Monday, January 07, 2008

I Didn’t Call You Fat, I Called You Rotund

Number 1 on the list of things you don’t tell your wife if you want to stay married and John Patterson says it to Elly. Not only does he say it to Elly, but he says it while he is sitting around doing nothing but drinking coffee and reading a newspaper and Elly is putting up dishes. If I did that to my wife; I would be in the ground, dead and buried before I heard the end of that one.

The interesting thing is that just last September, Elly did the same thing to John and accused him of getting a little paunch. Back in 1979, Elly responds to John’s accusation by pointing out his flaws, which John then says are OK because he is a man. Then in 2007, John also indicated that his paunch was OK, because they were just relaxed abdominals. In both cases, John denies any problem with his fatness; but in 2007 he does not return the accusation back to Elly and accuse her of having a paunch. The other difference is that 1979 Elly has a pretty nice figure and 2007 Elly is not in as good shape. Could it be that John Patterson knows the point of fatness on his wife at which an accusation of fatness would be dangerous to his health?

Probably not. There is a double standard when it comes to societally-acceptable fatness between men and women (love handes vs. fat, as Elly says), and there is also a double standard when it comes to talking about spousal fatness between men and women. My wife has no problem at all having conversations with my mother or her mother, or my sisters, or her friends about me being overweight. If I go on a diet, or if I go off a diet; it is fodder for feminine conversation. However, I certainly cannot do the same to my wife if I want there to be peace in the house. The conversation in 2007 with Elly accusing John of having a paunch could easily happen to me, except the word “paunch” would be changed to a word not quite as kind. The conversation in 1979 with John telling Elly she is rotund is something I cannot imagine ever doing to a girl, even back in 1979.

1979 John Patterson could give Archie Bunker a run for his money when it came to sexist remarks. 2007 John Patterson has long since stopped making those kinds of remarks. When I read strips like today’s reprint For Better or For Worse, I wonder if Rod Johnston really was this awful to Lynn Johnston, or if Lynn is exaggerating what he said for comic effect. I hope it is an exaggeration because, otherwise, Rod Johnston was a rotund head.

15 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

What bothers me about today's reprint is not that John is a smug git violating a taboo so he can deflect embarassing questions about his girth. It's that Elly takes his rebuttals seriously. I remember too many strips driven by her insecurity that he no longer found her attractive, that he'd leave her for a younger, prettier girl. She no longer has that particular fear any longer even though the symptom of fretting about her appearance is still with her. Why does she no longer dread John's disappearance? It looks to her that he's finally realized the virtues frumpiness posess. I'm a bit more cynical. I'd say that he still yearns for a better-looking wife but realizes that they're all health nuts. It's not like he'd give up greaseburgers with extra bacon and tuna-cholesterol casseroles for anything in the world.

3:17 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

I wonder if Rod Johnston really was this awful to Lynn Johnston, or if Lynn is exaggerating what he said for comic effect. I hope it is an exaggeration because, otherwise, Rod Johnston was a rotund head.

I can't help thinking this was at least somewhat based on truth--in fact, I'm guessing that putting this in the strip was a form of vengeance.

Remember, one of the very first strips that ran--actually the fourth--was the one where Elly had planned a romantic, candle-lit dinner with John, and in the final panel, John asks if she's gained weight.

In the 1980 interview someone linked at Foobiverse a little while back--the CBC video clip--I did notice that Lynn was dressed in those big, shapeless overalls and appeared heavier than usual. I wouldn't be surprised if, in her unhappiness over their living situation, she'd been eating more than usual, putting on some weight, and receiving comments like these from Rod.

3:42 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

If that's the case, then Rod was a jackass from the start. I know that Lynn sought out people who'd treat her poorly but, honestly, after a while you start to turn on someone who won't see a devil when he's in plain sight.

6:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can we discuss the comic strip and leave assumptions about the state of Lynn & Rod's marriage/ relationship out of it? No one knows what goes on in a marriage except the two people invloved - and sometimes they don't even have a very good idea. The Rod I knew (NOT intimately) was human - perhaps he made unkind remarks from time to time, but if so, I never heard a single one.

Perhaps Lynn chose to re-run this particular strip to poke fun at all those people who make - and break - the same resolutions every January: lose weight/ make healthier eating choices/ join a gym.

