No Girl Talk. Hybrid Talk.
We were told that hybrid strips on For Better or For Worse might be introduced by some other means than a picture album, and sure enough, it appears today. It’s early enough in the week, where I think we may get the rest of the week as hybrid. As it turns out in the old days, Michael was jealous of the attention Liz got because she was younger and cuter. Now, of course, it’s the other way around.
At least in this case, the conversation members make a whole lot more sense than the ones where Mike and Merrie host the retcon, or Elly and Connie trying to entertain Iris with a story about Connie. April might be interested in a rehash of Mike is jealous of little Lizzie, but I am not. There was a lot of Mike / Elizabeth rivalry in the very early strips and it was not my favourite subject. The idea of rehashing old Mike vs. Elizabeth strips does not excite me.
At least in this case, the conversation members make a whole lot more sense than the ones where Mike and Merrie host the retcon, or Elly and Connie trying to entertain Iris with a story about Connie. April might be interested in a rehash of Mike is jealous of little Lizzie, but I am not. There was a lot of Mike / Elizabeth rivalry in the very early strips and it was not my favourite subject. The idea of rehashing old Mike vs. Elizabeth strips does not excite me.
posted by howard at 12:16 AM
9 Comments:
Nor me. I do not want to spend the rest of the week being reminded of what a toxic dunce Michael was as a child or how he still won't admit he was in the wrong. The only benefit I can see is that April finally learns the truth.
dreadedcandiru2,
My recollection of a lot of those stories is Michael acts like a typical older brother, but Elly is flabbergasted or dumbfounded or resorts to shrieking as a means of discipline and gets little-to-no support from John. Nevertheless, bad parenting is my least favourite part of For Better or For Worse, and it's even worse since I became a parent.
Nevertheless, bad parenting is my least favourite part of For Better or For Worse, and it's even worse since I became a parent.
I agree--from a parent's perspective, I find the bad-parenting strips especially painful.
I always got the feeling that John thought that he was strictly Joe Last Resort, the Emergency Stand-By Disciplinarian. He only ever wanted to intervene in extreme occasions and thought Elly was more than capable of handling the day-to-day things. The last thing he wanted to do after a day at the salt mines, as he'd probably put it, is defuse an argument between Mike and Liz especially when he thought that's why he had a wife in the first place. Where it all fell apart, of course, is that Elly had a crippling flaw that kept her from becoming a good parent: a know-it-all attitude that's visible from low Earth orbit. Since she was and remains incapable of admitting that her cute little theories of How Things Work are wrong, learning from her mistakes and maintaining a cool head under pressure, she's provided the world with a terrible legacy: two perennially immature twits who constitute a danger to themselves and those around them.
dreadedcandiru2
You will get no disagreement with me that most of Michael and Elizabeth’s behaviour can be traced to Elly. In one of For Better or For Worse’s better portrayals, the actions of Elly can be clearly traced to the reactions of Mike and Liz.
Neither Michael nor Elizabeth have displayed the same method of screaming and shrieking parenting that Elly still does with April. In fact, when confronting unpleasant situations, both Michael and Elizabeth have a tendency to walk away and let someone else face the situation for them. The classic is Michael’s confrontation with the Kelpfroths via his slanderous article, and letting Lovey Salzmann deal with them. He also avoided a confrontation with his boss and fellow employees by refusing to lay anyone off, firing himself, and turning the resignation letter into his secretary.
For Elizabeth, her confrontation with Constable Paul Wright both times after she learned he was cheating on her consisted of a few sentences to him with the rest over her shoulder as she walked away. It is obvious the cause and effect. If Elly screamed at her kids their whole life, then they either end up screamers like her, or avoid conflict at all costs. The characters may be unpleasant, but I must compliment Lynn Johnston for creating characters whose actions as adults do, in fact, match what I would expect, given the way they were brought up.
April is heading down the same path, I'd say. Instead of giving Gerald a straight answer about why she didn't want to play professionally, she let her bandmates do the talking for her.
Not only did they do the talking for her, but she didn't even look at them. She stood there like a statue looking out at the horizon. That's pushing being passive to a new level.
http://cagle.msnbc.com/hogan/interviews/johnston/home.asp
Just thought this might be of interest to some
Cheers
Thanks, Anonymous. The Hogan's Alley interview is by far the most thorough of Lynn Johnston interviews, even if it is a bit dated now.
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