I'm not doing too well today.
Mar. 11th, 2003 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynMostly because I made the mistake of thinking about the news, and about what the Great White Father in Washington is doing. And about all the consequences, social, moral, political and so on, of what he'd like us to do. And about the fact that I've heard far, far too many people falling happily along with his drumbeat, or taking his example as a reason to be utterly idiotic - 'freedom fries' my ass. Bet your grandmother ate 'liberty cabbage' too and THAT did a whole lot of furking good. I'm just tired of it all, so very tired - tired of being ashamed of being an American, tired of the voice that wonders in the depths of my soul whether there's anywhere else on Earth that would be any better at all, tired of writing and pleading and talking and not being heard...
I can't think about it any longer, because if I do, someone's going to get hurt and badly. A few years ago I saw a local theatre group perform Sweeney Todd onstage. I turned to my friend Deirdre, who was sitting next to me, and said "Dee? Just so you know... if I snap, it's going to look like that." If I let this stuff get to me I'm going to go Sweeney Todd on the world around me, and God knows I don't want to do that. I'm not ready to give up hope yet, not willing to give up faith that there are good people and that something might change...
I have to let go of the hopelessness and the anger somehow. The Buddhist teachings can be very useful for that, especially when combined with the love-your-neighbor, pray-for-your-enemy Christianity I grew up with. It doesn't quite get rid of the urge to rage, though, so for now... well, for now I'm going to pull back from the Sweeney Abyss and head for an utterly different, totally irrelevant target for my bile.
The following strips have committed crimes against the name of 'comic' that can no longer be ignored. Be it hereby resolved that we shall wage war without end against them, stopping only when they lie smouldering, beaten, and destroyed on the floor of their syndicates' break rooms, never to be inflicted again on the American public or any other.
HI AND LOIS: This strip has not been funny in more years than I can count. Poorly drawn. Poorly written. Repetitious. Stereotypical. The parents are consistently dumb, the children are stuck in ruts that Skinner's rats would find frightening, and the baby is a pathetic echo of Family Circus without the charm that Bil Keene manages to make shine through even the most well-worn captions. The characters have a maximum of four facial expressions each, with 'mind boggling duh' being the most common for both the parents, and any attempt at referencing popular culture is at least four years behind the times. There is no spark of originality anywhere in the strip. Neither is there any kind of nostalgic feel or sensation of historical legitimacy. It's as if someone took 1951 and sucked everything good, living, or vital out of it, then tried to make that airless void timeless as well. There is nothing good to be had here. IT MUST BE DESTROYED.
HAGAR THE HORRIBLE: Not so great an offender as Hi and Lois, but only because the art style is marginally more bearable. The jokes are repetitious and not very original. Hagar and Helga essentially play out the same stereotypical roles over and over again; Helga's advice to her daughter is redolent of 'The Rules', except without any hint of being touched by reality. Hagar's bookish son has at least a little potential, but it is ruined more often than not by his pairing with either his repeatedly useless father or his man-hungry girlfriend. The mother-in-law is an outright ogre, only drawn to smaller scale. Nothing done in Hagar that Andy Capp couldn't do better, with better art, and I don't even like the alcoholic wife-beater. Worse, we know enough about the Vikings to know that this is as grotesque a mis-rendering of their culture as Amos 'n' Andy or Dr. Fu Manchu. IT MUST BE DESTROYED.
MOMMA: Mel Lazarus' strip about a controlling, manipulating, whining mother and her largely useless children has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The dwarfish runt of a main character ceaselessly meddles in her children's lives, then wonders why the only way she can get them to keep her company is by claiming deathly illness or giving them money. Here's a hint: it's because you're a bitch. And I don't mean that in a good way. There is no evidence that Thomas' daughter-in-law is the horrible, slovenly cook you accuse her of being, or that she has anything like the kind of greed for possession that you claim she uses to work your son to the point where he drops. I'd call that projection if I'd actually taken any psych classes. Your daughter might date horrible men, but can you blame her? Every time she brings a man home - every single time - you rip him to shreds. You read her diary and you castigate her about her choices of clothing. She's obviously an adult, because you're so far past menopausal you're out the other side. Perhaps if you hadn't ruthlessly sabotaged her ability to trust her own decisions or maintain her own life she might be able to get herself on track. As for Francis, admittedly, he is a good for nothing - but you're an enabler. Cut him off. If he really loves you he'll eventually come to visit, and if he doesn't love you, it's your own damn fault. Die, wretch. THEY MUST BE DESTROYED.
