Posted by Amanda Marcotte October 24, 2007 in Uncategorized, Crime, Assholes
Look, asshole who wrote this: Rape is not some sort of over-enthusiastic flirting. It’s a violent crime, usually motivated by power and control issues and a hefty dose of misogyny. In many cases, rapists actually target elderly women because they perceive them as especially vulnerable. Melissa and Jessica have more.
35 Responses to “Rape, still not a compliment”
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The post opened slowly on my computer, and I couldn’t scroll down immediately to see if there were further panels where he was writhing around on the floor while she explained that the pepper spray was to repel people who say idiotic things.
Uh…what about muggers and such? Do they not target old women because their not attractive?
Wow, what a stupid asshole.
The asshole is Tom Batuik, the comic is Crankshaft, and he also draws and writes Funky Winkerbean. This isn’t in his defense, but Crankshaft is supposed to be a hideous human being without a drop of kindness. Sure, it’s in terribly bad taste, but so is killing off a character deployed to Iraq with an IED and later revealing that it was a video game, presumably ending a long and unpleasant cancer storyline with a healthy prognosis that later turned out to be a case of mixed-up charts, etc. Batuik is somewhat infamous for an increasingly negative outlook and a confrontational stance toward his readers.
The Comics Curmudgeon regularly features Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean as recipients of opprobrium. Just for some background.
I love when newspaper comics (which are designed to be stupid, thoughtless, all-ages trash*) are deeply, deeply offensive once in a while.
I wonder if the Family Circus will pull something like this. And Grandpa smiles from heaven.. aw!
*Bloom County excluded!!
“And Grandpa smiles from heaven.. aw!”
haah!, my laugh for the day ;p
This is a very stupid thing, but Crankshaft does say and do a lot of stupid things.
But as for Crankshaft not having a drop of human kindness? He promised scholarship money to every single one of the Rough Riders (he’s a school bus driver, and they were wanna-be and sometimes real toughs he was given the route for) who made it through high school and wanted further education.
The comic strip mixes good and bad a lot.
That’s no excuse. The character’s not mixing good and bad. He’s being an ignorant pig.
There are arguments on the other blogs like “oh, this is just like Archie Bunker saying his stupid things, ha ha” and “Oh, the writer’s setting us up for a Very Special Crankshaft”. Bollocks. The writer’s a pig. I don’t care if it’s a setup for a new effing charity for elderly rape victims. The strip stands on its own and the writer is a pig.
This is a very stupid thing, but Crankshaft does say and do a lot of stupid things.
I’m all for using ignorant people to shine a light on bigotry, But that’s not what Batuik is doing here. Yes, ‘Shaft is a curmudgeon in the grand Bunker tradition, but Archie Bunker worked because Archie got shot down; his bigotry got exposed for what it was. Not so with ‘Shaft.
I do recommend going to The Comics Curmudgeon and seeking out posting on both Crankshaft and Funky Cancercancer. At the very least, you’ll realize that Batuik is a no-talent hack, which is something.
Yeah, Crankshaft is an anti-hero, but we’re supposed to laugh at his assholery, in an “ain’t-it-the-truth” way. He’s supposed to say things we’re too polite to say. He’s almost never there to be laughed at, a la Bucky Katt.
And I’m just sure this is the beginning of some maudlin PSA on how elderly women get raped, too. Doesn’t excuse this strip for being an offensive load of apples.
Anyone who compares this to any Berkely Breathed cartoons is living a freaking lie, IMHO.
Funky Winkerbean was washed up when I was a child. And I am ooooold.
But now why on earth would an older woman carry pepper spray? Clearly muggers respect our elders. As do rapists. Because they respect everyone. Excuse me while I take out my dentures to vomit all over my Depends. Assholes.
And I’m just sure this is the beginning of some maudlin PSA on how elderly women get raped, too. Doesn’t excuse this strip for being an offensive load of apples.
Nope. Next day’s cartoon is school bus tomfoolery.
Well, damn. At least none of those hate letters to the syndicate were written in vain.
“You can probably stop carring the pepper spray.”
Tell that to the relatives of Edith Mecalla who was recently raped and murdered at the tender age of 99.
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=202863
“Uh…what about muggers and such? Do they not target old women because their not attractive?”
Yeah, even if you generously assume they’re not implying sexual assault because the comics page generally doesn’t go that route, it’s not like the elderly aren’t routinely targeted by every other sort of criminal, from the violent to the con-artists, due to perceived vulnerability.
Is there a follow-up comic? The story arc can save this particular load of assholery, or it can bury it. I hope she grabs the spray and gives him a dose of it, but I’m sure the whole thing would then turn out to be a dream.
And since I work in a prison, here’s a relevant no-fun fact: some of the inmates in some lockdown units get so used to pepper spray that they remain able to attack and defend. So a seasoned rapist (is that an awful pun?) may need a bit more to defend against. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, self-defense-minded citizens!
The next panel, in a rational universe would have her pulling a pistol on the old bastard.
While we’re on the subject of cartoons, Ruben Bolling has a good one today in Salon about the new gay stereotype - “• middle aged • married • conservative • ‘family values’.”
Very funny.
Is it any wonder I have subscriptions to Universal Features and United Media for my comic addiction, and nothin’ for King?
