What's Mallard raving about today?
Sterilization of people with whom he disagrees, Dogs.
If Mallard cares as much about people as he does about dogs, we should be in for a series of panels regarding the President's heartless veto of S-CHIP. Anyone taking bets on whether that happens or not?
The truly remarkable thing about this week is that Mallard manages to espouse a worthwhile issue and, through sanctimony and vitriol, still come off as an intolerant asshat.
10 comments:
This time I'm totally with you, DaveyK. The "sterilization" crack, combined with the "diversity = mongrelization" parallel earlier, paints a very unsavory little picture of a goosestepping duck--and I don't mean Donald in Der Fueher's Face.
Kaitlyn totally nailed it yesterday: "Difference between Mallard and Mutts this week - Mutts isn't condemning anybody, just telling happy stories. Mallard has to have an enemy." That's so very true; even Tinsley's best moments are still based on fear and hatred posing as smug superiority.
And now he's wishing stupid people were never born. Careful what you wish for, slappy.
I think this particular strip summarizes, quite well, my two biggest complaints about MF.
1] First, there's the most obvious point that Tinsley is railing against a position held by virtually no one, anywhere.
2] Second, is the whole function of the "Chet" caricature.
Consider any good politically-oriented strip, such as Doonesbury or Prickly City. One feature they share is that characters who hold opinions with which the strip clearly disagrees will --at least occasionally-- be allowed to express a valid, reasonable point. And --again, occasionally-- characters with whom the strip usually agrees with will be called to task if/when they start acting like a dope.
Now, consider MF. Has anything like this ever happened in this strip.
Obviously, no "bad" character in Mallard World ever expresses an opinion that isn't plainly, childishly stupid. But more
to the point, consider the characters with whom MF disagrees: they are almost invariably depicted as physically repulsive, if not outright grotesque.
The single exception here is the Chet character, in which the whole point is he is absurdly --and in his own way, grotesquely-- good looking.
I've said it before but I continue to be mystified by how this strip ever got syndicated. If we came across this strip in any high school newspaper in the country would we be anything but embarrassed at the ham-handed style and the adolescent nature of the writing?
I think the grotesquitude is less to do with Tinsley making a point than it is to do with the fact that Tinsley can't draw worth a lump of camel shit.
Mallard wishes Chet was dead! Hahahaha!
Seriously, this is downright scary. In the character page, it says that if Chantel keeps stating her opinions, Mallard will "Commit Chantelicide." And isn't Mallard supposed to be in love with her or something? Do the strip's readers actually find the random killing of people who disagree with them funny?
Factinista:
Yes. Yes they do.
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/7762.html
He's summed up conservatives I don't like in a nutshell: agree or be put down or prevented from even existing.
Unfortunately, I don't dislike them enough to wish the same. Guess I picked the losing side, eh?
Ofcourse, there's another name for people who wish to wipe those whose values they find less than moral off the face of the earth.
Why can't he draw a chair?
He has a desk job!
I can't draw chairs - so I don't!
This is getting uglier by the day. And did you see today's Mutts?
He got adopted!
Chet's chin is looking more phallic by the day.
He cares about shelter dogs, the unborn, minorities exploited by liberals and human rights for people overseas, but not those who could be terrorists.
How hard is that?
It hurts my head, it does.
@dlauthor:
I'm very glad I didn't see that link on Friday, because it did considerable damage to my faith in humanity. To expand on the Douglas Adams quote one of the S,N! commenters invoked, how can this PJ object have the gall to stand there with two arms, two legs and a head as if it were human? (I wonder if it's any relation to PJ "BioDread" Jurado, the Dark Jackass of Resident Evil lemonfic.)
@NLC:
Tinsley is railing against a position held by virtually no one, anywhere.
That's another of his recurring tropes*, being for things almost nobody is actually against and against things almost nobody is actually for.
(* Along with contending that anything libruls do or support is, by definition, Bad And Wrong™ and anything Bad And Wrong™ is, by definition, something only libruls do or support.)
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