The One Where Elly Calls Herself a Robot
I don't think I have seen onomatopoeia of this style in For Better of For Worse before. Not only is it representing what Elly is doing, but it also represents what Elly has been or is about to do. The oddest part about it is that the strip doesn't need them for the joke to work. We could have seen 2 silent panels of Elly vacuuming and cooking and still have gotten the idea. Even if the onomatopoeia matched only what Elly was shown to be doing, the joke will still work. The only reason it appears to be there is so the reader will know that Elly does more work than the work shown. I sense an axe being ground somewhere in 1979.
I remember seeing one of those PBS specials some years ago, where they tried to cash in on the reality TV craze by doing series of putting modern people into the exact living situations their ancestors would have had. I believe the program was called The 1900 House. One of the things which struck me about the series was the sequence involving the washing and maintenance of clothes, an activity which took the mother several days to complete. The documentary pointed out that automatic clothes washers and dryers significantly changed a married woman's lifestyle compared to what it had been before.
As for the joke itself, Elly is essentially saying she is unimpressed by a robot that can do what she does. Judging from The 1900 House, this is probably not a sentiment shared by most housewives. Frankly, if there were such a robot, and it was affordable, we would buy one for our house. This sentiment will of course lead to a robotic uprising and the events of The Matrix movie; but it would be worth it for the convenience.
However, as far as character development for Elly Patterson goes, it does explain why the woman still does dishes by hand when she has a dishwasher, and why she spends the time shaving her sheets instead of buying new ones. She is set in her cleaning ways, and by golly, no robot is going to change them. Who needs a cleaning robot, when you have Elly?
I remember seeing one of those PBS specials some years ago, where they tried to cash in on the reality TV craze by doing series of putting modern people into the exact living situations their ancestors would have had. I believe the program was called The 1900 House. One of the things which struck me about the series was the sequence involving the washing and maintenance of clothes, an activity which took the mother several days to complete. The documentary pointed out that automatic clothes washers and dryers significantly changed a married woman's lifestyle compared to what it had been before.
As for the joke itself, Elly is essentially saying she is unimpressed by a robot that can do what she does. Judging from The 1900 House, this is probably not a sentiment shared by most housewives. Frankly, if there were such a robot, and it was affordable, we would buy one for our house. This sentiment will of course lead to a robotic uprising and the events of The Matrix movie; but it would be worth it for the convenience.
However, as far as character development for Elly Patterson goes, it does explain why the woman still does dishes by hand when she has a dishwasher, and why she spends the time shaving her sheets instead of buying new ones. She is set in her cleaning ways, and by golly, no robot is going to change them. Who needs a cleaning robot, when you have Elly?
posted by howard at 10:56 PM
11 Comments:
howtheduck:
If there were a robot that could do what Elly does without bemoaning its sad fate, she'd find herself with a lot of free time. Free time her empty brain would not know how to fill properly. This is why she's the Queen of Busywork Mountain: she really doesn't know what to do with herself.
Having kids with school, with "issues", and with all sort of extra-curricular activities, and with both my husband and I also having extensive "hobbyish" / amateur activities (the kind of "job-ish stuff" that could conceivably maybe someday replace our current jobs, assuming retention of an ability to meet mortgage payments etc. :p ) we would SO freakin' pay what we could to get a "housekeeping" robot like that... :p
And regardless, WE will NOT be at a loss for activities when our kids finish growing up and moving out. Which is a roundabout way of saying: "Elly: GET A F'ING LIFE!!" :p
dreadedcandiru2,
This is why she's the Queen of Busywork Mountain: she really doesn't know what to do with herself.
Aside from drinking coffee with Connie Poirier, I would be hard-pressed to think of a time when I saw Elly relaxed and reading a newspaper, or even a book. I remember that even during her last Mexican vacation, she was supposedly arranging her retirement from Mexico. This is possibly also the reason why she would get so spun up about rude customers when she was working at Lilliput's. A buying customer would keep her busy.
Anonymous,
And regardless, WE will NOT be at a loss for activities when our kids finish growing up and moving out. Which is a roundabout way of saying: "Elly: GET A F'ING LIFE!!" :p
Aside from this November , 2006 strip which showed Elly in a series of post-retirement activities she had never been seen doing before or since in any other strip; Elly's post-retirement activities have consisted of cleaning out her basement, organizing her pictures in scrapbooks, organizing her slides, and moving to a new house. I think I can cut her a little slack with a house move. That is a lot of work for someone who hasn't moved in almost 30 years, and you know Elly did most of the packing, since April was shown complaining that Elly was packing too early and John was shown not knowing where things were.