BEETLE BAILEY: Hasn't been funny in years. Humor based almost entirely on stereotypes; unconscious or subconscious misogyny in all portrayals of women. Miss Buxley is beautiful but dumber than a bag of hammers, the other office lady is treated as unattractive but moderately smart, the female sergeant is defined almost solely by the trait of being man-hungry (the rest of her characterization being 'mm, food'), and General Halftrack's wife exists almost entirely as an excuse for her husband to go out and drink. The recently introduced character, Tech Officer Gizmo, makes jokes or comments about technology that only an entirely techno-clueless person would find funny, because there is no way a competent computer user would talk like him. The other characters are not entirely bad, although the Japanese-American soldier grates a bit. One gets the impression the strip is composed of characters from the Hi and Lois universe, who left because they had four brain cells to rub together instead of merely two. THEY MUST BE DESTROYED.
DENNIS THE MENACE: There is nothing whatsoever that is cute, appealing, or entertaining about the prospect of a child whose parents never employ discipline more effective than 'sit in the corner'. Perhaps if Dennis were to learn that there were real consequences for his actions he might develop into an interesting human being, but as it stands the only character in the strip who has any kind of backbone or multi-dimensional feel to her is - I think her name is Gina, she's the girl who isn't Margaret. Mrs. Wilson is bearable as a grandmother figure, because that is how grandmothers are, and as for Mr. Wilson it's a wonder he hasn't sued Dennis' pathetic excuse for a father for everything he has. Dennis is as much a blight on society as Marmaduke, but without the excuse of his brain being the size of a tennis ball. There's nothing lovable about him any more. Maybe there was once, but not any more. HE MUST BE DESTROYED.
Okay, that's enough ranting. I feel a bit better now. Sorry about that... thanks.
I can't think about it any longer, because if I do, someone's going to get hurt and badly. A few years ago I saw a local theatre group perform Sweeney Todd onstage. I turned to my friend Deirdre, who was sitting next to me, and said "Dee? Just so you know... if I snap, it's going to look like that." If I let this stuff get to me I'm going to go Sweeney Todd on the world around me, and God knows I don't want to do that. I'm not ready to give up hope yet, not willing to give up faith that there are good people and that something might change...
I have to let go of the hopelessness and the anger somehow. The Buddhist teachings can be very useful for that, especially when combined with the love-your-neighbor, pray-for-your-enemy Christianity I grew up with. It doesn't quite get rid of the urge to rage, though, so for now... well, for now I'm going to pull back from the Sweeney Abyss and head for an utterly different, totally irrelevant target for my bile.
The following strips have committed crimes against the name of 'comic' that can no longer be ignored. Be it hereby resolved that we shall wage war without end against them, stopping only when they lie smouldering, beaten, and destroyed on the floor of their syndicates' break rooms, never to be inflicted again on the American public or any other.
HI AND LOIS: This strip has not been funny in more years than I can count. Poorly drawn. Poorly written. Repetitious. Stereotypical. The parents are consistently dumb, the children are stuck in ruts that Skinner's rats would find frightening, and the baby is a pathetic echo of Family Circus without the charm that Bil Keene manages to make shine through even the most well-worn captions. The characters have a maximum of four facial expressions each, with 'mind boggling duh' being the most common for both the parents, and any attempt at referencing popular culture is at least four years behind the times. There is no spark of originality anywhere in the strip. Neither is there any kind of nostalgic feel or sensation of historical legitimacy. It's as if someone took 1951 and sucked everything good, living, or vital out of it, then tried to make that airless void timeless as well. There is nothing good to be had here. IT MUST BE DESTROYED.
HAGAR THE HORRIBLE: Not so great an offender as Hi and Lois, but only because the art style is marginally more bearable. The jokes are repetitious and not very original. Hagar and Helga essentially play out the same stereotypical roles over and over again; Helga's advice to her daughter is redolent of 'The Rules', except without any hint of being touched by reality. Hagar's bookish son has at least a little potential, but it is ruined more often than not by his pairing with either his repeatedly useless father or his man-hungry girlfriend. The mother-in-law is an outright ogre, only drawn to smaller scale. Nothing done in Hagar that Andy Capp couldn't do better, with better art, and I don't even like the alcoholic wife-beater. Worse, we know enough about the Vikings to know that this is as grotesque a mis-rendering of their culture as Amos 'n' Andy or Dr. Fu Manchu. IT MUST BE DESTROYED.
