, Lisa has also gone through periods of rebellion. For a short time, she smoked cigarettes with older girls in the school bathroom, and even told her teacher, Miss Hoover, to "shove it" when she didn't feel like sprinkling sparkles on her art assignment.

Notable Accomplishments

• Won the regional Reading Digest contest
• Served brief term as Little Miss Springfield
• Co-invented the Lisa Lionheart doll
• All-star goalie in pee-wee hockey
• Discovered Jebediah Springfield was a murderous pirate named Hans Sprungfeld
• Helped Mr. Burns recover his fortune, which made Burns $120,000,000 with the "Li'l Lisa" recycling plant. She was offered 10% of the profit but turned down the offer, giving Homer five heart attacks: four simultaneously for giving up the "$12,000" that Homer had mistaken it to be, and another for learning the real value of 10%.
• Passed with "satisfactory completion" of the second grade as the first female cadet at Rommelwood Military Academy

Relations

Lisa is:

• Granddaughter to Abraham Simpson, Mona Simpson and Jacqueline Bouvier.
• Daughter to Homer Jay Simpson and Marjorie Bouvier Simpson.
• Younger sister to Bartholomew Jo-Jo Simpson and older sister to Margaret Simpson.
• Niece to Herbert Powell, Abbie, Patty Bouvier and Selma Bouvier Terwilliger Hutz McClure.

Her former uncles-by-marriage include Robert Underdunk "Sideshow Bob" Terwilliger, Lionel Hutz, Troy McClure, and Disco Stu.

See also: Characters from The Simpsons.