So I watched a few episodes of "Wander over Yonder" on the sovereign recommendation that Bad Horse didn't like it · 5:04pm Aug 21st, 2016
Predictably, I did. It didn't change my life but it was alright. It's a solid Craig McCracken property: snappy, hip and colorful--the way nerds wish they were, and sometimes pretend to be (but only around other nerds who'll let them get away with it). So what's not for me to like?
By far the most interesting thing about the show is its protagonist...
"Who is Sylvia, what is she?"--William Shakespeare
Wait, what? Isn't Wander the protagonist--you know, that guy who looks like the dirty hippy cousin of Gidney and Cloyd, the aliens from Rocky & Bullwinkle?
"Why don't you get a haircut and get a real job?"--George Thorogood
No, of course Sylvia's the protagonist. Just as the protagonist of Huckleberry Finn isn't Huckleberry Finn, an engaging but useless boy who (literally) goes with the flow and ends up no wiser, but rather Jim, the escaped slave, the capable adult who cares for Huck and rescues Huck and cleans up after Huck (but as a free man so it's all okay, right?).
So with Sylvia. Because all Wander does, all he ever wants to do, is to run around picking his banjo and get round the table with ISIS make friends with terroristic despots who want to enslave/destroy everything they can reach. Sylvia spends half her time trying to keep him from the consequences of this lifestyle choice (i.e. getting captured by said despots), and the other half dealing with those consequences (i.e., rescuing him from same).
Of course, Sylvia is female and she does spend all her time and energy looking after a male character who is completely irresponsible, contributes nothing but goodwill toward their shared existence and in fact causes her more toil and trouble than she'd encounter on her own. But it's all okay because she's not an actual woman, you know? She's just this...half-dragon...half-pony...hybrid who somehow knows how to be a Number One Assistant as well as a lot about Generosity...
"Keep talking, bro. I like where this is going."
...and anyway, it's not like a kid's cartoon could be expected to address how women should deal with men who won't pull their weight...
...right?
Okay, I'm sure you've figured out where I'm going with all this. No, I'm not saying Wander over Yonder is evil or that you should hate it. What I am saying is that Sylvia's relationship with Wander is...problematic. Because for all her ass-kicking and hell-raising and girl-power attitude, Sylvia is really just...
Now I've come to realize that The Giving Tree is a much more complex book than is commonly understood. But that common understanding is flawed. It is that the character of The Giving Tree, being an example of unconditional love (true), is thus an absolute good (uh...) and therefore a proper role-model (false), especially for young children (hoo boy). To which my response is: "Do you want your girl to grow to be The Giving Tree? Do you want your boy to grow up expecting any 'she' in his life to be The Giving Tree?" Sylvia's relationship with Wander reflects this attitude: she, the female, gives and gives and gives, not just love but substance, time and effort; the male, in return, gives nothing but affection interspersed with trouble. It's a great theme for a blues song, but for a kids' cartoon? I know the toyvertainment industry can do better, because it has (see supra, "Flutter Brutter").
Look, in a world where women have to deal with rape, abuse, and criminal or terrorist organizations that want to capture and trade them as literal slaves like Jim, supporting deadbeat man-children can seem like a relatively minor problem. But it's a widespread and persistent problem and it's an unnecessary burden on women who could otherwise be doing that much more for themselves and for society. Plus it's just not fucking fair.
How do I know this? Because I know plenty of Wanders. Some are longtime friends of mine.
They're nice guys. So nice. They never do a do-able thing you could condemn. They're not abusive to their wives/girlfriends. They don't cheat. They don't gamble or do drugs or drink. They don't credit-card the rent away. But they also don't hold jobs, or at least not jobs that earn anything more than pin money. They don't clean house. They don't cook. They just put in their 20 hours a week teaching at the community college for shit pay and no bennies, then come home and go to their amateur martial-arts or horseback-riding practice and blog about classic movies and keep up the household's status in whatever geek subculture they met their wives/girlfriends in, while those same wives/girlfriends grind away at the 9-to-5 to make rent.
I know I'm differentiating between the deserving needy and the undeserving needy, which is anathema to good progressives. But I'm a lifelong conservative so I have no problem with calling a deadbeat a deadbeat. It's just that these deadbeats are my friends. Which makes our friendship...problematic.
("Problematic" is a word kids use nowadays when they mean to say "My ideals tell me I should hate this but I'm not gonna 'cause I like it." It's great for wriggling out of the obligations of one's beliefs. Thanks, kids!)