Let's not divide ourselves into Team Lynn and Team Rod, let's all be on Team FBOFW

7:14 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Anonymous,

Can we discuss the comic strip and leave assumptions about the state of Lynn & Rod's marriage/ relationship out of it?
Tricky to do. Lynn has stated in many interviews that many of the things in the strip, particularly in the early days, were taken from actual things that occurred in her life. Moreover, she pointed out in her interview in the Chicago Tribune that she had chosen at least one strip to reprint (where Elly dreams that Rod left her), precisely because it reflected the current state in her marriage. Pandora’s Box has been opened on this issue by Lynn herself, and now it’s difficult not to look on each reprint selection and wonder if Lynn chose this strip because of the negative way John is portrayed in it.

The Rod I knew (NOT intimately) was human - perhaps he made unkind remarks from time to time, but if so, I never heard a single one.
If I take aprilp_katje (april patterson)’s comments above as fact, then John’s sexist comment about being rotund in today’s strip may have actually been Rod’s comment coming from a husband worried about an unexpected weight gain of his wife due to depression. It is reasonable and even admirable for a husband to be concerned about his wife’s health, especially if she doesn’t take it the right way and uses it for fodder for her nationally-published comic strip. Personally, I find this explanation believable, because I cannot imagine any husband in his right mind telling his wife she was getting rotund.

Perhaps Lynn chose to re-run this particular strip to poke fun at all those people who make - and break - the same resolutions every January: lose weight/ make healthier eating choices/ join a gym.
Possible. It does fit the time of the year. Changes in appearance due to aging definitely seem to be the theme for this sequence of strips, although we haven’t seen any New Years’ resolution strips…yet.

8:51 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2

I'd say that he still yearns for a better-looking wife but realizes that they're all health nuts. It's not like he'd give up greaseburgers with extra bacon and tuna-cholesterol casseroles for anything in the world.

This is a good point. I love an old 1950s song called “Soul Food” where the song talks about how a woman who is a good cook is a much better choice for a wife than a pretty girl who can’t cook. If I was John Patterson and I was married to a woman who looked alternately like Ben Franklin or like a female version of me with a bun, I would concentrate on loving other aspects of her, like her cooking.

9:04 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje

In the 1980 interview someone linked at Foobiverse a little while back--the CBC video clip--I did notice that Lynn was dressed in those big, shapeless overalls and appeared heavier than usual. I wouldn't be surprised if, in her unhappiness over their living situation, she'd been eating more than usual, putting on some weight, and receiving comments like these from Rod.

This makes a lot more sense. (1) It doesn’t make Rod look like a complete idiot, just perhaps a man who should learn to phrase his questions better. (2) Lynn’s position is also understandable, because people who are overweight don’t like questions about it, even well-meaning questions.

9:05 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

Anon--what howtheduck (Howard) said; certain things that Lynn has been saying have led me to wonder about real-life connections. I'd be curious to know a bit more about your impressions of Rod. I sent him e-mail once, and was surprised that he responded (I had a question about an image on his "Riding Rails" website).

10:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon,

Let's not divide ourselves into Team Lynn and Team Rod, let's all be on Team FBOFW

Like you, the negative comments that are posted about Lynn and members of her family make me feel extremely uncomfortable. It’s OK to have fun with the comic strip characters - it’s wrong to trash the artist.

Anon NYC

5:23 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's the thing, folks: Lynn can't go and give interviews to the media, spilling the details of her life and saying that the strip is semi-autobiographical, and then expect readers not to speculate on just what parts are based on reality.

If you don't like that this blog contains that kind of speculation, maybe you should just stop reading it. Frankly, I think this is exactly the outcome that Lynn WANTS. She wants us speculating about her strip and her life, and she wants us wondering just how awful Rod was to her. If she didn't, she wouldn't feed the media the details that fuel the fire. And she wouldn't keep rerunning old strips that paint John/Rod in the worst possible light.

Also, I came in here to say that today's strip, plus Howard's blog entry, shows an interesting progression in the "weight discussions" through the generations. My mom and dad are in Elly and John's age group. I remember back then that it was indeed perfectly acceptable for men to nag their wives with unkind comments about their weight--even when they were not particularly overweight! Nothing was ever said to the men about their weights, even when they were really fat. I remember fat men picking on their slim wives in the 1970s and early 1980s. The wives accepted it as "the way things were." For Elly to "hit back" as she did in today's flashback strip would have been seen as daring, but also silly. Because the wife should remember that the husband made the money and could replace the wife with a younger model any time he wanted. I grew up in a suburb much like Milborough, where the men were upper-middle class professionals and the women were all housewives.

