(no subject)

[sexy_romulan]

Lynn Johnston, I could kick you.

What is it about For Better or for Worse" the past few years? I mean, even when Michael and Elizabeth were teenagers, she seemed to have a pretty good finger on the pulse of What Goes On. But lately they've morphed into these cardboard cut-outs that have absolutely no connection with the kinds of things that really happen to or affect people our age (or April's age, for that matter). She has clearly ceased to have any clue as to what goes on inside this generation's heads. These days the strip seems to be principally a vehicle for lectures about How Things SHOULD Be Amongst You Darn Kids. You should be married, apparently, preferably to someone you met in high school or earlier; you should live as close to home as possible, and anywhere you may wander is just a "phase"; you should have kids, for whom you should give up any semblance of a career. I know the strip had Deanna so miserable staying home that she returned to her job as a pharmacist. But the strip NEVER shows her in that role, or even struggling to balance the two - she's always, always, always in the strip as a mom (and mom is always sort of a flunky to dad), and the strip has basically never mentioned her job since she went back to it. Most of the time when conflict between kids and work comes up, it's in the context of MICHAEL trying to work while Deanna looks after the kids in the next room. She may as well be a stay-at-home mom; that's all we ever see of her.

And of course there are still stay-at-home moms among our generation, but those SAHMs would be better off going to the earliest strips from the late 70s for any kind of reflection of genuine experience. This latest stuff is - is - pedantic, and patronizing, and compLETEly out of touch, and only serves to make the reader mad.

This is a fantastic post outlining a lot of what's gone wrong with FBofW. And the reason I could kick Lynn Johnston is the inevitable fruition of all the fears here expressed. Ick.

Comments

[missquirt.livejournal.com]

Yes.

It really pisses me off. Especially because I still read it every day because I keep hoping it'll be like it used to be.

She also _really_ made me angry with the way she completely oversimplified Elizabeth's relationship in the North. And, for that matter, to the North.

[ami-b.livejournal.com]

I went back and read all the strips in the archive and it made me sad - the strip was still really good as lately as 2003 and 2004. It was Mtigwaki (sp?) that killed it, I think...her student teaching stint in the North was much more honest, much less sappy, and much less PSA-like.

And I think it's telling how the only way even SHE can justify shoving Elizabeth together with MustacheMan is to eliminate all the competition, one by one.