One Way or the Other, Men are Vermin
As InsertMonikerHere predicted yesterday, we are getting the cat and mice analogy reprint from a different Elly trip inserted into this storyline.
In this reprint, Jean Baker is acting as the moral conscience for John Patterson. John’s comment comparing Elly to a cat and himself to a mouse says that if Elly was in town, John would not be allowed to go out with Ted. Jean doesn’t even address that idea in her next comment. Her analogy of mice turning into rats works as wordplay, but the underlying implication is worse. What does she expect John to do that will turn him into a rat? The definition we are looking for can only be "a person who abandons or betrays someone else." "Scab worker, animal, or hairstyle" don’t fit the situation. We know from the story of Ted and John at the bar that Ted is going to encourage John to enjoy a bachelor life of chasing after women. Moreover, it appears that Jean Baker expects this to happen and is warning John Patterson not to commit adultery. Ultimately, John will reject Ted’s encouragement and we will get to see what a nice guy he is. Whoopee!
At the heart of the matter are a couple of disturbing ideas:
Jean Baker thinks that, with the right encouragement, John Patterson could be convinced to cheat on his wife. Not only that, but she seems to think that this is a common thing for men to do, when their wives are out-of-town. I don’t know about John Patterson, but if someone who worked for me said something like that to me (as a married man with kids at home), I would be extremely insulted. I would wonder what I had possibly done to make this woman think so poorly of me.
For the answer to this we have to go back to Lynn Johnston’s interview in Macleans last year, where she talked about life in Lynn Lake.
Q: So that was a dream that you had during your own marriage?
A: Well, [my former husband] worked with beautiful women ever since I met him. He's a dentist. He has hygienists and front-desk girls, and there are usually eight girls around him all the time, and he used to travel to the Native villages taking his staff with him, and people in the town would look at me as if to say, "Well, girl, join the club," because in a small northern mining town there's a lot of horsing around, and the joke was you can steal a man's wife, but you don't touch his woodpile, you know? It was rampant up here.
Q: Adultery is a form of entertainment where you live?
A: It was recreation. It was like a high school, all these different personalities thrown into this one inescapable place where you had to be there together all the time, whether you wanted to or not, and someone you hated might turn out to be the guy in the bar that you're hitting the sack with next year, you know? I didn't have time for that, nor did I want it, but it was there in the town. But I thought there was safety in numbers if he was with a bunch of girls. And they were all really nice people. But I thought to myself, "If I'm going to be a jealous wife, I'll drive myself crazy."
When I read this article, I had thought that perhaps this was stuff Lynn Johnston was making up about Lynn Lake that she could not have possibly believed back in 1980 when she was living there. However we have this strip from 1980 which has Jean Baker warning John against cheating and then we will have Ted McCaulay encouraging John to cheat. Both of them seem to have the idea that John is weak and susceptible to cheating. John’s big triumph is that he doesn’t cheat. Oh goody! Daddy didn’t pick up a girl in a bar and bring her home while the kids were there. What a temptation! It seems ridiculous to me. In the mind of the author of the strip, it was not ridiculous. She put it in her strip for everyone across the nation to see. That is a pretty serious allegation to make that public, and there is no precedent for it. Dennis Mitchell's mom never said anything like that to Dennis Mitchell's dad in Dennis the Menace. There is nothing like that in Peanuts or Cathy. The closest you get is in Andy Capp, when we see drunken Andy rejected by women he hits on in a bar.
I used to think that Lynn Johnston’s portrayal of Thérèse Caine, as the insanely jealous wife, was not based on anything out of Lynn Johnston’s own life. Now I am not so sure.