Then in the 1980s, the exercise/fitness craze hit, and people started to talk more and more about diet and fitness for men as well as women. I remember when my dad started running for exercise, and weighing himself. It was around this time that it became accepted that a man's attractiveness/fatness was something he should work on too. Clearly, feminism and gender equality principles were part of this as well, as women were less likely to be housewives and more likely to also have earning potential of their own--and therefore didn't have to put up with a chauvanist husband ragging them about extra ounces if they didn't want to.

But I see a difference between my age group (30) and Howard's age group as well (which I'm guessing is 40-45). In my age group, men are just as sensitive as women over comments about their weight, their diet, and/or their fitness regimes. I recently visited my best friend for a week and when her husband went for a run, she wouldn't answer any of my questions, even though they were innocuous, like, "Is Jim into fitness now?" or "Did he lose some weight?" She did not want to be caught talking about that subject behind his back, because he is sensitive to people talking about it. (Which I find strange, as he has never been overweight.) All of my male friends are actually more hypersensitive to talk about their weight and dieting than the women are. Maybe it's because we've lived with these expectations all our lives and had mothers and grandmothers who did too. Whereas the men in my age group typically have overweight, fitness-clueless fathers who never thought about it. The women make jokes about the size of their asses and laziness about going to the gym. The men get upset if anyone tries to discuss weight or fitness or dieting with them. I have seen a man throw hysterical little girly hissy-fits because someone teased him about his beer belly (even though he teases women about their weight regularly). I see this across my sisters' friends as well. I think it's interesting that this area has changed so much just in the 10-15 year age difference Howard and I have. It's like the men are the new women. If women in our group acted like Howard's wife, there would be no end of angry, hysterical complaining from the men.

9:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

qnjones,

If you don't like that this blog contains that kind of speculation, maybe you should just stop reading it.

I don't have a problem with speculation nor do I have a problem with what you are saying. In fact, you express yourself extremely well and I enjoyed your perspective on the issue of weight. I get pleasure from reading this blog for the same reasons.

Still, I am uncomfortable with comments that strike me as unforgiving--and my views are as legitimate as the next person’s.

Anon NYC

10:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Okay, I can understand that. There are times in fandoms, both the FOOB type and others, where I think that speculation about private lives is unpleasant. I just think that, in this case, Lynn is deliberately inviting it. I'm sorry if my comments were a tad harsh.

11:03 PM  
Blogger howard said...

Anon NYC,

It’s OK to have fun with the comic strip characters - it’s wrong to trash the artist.
Still, I am uncomfortable with comments that strike me as unforgiving--and my views are as legitimate as the next person’s.

I have enjoyed your comments and your perspective and I certainly agree about their legitimacy. Maybe my statement that “Rod Johnston was a rotund head” did not come off as quite the bit of verbal wit that I had hoped. You said you don’t like the negative comments that are posted about Lynn and members of her family and yet, at the very heart of today’s strip is a very negative comment being made about an avatar of a member of Lynn’s family.

I do have fun with the comic strip characters, but on this Blog, I generally try to do a more serious analysis of the strip and how it is put together, and also to cover things which are not being covered in other forums about For Better or For Worse. Oftentimes, the perspective is “Where did Lynn Johnston get this joke?” or “Why did Lynn Johnston think this was funny?” With these reprint strips where the origin very likely came from her own real life, then “Where did Lynn Johnston get this joke?” moves right into “Did this really happen?” especially with the more extreme behaviour. When we ran through the sequence of “Michael the demon child” strips, I also wondered if little Aaron Johnston was really this bad, or if he had been exaggerated for comic effect.

It’s hard to separate the artist from the art, particularly when they depend so much on each other, as they do in For Better or For Worse.

11:12 PM  
Blogger howard said...

qnjones,

I enjoyed your perspective on the differences between generations, although it did make me feel old (45 is my age). However, I know now not to tease young men about their weight--those poor, overly-sensitive creatures. I will still bet that young men are not allowed to tease their young female counterparts on their weight, no matter how much the women tease each other.

11:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

No, you are right. It is still not accepted for men to tease women in my age group, though one or two insensitive throwbacks do it.

Men in my age group tend to be very sensitive about their looks in general. The baldness issue tends to be the cause of this. I would say men at 30 are more sensitive about their looks than women at 30, although when we were 16, that was definitely reversed. I think the men are more sensitive right now because they are just starting to go bald and lose their young man's metabolism. Sitting at a desk all day leads to financial success, but starts to take its toll. Whereas we girls have been worrying about this stuff forever and are just starting to lighten up.

I think it will probably swing back when we get closer to 40. Men will get used to being fat and bald, but the women will start to freak out again when we get wrinkles and gray hair. :)

11:31 PM  

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