I can't dislike these friends though they have a problem that invites dislike. And I wouldn't ask anyone to do what I can't. So I can't ask anyone to dislike Wander over Yonder. Despite its one big dislikable problem it's still a fun, funny and sometimes affecting cartoon, with the occasional awe-inspiring moment of absurdity that you'd get if--oh, say, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil wrote a musical:
"You gentlemen can gawk..."
(BTW Bad Horse, I think we found your waifu)
And Wander is charming (though I still can't get over the fact that his voice is the Warden's from Superjail) and Sylvia is great--warmhearted, strong, cool and nonjudgemental. The mom you wish you had: the Good Mom, as opposed to, y'know, a good mom.
But then--well, you should read this feminist critique of the new movie Bad Moms. It's not what you might expect from an actual, professional-grade feminist scholar. The author notes that the movie makes a point, and it's a point that needs to be made to both women and men because it can benefit them both--but only if the both work at it:
Early in the movie, we’ve seen Kunis lugging a paper mache bust of Nixon’s head, her son’s history project, done by her hands. As she descends into bad momness — into benign neglect — she not only fails to make him breakfast, but she also doesn’t do his science project for him, and he complains bitterly.
Kunis kneels down to meet his eyes. She tells him that she knows he is disappointed that she’s stopped doing his work for him, but that he has to learn to do things on his own, and for himself. He wants to know why, and her answer is simple:
“Because if you don’t, you’ll grow up to be an entitled a—— who treats women poorly.”
Well from your lips to Disney's ear, Professor Feminist Scholar.
I guess what I'm really saying here is: don't we have enough Wanders in the world? And: shouldn't we be steering our kids away from becoming Giving Trees, and the Boys they enable?
Well, actually we are. And like all necessary work, women seem to have done more than their share.
Thank you for yours, Ms Faust.
What I'm basically hearing here is Sylvia needs a good old fashioned blues ballad ala Ethel Waters.
4163152
Hm...I know somebody...
Speaking of music, I was struck by the resemblance of "I'm the Bad Guy" to "The Black Freighter"--and specifically to the Steeleye Span arrangement.
Is Lord Dominator really Pirate Jenny?
Lord Dominator's song there is pretty damn awesome. And yeah, she's definitely the Bad Guy (or, well, Girl).
Ed, I-I thought...
...I thought w-w-we had s-something, you know,
special.
It's okay I still love you.
And this is a good point about the show I never realized.
unrelated:
Wander's everpresent optimism is pretty inspiring if a bit naive.
Also unrelated:
yes, "I'm the bad guy" is great.
4163418
Relax. I simply think that, no, America is not at fault every time we're attacked.
Also, people need to take care of themselves because seriously, you do not want somebody else doing it.
And aside from that, leave folks alone.
My dad and I sometimes say we're the last Whigs.
4163431 Could it be?!
Are you a...
Moderate Republican??!?!?!?!
I miss Eisenhower.
4163442
No. I think Andrew Johnson should be impeached.
Didn't Lauren Faust leave FiM in part to make "Wander Over Yonder?"
4163456
I dunno. Did she?
I think that the Layabout Problem is that a lot of... how do I call it? Lifestyle propaganda, I guess, has been relentlessly about finding yourself, about taking time for yourself, putting your needs first, finding enlightenment and some agreeable endarkenment too. The popular figure of fun has forever been the hapless salaryman, turning a massive cog somewhere for no discernible purpose: a caricature of a human being seen through hostile eyes—pointless toil for pointless reward, no self actualization, no purpose, life stretching ahead like a shroud. Oh, sure, hard work is dead sexy in the media but only if it is some prestigious fancy thing and it brings success or advanced coolth. Work that just makes the rent? Death sentence.
The layabout is what happens when people grow up with this view of the world.
The giving tree, however, happens due to, really, an is/ought mixup. Girl power dictates that girls can do anything and it is but a short leap from here to conclude that girls ought to do everything.
4163431
" America is not at fault every time we're attacked"
It's not at fault any time it is attacked.
When It attacks other people—even when shouting "Stop resisting! Stop resisting," however...
4163474
I'm not sure I agree with this. I think from the woman's side, it's a holdover: for a long time there's been the meme of woman as "civilizing influence" on men, the idea that all men would be either cavemen or shiftless dreamers if a Good Woman didn't come along and make them want curtains and clean dishes and life insurance. And add to that that nurturing is a part of how women are raised/wired for baby raising reasons, it's easy to get women to feel like making a guy grow up is their job.
And the thing is, this actually works a lot of the time. Most guys I know who are responsible adults got that way when a woman came along who told them beer is not a food group or a retirement plan. But it can be hard for a woman to recognize when it isn't happening and cut her losses. And that's The Giving Tree problem (and also, with the caveman-variety man, the cause of a lot of domestic abuse.)
