Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Women! They Love Their Shopping

When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking. ~Elayne Boosler

With today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, Lynn Johnston pushes the “women love shopping or eating when they get depressed” button. If you are going for that broad a target, you are sure to get people writing in to say, “I’m just like Elly. I shop when I get depressed too.” Sometimes with this strip, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

If you are a person who likes to look at cause-and-effect, like I do, then you could draw the conclusion that Elly Patterson is depressed because yesterday her husband suggested she try Creative Cooking instead of Creative Writing for night school, and this encounter ended with Elly closing her eyes and shoving her husband. As aprilp_katje pointed out, yesterday’s strip was a re-do of an old strip where John, instead of suggesting only Creative Cooking also suggested Belly-Dancing, pointing out that they were more useful than the 1980s-trendy Creative Writing. In my mind, this was light-hearted jesting on the part of John. So, I wondered if, in yesterday’s strip, Elly’s shove of John was also good-natured playfulness or if Elly was angry with John. Judging from Elly being “kinda down in the dumps” for today’s strip, it appears that Elly really was angry. I can’t say this is too surprising because, whenever Lynn Johnston has redone strips instead of reprinting the original, she has increased the anger of Elly at John. The classic example of this is when Lynn took the strip of Elly seeing John off at the airport and wrote this very angry strip instead.

The other characteristic with the new-runs for Lynn Johnston to increase the appearance of Elly’s pitiful state. In today’s new-run, Elly plans to shop to alleviate her depression, but the shopping she plans is the ever-practical grocery-shopping, since she already has shoes. Anne Nichols encourages Elly to buy something for herself. Before talking to Anne, Elly planned to simply enjoy grocery-shopping without also having to deal with the ever-silent Elizabeth. Thanks to Anne, poor, pitiful Elly plans to purchase a personal product. This presumes that Elly never purchases personal products, because she is so pitiful. Lynn Johnston is pushing the “poor, put-upon Elly” button; but it does not match my all-time favourite one of these illustrated in this strip. Nothing beats Elly walking Farley the dog during a snow storm with little Lizzie strapped on her back for put-upon pitifulness.

As for the drawing today, my favourite moment is the transition between panels 3 and 4. It looks like Anne is standing in front of a book case. Then in the next panel, the bookcase has been magically transformed into a tree with leaves flying in the air, while Elly, Anne and Lizzie maintain the same approximate positions from panel to panel.

14 Comments:

Blogger Clio said...

The other characteristic with the new-runs for Lynn Johnston to increase the appearance of Elly’s pitiful state.

I read a blog that sporks fantasy novels. When writing about a latter Anita Blake book, the sporker, Kippur, snarks, "Feel sorry for her. Feel sorry." (I'd link to it but, since it's about an Anita Blake novel, it's NSFW.) Those lines keep going through my head in relation to Elly. Anita Blake and Elly Patterson are shockingly alike, considering the former inhabits angsty, pornographic novels with vampires and werewolves, and the latter is in a "family" comic strip. They're both my most hated type of Mary Sue, which tvtropes.org has named "Sympathetic Sue."

10:56 PM  
Blogger Holly said...

Thanks to Anne, poor, pitiful Elly plans to purchase a personal product. This presumes that Elly never purchases personal products, because she is so pitiful. Lynn Johnston is pushing the “poor, put-upon Elly” button

Applause for awesome alliteration.

Also for noticing Annie's amazing shape-shifting wall and bookcase.

1:24 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

The funny, funny thing is that we're supposed to feel sorry for Elly because her husband makes reasonable suggestions in a light-hearted tone of voice, tells her that she makes a useful contribution to society and wants her to cheer up. Her response to all that is blind rage and self-inflicted agony which makes her hard to cheer on.

3:48 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

Nothing beats Elly walking Farley the dog during a snow storm with little Lizzie strapped on her back for put-upon pitifulness.

And not long after that, she reprinted the strip where Elly takes puppy-Farley out in the back yard and yells at him to go. So much for thinking Elly trudges out on doggie-toddler walks every day. ::rolleyes::

4:28 AM  
Anonymous josephusrex said...

