Elly Patterson, the punk rock costumes and the forbidden question.

[dreadedcandiru2]

As I mentioned yesterday, Elly is probably thought of not as the caring person she'd like to believe she is but as a dangerously ill-informed housewife making a fool of herself protesting things that she doesn't understand. While it's true that John eventually tells Michael to check his facts before he makes an ass of himself, Elly is never told to do so. Doing so, you see, would require her to ask a question that she dare not ask and will resist having to hear with her last ounce of strength. This horrible, blasphemous question that is sooooooo very terrifying and evil and scary and wrong is as follows and I quote: "What if this event, trend or product that I don't understand that well isn't going to usher in the end of the world?"

I think that the Halloween costume brouhaha can serve as a nice example of Elly assuming that the prosaic and benign is the apocalyptic. This is because she and Annie whine piteously about how the prospect of nuclear war has so enraged and traumatized their innocent children that they've given up on fun and happiness and can now only be scary monsters who reject everything. The only rational response to such whimpering, ignorant, panicky and ludicrous no-think is the question "How long have you two imbeciles been smoking crack cocaine?!" Only a long-term history of exposure to brain-melting chemicals can explain stupidity that profound without resorting to speculation as to whether she and Annie are missing key chromosomes.

The end result of her living in a world of unreasoning, unbelievable and idiotic fear is that she witlessly robs herself of any sort of peace of mind. When she bewailed the fact that her impatience and lack of tolerance made it seem as if her time with her children zipped by before she knew it, Elly lost sight of the fact that her mindless panicking over nothing at all was an even worse thief.

Sadly, this theft is one she and her fans approve of. For reasons that I'll get into tomorrow, the non-event is supposed to be a threat so dire and horrifying that we don't actually need to have it explained to us.

Comments

[kefkaownsall.livejournal.com]

To be fair Elly hates contact

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

Elly also hates the idea of doing anything that she isn't instantly good at. Learning that the World isn't coming to an end is like learning math in that it's HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD and she HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATES it.

[clio-1.livejournal.com]

Rant about things you already know because wow this strip is stupid on multiple levels:

Lynn Johnston is an idiot. "Make love, not war" was DURING THE VIETNAM WAR. And people then were plenty afraid of nuclear war, which is where the whole "make love, not war" came from, it was an anti-war protest. People then were also a lot closer to actual all-out nuclear war. And she's equating a small child with college students. She wants Lizzie to want to make love?! And punk rock was/is very anti-war generally. Pro-war people are usually the most conservatively dressed of anyone. And it's Halloween! If someone dresses as a zombie, that doesn't mean they actually want to eat peoples' brains!

These people are so so so so stupid.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

As I'll explain later on, Elly, John and Lynn are all suffering from a condition someone called "Boomer Lens-Cap Stupidity."

The reason the man called the condition this referred to an incident in which Israel's defense minister reviewed his troops while neglecting to remove the lens caps from his binoculars. The man went on to describe the condition as follows:

They don't know what's going on in the world, so they make up "facts" as they go along. They don't WANT to know what's going on in the world, because not knowing gives them certain advantages and tranquilizes their anxieties.

Granted, Elly is always anxious but it's an anxiety born from the delusion that she actually does know what's happening around her. This is why it is that Marian thinks of her as being a tedious bore who needs to grow up a lot comes from: Elly is a tedious bore who needs to grow up and stop acting as if the sky is falling.