First aired in 2009, Four Great Women and a Manicure is an episode of The Simpsons that, as the title suggests, depicts four stories connected by the theme of famous strong women. In one of these stories, Homer has a lowly role in a tree in a local production of Macbeth. Frustrated by her thankless job of washing costumes, Marge concocts a plan to achieve more power for her and her husband and convinces Homer to murder Sideshow Mel and replace him as Macbeth... wait, this sounds familiar.
Unfortunately the only video I could find of this segment is in German, which perhaps makes it more suited for Alyssa's blog, but nevertheless the concept is very interesting. As they try to take control of the Macbeth production, Homer and Marge end up reenacting the story of Macbeth in a story within a story so puzzling that it gives Inception a run for its money. The meta-narrative extends to the visuals of the segment; much like Hot Fuzz appropriated its Romeo and Juliet costumes from William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, Homer's costume in his role as Macbeth bears a striking similarity to the crown and fur-lined robes worn by Orson Welles in his 1948 film adaptation of Macbeth. The Simpsons is a part of the public zeitgeist just as much as the works of William Shakespeare, and to dedicate a third of an episode to a self-referential parody of one of his plays shows an expectation and level of trust on the part of the writers that their audience will understand their humorous take on the subject matter.
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