John Patterson: Not a Fink. A Pig
In today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, we see the second reference to the term “male chauvinist pig” that we have seen in the last year. The last was in this strip from October 15, 2008, another out-of-date reprint strip from the 1980s.
In today’s strip John lectures Elly for not having a sense of humour about her role at home. The basis of John’s argument is that when he needles Elly using sexist terms, he is just joking. The reality of the matter is that John is not a male chauvinist pig. He is simply pretending to be a male chauvinist pig for the sake of humour. This is an interesting response. In yesterday’s strip, Elly did not call him a male chauvinist pig. She called him a fink. However, considering that John referred to the women who work for him as “girls”, I would say that the “male chauvinist pig” description is right on the mark. I like the fact that it is considered to be popular belief.
The only thing that might work in today’s strip is the nostalgia of seeing a bacon-related joke relative to “male chauvinist pig”. When the term was popular, jokes about it using bacon were very common. 1980s male chauvinism and pig jokes. That takes me back to the time when I was really sick of hearing those jokes. Back in 1980, this joke would have been well-used and quite tired. In other words, the perfect joke for Lynn Johnston to put in her strip.
In today’s strip John lectures Elly for not having a sense of humour about her role at home. The basis of John’s argument is that when he needles Elly using sexist terms, he is just joking. The reality of the matter is that John is not a male chauvinist pig. He is simply pretending to be a male chauvinist pig for the sake of humour. This is an interesting response. In yesterday’s strip, Elly did not call him a male chauvinist pig. She called him a fink. However, considering that John referred to the women who work for him as “girls”, I would say that the “male chauvinist pig” description is right on the mark. I like the fact that it is considered to be popular belief.
The only thing that might work in today’s strip is the nostalgia of seeing a bacon-related joke relative to “male chauvinist pig”. When the term was popular, jokes about it using bacon were very common. 1980s male chauvinism and pig jokes. That takes me back to the time when I was really sick of hearing those jokes. Back in 1980, this joke would have been well-used and quite tired. In other words, the perfect joke for Lynn Johnston to put in her strip.
posted by howard at 9:31 PM
7 Comments:
This is an interesting response. In yesterday’s strip, Elly did not call him a male chauvinist pig. She called him a fink. However, considering that John referred to the women who work for him as “girls”, I would say that the “male chauvinist pig” description is right on the mark. I like the fact that it is considered to be popular belief.
He probably remembers Jean's response to his "I want my house to be a hooooooooooooome" speech: oinking at him. He reacted to that by having the Stormcloud of Rage form over his head and getting angry because someone in Television Land didn't like his cleansing agent and tried giving him Excedrin Headache Infinity.
That takes me back to the time when I was really sick of hearing those jokes.
Heh. Same here--and I just never stopped being tired of them.
He probably remembers Jean's response to his "I want my house to be a hooooooooooooome" speech: oinking at him.
That hadn't happened yet. That was shortly after Mike started grade one. His being in school for a full day (presumably kindergarten was only half day and they didn't really consider it "real" school) is what led to the question of Elly possibly getting a job.
aprilp_katje,
Since Lynn has run the strip saying Mike is done with kindergarten, then we may be headed to this particular reprint in the near future. Oh goody! Give me an order of more chauvinist pig jokes. And by the way, I would love to see some jokes about Fonzie saying, “Hey!” or how strange it is for young men to wear their hair long.
And by the way, I would love to see some jokes about Fonzie saying, “Hey!” or how strange it is for young men to wear their hair long.
LOL--this reminds me of the Monk episode where his neighbor tries to help Monk by giving him a box of joke cards that once belonged to an old-time comedian (I forget which one, but think Milton Berle vintage). Monk ended up unleashing a bunch of "dirty hippie" jokes.
You're probably right that we're going to see the strips where John doesn't want Elly to get a job. One of the things that hit me as odd was that the Pattersons really didn't think of Mike as being in school for realz until he was in grade one. My son, having just finished kindergarten, would find that highly offensive!
Having seen my son and daughter's kindergarten, I would agree. I can't speak for 1980 kindergarten's, but mine in 1967 was not real school.
I was too young in the early 80s to register any of those jokes. When I was in high school in the early 90s all the jokes were about "femizazis" and frigid women who hated men -- women like me, supposedly. Which was pretty frustrating when I was always much more fair to real guys, and had way more male friends, than my female friends who were scared of the word "feminist".
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