King’s creative stable isn’t fit for anyone under 65 or with one gram or more of brains.
Djur:
Then it’s time for him to quit and make room for some people with real talent of the McGruder variety. Funky Winkerbean has never, ever been even mildly entertaining; and Crankshaft was pointless drivel a decade ago.
On the one hand, the comment is dumbass stupid to assume that rape is somehow a validation targeting the young and beautiful and deluded to presume that most of the population lives for this “validation”.
OTOH its ignorance of the scope of rape is so vast as to render the author’s ignorance almost excusable. Almost.
When I worked at a “women’s clinic” — later changed to Family Clinic — (back in college, back in the day) our 24 hr. hot line was a dumping ground for issues that weren’t just the wimmins’ problems but girls’, boys and men’s problems too.
It served the community’s priss-factor to sweep them to the women’s aisle and then complain “officially” that we were the troublemakers responsible for insidiously coarsening society via our community townhall meetings. (Damn us for foiling the genteel bake sale planning!)
I’ll never forget taking a call one night (when I was doing a shift on the helpline) when someone called in needing to talk about being raped.
My role was simply to keep callers on the line, calm them and let them know what/not to do and that psych, medical and legal help was available to them immediately. What was heart-rending about this particular call was that it was a male rape victim pretending to be a woman simply to access rape-crisis help.
I have to say, I didn’t immediately think “rape” with the pepper spray, I thought “mugging.” Which makes it doubly (triply?) stupid since the assumption seems to be that elderly people don’t get mugged. What, the muggers are too polite to target the elderly and make sure that they only attack people their own age?
What a tool.
That’s the kind of thinking that’s gotten us where we are today. That cartoonist needs to be schooled about sexual violence.
Here’s another story about senior citizen rape (I’m stoopid about html linking, so cut and paste plzkthx)
http://www.lcsun-news.com/fastsearchresults/ci_7253814
For those asking, nope, the next day’s cartoon was not a follow-up. As Jeff said, it was school bus tomfoolery, but better than that: it was racist school bus tomfoolery. Alas.
Here is my post on that disgusting strip.
If you enjoy a funny comic, I recommend “Candorville” by Darrin Bell. Amusing and it has people of color as the main characters. Shocking, I know.
2nd on “Candorville”.
Frazz and Betty too. And for really , webcomic “Sinfest”. Now THAT’s …. challenging sometimes.
Calvin & Hobbes still rules 12 years after it ended…my first serious exposure to gender issues probably came from Susie’s interactions with Calvin.
Zits is the closest thing to a worthy successor to C&H (some of the characters even look like successors, and the respective authors were friends through Kenyon College and started their careers as rival political columnists for the Cincy Enquirer.)
Ugh. Why is it that people are so intent nowadays on proving the accuracy of the “feminists have no sense of humor” stereotype?
Not a great comic. Not funny. NOT worth savaging Tom Batiuk over less than two weeks after he killed off a decades-old character in Funky Winkerbean after a long and sensitively written battle with breast cancer. (The current strip has all the characters wearing Making Strides T-shirts, for crying out loud.) Can we not pick our battles?
Batiuk should have his hand slapped, but was this a genuine affront? No, it was a miscalculation. The Crankshaft character says nasty and insensitive things all the time, and this time he said something genuinely inappropriate. How angry do we really have to get about it?
“How angry do we really have to get about it?”
The man has spoken, girlies. We’re just silly for being angry. Whhhee! Thanks for clearing that up.
Can I giggle in girlish compliance, Mike? Would that be acceptable to you, oh great manly man lord?
Try being raped sometime and “pick your battle” then, Mike.
It’s. not. funny. It’s. offensive. on. many. levels. If. you. were. a. woman. maybe. that. would. sink. in.
But, since you’re not, it’s UNIMPORTANT to you. Fine. But how much effort does it take to STFU when you KNOW it’s important to women…oh, wait. It’s Just Women’s Special Girly Sensitivity.
Honestly. I might as well be reading an MRA site’s comments. “Pick your battles, it’s just the character speaking”. Nonsense. The writer went too far (and inadvertently reinforced the idiotic stereotypical ideas instead of refuting them). Period.
Ugh. Why is it that people are so intent nowadays on proving the accuracy of the “feminists have no sense of humor” stereotype?
If your definition of “sense of humor” is “laugh at something distinctly unfunny to preserve the egos of men who hate you anyway”, then no, I don’t have a sense of humor.
I define “sense of humor” as “amusement and pleasure in the humorous”. And in fact, I’d argue that the feminine requirement at laughing at the distinctly unfunny—the one that you’re putting on me—is an insult to the concept of humor.
So fuck you for trying to take away my sense of humor. I value humor much too highly to pander to make your ass feel better. Your definition of humor that encompasses this cartoon is a kind of humor that is no humor at all, and I say to you sir, get a sense of humor. And quit feeding stereotypes about the over-privileged know-nothings with no real humor and no soul who cackle at Family Circus because you’re so broken inside you wouldn’t know a good joke if it bit you on the ass.
I second “ace” on Calvin & Hobbes. The best newspaper strip of all time, ever, period.
…at least since Pogo.
I always like to be lectured on my sense of humor by Funky Winkerbean fans.