Lizzie, the Magical Negro, and Families of Choice
I added some thoughts to FOOB: Getting All Racial that I think speak to my larger concerns regarding subtle racism in For Better or For Worse, so before I go on, I hope you’ll pay a visit and read my expanded post. Don’t worry, I wait.
As you’ll see, I wrote a bit about institutionalized racism, and assumptions about race that many of us hold subconsciously. After reading the January 16 strip again with its references to “a native man” and “Susan shares his culture” I believe more strongly than I did before that Johnston is playing into racial preconceptions that she might not even realize she holds.
Ever heard of the “magical negro”?
This is exactly what Paul, and the rest of the reservation is reduced to: flat characters that serve no purpose other than to advance the plot, in this case the glorious consummation of Lizzie Patterson and Granthony Caine, a/k/a the Cold Oatmeal Twins. In fact, if you look back to strips in 2005, it’s evident that this dynamic is already underway. I draw your attention to strips dated October 4, October 6, and October 7, where the character of Elly (generally recognized as a stand-in for Lynn Johnston) participates in a traditional Ojibway ceremony, and learns all about spritiuality thanks to the simple Indians and their traditions: the whole thing is so fucking condescending I could vomit, ancient traditions explained to me by a dowdy, middle-class white lady from a Toronto suburb.
Or this series from June 2006, where on June 27 Liz is “truly accepted into the community” (even as she rejects them), on June 28, Liz gets her “spirit name”, on June 29 Lizzie says she’ll “never forget” her “new baptism”, and on June 30, we learn that Lizzie will “always return”.
I guess today’s strip puts the lie to THAT one.
All these wonderful spiritual lessons that Lizzie learned, to guide her on her journey to her old home town, where she’ll marry the guy she dated in high school, who’s held the same damn job at the used car lot since graduating, and live near her parents. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
The First Nations people exist in the strip for one purpose only: to advance the arc of the Lizzie plotline. None of the “spiritual lessons” affected any change in the Lizzie P, herself a flat representation of some idealized life that exists only in Lynn Johnston’s mind. And if a lesson is to be gleaned from this mess, it is only this: “stay among your own kind”, completely dismissing any notion of one’s family of choice. You get the family you’re born with, and that’s that.
Unfortunately, this is an unrealistic and foreclosed line of thinking that demands that individuals embrace only that which is familiar. It leaves no room for people who are drastically different from their families. It leaves no room for people who choose the path less traveled, no room for the nontraditional.
We all have a family we’re born into, and we all have families of choice. Marriage is the most common expression of one’s “family of choice”. Those few people you’re friends with for your entire life are part of your family of choice. It’s those families of choice that expand our own worldviews beyond that which we have always known.
By cutting off this path for Liz, and sending her back to a predetermined fate in the old home town, Johnston also writes off a number of really interesting stories. As debjyn comments at the Foobiverse,
I think this is why I have completely written off any interest in this strip now. The only interesting arc would have been Paul/Liz pairing, and either seeing how this would work out in North/South because no matter where they chose to live, one would always be the “fish out of water”. That could have made some really, really, interesting stories. But no, upper-middle class childhood sweetheart stories are sooooooooo interesting. Not.
Indeed. The strip is poorer for the author’s decisions.
UPDATE: Zoethe has a decidedly different, but equally valid, point of view
UPDATE 2: It’s really obvious I did a lot of literary criticism in college, isn’t it…
3 Responses to “Lizzie, the Magical Negro, and Families of Choice”
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January 19th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Hi, Brendan. Just wondering if you saw Mrs. Johnson’s latest batch of cartoon cock-teasing?
Now we’re supposed to believe the omnipotent narrator’s implication that Warren is “The One (TM).” This the same omnipotent narrator who named the noble savage Mr. Wright and then actually drew a call-out about it into the strip itself.
Why should I believe LJ now? More importantly, why do I give a damn anymore?
January 19th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Hey Jeff,
Oh yeah, I saw it. Now poor warren’s in the crosshairs. So freakin’ stupid.
Someone at the foobiverse live journal did a little bit of fiction in which warren finds paul drinking himself into a stupor at a bar after Lizzie leaves, helps him home, and then gives Paul the run down on all the men Lizzie’s fucked over.
Guaranteed, this is all related to LJ’s shitty childhood and her bad marriages. GUARANTEED!!
January 20th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
I think you’re right about the root of the story’s problems, Brendan.
I have to ask, though - don’t you think it’s a bit creepy that Warren, the guy who basically flew Liz up to Mtigwaki so she could catch Paul “cheating” (a term I will use loosely as there was nothing the least bit prurient about what we saw in the strip between Chipper ‘n Suds) is now going to make his move? Doesn’t that seem a little exploitive? Anthony-ish?