Some FOOBish Fulminations
I’m too lazy to search through my comments at Binky Betsy’s FOOBiverse, but beside the dreadful and nausea-inducing banality of the long-drawn-out-yet-inevitable Liz-Granthony pair-up, the only thing more horrible was the oddly infantile images that represent the couple’s newly-rekindled romantic love.
In these two panels from the July 6 strip, Anthony expresses his love for Lizzie by tossing her in the air like an infant. In fact, the expression on Anthony’s face in panel one, however abstractly represented, is exactly the face you make when playing with a toddler: I know. As a father, I’ve worn that face more times than I can count.
Anthony: “Who’s a big girl! Who made a pee-pee AND a poopoo in the potty?”
Lizard: “Me, Granthony, ME! I did it all by myself!”
As for panel two, what I presume is supposed to imply Granthony’s manliness and Lizzie’s submission (among other sexual narratives, which I’ll probably go into because… well, why do you hate me for my freedoms?) is botched badly by Granthony’s backstory as a whining, passive pussy. What I hear in this panel sounds more like “Here comes the Tickle Monster! he’s gonna getcha!!” than any kind of romantic snuffling and grunting. This is a couple whose sex lives will involve dressing up like babies.
Another easy shot to take at this strip, which seems to make a hobby of being a target for accusations of inconsistency, hypocrisy, and preposterousness, is the pathetic sexual imagery. I didn’t paste in the third panel, but it’s easy to see where this trainwreck is heading, with panel one standing in for Anthony’s ginormous engorged purple pecker, panel two representing the union of Granthony’s Glorious Penetration of the Golden Vagina and Lizzie’s Ultimate Attainment of the O-Face. Spent, they embrace in panel 3, which you can go look at if you REALLY need to: disgusted, America pukes a little in its own mouth, as we must assume all right-minded Canadians do as well.
The next day’s strip is no less icky. In this panel, we see that Lizzie has shrunk quite a bit: earlier in the wedding, she and Granthony were about the same height, give or take an inch or two. We see the same image of the woman as the smaller, lesser partner to the man, almost babyish and dependent. It’s an archaic representation of the male female dynamic that’s hardly appropriate for these times in which most men and women see themselves as equal partners in a marriage, and in which women’s earning/ economic power is much closer to men’s.
It’s also a disappointing message for young women (if there’s anybody younger than 50 other than weirdos like me) reading the strip anymore: go for the guy your parents liked. The guy that never left home. The safe guy. There are so many ways the character of Lizzie could have been developed that would have been more interesting, and more adventurous, and it is disheartening to see my worst suspicions about the strip confirmed.
Disappointing.
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