I've always thought these comics, specially Calvin and Hobbes, were always very simple but had a very complex humor and wit to them. They always have this deeper context, that at first glance just seems like just a funny gag, but in reality it really exposes even more about the time and context it was written/illustrated in.
A lot of the comics we looked at in class were fun and interesting, and others didn't hold up as well and ended up being very dated or boring. In a lot of them the characters felt really flat and one dimensional and the stories or gags never really hit for me, even in franchises I really love like Popeye. You can always tell the time period the comics were done in because of the types of issues the characters had or how far the racism and sexism went. I did notice something very interesting when i was looking through a lot of the comics. I noticed that none of the female characters were very strong or had any purpose to the story. Most of these girls, like Polly and her pals, weren't very engaging to read about. The only woman I was entertained by was Olive; which I found really surprising. I guess it's mostly because she's a working class woman, and no rules apply there! I'm glad this made it character trait made it all the way to the animated series! I think it's the main reason she still survives as a very successful character.
The roles of women and POC in these comics is very unfortunate, and since many older strips as a whole have the goal of being funny, I think racism and sexism are punched up as compared to other mediums that could be just as racist/sexist. There's also the really terrible idea that "women aren't funny" that people who don't know better still like to throw around today, so of course they would only serve a limited purpose in strips.
ReplyDeleteI like the observations you made about Olive Oyl, as well as the ones we made in class (as frustrating as they may be). It seems to be in old comedy a woman can only be funny if she is plain and ugly, yet these women are allowed to have self confidence and even vanity, while the "pretty" ones are not. That's kind of a more general obervation, but I think it's very prevalent in older comics and related to that point about Olive Oyl.
—M.Dean