Friday, October 10, 2008

John and the Hygienist

Today’s For Better or For Worse new-run indicates that we are headed into a series of strips that I had thought Lynn Johnston would avoid reprinting at all costs. It is the sequence where John interviews five women to replace Marie, the dental hygienist. John’s choice boils down to choose between one who looks like Cheryl Ladd (a reference which would need updating to work today) and one with experience and good references. Also included in this sequence is Connie Poirier’s comment that all of the girls in John’s office are gorgeous.

In the Maclean’s interview Lynn Johnston spoke at length about her ex-husband in Lynn Lake, a town described by Lynn as being a hot bed of adultery, and his office full of gorgeous girls with whom she suspected he might be cheating. In fact, the woman rumoured to have been the one with whom Rod Johnston had the affair in Corbeil, had worked for him at one point as his dental hygienist. I would have thought the real-life associations with her painful divorce would clearly mark this sequence of strips in the “do not reprint” pile.

However, when I consider that Lynn Johnston thought nothing of branding Lynn Lake as a place where adultery was commonplace in a national publication, then this set of strips could very well have been among the highest on her list to reprint. With that in mind, it will be interesting to see how she enhances the story with her new-runs.

Right off the bat, we get John making a disparaging comment about women, “Women! – They drive me crazy, Ted!” in reference to a woman who, after taking a maternity leave, decided to leave her job due to her husband’s transfer. According to John, this decision was a weakness of her gender. We also see that Lynn Johnston has redrawn Jean Baker to be much heavier than she was in the strips from the first year. I suppose this is in preparation for the contrast to the “Cheryl Ladd” hygienist. This way, when Connie makes her remark about the beautiful women in John’s office, Jean Baker will not count.

All in all, this coming week could prove to be very interesting to see just how far Lynn Johnston will go with her John Patterson-flogging.

10 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

However, when I consider that Lynn Johnston thought nothing of branding Lynn Lake as a place where adultery was commonplace in a national publication, then this set of strips could very well have been among the highest on her list to reprint. With that in mind, it will be interesting to see how she enhances the story with her new-runs.

The enhancements, as we both know, will be to make John even more churlish and entitled than he was in the original if the payoff line to today's is any indication. We start off with John outraged that a woman is defying his imperial self because some man she happened to be married to has to leave town. Right from the get-go, John thought the sun shone out of nethers and every woman in the world was his slave.

This, of course, stems from Lynn's inability to know how men really think. What we're seeing is her fears that men get together and figure out how to oppress her staining innocent paper.

10:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh yes, it's all the fault of those evil WOMEN, being so unreasonable as to 1) have a husband who wants to advance in his career and 2) wanting to live in the same household as him instead of having a long-distance marriage all so that Dr. Patterson won't have to go to the trouble of interviewing all those hygienists before he lights upon one that is a mattresses with blonde hair. Wow, those CRAZY women! What will they think of next?

If Rod did in fact have an office full of beautiful hygienists, it was definitely on purpose. All the hygienists I've ever seen in doctor's offices were average-looking at best, and tend to be homely, aging, or strongly working that sexless suburban mom look. I imagine it's even harder to come by a bevy of "gorgeous" women in a backwater like Corbeil.

10:58 PM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2

Right from the get-go, John thought the sun shone out of nethers and every woman in the world was his slave.

That seems to be the way we are headed, especially if he is bringing in Dr. Ted to back him up.

11:59 PM  
Blogger howard said...

qnjones,

If Rod did in fact have an office full of beautiful hygienists, it was definitely on purpose. I imagine it's even harder to come by a bevy of "gorgeous" women in a backwater like Corbeil.

This is the curious thing. I remember seeing an old CBC interview with Lynn Johnston back when she lived in Lynn Lake. The interviewer visited Rod Johnston in his office and made a point to reference the sequence of strips to which we are headed showing John and his bevy of office beauties. Dr. Rod Johnston did, in fact, have an office full of attractive young women. How he managed to find them out in Lynn Lake, I have no idea.