In this reprint, Jean Baker is acting as the moral conscience for John Patterson. John’s comment comparing Elly to a cat and himself to a mouse says that if Elly was in town, John would not be allowed to go out with Ted. Jean doesn’t even address that idea in her next comment. Her analogy of mice turning into rats works as wordplay, but the underlying implication is worse. What does she expect John to do that will turn him into a rat? The definition we are looking for can only be "a person who abandons or betrays someone else." "Scab worker, animal, or hairstyle" don’t fit the situation. We know from the story of Ted and John at the bar that Ted is going to encourage John to enjoy a bachelor life of chasing after women. Moreover, it appears that Jean Baker expects this to happen and is warning John Patterson not to commit adultery. Ultimately, John will reject Ted’s encouragement and we will get to see what a nice guy he is. Whoopee!
At the heart of the matter are a couple of disturbing ideas:
Jean Baker thinks that, with the right encouragement, John Patterson could be convinced to cheat on his wife. Not only that, but she seems to think that this is a common thing for men to do, when their wives are out-of-town. I don’t know about John Patterson, but if someone who worked for me said something like that to me (as a married man with kids at home), I would be extremely insulted. I would wonder what I had possibly done to make this woman think so poorly of me.
For the answer to this we have to go back to Lynn Johnston’s interview in Macleans last year, where she talked about life in Lynn Lake.
Q: So that was a dream that you had during your own marriage?
A: Well, [my former husband] worked with beautiful women ever since I met him. He's a dentist. He has hygienists and front-desk girls, and there are usually eight girls around him all the time, and he used to travel to the Native villages taking his staff with him, and people in the town would look at me as if to say, "Well, girl, join the club," because in a small northern mining town there's a lot of horsing around, and the joke was you can steal a man's wife, but you don't touch his woodpile, you know? It was rampant up here.
Q: Adultery is a form of entertainment where you live?
A: It was recreation. It was like a high school, all these different personalities thrown into this one inescapable place where you had to be there together all the time, whether you wanted to or not, and someone you hated might turn out to be the guy in the bar that you're hitting the sack with next year, you know? I didn't have time for that, nor did I want it, but it was there in the town. But I thought there was safety in numbers if he was with a bunch of girls. And they were all really nice people. But I thought to myself, "If I'm going to be a jealous wife, I'll drive myself crazy."
When I read this article, I had thought that perhaps this was stuff Lynn Johnston was making up about Lynn Lake that she could not have possibly believed back in 1980 when she was living there. However we have this strip from 1980 which has Jean Baker warning John against cheating and then we will have Ted McCaulay encouraging John to cheat. Both of them seem to have the idea that John is weak and susceptible to cheating. John’s big triumph is that he doesn’t cheat. Oh goody! Daddy didn’t pick up a girl in a bar and bring her home while the kids were there. What a temptation! It seems ridiculous to me. In the mind of the author of the strip, it was not ridiculous. She put it in her strip for everyone across the nation to see. That is a pretty serious allegation to make that public, and there is no precedent for it. Dennis Mitchell's mom never said anything like that to Dennis Mitchell's dad in Dennis the Menace. There is nothing like that in Peanuts or Cathy. The closest you get is in Andy Capp, when we see drunken Andy rejected by women he hits on in a bar.
I used to think that Lynn Johnston’s portrayal of Thérèse Caine, as the insanely jealous wife, was not based on anything out of Lynn Johnston’s own life. Now I am not so sure.
posted by howard at 9:48 PM
10 Comments:
howard,
I used to think that Lynn Johnston’s portrayal of Thérèse Caine, as the insanely jealous wife, was not based on anything out of Lynn Johnston’s own life. Now I am not so sure.
Neither am I. It seems to me that Lynn spent so much time harping on the fact that she expected Rod to betray her, he probably half-way felt that he had to oblige her or something.
It seems that Lynn thought, because Rod was "surrounded" by women (or, as she calls them, "girls") he would be very likely to cheat. This is pretty preposterous; first, to think a small-town dentist is some kind of Hugh Heffner; second, to think all of them would want to sleep with him; third, to think that he would want to cheat, just because he's male, I guess.
Also, Lynn apparently only saw Rod's trips to "Native villages" as a chance for him to cheat. And she interpreted the way people would look at her -- just look -- as them thinking Rod was cheating on her.
