Elly Faints

Today's For Better or For Worse was one of those strips where logic and characterization were sacrificed in order to make a joke. The idea that Elly Patterson, cleaner of messes, flapper of menopause and bearer of 3 children would faint at the mere mention of April and blood is patently ridiculous. I see this method of doing humour all the time in Hollywood children's movies. Garfield in Garfield II: A Tale of Two Kitties will have an elaborate scene of different kinds of animals all gathered together in a kitchen to make lasagna, and then they all eat it at the dining room table sitting in chairs like people do. Sounds funny, but how do you make it fit into a plot? Why is the kitchen deserted? Why do the animals sit like people? Those are little basic questions that made even my young children stare at the screen in silence, with nary a laugh produced. And here it is in For Better or For Worse. You have to have some sort of internal working logic. So, I had Jeremy take April's same e-mail message which caused Elly to faint and created an internal working logic that indicated any middle-aged woman reading the same material would faint. It doesn't have make sense why any would faint, but if you establish the basic principle of it, action (reading April's e-mail) = reaction (fainting by middle-aged women), then you can make everything fit. As the strip stood, with the character of Elly as has been presented over the last 27 years, fainting wasn't funny, unless the strip has moved to self-parody, which I am beginning to believe it has. Many commentaries suggested that Elly was so bored by the story arc this week, that it put her to sleep. That would actually be funny. But unfortunately, the joke was on the word "passed".

Tomorrow's strip: April has made a career choice only to have the Patterson habit of having everything come easy to them smack her in the face. Will April go for a career that is not dropped into her lap? Alas, we will never know, unless Lynn Johnston decides not to retire the strip but hand it off to others, next year, as I am sure her syndicate would love for her to do. Can you say, veterinary tech? You still get to work with animals, but you don't have to fight as hard in school. Or perhaps April will go the route my sister did, when she discovered she really didn't want to be veterinarian, cat breeder. The seeds have been sown for April to consider veterinarian as a career. Now, all she needs to do is go home and avoid her father like the plague, Mr. John "I'm surprised you didn't pass out" Patterson. What April needs now is a good old-fashioned dose of Grandpa Jim. I'm surprised we got through this without an appearance by Grandpa Will and Grandma Carrie, and since April is leaving, I guess that's not going to happen. Next week should be a Michael story arc, since it has been the longest since we did one with him, although there is an issue with Liz's next job, which, if they were operating in real-time would have to be resolved next week, since I believe teachers for the fall will be arriving at their schools to prepare for the following week with students.