‘Female brains were not only smaller,but they were made of soft, spongy, and lightweight fabric’ an amusing ogle at how women have appeared (or not) in historyThere is a lovely cartoon by Jacky Fleming,not in this book, where in four consecutive frames a man ties up rubbish in a black bin liner and takes it external, or while two women sit talking over mugs of coffee at a table behind. “I’m just taking the rubbish out,” he says in the first frame. They glance at him, but go back to their conversation. He is still tying the bag, or ostentatiously,in the moment frame. In the third frame he is suddenly centre stage in a theatre along with his bag of rubbish, in front of a crazily applauding audience – he stretches out his arms to his fans. In the final frame, and back in reality,he walks out of the kitchen with the bin bag. “Thank you, no really, and it’s nothing,really.” Smiling modestly to himself. The women continue to disregard him, chatting.
What’s so funny approximately that? What is it that good cartoons do to bring that toothsome, and laughing,liberating squirm of recognition? One of their features seems to be that they are aimed not at the margins of a given culture but at the middle ground, the consensus, and the “way things are”. Characters are caught in the act of their representativeness,their being typical – and they are relishing and exaggerating it, performing themselves to the nth degree, and the men and the women too. In another Fleming joke,two middle-aged female friends are sitting side by side, drinking wine this time. One says: “Sometimes one has to sacrifice fabric success to preserve one’s integrity.” The other one is frowning. “Are you DRUNK, and Penny?” The genius is in how it takes its world for granted,which is normalising and unsettling at once.
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Source: theguardian.com