Saturday, 24 August 2024
The one where John forgets that Elly can't laugh at her own folly any more than he can.
Synopsis: It's another one of those things where it runs a panel too long. That's because John is a damn communist who can't not ruin a nice moment with a withering put-down.
Summary: Johnny Jumped-Up doesn't think that Elly's hurt feelings are funny....they're ( Read more... )
John says Elly has the same face, the same smile, the same shape. It would have been nice if Elly had actually smiled during that. Let's make a little comparison to Elly at the beginning in 1979.
The figure is similar. The jawline is similar. The "part in the middle" hairstyle is similar. Old Elly could smile, which was different. And of course the nose is very, very different.
One thing that definitely has not changed is when John takes a nice moment and destroys it with a mean and catty comment. Elly of 1995 and Elly of 1979 have almost exactly the same facial expression when John slams her appearance. Some things never change.
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Trash Bag Johnny has always had a great big problem: the self-defeating idea that the feelings of other people are a great big joke:
while he himself is a real person with real feelings:
so must never be laughed at. There is no doubt in my mind that his treating Patsy O'Connor the same shabby way that he treats Elly got his stupid ass dumped and the jabbering dupe is still trying to figure out why.
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John did not like being laughed at. Rod Johnston, on the other hand, had to get used to it coming on a regular basis.
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He also had to get used to reading the strip to see what 'nothing' was. The reason Elly/Lynn never told her husband to his face what he'd done wrong
is the sneaking fear that it actually was nothing. You might think that a woman who threw a tantrum about buying eyeglasses in bulk without calming down, apologizing or asking forgiveness has no shame but she's trying to suppress the ultimate fungus person: herself:
One would expect that her conscience is telling her that Rod might have any idea what he did and might not even have done it.....but she can't back down or she'll just get bulldozed.
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He also had to get used to reading the strip to see what 'nothing' was.
The classic part of Rod Johnston's Suddenly Silver essay was that bit. He was a man in fear of his wife.
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The best way to avoid being seen as lazy, useless and stupid is to not be lazy, useless and stupid. Last month, my sister overheard a remark praising her younger sibling and she responded "everyone's always praising her, and everyone thinks I'm a bum." I told her that my definition of a bum is someone who lives off someone else their entire life, and if the shoe fits, she seems to enjoy wearing it.
Elly is desperate to be seen as an equal partner in this relationship despite the fact that she never lived up to her side of the bargain beyond being fertile. She didn't keep a clean house, she didn't raise decent kids, she didn't provide nice meals, and above all she acted as if she was doing her husband and children an enormous favor simply by existing. The reason her marriage lasted is because her husband was ready to double-down on his bid for the title of King of the Simps, even to the point of buying her a business she could retire from 15 minutes later.
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If he would just shut his fat yap and treat people with the respect that he would arrogate to himself, he wouldn't be in his self-generated world of no-win situations. We find that out Wednesday.
I do not support his tomfoolery or sympathize with him in any way. His default belief that having to respect the feelings of others is a cruel imposition inflicted upon him by those who would cancel him tells me that he was damn lucky to get married in the first place. Someone like him is bound to wonder why other people are reluctant to do stuff he fears. We'll see that Monday.
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A dangerous comic strip for John. What is in Elly's nature is to be violent.
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What's also in her nature is to not apologize. If she does that, she''ll never be able to defend herself.
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"Sometimes, a guy gets to thinking- maybe if I left my wife, I could find someone who let me get a good night's sleep instead of treating me like someone who can sleep late any time I want to and keeps me up with obnoxious, pointless questions with no good answers."
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Sometimes I get the feeling that Rod Johnston probably enjoyed those evenings when Lynn Johnston was doing an all-nighter in order to meet her deadline. He probably slept great those evenings.
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John reveals in this strip that he knows damn well that there's no Right Answer to Elly's ridiculous question. He's being as polite as possible in saying what translates to "what I really want is to just go to sleep, because I have to get up tomorrow and go to work."
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A romantic dinner with your husband, and your every thought is "I look great." Yeah, this is super-healthy.
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She almost seems to deserve John.
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