Putting Me Off Patterson Food
My wife was raised by her father, and she is fond of telling us stories about his infamous pranks he played on her when she was little. One time he put a shoe in a pillow case and told his daughter that he put the family cat in the sack, and shook it around a little to make it appear like the cat was alive in the sack. Then the sack went into the dryer, and my wife panicked as my future father-in-law made jokes about how the dryer should loosen the cat up a bit. The joke worked to the point where my wife started crying about how the cat was getting hurt and so my father-in-law had to show her it was really a shoe.
On other occasions, whenever the traveling ice cream truck came to my wife’s neighbourhood playing its music, my wife’s dad told her it was “the music truck”. Some time later, one of her other neighbourhood friends told her the truck’s real purpose, and she realized her dad had told her the story, because he didn’t want to buy her ice cream.
Although my wife is old enough to have forgiven her father for these tricks and thinks of the moments fondly as a memory of growing up, she told me that back in the day when they happened, she was pretty angry with her dad.
It appears Anthony Caine is cut in the same mold as my wife’s father as in today’s For Better or For Worse strip, we get to see the second time he has played on little Françoise’s innocence. The first time was when he convinced Françoise that Santa would be angry if Liz cried. The second time he is pulling the old removed finger trick. I know a trick where you can make it seem like you are talking off your finger and putting back on, which works pretty well since it is an optical illusion and gives the viewer no sense of permanent damage. This one that Anthony Caine does, I am not sure how he is pulling it off, so to speak. Even, if you bend your middle finger back, the angle at which Françoise is looking should be able to see the bent back finger.
So, taking it for granted that Françoise does not see the bent back finger, you then have Anthony’s other hand rummaging through the salad, putting me off eating any and probably Françoise too considering his loose finger is supposed to be in there. Why does he have his hand behind his back with the finger still bent? Why does he make a pun off the meaning of “finger food” which Françoise is probably too young to understand? Who knows?
What would happen at the end of the strip had he pulled this kind of trick with my kids? Well, my kids would be sticking their hands in that salad to help him find his finger. If someone tried to carry the salad off, as Anthony does in the final panel, they would raise a ruckus because his finger was in there. Then Anthony would be forced to reveal his joke, and my kids would have that betrayed look little kids get when they get really worked up over something only to find an adult has tricked them. Fortunately, my kids are also very forgiving like most kids Françoise’s age, but they would think twice before they would fall the same kind of trick again.
After all, we went to Sea World in 1999 when my son was 4 years old, and I tricked my son into the sitting in the Splash Zone for the Shamu show. He was eating his Shamu popsicle, which was ruined by the splashing. Until this past spring when we went back to Seaworld and I got him another Shamu popsicle, he had continually maintained for 8 years that I owed him one Shamu popsicle because of that trick.
The moral of the story is: Anthony may think he’s funny with his trick, but Françoise will not.
On other occasions, whenever the traveling ice cream truck came to my wife’s neighbourhood playing its music, my wife’s dad told her it was “the music truck”. Some time later, one of her other neighbourhood friends told her the truck’s real purpose, and she realized her dad had told her the story, because he didn’t want to buy her ice cream.
Although my wife is old enough to have forgiven her father for these tricks and thinks of the moments fondly as a memory of growing up, she told me that back in the day when they happened, she was pretty angry with her dad.
It appears Anthony Caine is cut in the same mold as my wife’s father as in today’s For Better or For Worse strip, we get to see the second time he has played on little Françoise’s innocence. The first time was when he convinced Françoise that Santa would be angry if Liz cried. The second time he is pulling the old removed finger trick. I know a trick where you can make it seem like you are talking off your finger and putting back on, which works pretty well since it is an optical illusion and gives the viewer no sense of permanent damage. This one that Anthony Caine does, I am not sure how he is pulling it off, so to speak. Even, if you bend your middle finger back, the angle at which Françoise is looking should be able to see the bent back finger.
So, taking it for granted that Françoise does not see the bent back finger, you then have Anthony’s other hand rummaging through the salad, putting me off eating any and probably Françoise too considering his loose finger is supposed to be in there. Why does he have his hand behind his back with the finger still bent? Why does he make a pun off the meaning of “finger food” which Françoise is probably too young to understand? Who knows?
What would happen at the end of the strip had he pulled this kind of trick with my kids? Well, my kids would be sticking their hands in that salad to help him find his finger. If someone tried to carry the salad off, as Anthony does in the final panel, they would raise a ruckus because his finger was in there. Then Anthony would be forced to reveal his joke, and my kids would have that betrayed look little kids get when they get really worked up over something only to find an adult has tricked them. Fortunately, my kids are also very forgiving like most kids Françoise’s age, but they would think twice before they would fall the same kind of trick again.
After all, we went to Sea World in 1999 when my son was 4 years old, and I tricked my son into the sitting in the Splash Zone for the Shamu show. He was eating his Shamu popsicle, which was ruined by the splashing. Until this past spring when we went back to Seaworld and I got him another Shamu popsicle, he had continually maintained for 8 years that I owed him one Shamu popsicle because of that trick.
