Bored with Life? Make a Baby
My first thought reading today’s reprint in For Better or For Worse was that I had seen this strip recently. However, I realized that what I had really seen was the May 7 strip, which ends in a similar fashion with Christopher and Elizabeth each pulling on the arms of one of Lizzie’s dolls. The May 7 strip was a new-run, so it was another example of a new strip pilfering something from an old strip with a variation on it.
In today’s reprint, the topic is another play on another offensive feminine stereotype, i.e. that women gets pregnant because they are bored. We know that both Anne and Elly will have more children, and this strip opens up the possibility that Elly’s motivation for having little April was boredom. It’s hard to say with the Patterson women, who never seem to know that babies are coming, but are constantly surprised. Or at least they pretend they are surprised, anyway.
Lynn Johnston’s motivation for April was not similarly motivated. When April joined the family, Elizabeth was too old for her to do her young child jokes anymore, and so Lynn created one. Even though Lynn Johnston makes jokes about how she can no longer relate to younger kids (and rightly so), she has always managed to work them into her storyline. When April got old, Gordon and Tracy Mayes produced Paul and Rosemary, who appeared in the strip fairly often until Michael and Deanna produced Meredith. After Meredith appeared, Paul and Rosemary disappeared for all practical purposes. Meredith and Robin took the Paul and Rosemary spot, except that Meredith and Robin were 10 times brattier than the well-behaved Mayes kids. And now, Michael and Elizabeth are back in that spot, in reprint or doing variations on jokes from reprints, or doing old Meredith and Robin material.
It’s a similar kind of thing that has inflicted many family dramas. In entertainment circles, the term "Cousin Oliver Syndrome" is used when producers introduce a younger character to replace aging child stars, based on what happened to The Brady Bunch when Cousin Oliver was introduced (i.e. killed the show). This was done on several well-known sitcoms, including The Partridge Family, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, Family Ties and Married With Children. The writers know that if they can get a cute kid to say something, it’s comedy gold, no matter how stupid it is. I think in many respects this was Lynn’s motivation with April, which is why she had a button nose and went by Aypo. I know some folks wish Lynn had continued on with the old characters, but there really is no need. With Elizabeth’s baby, all we would see is a series of stinky diaper jokes.
In today’s reprint, the topic is another play on another offensive feminine stereotype, i.e. that women gets pregnant because they are bored. We know that both Anne and Elly will have more children, and this strip opens up the possibility that Elly’s motivation for having little April was boredom. It’s hard to say with the Patterson women, who never seem to know that babies are coming, but are constantly surprised. Or at least they pretend they are surprised, anyway.
Lynn Johnston’s motivation for April was not similarly motivated. When April joined the family, Elizabeth was too old for her to do her young child jokes anymore, and so Lynn created one. Even though Lynn Johnston makes jokes about how she can no longer relate to younger kids (and rightly so), she has always managed to work them into her storyline. When April got old, Gordon and Tracy Mayes produced Paul and Rosemary, who appeared in the strip fairly often until Michael and Deanna produced Meredith. After Meredith appeared, Paul and Rosemary disappeared for all practical purposes. Meredith and Robin took the Paul and Rosemary spot, except that Meredith and Robin were 10 times brattier than the well-behaved Mayes kids. And now, Michael and Elizabeth are back in that spot, in reprint or doing variations on jokes from reprints, or doing old Meredith and Robin material.
It’s a similar kind of thing that has inflicted many family dramas. In entertainment circles, the term "Cousin Oliver Syndrome" is used when producers introduce a younger character to replace aging child stars, based on what happened to The Brady Bunch when Cousin Oliver was introduced (i.e. killed the show). This was done on several well-known sitcoms, including The Partridge Family, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, Family Ties and Married With Children. The writers know that if they can get a cute kid to say something, it’s comedy gold, no matter how stupid it is. I think in many respects this was Lynn’s motivation with April, which is why she had a button nose and went by Aypo. I know some folks wish Lynn had continued on with the old characters, but there really is no need. With Elizabeth’s baby, all we would see is a series of stinky diaper jokes.
posted by howard at 11:31 PM
4 Comments:
howard,
I know some folks wish Lynn had continued on with the old characters, but there really is no need. With Elizabeth’s baby, all we would see is a series of stinky diaper jokes.
And when James grew up enough to become the focus of idiot schoolboy humor, Dee would have oooopsed a third child into existence to entertain us with its inconvenient bowel movements, screeching and clinging to her like a remora.
Lynn Johnston is very fond of the "Oops" babies. She is very "soap opera" in this respect. In soap operas, one of the regular trends is that if a woman has an affair with a man, even if it is one night and never again, she will be pregnant. With Lynn's married couples, there is rarely a planned pregnancy.
I think the only references to planning kids are at least mildly negative. Connie was her dad's 6th try for a boy. Therese didn't *really* want a child and had to be persuaded. Connie and Greg tried for a kid and couldn't.
Goodness knows, there are plenty of "happy surprise" babies out there (a term I prefer to "oops" as I'm a _little_ closer to my older sister than my parents had been shooting for :) but it's pretty ridiculously soapy in FOOB.
I think Robin and Elizabeth were supposed to be planned babies too. They are a more positive example. However, in those cases, the comic strip did not make as big a deal about their arrival as it did the "happy surprise" babies.
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