Oh, that shove was surely not good-natured playfulness. I've never seen Elly drawn with such a rageful face: almost as though she'd completely lost it. You're so right: the poor put-upon Elly is the leitmotif of the new-ruins. And they're not even vaguely funny: not a one of them. They're the venting of an angry, bitter, anhedonic woman who no longer has anything to share but her bile.

5:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with josephusrex. What is galling is that Lynn Johnston depicts Elly as being on the edge of being a spouse abuser -- hitting and throwing things at John, and her strips get published. If Johnston showed the reverse -- say Steve hitting Annie -- in a humorous light, the strips would never see the light of day.

9:48 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Clio,

Anita Blake and Elly Patterson are shockingly alike, considering the former inhabits angsty, pornographic novels with vampires and werewolves, and the latter is in a "family" comic strip. They're both my most hated type of Mary Sue, which tvtropes.org has named "Sympathetic Sue."

I will have to admit I have never really thought of Anita Blake and Elly Patterson as similar, but it does work. If we could just add a few vampires or werewolves to For Better or For Worse, it might perk things right up. There’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Why not For Better or For Worse and Werewolves?

10:43 AM  
Blogger howard said...

forworse,

Applause for awesome alliteration. Also for noticing Annie's amazing shape-shifting wall and bookcase.

Thanks.

10:43 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

Her response to all that is blind rage and self-inflicted agony which makes her hard to cheer on.

True enough, but at least her family will get some groceries out of the deal: chocolate-covered broccoli, chocolate-covered asparagus, chocolate-covered carrot coins, etc.

10:44 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje

And not long after that, she reprinted the strip where Elly takes puppy-Farley out in the back yard and yells at him to go. So much for thinking Elly trudges out on doggie-toddler walks every day.

That’s the part that doesn’t work, when mixed with reprints. Even today, we have seen plenty of reprints of Elly shopping with Michael and Lizzie, to know she doesn’t go grocery-shopping when she is down in the dumps.

10:44 AM  
Blogger howard said...

josephusrex,

You're so right: the poor put-upon Elly is the leitmotif of the new-ruins. And they're not even vaguely funny: not a one of them. They're the venting of an angry, bitter, anhedonic woman who no longer has anything to share but her bile.

I remember the old comic strip character Sad Sack. The humour there relied on the idea that no matter what Sad Sack did, things would go wrong for him. Elly Patterson of the early strips is very similar, except instead of Army life, it was housewife life. With the new-runs, Lynn Johnston seems to have missed the whole point of that style of humour. You cannot have the main character heaping unnecessary abuse upon themselves. It has to be done to them. Moreover, you cannot have the victim character venting their rage at their situation. The result is, as you point out, “they're not even vaguely funny: not a one of them.”

10:45 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Anonymous,

What is galling is that Lynn Johnston depicts Elly as being on the edge of being a spouse abuser -- hitting and throwing things at John, and her strips get published. If Johnston showed the reverse -- say Steve hitting Annie -- in a humorous light, the strips would never see the light of day.

Very true. Lynn Johnston still runs off the paradigm that women can’t hurt men, so they are allowed to do anything they want without fear of retribution.

10:46 AM  
Blogger Clio said...

What is galling is that Lynn Johnston depicts Elly as being on the edge of being a spouse abuser

Imo, she's not just on the edge. It's not as apparent in the new-runs, but in the last few years (or more) of the strip proper, Elly emotionally abused John. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to find this cute.

The attitude that, somehow, women "can't" abuse men, either physically or emotionally, keeps a lot of men in dangerous, destructive relationships. Women might be less likely to physically abuse men, because women tend not to be brought up to use physical violence to get their way as often as men, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And women are every bit as likely to emotionally abuse men as vice versa. The fact that we're supposed to pity and identify with a woman who abuses her husband in FBofW is one of the things that makes it a truly terrible strip, rather than just a crappity one.

12:20 PM  
Blogger howard said...

Clio,

The fact that we're supposed to pity and identify with a woman who abuses her husband in FBofW is one of the things that makes it a truly terrible strip, rather than just a crappity one.

At last, a strip to appeal to abusive women, or women who wish they were abusive. It's a niche strip.

1:49 PM  

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