MOMMA: Mel Lazarus' strip about a controlling, manipulating, whining mother and her largely useless children has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The dwarfish runt of a main character ceaselessly meddles in her children's lives, then wonders why the only way she can get them to keep her company is by claiming deathly illness or giving them money. Here's a hint: it's because you're a bitch. And I don't mean that in a good way. There is no evidence that Thomas' daughter-in-law is the horrible, slovenly cook you accuse her of being, or that she has anything like the kind of greed for possession that you claim she uses to work your son to the point where he drops. I'd call that projection if I'd actually taken any psych classes. Your daughter might date horrible men, but can you blame her? Every time she brings a man home - every single time - you rip him to shreds. You read her diary and you castigate her about her choices of clothing. She's obviously an adult, because you're so far past menopausal you're out the other side. Perhaps if you hadn't ruthlessly sabotaged her ability to trust her own decisions or maintain her own life she might be able to get herself on track. As for Francis, admittedly, he is a good for nothing - but you're an enabler. Cut him off. If he really loves you he'll eventually come to visit, and if he doesn't love you, it's your own damn fault. Die, wretch. THEY MUST BE DESTROYED.
BEETLE BAILEY: Hasn't been funny in years. Humor based almost entirely on stereotypes; unconscious or subconscious misogyny in all portrayals of women. Miss Buxley is beautiful but dumber than a bag of hammers, the other office lady is treated as unattractive but moderately smart, the female sergeant is defined almost solely by the trait of being man-hungry (the rest of her characterization being 'mm, food'), and General Halftrack's wife exists almost entirely as an excuse for her husband to go out and drink. The recently introduced character, Tech Officer Gizmo, makes jokes or comments about technology that only an entirely techno-clueless person would find funny, because there is no way a competent computer user would talk like him. The other characters are not entirely bad, although the Japanese-American soldier grates a bit. One gets the impression the strip is composed of characters from the Hi and Lois universe, who left because they had four brain cells to rub together instead of merely two. THEY MUST BE DESTROYED.
DENNIS THE MENACE: There is nothing whatsoever that is cute, appealing, or entertaining about the prospect of a child whose parents never employ discipline more effective than 'sit in the corner'. Perhaps if Dennis were to learn that there were real consequences for his actions he might develop into an interesting human being, but as it stands the only character in the strip who has any kind of backbone or multi-dimensional feel to her is - I think her name is Gina, she's the girl who isn't Margaret. Mrs. Wilson is bearable as a grandmother figure, because that is how grandmothers are, and as for Mr. Wilson it's a wonder he hasn't sued Dennis' pathetic excuse for a father for everything he has. Dennis is as much a blight on society as Marmaduke, but without the excuse of his brain being the size of a tennis ball. There's nothing lovable about him any more. Maybe there was once, but not any more. HE MUST BE DESTROYED.
Okay, that's enough ranting. I feel a bit better now. Sorry about that... thanks.
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no subject
Date: 2003-03-11 09:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-11 09:27 am (UTC)On the other hand I have some lovely recipes for meat pie.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-11 10:00 am (UTC)The number of newspaper-based comic stripos worth reading has been dwindling for years. At least the ones you list have the excuse of being really old comics, leftovers from the 50s. Thee's no excuse for the more recent additions to be that lame, yet they are. You wanna see me rant? Then get me started on how far downhill Dilbert has gone. And then I'll rant about why Berke Breathed and Bill Watterson owe it to humanity to return from their early retirements and save us from what's out there, and lastly I will bemoan the fact that Peanuts strips written twenty years ago are fresher than any humor strip in the paper (save Doonesbury, and that is a political strip and is not anything like Peanuts).
Also, it's worth noting that the Washington Post does periodic polls of its readers to decide what should go, so not every newspaper keeps its comics page in the past.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-11 11:15 am (UTC)Meh. Now I have no reason to read American newspapers. I get 9/10 of my comics online (the remaining tenth are from syndicates that publish online two weeks after they publish in the paper, which is annoying) and most of my news from the BBC. I get my movie times from Fandango and my useless junk from eBay... and I've got neither puppy nor bird, so who needs the paper?
no subject
Date: 2003-03-11 10:54 am (UTC)I haven't read newspaper comics in years and years.
Give me Penny Arcade! Give me Sinfest! Give me MegaTokyo!
no subject
Date: 2003-03-11 06:57 pm (UTC)I hate that. I hate that it was playing in the hotel when I was really bored. Augh!