The more of the old strips we see, the more my view of John as a total jerk is validated. We repeatedly see him sitting on his ass, relaxing, while Elly slaves away. No wonder she had to flee the house occasionally--it was the only way to get him to do any work! Sheesh, he couldn't even hold Lizzie for her while she cooked!
I think it's a tie on who comes out worse (ha! no better in these strips!)
John may be a jerk, but Elly does everything without just saying "hey, John, take care of Liz while I'm cooking, OK?"
No, she either makes snide remarks or waits until she yells because she is frustrated. I learned the hard way that if you don't ask for help, you won't get it. And asking for help won't ruin your "superwoman" status.
qnjones,
The more of the old strips we see, the more my view of John as a total jerk is validated. We repeatedly see him sitting on his ass, relaxing, while Elly slaves away.
I will have to agree. There are very few strips which paint John Patterson in a positive light. When the main focus of the early strips it the put-upon mom dealing with a baby and little hellion; the humour doesn’t work as well if dad helps out. And so, strip after strip, we are told that dad doesn’t help out. And he makes sexist remarks from time-to-time to help with this point. John Patterson is like an Archie Bunker (from the television show All in the Family) kind of character, except he reads a paper instead sitting in front of the television with a beer; and he works as a dentist instead of blue collar job; and Archie was a whole lot funnier. I think John’s jerkishness would be easier to take if he were also funny.
debjyn,
John may be a jerk, but Elly does everything without just saying "hey, John, take care of Liz while I'm cooking, OK?"
Good point. Maybe I should think of John and Elly more like the The Lockhorns, where the humour is derived from how mean the characters are to each other.
howtheuduck:
John Patterson is like an Archie Bunker (from the television show All in the Family) kind of character, except he reads a paper instead sitting in front of the television with a beer; and he works as a dentist instead of blue collar job; and Archie was a whole lot funnier.
There's another thing that sets the two men apart. Carrol O'Connor had always said that Archie's volume was generated by a desire to outshout the voices within him that doubted the things he believed in, that he was secretly afraid that his truths were so much rubbish. John has no such inner conflict so that's why he smiles and does not shout as much.
I'm a little too young to remember All in the Family, but wasn't Archie very upfront about his views, rather than pretending he didn't have any prejudices?
The foobs engage in a quieter bigotry, hoping no one will ever call them on it. To me that might make someone easier to get along with in public but is all the more shameful when you learn their true feelings. (ex. Connie: I love my gay son, but what a shame he won't have a traditional marriage/ give me grandchildren Elly: We have lots of ethnic friends, but my children should only date and marry the whitest of the bunch and any differences, such as Dee's Polish ancestry, will be marginalized then forgotten.)
Anonymous,
I'm a little too young to remember All in the Family, but wasn't Archie very upfront about his views, rather than pretending he didn't have any prejudices?
Actually, he would say blatantly prejudiced things, and then say they were not prejudiced, because from his perspective they weren’t, when they obviously were. That was the nature of the humour. He was called “the loveable bigot.” The way the show was set up, he had an extremely liberal son-in-law, who called him on his bigotry, and then Archie would explain his position, oftentimes to great comic effect.
The foobs engage in a quieter bigotry, hoping no one will ever call them on it.
This is true, but they used to have characters that called them on it. Elly used to call John on his sexist statements. Connie Poirier and Grandpa Jim (and Grandma Marian, too) used to call Elly on her more outrageous statements. And I really miss the old, university Candace Halloran, who often let Elizabeth Patterson know when she was lying to herself.
(ex. Connie: I love my gay son, but what a shame he won't have a traditional marriage/ give me grandchildren.)
The saddest part about this statement from Connie was that Elly did not call Connie on this. Elly did a lot better by Lawrence back during the ground-breaking “Lawrence coming out” story.
Elly: We have lots of ethnic friends, but my children should only date and marry the whitest of the bunch and any differences, such as Dee's Polish ancestry, will be marginalized then forgotten.
Elly has never actually said this, but it has been implied by the way things have turned out. Constable Paul Wright was a disappointment. Also the way Duncan Anderson was never considered as a love interest for April, and how Eva Abuya and Duncan were instantly linked with each other the very first time she appeared.
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