I fail to see the relevance. When he does a purely political strip - like this week, where he imagines a liberal’s fantasy of what a “Republican sensitivity training” session would look like (all participants chauvinistic troglodytes, only answer to their problems is to switch to the leftist position on various political issues) - or when he uses his media characters (Mark Slackemeyer, Roland Hedley, Rick Redfern) as political mouthpieces, he’s predictable and boring. When he’s using his characters as people in situations the illustrate some social or political phenomenon, Doonesbury is interesting and/or fun to read.
I thought this week’s strips were quite relevant. It’s certainly satire to suggest that all Republicans are chauvinistic troglodytes, but the last time I looked the strip is satirical in nature. The Republicans have been shedding minority and women voters for years, not because of a few poorly-chosen words by a few candidates, but because they can’t articulate a policy program that reaches out to these voters. There has been lots of talk about “outreach” but it’s pretty much public relations.
That’s what these strips have been about. If that’s not funny to you, then it’s not funny to you. But Doonesbury or no, the most popular humor outlets, whether it’s The Daily Show or The Onion or the editorial cartoons, lean left because “punching down,” i.e. making fun of the powerless, poor, and disenfranchised, is at best perceived as not funny and at worst as cruel.
I meant I didn’t see the relevance of the stories of BD, Mel and Toggle as a rebuttal to those who see the strip as purely liberal, i.e., what Dewey Finn was trying to point out up-thread.
I’m not saying that it can’t be funny to make fun of Republicans. (Although I have a hard time seeing Democrats as powerless, poor or disenfranchised at the moment.) I’m saying that the way Garry Trudeau was doing it in this week’s Doonesbury (and quite frankly, for pretty much the last dozen years or so) was the comic strip equivalent of an ethnic joke where the punch line is simply, “Ha ha, those people are stupid.” The OP seemed to think the 12/27/2013 Doonesbury strip was particularly funny, and I, a long-time Doonesbury reader, don’t see that.
I agree that Democrats aren’t particularly powerless, poor, or disenfranchised at the moment. But in parts of the country, women, the poor, and minorities are more disenfranchised than they have been in a while.
While Republicans (like those lampooned in the strip) brainstorm PR campaigns to convince America that they want to attract black and hispanic voters, their cohorts in Republican-controlled states are passing restrictive voter ID laws, reducing the number of precincts (and voting machines) in urban areas, restricting weekend and after-hours voting, all in the name of reducing voter fraud (while most admit that absentee ballots, which are the most ripe for fraud, are untouchable since they are used by more white voters.
They claim they want the youth vote but they support laws restricting college students from voting where they go to school (they can’t use college IDs to vote, but they can use their NRA membership cards).
In Texas, the new voter ID laws are targeted at women as well, who now have to have at their fingertips every record regarding name-changes in their life (retroactively) in order to legally vote. This right after joining several other Republican states in passing laws effectively closing most women’s clinics altogether, while requiring “cooling-off” periods and invasive ultrasounds of women who still want to end an unwanted pregnancy (Trudeau, in a great series, coined the phrase “shaming wand”).
But I’m sure he would be much more relevant if he drew strips lampooning critics of the banking system, or attacking the oppressors of Phil Robinson, or hell, the oppressors of white men in general. They are the real victims in America.
It was a reference to Garry Trudeau’s own twins that are about 20 now. He keeps reaching into the past for material rather than commenting upon current events as he used to do when the strip had relevance.
I will elaborate a little more about my disappointment with Doonesbury.
The strip used to provide biting social commentary and humorous editorial political satire. No administration was exempted. So much so that my local paper moved the strip from the comic page to the editorial page many, many years ago.
So where it the editorial satire now? He is attempting to make commentary about wounded vets without attacking the administration that is continuing the wars. He has said very little about Guantanamo, NSA spying or most any of the carry-over policies of the previous administration. And the current President’s policies are little different from his predecessor.
The Obama administration is ripe for poking at with a stick, but he seems afraid to do so. So what we get are 20 something issues about the first world problems of being underemployed with a PhD and darn it, the difficulties of raising kids.
He is just afraid to use his political satire skills on the current administration and as a result, the strip has lost it’s political mojo. Garry’s age is showing.
Dallas Jones: re twins, ah! I hadn’t known that. Neat. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with using life-experiences as basis for story-telling. It’s the first time the “twins” thing has appeared in the strip, so it isn’t recycling old jokes.
(Zipper, Zonker’s protege, is recycling.)
I’ll just shout-out to another comic strip that mixes political observations with character-driven story-telling: Tank McNamara. Still as funny today as it was when it first appeared – 39 years ago! (Lordy, I feel old!) Everything I know about sports, I learned from Tank.
To Trudeau’s credit, this could all have gone in a Funky Winkerbean direction very easily and it never did.
I’ve been very disappointed with some of GBT’s choices in the past, but right now he is the best on the comics page. (Is that damning him with faint praise? Doonesbury, Dilbert and Tom the Dancing Bug are the only readable strips going on these days.)
What you are saying is wrong. Trudeau is still covering current political issues. They might not be the issues you’d like to see him covering but that’s not your claim.
Now if you want to claim Trudeau has a liberal bias or isn’t funny, those are subjective opinions and you can say what you like. But claiming Trudeau is not covering issues more current than the Vietnam War is objectively not true.
Aside from Tank McNamara, how many of those appear in print dailies? I’m sure there are some brilliant web comics out there, but getting into print means clearing a lot of hurdles. It’s an altogether different kind of achievement!