In the preceding essay I argued against the too-easy attempt to find syndromic significance in every fictional act of sex or violence. As I also mentioned, Gershon Legman had a unique take on the generally ignored comic-book genre of “teen humor:”
...there are published not only a handful of female crime-and western-comics, but whole series of so-called 'teen-age' comic-books specifically for girls, in which adolescent sexuality is achieved in sadistic disguise... through a continuous humiliation of scarecrow fathers and transvestist boyfriends by ravishingly pretty girls, beating up the men with flower-pots and clocks and brooms..."-- Gershon Legman, LOVE AND DEATH (1949), p. 47.
I’ve stated that I don’t think either Legman’s one cited example or the majority of teen hijinks embodied the syndromic sadism of female comics-readers of that period. But as a consequence of his overstatements, I have kept a weather-eye out for real syndromic sadism in any teen-humor comic book, though my main orientation is of course that of “Looking for Mister Goodmyth.”
I did come across some mildly suggestive material in a late 1940s MLJ (“Archie Comics”) feature named GINGER. This ditzy teen redhead debuted as a backup feature in another title—one devoted to a ditzy blonde named Suzie—and later enjoyed ten issues of her own title lasting into the early 1950s. So, I frittered away an afternoon glancing through the adventures of Ginger via the online Digital Comics Museum. As I expected, most of the redhead’s exploits were as expected typical enough, and none of them qualified as “Goodmyths.” But one tale, “Nightmare,” did have enough psychological material that qualified as a “near myth.”
Like many teen females before her, Ginger starts off the story by asking her father for money to buy clothes. This was a frequent trope in the series, and Daddy George responds as did most teen-humor fathers: he doesn’t like his daughter constantly milking him for money. However, this request is a little different. Ginger aspires to join a girls’ baseball team, so she wants money for a uniform. George doesn’t exactly call his offspring a liar, but he’s not sure of her sincerity. Thus, George follows his daughter to the team’s next game to gauge Ginger’s dedication to the sport.
Ginger takes her place on the team, but the girls are missing their pitcher. George, puffed up with memories of his glory days playing baseball, volunteers to pitch in the belief that he can easily smoke the girls on the other team. Naturally, he gets his ego slammed out of the park when the girls repeatedly belt his balls (so to speak). To top it off, when Ginger’s team goes to bat, George gets beaned by a ball, accidentally sent at him by none other than his darling daughter.
So far, the story’s dealing with standard “dumb daddy” stuff. But while unconscious, George has a dream, beginning with imagining himself to be a baseball, complete with face. George the Ball gets pitched at his daughter, who, to the delight of any remaining Freudians, wields a bat three times normal size. Ginger belts her dad out if the park and into a clothes store.
Once in the store, George becomes human again, and picks up the thread of the argument about having to buy his daughter’s clothes. A slightly Satanic salesman reveals that George must buy clothes for a couple dozen duplicates of Ginger, who probably represent George’s feeling of being overwhelmed with clothing expenses. The floorwalker then makes a bargain with George: if he can hit a ball out of the park, he’ll get the clothes for free. However, George’s feelings of inferiority then take Alice-style permutations. As the pitched ball comes at him, it expands in size while George shrinks, so that the ball creams him. However, this ends the titular nightmare. When George wakes, he retaliates by paddling the (mostly) guiltless Ginger. Some readers might have deemed this belated revenge for the many times she humiliates him and doesn’t get punished.
This story might indeed be deemed an example of syndromic sadism, since it does really lay on the “humiliate daddy” tropes, if only in the author's belief that this was what the audience for GINGER wanted to see. However, it doesn’t succeed as a mythcomic. It might do so if it were built only around George’s aggravations about Ginger’s sartorial needs, or only around George’s chauvinistic attitude toward women. But here the two tropes fight each other rather than complementing one another, and even the element of the Satanic salesman doesn’t enhance the story’s symbolic discourse.
No comments:
Post a Comment