Andy Comic Books #20

            The comic I chose to read and analyze for this week’s blog post came from Ace Comics, a comic book series, published by David McKay Publications between 1937 and 1949 – right before the golden age of Comic Books began. Andy Comics number 20, the specific comic I decide to read this week tells the story of Andy and his friends in town coming together and fighting back after the girls in the town decided to change their outfits. The “New Look” that the girls in town are wearing is very similar to the one that the guys in the town traditionally wear. This new look wasn’t something that the guys in the town were ready to accept. The guys in town come together to meet and find a way to get the girls in town to switch back to their old look. In the end, the guys come together and “wipe the ‘new look’ out of existence” simply by using reverse psychology. 

After reading and analyzing this comic, it quickly becomes clear that the entire plot line is filled with sexist undertones. This immediately made me think of the essential question that was asked in module six, how are our perceptions of gender, sex and sexuality shaped by popular culture. The comic, which was published in 1948 relies heavily on simply judging the girls in the town on the way that they look. Additionally, the comic looks to the boys in town to determine not only what the girls can wear, but also how they can react. When the girls decided to counter protest the boys, they were chastised by the boys. While a lot has changed since the publication of this comic, some of the same misogynistic stories are still being told today.   

Comic Book Link: https://ia800203.us.archive.org/24/items/AndyComics20June1948/Andy_Comics_020_text.pdf

Oogli Yawabooby Razzle Dazzle Root Beer: Racism in Howdy Doody

In the 1950 Howdy Doody comic No.6, one of the stories titled "Adventurers Club" from Dell Comics show friends Howdy Doody and Dilly Dally overhear an offer being made to whoever can produce the most unusual creature of the year, and decided to go on a voyage to the Golly-Wolly Islands to discover it. Unfortunately, the captain of the ship brings Howdy and Dilly to the wrong island, which is inhabited by cannibals.The issue (pun intended) with this comic is mostly the cultural priorities that are outlined in the Comic Code Authority of 1954 go into detail about what is unacceptable for the public to be reading, however, when addressing racism or things of the like, it is one vague blanket statement that reads “Ridicule or attack on any [...] racial group is never permissible.” But the content present in the Howdy Doody comic doesn’t necessarily identify a racial group, but creates one within the Howdy Doody universe which depicts islanders as more animalistic than human. Granted, the Comic Code Authority of 1954 was outlined four years after the publication of this Howdy Doody comic, but the real underlying issues are not fixed to the extent that other issues, like keeping the sanctity of marriage or prohibiting the use of the words “Horror,” “Crime,” and “Terror.”

The comic does not explicitly identify the ethnicity and/or race of the islanders of “Golly-Wolly Island” but seem to still perpetuate gross stereotypes of non-western island peoples. There are plenty of examples of this shown within the comic. First, we can see a form of black-face in how the islanders are stylistically drawn with overly wide and large lips. They seem to take up most of the islanders faces. This is similar to how black-face was used in Minstrel shows. The hair and costume of the islanders is primal, with the use of bones and various piercings as accessories. The islanders are also cannibals, as to add to the already animalistic characteristics they were given, they also seem to be not as smart as Howdy and Dilly, the main characters whose stupidity is the main focus of the comic series.

There is also a panel in which an islander, who we are meant to assume is some sort of shaman or spiritual figure within the population, wearing a ritual mask, chanting “Oogli Yawabooby… Razzle Dazzle Root Beer!” When asked what it was all about, a islander explains that he is asking the ancestors if they approve of Howdy and Dilly as a meal. This is an obvious play on non-western ritual practice, especially the importance on spiritual relationships with ancestors. From here, an actual gorilla appears, and, aside from the amount of body hair on the gorilla, there is very little difference in the way the islanders and the gorilla are depicted.

Popular culture has a role in perpetuating these stereotypes, especially in these comics. They seem light-hearted and for satire, but even comic books depicting dark-skinned, misshapen bodies in contrast with the white men and women depicted in all of the comics create a harmful divide between “us” and “them.”

Postmodernism as Explained by a Drunk Man and Jordan Peele

The video was broken up into two parts: “Repeating History,” and “The Good, the Modern, and the Postmodern.” These two parts give us a quick history on the thought that led up to Modernism. The narrator is at a party talking to a woman who misuses the term “Postmodernism.” The rest of the video is meant to act as if the narrator spends the entire party, and even the morning after, explaining in layman's terms what Postmodernism is.

“Part 1: Repeating History” includes a background of Classicism in the Greco-Roman world, which would, in the 18th century, develop a counter ideology called Neoclassicism, which focused on empirical research- Science and logic were used to explain the world. The next counterculture in line was Romanticism, which challenged the Neoclassical thought that facts are more important than emotion. Romanticism would focus on the value of emotionality and personal experience. This would become a point of contention, and the two schools of thought were at odds with each other.

“Part 2: The Good, the Modern, and the Postmodern” Introduces Modernism, explaining that in the context of WWI and technology being made to kill people, creating the Lost Generation and also had brought out names such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. Social, Economic, and Political beliefs were questioned. Then, Postmodernism comes in as the “rebellious child” as an inverse to the structural thought of Modernism.

The narrator continues to provide differences among Modernism and Postmodernism, bringing back to the progression of technology. Modernist thought praised progress in that technology is the way that humanity improves, whereas Postmodern thought believe that progress may not necessarily be a good thing.One of the last comparisons made in the video was the difference in categorical preference between Modernists and Postmodernists. Modernists love genres, clear cut lines, and nicely fitting things into categories, whereas Postmodernists value what makes something different and unique.

The idea within the video in which categorizing vs. celebrating uniqueness can be directly related to popular culture. Take, for instance, Jordan Peele’s horror/thriller films that have come out in recently. The creation of both Us (2019) and Get Out (2017) in itself is a great example of postmodernism in contrast with modernism. Jordan Peele is known for co starring in the comedy sketch series Key & Peele. His comedic reputation had not failed to be seen within his horror films. If Jordan Peele were to be creating movies and understanding himself as a filmmaker in Modernist thought, he would stick to purely comedy and stay within that genre. This is not the direction in which Peele had decided to go in, however. He, in following with postmodernist thought, genre-bent horror and comedy in Us (2019). Even Get Out (2017), a thriller with little humor involved steers away from the understanding of what kind of filmmaker Peele would be in comparison to his past.