If you’ve watched enough comedies, you’re likely familiar with the trope of the idiot manchild.
But one of the common clichés we find paired with the idiot manchild is the disapproving girlfriend. Or wife, or friend’s wife, or boss, or mom, or some other significant female who rolls her eyes at all the shenanigans, yet loves the idiot manchild anyway. Unless she’s his mom, there’s no discernible reason for it. And when the manchild is also casting the movie, she’s ridiculously pretty; way out of the manchild’s league.
I’ve heard a lot of people complain about how utterly unrealistic these scenarios are. I hear it every time there’s a new sitcom starring an idiot manchild and his hot wife: “What’s a gorgeous woman doing with a blockhead like him? That never happens in real life.” I beg to differ. I saw it all the time in college. At Sac State there were plenty of lovely girls who had dumbass boyfriends. How’d they get together?
Simple: A combination of alcohol and fidelity. College girls learned, often the hard way, that the more attractive a college boy was, the more likely he’d cheat on her. After forswearing men altogether, they’d go to a party, get their beer goggles on, meet an actual nice guy who wasn’t conventionally attractive, and that would be the beginning of that. Sure, he had a lot of bad qualities, but he’d never, ever cheat, and that’s a really valuable commodity after you’ve been burned. You just learn to roll with the bad qualities. And roll your eyes.
It was kind of a ridiculous cliché on the Hornet staff. I’d go to parties with my fellow staff members, and meet their boyfriends. Invariably I’d discover the boyfriends were really incompatible with their girlfriends. She’d be an outspoken liberal; he’d be a paleolithic conservative. She’d be into writing and the fine arts; he’d be into sports and the Three Stooges. She’d be a devout atheist; he’d be a devout Catholic. Stuff that’d make it impossible for them to stay together after college, much less raise kids together. Some of ’em gave it a try anyway. Few lasted.
Well, now to the strip. I had Leonard go on a date, obviously. He was his usual idiot manchild self. Leonard is pure id; what I call an “inner brat” instead of an inner child (’cause I sure am), doing whatever the hell he liked, not caring a whit about consequences. And since this is a comic strip, after all, there are no consequences unless I felt like sticking with them. (Some I did, some I didn’t.) The bulk of the comedy comes from Leonard violating social convention, and the reactions, comments, and disapproval of others. Contrary to popular belief, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David didn’t invent this trope. Neither did I; don’t get the wrong idea. It’s always been around. I already name-dropped Molière, remember?
So Leonard ran amok, and the strip’s straight men, Randall and Armand, were there to comment and disapprove. Leonard’s dad was later brought in to loudly disapprove—but then again, he was a bit of a troublemaker himself. As were Sunshine, and Julian the Wonder Dog. Yeah, I’ll get to their strips eventually.
But notice how all these characters are men. Yeah, Mr. Squish was turning into a sausage fest, so I figured it was high time to put some women in the strip. The most convenient way was to introduce either a professor, sister, mom, or girlfriend. For amusement’s sake I decided upon a whole string of girlfriends. Not because Leonard was a womanizer, but because he was such a lousy date. No woman would want to put herself through that again. This was meant to be the first of many girls Leonard dated, and drove away with idiot manchild behavior.
And because these dates would never proceed beyond a single strip, I didn’t bother to give her a name. But I dropped the ball on this series, and never got around to a second girlfriend strip. So she remains the only girlfriend Leonard ever had. Still unnamed.
Sac State students at the time would recognize the setting as the Student Art Gallery. In 1990, it was basically an unsupervised room, open to the public, on the ground floor of the Art Building. Anyone could wander in, look at the exhibits, and wander out. No curators, no security cameras. I could have taken home any of the paintings, and no one would’ve noticed for at least a week. I don’t know whether it still exists, or whether anyone bothered to heighten the security. Or even needs to.
So: World’s cheapest date. Followed, no doubt, by fine dining at Del Taco.
In the Fall 1990 semester, the Student Art Gallery displayed a bunch of these “tall headless armless feetless neutered nudist” statues. The girlfriend’s interpretation, “it’s a comment on the increasing obscurity of the average person,” was just the sort of thing I figured an art nerd would say. Leonard’s interpretation was the common brain-dead “I don’t get it”—followed by no attempt to get it, ’cause he didn’t care either. As for my own personal interpretation, it’s a lot more cynical: Weirdness for weirdness’ sake. Weird gets attention. Weird sells.