The moral of the story is: Anthony may think he’s funny with his trick, but Françoise will not.
posted by howard at 11:03 PM
8 Comments:
The question that I find asking myself is this: "Does Anthony actually care what Françoise thinks?" Nothing I've seen of this guy over the years reassures me that he can see things from other people's perspectives. He didn't realize that Thérèse had a good reason to be jealous of Elizabeth because it never occurred to him to see her point of view. He wanted what he wanted and didn't realize that it wasn't all about him. Does he care that he's just freaked his daughter out? Nope. He thinks it's funny so she should be laughing too.
Anthony is a horrible parent! Was this strip supposed to warm our hearts?!?
And once more we see the world through a damaged individual's perspective.
These episodes of "wonderful" parenting and "romantic" relationships are filtered through the mind of a woman who came from an abusive home and has zilch in the way of relationships.
Sad.
DJ
DreadedCandiru2
Does Anthony actually care what Françoise thinks?
You gave the example of Anthony caring what Thérèse thinks, which is not going to be a fair comparison. Anthony was still carrying a torch for Elizabeth during his courtship and marriage of Thérèse and although Lynn Johnston will not admit it, the way she wrote it in the strip was that Anthony intentionally went for Thérèse because he heard Liz moved in with Eric Chamberlain. Then to make sure we got it, she repeated this theme again later that year with comparative phrases. If I go with the strip as written, then Anthony Caine would have been perfectly aware of Thérèse’s perspective, but simply did not care; because she was a tool to get at Elizabeth.
He wanted what he wanted and didn't realize that it wasn't all about him.
This is Anthony as Lynn as written him. Even going beyond the way he treated Thérèse, this is the guy who was thought-ballooning all during the Howard Bunt trial about kissing or having a life with Elizabeth and taking every opportunity to fondle her, while she was dealing with emotional impact of the trial. This is the guy who seemed to be aware that Françoise did not want a step-mother, but used his Santa deprivation threat to get her to agree to let Elizabeth come with them to the mall. If we had just one moment of Anthony saying to Thérèse or Françoise, "I love you and Elizabeth is not going to change that"; the character could be redeemed in my eyes. However, he has never said that.
Does he care that he's just freaked his daughter out? Nope. He thinks it's funny so she should be laughing too.
That’s a fair assessment of this situation, no matter who the character is, but his history does get in the way.
aprilp_katje,
Was this strip supposed to warm our hearts?!?
No. However, it is a strip that is supposed to hit home with parents who have played pranks on their kids. You know the “I played a trick just like that on my kids” crowd.
The problem with it is the execution. We don’t get to, or haven’t yet gotten to see the resolution where Anthony reveals he has not cut his finger off, and Françoise gives an exasperated, “Daddy! You and your tricks! Ha-ha!” to give us parents reading the strip some relief. Because the strip is going to hang over until Monday, knowing typical Lynn Johnston writing, we may never see the resolution and that leaves another bad taste in our mouth for the Anthony Caine parenting style. Unlike the Santa deprivation trick a few weeks back, Elizabeth is present for this one, and whether or not she goes along with Anthony’s joke will tell us if she is going to be a better parent than Anthony.
DJ,
These episodes of "wonderful" parenting and "romantic" relationships are filtered through the mind of a woman who came from an abusive home and has zilch in the way of relationships.
You are quite correct, that Lynn Johnston’s stories of parenting and romance have had to deal with that background, and it is remarkable that she has overcome that to produce what she has.
The defining moment that told me everything I needed to know about Anthony was when he not onlywhined about not having a home when it was obvious that what he really meant is that he didn't have the sort of home he wanted but also made a pass at a woman who'd almost been raped. The word the best sums him up: selfish.
dreadedcandiru2,
The “I have no home” strip, I think showed a pretty serious difference between what Lynn intended and what came out in her strip. As I have discussed before, I think Lynn thinks that asking someone to wait for someone is romantic, since she used that same exact phrase for when Deanna said she thought Mike should have done to her when she told him she was engaged back in university. I am not sure why that would be a romantic gesture, but nevertheless, its repetition tells me at least in Lynn’s mind it is.
As for the attempted rape and rescue, I have been convinced Lynn was writing it more as a melodrama or a “Perils of Pauline” kind of thing. In those situations, where the villain is not intended to be taken seriously, neither is the crime, so no one thinks anything of the heroine falling into the hero’s arms at the end. Unfortunately, Lynn played Howard Bunt as a stalker in advance of the rape attempt against the melodrama type, and obviously did not do any research on the proper procedure after a rape attempt. It was so much later in the strip, when Howard Bunt’s deeds were taken seriously in Lynn’s writings, but by then, the damage was done. As you have pointed out, that “I have no home” strip single-handedly destroyed Anthony’s character and justified Thérèse’s jealousy and leaving Anthony for another man.
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