Lynn Does A Sex Joke
Yesterday for April’s Real Blog, I wrote a Mike Patterson piece where he signed a book saying, “To Arli. Your cousin Anne says someone is really giving it to you for Christmas. Love, Mike.” Little did I suspect that a similar sexual double-entendre would be the joke for the next day’s For Better or For Worse strip.
Lynn Johnston must be in some kind of mood. First we had the “Little Lizzie likes to watch little Mike urinate” joke. Now we have a joke based on the double meaning of the phrase, “getting it.”
The question which occurs to me is:
a. Is Mike signing the book in this stupid fashion with the idea that the wife will not get his joke and give it to her husband as it is?
b. Is Mike truly so awful at signing books, he would innocently sign the book with a verbatim account of what the woman said to him, not realizing either the sexual double-entendre or how stupid his signature phrase is.
c. Does Mike realize the sexual double-entendre only when he tries to hand the book to a glaring woman?
d. Does Mike never realize the sexual double-entendre, and hands the book to Beatrice Alfarero only when he sees the woman glaring at him, like she will not take the book, so he better stop trying.
This has been a strange week where For Better or For Worse appears to be funny for a change, primary because it shows the characters with the ability to laugh at their situation. I hope Lynn can keep it up, but I also know that Liz and Anthony are bound to show up again, and will try to get all romantic.
Lynn Johnston must be in some kind of mood. First we had the “Little Lizzie likes to watch little Mike urinate” joke. Now we have a joke based on the double meaning of the phrase, “getting it.”
The question which occurs to me is:
a. Is Mike signing the book in this stupid fashion with the idea that the wife will not get his joke and give it to her husband as it is?
b. Is Mike truly so awful at signing books, he would innocently sign the book with a verbatim account of what the woman said to him, not realizing either the sexual double-entendre or how stupid his signature phrase is.
c. Does Mike realize the sexual double-entendre only when he tries to hand the book to a glaring woman?
d. Does Mike never realize the sexual double-entendre, and hands the book to Beatrice Alfarero only when he sees the woman glaring at him, like she will not take the book, so he better stop trying.
This has been a strange week where For Better or For Worse appears to be funny for a change, primary because it shows the characters with the ability to laugh at their situation. I hope Lynn can keep it up, but I also know that Liz and Anthony are bound to show up again, and will try to get all romantic.
posted by howard at 10:28 PM
20 Comments:
I'd say that he was trying to put one over on the lady and got caught. That's because he's a dumb guy who's been convinced that he's clever. He obviously and falsely thinks that she's his inferior because she hasn't written anything that he's aware of and thus won't get the joke. Everyone else in the room realized that her admiring smile turned into an outraged glare half-way between 'it' and 'tonight'. Not Michael, though. Like I said, he's a dimwit who believes his own press releases.
I was so surprised that Lynn used a similar joke to the one you had Mike use yesterday, my jaw dropped open. :)
I think Mike really is that clueless, but my view may be influenced by ARB Mike.
e. Mike knows what he wrote, knows the lady knows what he wrote, and is just being an asshole.
DreadedCandiru2
The strip has definitely gone the route of portraying ugly and fat people with a certain degree of inferiority, i.e. the Julia date for Anthony at the Verano wedding, or the gap-toothed “Hoo!” boy with April. This could well be Mike trying to put one over on the lady, and then he got caught as a part of this week’s sequence of humbling Mike.
aprilp_katje
I was so surprised that Lynn used a similar joke to the one you had Mike use yesterday, my jaw dropped open. :)
Yes, it’s hard to believe that Lynn would be as crude as I am. As for ARB Mike, sometimes I just try to fill in motivations for things which Lynn has him do in the strip, without explaining his motivations. The only time his motivation for signing something this week has been clear was when he slammed April, and I have used that to colour his tone for the rest of the week. It was justified in a certain degree with his off-putting patter with Anne Nichols and Jean Baker, even though we didn’t get to see how he signed their books.
dlauthor,
e. Mike knows what he wrote, knows the lady knows what he wrote, and is just being an asshole.
It would be nice to hope that you are wrong, but there have certainly been enough hints over the last 3 days to show that you might be correct with choice (e).
Lynn does seem to have something against those of us who don't look like matinee idols, doesn't she? That's unfortunate because it's a very superficial way of looking at the world. Anyone past the mental age of ten knows that to look good is not always to be good. The character of Paul Wright was an exception, of course. Too bad he was a latter-day version of another figure that haunts the minds of the simple-minded: the treacherous half-breed.
dreadedcandiru2,
That’s an interesting point about Constable Paul Wright and his good looks. When it has come to Elizabeth’s boyfriends, everyone of them has made Anthony Caine look bad in terms of appearance. I think Lynn Johnston has been trying to justify the contrast to exorcise the ghosts of her first marriage vs. her then-belief about the superiority of her second marriage. However, her underlying belief that attractive is better can be seen in April’s choice of men and Michael’s choice of women. It has been pointed out on many occasions that Anthony = John, and John = Rod Johnston. However, we have never seen Gerald = John, or Deanna = Elly.
