Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Thing What's Wrong with Them Men

I love everything that Kelly ever did as a cartoonist, but to be perfectly honest, I'm a little tired of Miz Beaver at this point.

February 20, 1962
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2 comments:

  1. Larry Kuenning2/21/19, 10:10 AM

    I think that for me the problem with this sequence is that it's sort of an early version of the inadequate response to feminism found in Pogo: Prisoner of Love. Miz Beaver's big gripe against men is that she wants one and can't catch one.

    Kelly handled the old "battle of the sexes" trope well enough when that seemed to be all there was to address. Churchy's remark "Why don't women marry people what understands them?" (Owl: "Like who?" Churchy: "Like other women") was a good example of the old "Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em" line that was aimed at the apparently perverse setup of the human race, divided into two types that need each other yet often have serious trouble understanding each other.

    When the 1960s wave of feminism brought new angles into the subject, I get the impression Kelly stuck to the old gags and tried to make them fit, but they didn't fit very well. Especially in Prisoner of Love but to some extent here too.

    My strategy, such as it is, for trying to enjoy this material, is (1) to try to take the old gags for what they are without expecting them to fit the new context, and (2) to sympathize, as an old codger who's lived into an age he finds confusing, with what may have been Kelly's similar predicament as he got older.

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    1. Thomas Haller Buchanan2/21/19, 12:32 PM

      Nicely thought out, Larry. Thanks (I'll still be glad when this Miz Beaver sequence is over).

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