All the hygienists I've ever seen in doctor's offices were average-looking at best, and tend to be homely, aging, or strongly working that sexless suburban mom look.

Things are so different where you live than here. Most of they hygienists I have seen over the years have been fairly young and reasonably attractive women. In Texas especially, and less so in Arizona, dental hygienists tended not to stay in their jobs into their suburban mom days.

12:01 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

qnjones,

Oh yes, it's all the fault of those evil WOMEN, being so unreasonable as to 1) have a husband who wants to advance in his career and 2) wanting to live in the same household as him instead of having a long-distance marriage all so that Dr. Patterson won't have to go to the trouble of interviewing all those hygienists before he lights upon one that is a mattresses with blonde hair. Wow, those CRAZY women! What will they think of next?

This is yet another symptom of the primary cause of conflict in the strip; simply put, the Pattersons are at war with the world because they have no idea how the world works. Not only do we have Doctor Stupid ranting because his hygienist is not his property, we have Elly screaming at everything that she doesn't understand (namely, everything) and getting all bent out of shape when people and animals disobey her by being what they are instead of what she wants them to be. Worse, they've raised three children with the same warped expectations. Why else would Mike quit Portrait rather than make a decision or Liz expect Paul to ruin his life for her? Even April is tainted; she expected Becky to waste her talents so she should stand around like a dimwit shaking a blasted tambourine in a lame garage band.

7:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

dreadedcandiru2

This is yet another symptom of the primary cause of conflict in the strip; simply put, the Pattersons are at war with the world because they have no idea how the world works.

I think this is what makes Foob so frustrating/insane/snarkable. This strip was always billed as a slice of life strip and yet everything about it makes it the anti-slice of life strip. Perhaps in 1979 these strips made more sense yet I really doubt that. This whole week has been one failure after another and the new-runs only serve to solidify that it is Lynn, not big evil men, who have horribly outdated attitudes on gender roles, marriage, parenting, and life in general.
I lurk over at Foobiverse and have been reading the fabulouse collection summeries and I find because of them there was a brief shining period in Foob history (early 90's) but it seemed like as soon as Lynn reached that point she seemed to work furiously to bring about it's decline.

11:41 AM  
Blogger Holly said...

Howard,

I remember seeing an old CBC interview with Lynn Johnston back when she lived in Lynn Lake.

Is it this one? Broadcast Sept 23, 1980.

Search for "Lynn Johnston" (with quotes) at cbc.ca and all sorts of things appear.

I hope the Cheryl Ladd reference or comparable update will explain whether these strips are meant to be taking place in 1979 or in the modern day.

11:52 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

This is yet another symptom of the primary cause of conflict in the strip; simply put, the Pattersons are at war with the world because they have no idea how the world works.

That does seem to be the case, and you are right that their children eventually picked up this same habit. However, in the beginning it seemed to be played for laughs. The Pattersons were at war, but you didn’t take their warring seriously, anymore than you would take Fred Flintstone flying off the handle seriously. When that happens, the characters at war are also wrong. It wasn’t until the Pattersons started combining the war with a sense of self-righteousness that things stopped working.

10:39 PM  
Blogger howard said...

ruth,

This strip was always billed as a slice of life strip and yet everything about it makes it the anti-slice of life strip. Perhaps in 1979 these strips made more sense yet I really doubt that.

1979 was well before Lynn Johnston hit her stride. In the beginning she was imitating other people’s work. At the time, openly sexist men were considered to be funny, and Lynn worked that angle with John Patterson every chance she got.

10:39 PM  
Blogger howard said...

forworse,

Is it this one? Broadcast Sept 23, 1980.

Yes, that’s the interview. I had forgotten that the interviewer points out that Rod Johnston’s dental assistant does bear a strong resemblance to Cheryl Ladd. Unlike the strip, where John ended up picking the woman with the better credentials, Rod picked the Cheryl Ladd look-alike. I have a strange feeling that after that strip came out originally, Rod Johnston’s dental assistant was not so happy with Lynn Johnston for expressing the idea that she was hired for her looks rather than her abilities.

10:59 PM  

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