The one time we have pretty good evidence for Rod cheating was when he left Lynn for another woman who wasn't much younger than him, and whom he had known for a very long time. That's hardly boinking every "girl" he knew, or trolling bars with his friend while his wife was out of town. Lynn really had a low opinion of her husband, didn't she?
DreadedCandiru2,
It seems to me that Lynn spent so much time harping on the fact that she expected Rod to betray her, he probably half-way felt that he had to oblige her or something.
Maybe, but I do find it amusing that after all the time she spent harping on how pretty Rod’s office staff was, the rumour is that the woman with whom he cheated was on Lynn’s staff. With the attention that Lynn would have given Rod in his relationship between the ladies at his work, going for a lady at her work would be much safer.
clio-1,
The one time we have pretty good evidence for Rod cheating was when he left Lynn for another woman who wasn't much younger than him, and whom he had known for a very long time. That's hardly boinking every "girl" he knew, or trolling bars with his friend while his wife was out of town. Lynn really had a low opinion of her husband, didn't she?
Lynn’s first husband cheated on her, and it seems like she never dealt with it in a constructive way. 30 years after her time in Lynn Lake, Lynn Johnston felt perfectly comfortable with describing the community as a hotbed of adultery. You would think that enough time had passed for her to get some perspective. It truly must have devastated her. In the strip, virtually every romantic relationship ends with someone cheating. Not only that but you have this suspicion of John cheating from the very beginning of the strip.
It could be that Rod Johnston really was sleeping around on Lynn all the time, but we have seen no evidence of it, and in the Mcleans article, Lynn was clearly staying away from an actual accusation. The way she has spoken freely in the press about his cheating which led to their divorce, I see no reason why Lynn would not speak freely about any other woman if she had solid proof that Rod was cheating. As it is, she is resorting to innuendo.
clio-1,
This is pretty preposterous; first, to think a small-town dentist is some kind of Hugh Heffner; second, to think all of them would want to sleep with him; third, to think that he would want to cheat, just because he's male, I guess.
Sadly, it's not preposterous to her; we've had thirty years of examples of her low opinion of women in the medical profession. In her narrow mind, they cannot be thought of as trained professionals who can keep their mind on their jobs; she has decided that they're all mindless eye-candy that want to steal husbands. Not only does she engage in en-masse libelous slander, she also betrays her smug, hjateful, jealous ignorance. (Parenthetically, that's why Dee winds up running a sweing school; she's allowed to evolve, leave the medical field that she, as a woman, has no business being in and become competent at last.)
Does anyone happen to know which collection Lynn dipped into for today's strip?
dreadedcandiru2,
Sadly, it's not preposterous to her; we've had thirty years of examples of her low opinion of women in the medical profession.
Presumably, veterinarians don't count since she wrote the characters of the Cruikshank women as vets, and April as a future vet, from her experience with her ex-sister-in-law being a vet.
In support of your idea is this strip from June 3, 2007 compared to the pictures under Patient Care with Diane and Sue. Lynn's version of Diane and Sue turns them into shapely young women with Grandpa Jim lusting over them.
Well, I misremembered who said the "mice will play" bit, but I bet we get that bar scene. It would actually be nice to see John rebuffing Ted because that would leaven the "incompetent John" story a bit.
As for when, um, sorry, I last saw it flipping through my folks' collections around Christmas. Which one had the library business trip? It could be that or the one where Elly took the kids to see her parents.
It could be that or the one where Elly took the kids to see her parents.
::checks::
Oh, you're right--I'd forgotten that this was part of that arc. At least in its original context, it made more sense because John didn't need a sitter for the kids.
April_Patterson,
At least in its original context, it made more sense because John didn't need a sitter for the kids.
Too bad that defaming Rod by proxy is the real purpose of the reload; Lynn will sacrifice plausibility and continuity in pursuit of her primary goal.
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