"Liz and Anthony are bound to show up again, and will try to get all romantic."
And that will only compound the disaster of Lynn's "great romance". Just like the villification of Therese backfired with the regular readers who knew about Anthony and Liz's flirtatious behaviors during Anthony's marriage.
Well, I'll try to be optimistic. Maybe this week signals a brand-new Lynn (which actually seems like the old Lynn of the glory days) and she will try to use humor about the "Great romance" instead of trying to make the bland relationship of these characters oh-so-wonderful. Wouldn't it be great if everyone remarked on how they knew those two would eventually settle for each other after all their other relationships failed?
As for the way Lynn has portrayed Liz's boyfriends in a way that suggests her own life--that's interesting. At some time she lost the identification with Elly, and now identifies closer with Elizabeth? Heaven knows, the "cheating" theme keeps happening over and over.
DebJyn,
When it comes to Elizabeth and Anthony’s great romance, it is usually the worst stuff Lynn Johnston writes, and part of the reason is that Lynn has started lifting things off her own life for Elizabeth without realizing how unromantic her courtship with Rod was. For example, there was a Sunday strip where Liz and Anthony ticked off all their needs in a relationship over a dinner, while using real written lists. It made the relationship seem like some kind of bizarre match-making by virtue of similar characteristics, but Lynn Johnston claimed in one of her interviews that she and Rod had done the same thing and the only area over which they disagreed was where to live. She wanted city. He wanted country. This came up with Liz and Paul Wright. It came up again in the retcon of Anthony and Thérèse. I would not be surprised if this issue was a continual problem between Lynn and Rod Johnston in real life.
As for Lynn losing her identification with Elly, that has to be clear as a bell these days. Elly is a grandmother with a family that not only worships her, but does everything she tells them to do. Lynn is certainly not that. Elizabeth is on the verge of becoming married and taking on the challenges of step-mothering. She is far closer to Lynn’s experience than Elly is these days.
After the guests had left the wedding reception and they were by themselves, it would be a relief to see to John and Elly ruefully shake their heads and admit the only reason they championed Anthony is that they knew Liz would unconsciously destroy her relationships with all other comers. The Lynn of old would have done something like that.
dreadedcandiru2,
I am not sure that would have been the exact order with Lynn. On November 24 , when we saw Elly predicting the doom and gloom of Elizabeth’s post-toddler future, I was reminded of the April 3 strip where Elly predicted the gloom and doom of April as a driver. Since I don’t remember post-toddler Elizabeth being that much of a hellion, and 16+ April has had only the slightest of bad behaviour; the predictions of Elly are there for comedic purposes, but not for practical ones.
Now, if I take that same predictive accuracy and apply it to Elly’s predictions about the future of Anthony then I could reasonably say that life with him will be a hell. I am trying to remember what opinions Elly had of Deanna during the courtship days or Rhetta Blum, and I honestly do not remember at all.
I don't quite remmeber her opinion of Rhetta myself because I never saw them interacting all that much. I do recall she spent most of 2001 abetting the campaign to treat Mira like she was some sort of monster so I'd say that she identified with Deanna because of her own issues. I also remember she and John sent Mike to Exile Farm because he needed 'his attitude adjusted': their way of saying that he was too close to his high-school sweetheart Martha for their liking.
dreadedcandiru2,
I remember the "Deanna loves Elly more during the wedding" part, because it duplicated when real-life Lynn found she liked Rod's parents more than her own. I guess that is one section where Deanna = Elly = Lynn. I just can't remember what Elly's opinion of Deanna was before there were any weddings, and she and Mike were just dating.
Neither can I. All I remember from that era is her yelling at April for the crimes of not worshipping at the altar of Bobby Curtola and not dressing like a character in an Andy Hardy movie, not to mention aggravated knowledge of modern technology.
dreadedcandiru2,
Part of the issue may be the fact that the Mike / Deanna courtship occurred primarily at university, where Elly rarely appeared.
I vaguely remember her being relieved that Rhetta was out of the picture. For some reason, she just didn't warm to the girl. I wonder if it had anything to do with her telling Mike that he should write about what happened to April at the Ravine of Death?
It seems as though Elly was afraid that Rhetta would tie Mike down, and ruin his future (which was already assumed was going to be spectacular).
The irony is amazing; Dee would up "accidentally" pregnant, which scotched Mike's travels for stories. And, Anthony is valued for the very fact that he WILL tie Liz down to Milbo for the rest of her life.
That last anonymous was DebJyn; I just got tired of arguing with Goggle about my password.
DJ
DebJyn
Like Howard said, Elly's track record as a prophet is amazing: she always gets it wrong. If he'd married Rhetta, she'd be fretting about his wandering the world with Weed instead of giving her grandchildren to ignore.
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