4163494
Sorry, I should have been more definite. Yes, all that you say is true (also clever & incisively put) but the traditional path is to demand the man go and get a job. Women were not supposed to do aught but be that civilizing influence[1], hence this vast extension of the duties a Giving Tree woman sees as her own.
[1] What's that insufferably twee Dickens phrase? "The ministering angel of domestic bliss," I think.
4163502
I think the role that plays is making it even more difficult to know when it's time to cut and run. In the past, a guy who didn't shape up and support himself and/or his family would be an embarrassment on every level-- only the most stubborn women or martyrs would stay with a man like that. But the first part of your original post explains why society now find this acceptable, and your Girl Power theory gives women the tools to enable it for a lot longer while hoping something is going to change someday.
4163510
Agreed.
4163494
4163474
Yeah see that's the thing, It wasn't always like th---
Okay forget I said anything.
"Give him your hand today and save the fist for after..."
4163451 Doesn't everybody?
4163418 Probably a little more Moderate Libertarian. We have this goal of taking over the power structure of the US in order to ruthlessly leave you alone⁽*⁾.
4163502 Behind every great man is a woman. Pushing.
4163494 As a man who 'married up' to a wonderful woman (without which I would be an unhappy farmer who dropped out of college instead of my current successful career) I believe that men can change, but only if they *want* to change and are given incentive.
(Every time I hear the Dems talk about 'contributions' I wonder why they feel the urge to put me in jail if I don't cough up the dough. Every time I hear the Repubs talk about 'tax cuts' I wonder if I'll be able to buy a hamburger with the results.)
4163656 see, I think the top tax bracket should be 90% for people making $4 million or more per year. Being a utilitarian, my reasoning for very progressive tax rate is that the mount of unhappiness someone gets from having $400,000 a year to spend instead of several million is much smaller than the amount of happiness we can produce by using that money for bettering the lives of the poor and despondent.
4163701 We had a tax rate like that at one time. It failed on multiple levels. The reason it failed is that somebody being paid a million-dollar salary is *worth* that money to the company (or at least in theory). Nobody paid the 90% rate because before anybody got to that level, they promptly engaged in a game of 'Hide The Money' until Uncle Sam didn't get nearly what was promised. The Laffer Curve (which is quite accurate despite the screaming and wailing of the 'soak the rich' crowd) says once you go over a certain tax rate, every fraction further you go, you bring in less revenue *and* the economy slows, which reduces both wealth and other tax revenue. Personally, I think if 10% is good enough for God, 20% should be more than enough for the government.
And this does (round-about) feed back into the Wander Over Yonder question. One of the downsides of the 90% bracket was film stars would do one film a year and stop, no matter how much money was offered them. Wander can be considered much like one of them. He's made his effort for the year, and now gets to pursue the goal of bringing happiness and friendship to everybody. Working makes no sense because he would not get to keep any of his rewards. Spreading fun is the goal. (Hm... I'm undermining my own argument)
4163502
4163510
Well, the modern version of the trope is nothing more than a gender-inverted version of an older comedy trope. Sometimes the same show even does both, such as in The Looney Tunes Show, where Lola is a total anchor on poor Bugs while Daffy is an anchor on Tina (and Bugs' own relationship to Daffy is similarly long-suffering friend supporting someone who doesn't have their shit together, but both are guys).
In their defense, it can be a funny trope, because people like watching others suffer.
The problem is when people use comedy as a guide for how to live their lives. That's how you end up with /pol/.
4163732
4163701
Studies indicate that the US tax rate is actually below the point of diminishing returns, though 90% is well above it.
Extremely high rates lead to other unpleasant consequences - Sweden did something similar to this, and the problem was that it essentially made business capital unsellable. But the thing is, because it was unsellable, that meant it stayed in the hands of the old noble families because no one else could buy it and no one else could rise up to the same level. The result is a "egalitarian society" where the noble families still own everything and have all the power that comes with it, leaving them as a permanent overclass which is extremely difficult to challenge.
I don't begrudge rich people making money, though I do think that they need to pay more because they benefit the most of anyone from having a stable society (after all, we who have the most also have the most to lose). I am, however, in favor of very high estate taxes; I don't like nobility.
Let the church say Amen.
I've missed the comment train here, so I'll just leave this:
It's also always refreshing to find another conservative hiding out on here. Sometimes I forget I'm not alone!
4163732
That sounds wonderful. Film stars aren't especially good actors; they're especially popular actors. Share the popularity.