The instructions on the painting in the fourth panel, “Urinate on this painting to show your appreciation,” wasn’t in the Student Art Gallery. Nor would it have been tolerated; we had enough of a public urination problem on campus as it was. The idea came from an article I’d read about an artist who invited viewers to spit on his painting. I assume it wasn’t a watercolor. Of course, I had to escalate things.
The comment Leonard left on the comments sheet was, verbatim, what I wrote when I was last in the Student Art Gallery.
Rarely did I ever get complaints about the strip’s Quote. This week I did, in the Letters section. I’m guessing it came from one of the artists on display at the Student Art Gallery. One who had no sense of humor; certainly not about himself.
I pulled this quote, and many others, from a book I received the previous Christmas, The Portable Curmudgeon. It was, and is, a great source of bitchy quotes. Al Capp, the cartoonist who invented Li’l Abner, got more and more knee-jerk conservative over the years, and his sentiment reflects that of most art-Neanderthals: “I don’t get it, so you either don’t know what you’re doing, or you’re pulling some ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ stunt to make a quick buck off the naïve.”
Artists who specialize in realism (even when they utterly lack inspiration, i.e. Thomas Kinkade) never have to hear this. But everyone else hears it all the time, and I’m sure they get tired of being accused of weirdness for weirdness’ sake. But great googly moogly, have you seen what they charge for their paintings and sculptures? And have you seen how little time and effort they put into them?
Case in point. Two years ago I attended a worship service at The Mission, a church in Vacaville. During the service, there was a woman up on stage who assaulted a canvas with fingerpaints for a half hour. This painting-during-worship fad, where you get inspired by the music and singing and Holy Spirit enthusiasm, started with the Jesus People movement, and was revived in the emergent church movement, and every so often you find it in churches which are a little free with the worship. Anywho, she splattered paint hither and yon during the music, and once she was done, in all seriousness, she tacked a $1,000 price tag on it and put it on sale in the foyer. ’Cause other artists charge even more for their meager efforts—whereas hers was inspired by the Holy Spirit. It was prophetic.
First I’ll just say I poop prettier things after swallowing Pop Rocks. And here I am just flushing it away.
Look, when I sing in church, sometimes I’m inspired by the Spirit to sing my lungs out. Doesn’t mean I have any business recording it, then trying to sell it for $50 a pop after the services. In fact, were I to do so, I’m pretty sure the proper response to my actions would be to overturn my table with a whip, like Jesus did. But that’s another rant.
The huge markup involved in art makes me tend to side with Capp. The base price for art is the cost of materials; plus the time the artist put into it, reasonably rated; plus a reasonable markup determined by supply and demand. But artists insist on two extra charges: The cost of inherent artistic value, and a monetary validation of them, the artist.
I don’t believe in inherent artistic value. A thing is not valuable by virtue of its existence. Just because I made something doesn’t mean I deserve praise and compensation for it. Need I repeat my poop joke? No.
Unless you’re creating objective art (i.e. realistic art, obvious political statements, advertising and graphic art, etc.) all art is subjective, and everybody values it differently. Charging people for it is stupid. Tipping someone for it is fine, but that means artists have no business setting the amount.
The complainer accused me of being unwilling to appreciate true creativity when I saw it. That’s a big presumption on his part: He thinks he has true creativity. I don’t. You want a headless, feetless statue? Archaeologists have dug up tons of them. Museums have made, and sell, copies of them. It’s been done. What’d he do different? Well, he splattered paint on them. Why? Weirdness for weirdness’ sake.
I couldn’t discern his message. I couldn’t tell how much he put himself into his work, other than to hack up a mannequin, cast it, and paint it. And if I can’t tell your message, you didn’t communicate it properly. That’s the very definition of bad art.
I know of whence I speak. I’ve already discussed how some of my Mr. Squish strips went over people’s heads, ’cause I foolishly went with inside jokes instead of humor everyone could get. I created bad art. I also created good art, which did get my point across, so there. Okay, so nobody wants to tip me heavily for it. Big deal.
Because the freedom of expression is sacred, too many fools think their individual expressions are saced, and they’re not. They’re welcome to try to impress others with it, and try to make a buck off it. But if I don’t care for what they’re selling, telling me I’m the problem feels more like the restaurateur who blames the public for never coming to eat his lousy food: Creation doesn’t have inherent value. I’m not obligated to appreciate it just ’cause you made it. You’re not three years old, and I’m not your dad who’s pleased your drawing of me now has the correct number of arms. Give me something I can appreciate. Try harder. Do better. Or stop bothering me; I’m obviously not your audience.