Jacqueline Ingrid "Jackie" Bouvier (née Gurney), occasionally referred to as Mrs. Bouvier or Grandma Bouvier, is the mother of Marge Simpson also twins Patty and Selma Bouvier.

Background[]

Residence[]

Jacqueline used to live with her husband and their daughters in a house in Springfield, where she first met Homer when he pretended to be Marge's prom date.^[4] Nowadays, she lives in the Hal Roach Apartments but was also seen living in a house near a lake when her family visited her on her 80th birthday.^[5]

Common Bouvier Traits[]

Jacqueline shares many Bouvier family traits with her daughters. During Marge's youth, Jacqueline looked virtually identical to her daughter as an adult, with a similar voice and blue beehaive hairstyle. However, Jacqueline also has traits in common with Patty and Selma, including a pessimistic and critical outlook on life and rarely smiling. She used to smoke as well.^[6] However, unlike Patty and Selma, Jacqueline seems to have stopped by now.

Like most of Marge's relatives (including Patty and Selma), Jacqueline has a generally negative opinion of Homer, but, usually, she does not express it as much as Marge's sisters.

In "Stark Raving Dad" upon reading the phone message Bart toke about Homer getting committed to the insane asylum, Marge just says to herself, "Mother was right." In "Bart Gets Hit by a Car" when Marge has to testify about her opinion of Dr. Nick Riviera she is reluctant at first saying "I'm sorry, but my mother always said if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" except Lionel Hutz notes it will not hold up in court because "I tried it before." In "I Married Marge" when everybody still believed Homer's own mother died when he was a little boy, Homer said to her "Thanks, Mom" when you offered to drive him to the hospital on the day Bart was born and she curtly stopped him with, "Don't ever call me that." In "Fear of Flying", it is revealed that she goes bean-picking with Lisa, which Lisa likes. In "Lisa the Beauty Queen" after Homer tells Bart to flatter Lisa when she comes home from the beauty parlor, Bart says, "She'll see through me like Grandma's underpants." In "Mommie Beerest", when Marge wishes Homer would come with her to her mother's house, Homer declines as it's revealed that he hates Jacqueline. In "Looking for Mr. Goodbart" Lisa asks Bart what he was up to and he answers, "Being the perfect grandson." Lisa: "For our Grandma?" and Bart, "No, for everybody but her. In "Puffless", it's revealed Jacqueline never told any of her daughters how their father died (which was from lung cancer) as she believed Patty and Selma look cool whenever they smoke. "Moe Letter Blues" Jacqueline's attitude towards Homer seems to have softened over the years; she even stated that "Patty and Selma are a sort of evil" when they purposely provoked Homer one night.

Romantic Relationships[]

Jacqueline was married to Clancy Bouvier, who is now deceased.^[7][8] Jacqueline had a brief romance with Abraham Simpson, her son-in-law, Homer's father.^[9] However, she broke up with him when she was wooed by billionaire Charles Montgomery Burns, whom she nearly married before Abraham's intervention made her decide she was better off alone; Abraham was delighted nevertheless and said "That's good enough for me!". However, Abraham and Burns are still seen battling for Jacqueline's affections at times.^[10]

Behind the Laughter[]

Simpsons writer Jon Vitti was the one who decided to use Bouvier as Marge's maiden name which came from Bouvier being the maiden name of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who accentuated her French name and heritage.

Her first name Jackie was not used until the episode "Lady Bouvier's Lover", but she was named Ingrid Gurney on the family tree of the earlier published The Simpsons Uncensored Family Album. Simpsons creator Matt Groening's maternal grandmother's name was Ingeborg "Ingrid" Wiggum and Ingrid is also the middle name of his little sister Lisa (whom Lisa Simpson was named for).

According to a DVD commentary her appearance was created by "taking Marge's model and squashing it."

Trivia[]

• According to "The Marge-ian Chronicles", she had forbidden Marge from marrying Homer. However, since this was a flashback. She was obviously unsuccessful in laying down her punishment for Marge.
• According to her SkyBox trading card bio, she had mastered several dances years ago, but had not danced in years until Mr. Burns invited her to and that rush of using her dancing talents nearly lead her to marry Mr. Burns until fate and Grampa Simpson intervened.
• While it more than likely just the show simplifying things by just using the same last name for anything to do with Marge's relatives, a minor fan theory is Bouvier is both her married name and maiden name citing incidents like how her recently deceased and never married sister Gladys was called Miss Bouvier by her probate attorney Lionel Hutz^[11] or the strong resemblance between her and Eunice Bouvier, Marge's unwed "great half step-aunt" from Gainesville, Florida^[12][13] or her patch on the Bouvier family quilt.^[14]

Appearances[]

Most of Jacqueline's roles are brief, background appearances with little or no dialogue. The bold text indicates a larger role with a respective amount of dialogue.

Gallery[]

Citations[]