From: jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey)
Subject: Re: How would you do it? (Was re: Family Circus)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 92 03:43:53 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.045316.22819@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> dxf12@po.CWRU.Edu (Douglas Fowler) writes:
>
>In a previous article, jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) says
>
>>One of the best things I've ever heard about the Family Circus was a comment
>>made in a Cleveland newspaper readers' poll on comic strips (from sometime
>>in either January or March of 1990), wherein one reader wrote [slightly
>>paraphrased]:  "I'd like to see all those obnoxious oval-headed kids shot,
>>disembowled, and thrown into the Cuyahoga. And don't even ask me what I'd
>>like to see happen to those stupid gremlins!"
>
>     First of all, I'm sure this was in jest - that would clearly be abusive.

	I'm not sure what you mean by it being in jest.  This really was what
someone wrote.  The newspaper printed it--  I didn't make it up.  As for
whether the person actually wanted to see the oval-heads eviscerated--
I'm sure that [s]he probably did not-- but I think the whole point of his/her
comment was _to be_ abusive.  

>However, what is so obnoxious about them.  True, the gremlin stuff is BORING,
>& - as I said in my letter to him - he needs new "cute kid stuff" material  But
>cute, lovable kids are far from obnoxious.  They are an ideal.

	I don't want to shock you, but the whole "ideal kids" concept and the
idea of a strip devoted to nothing but "cute kid stuff" IS obnoxious--  
actually, a better word would probably be "nauseating".  It's sort of like
watching the Brady Bunch, the Sound of Music, and Leave It to Beaver all
at once while eating a bowl of Lucky Charms on which you have added extra
sugar.  

>  Hey, I was
>a great kid, maybe I grew up sheltered but I just haven't seen really bad
>kids until recently (except for the occasional tease at school - I did get
>teased a lot.)  I think they are like me in that they are ideal kids - maybe
>sort of like "Leave it to Beaver." 

	Yes, well I'm sure we're all glad that you take pride in having been
an "ideal kid."  I'm going to resist the ad hominum attack that your line
about being "teased a lot" really invites, especially following your 
assertion about being just like the children in the Family Circus and from
Leave it to Beaver.

> Maybe Mr. Keane doesn't know how to handle
>bad kids in a strip, but I'll tell you one thing it shows me:  Treat your
>kids with respect, love, and compassion, and they'll be a little ornery at
>times, but they *will* generally get along and they *will* respect you and
>others!  Maybe that's what he's trying to teach.

	Any pop psychologist will tell you the same thing.  This isn't 
particularly profound insight on Keane's part.
	
>     Would you rather see cute, well-behaved kids or unruly ones?  Which do
>you want your kids to be like?  Keane is telling us that through love, we can
>have good kids.

	Well, since we're talking about a comic strip/cartoon--  I've got
to say that I much prefer unruly kids to well-behaved ones.  Why?  Because
"well-behaved" kids aren't FUNNY!  When I read the comics, I want to be 
entertained, I want to laugh, I want to be amused.  Look at the great
popularity which Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) and Jason (from Foxtrot)
have among the readers of this newsgroup.  They are unruly and mischievous
to the nth degree--  and they are funny!  And, these strips do have their
occasional cute/tender moments as well--  but the important thing is that
they're not a bunch of sentimenal and gooey "cute kid stuff"-- they are
geniuinely funny.  If I want to hear cliches like "through love, we can
have good kids," I'll turn on any afternoon talk show or pick something out
of the psychology section at an airport bookstore.

>     Okay, how would *you* change it?  I'm challenging you to come up with
>ways to improve it.  How would you change it? Admittedly, it's hard to do just
>1 panel and have it be cute all the time - maybe that's it's problem.  Mr.
>Keane could do that when it was his kids, and they were saying and doing
>cute things all the time.  Maybe that's part of the problem; he needs new
>material.  I've admitted that all along.   But I don't see how a person can
>say such an abusive thing and not come up with ways to improve.

	How would I change the Family Circus?  I'd cancel it.  Or maybe, I'd
give it over to Jason Fox to do.  I really think that you're missing the 
point of a lot of the hostility that a lot of people have to this strip. I
don't think it's just a question of new material--  I think it has to do
with the sweet syrupy "cute kid stuff" in the ideal family tone of the 
whole thing.  It's sickeningly sugar-coated and that's what makes the strip
so unpalatable to so many.  (Though the rehashing of the same six or seven
ideas is pretty annoying  . . .)  It has nothing to do with the formal arrange-
ment of the strip (I really don't think that moving from one to two or
three panels, as you propose in your follow-up article, would change a
thing.)  Rather it's the whole theme of the strip that annoys me and so many
others.  

	And quite obviously, there are a number of people who like the Family
Circus.  You're one.  My grandmother is another.  Some people really like that
oh-so-sweet "cute kid stuff."  I don't, and most of the people I know don't
either.  Any changes that would be made would probably not cause anyone who
vehemently despises the strip to come to appreciate it.  I suspect that the 
changes that would need to be made before people like me, people like the 
Cleveland critic, people like those who have been slamming the strip on this
group, would like the strip would cause it to cease to be recognizable as 
The Family Circus, thus alienating all of the people who do like to see strips
about "ideal families" and "cute kid stuff." 


	In short, just because many people think the strip is terrible doesn't
mean Keane should try and change it to please us--  we probably still wouldn't
like it.  And just because we don't think it can be changed to become more
pleasing to us doesn't mean that we shouldn't want to vent our hatred of it.

	--  Jim Chokey <jchokey@leland.stanford.edu>
	  

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