Was Watterson right?

Was Watterson right?

Wait, which one is supposed to reflect Watterson's opinion, there?

From what I have read Watterson express in the past, Calvin's point seems closer toWtterson's opinion, but in this strip, he seems to make the who is right the dad.

Calvin is wrong because entertainment plays a marginal role in society. Check out (((shithole countries))) where Western entertainment is illegal and see how bad the state of affairs is there. In fact, more liberal countries probably have these bad role-models in the media and yet they do a lot better than the countries that don't.

1st and 2nd panel- He has been reading too much Frank Miller

3rd panel - Been reading Marvel and Bendis stuff

Looks like Calvin's Dad doesn't like Family Circus.

Calvin is an idealist, who knows popular media *ought* to be role models, because of how often people will, consciously or not, base their actions and decisions on them.
His dad is a realist, who doesn't try to defend it from a moral point of view, but rather justifies it as what arises from doing well without thought to do good.
Calvin asks why things aren't, his dad replies why things are.

Watterson is weird. He's self aware of his preachy opinions enough to make them part of the joke and clever enough to get meta, but once he's there, the overall message makes him look like a pseud who hides behind "it's just jokes, brah" because he can't synthesize the dialectic.

btfo everyone

Dad - Watterson
Calvin - his critics

>popular media *ought* to be role models
Why?
>because of how often people will, consciously or not, base their actions and decisions on them
Seriously? Are you a '90s soccer mom who thinks that watching Tom & Jerry will make your kids murder each other? There is NO correlation between media consumption and emulated behavior in children (or adults) except for pathological cases (where individuals inherently can't differentiate between reality and fantasy, or were already prone to violence)

It's a fucking four-panel Sunday Funnies comic, you shithole.

Pseud is probably the wrong word, but I can't think of a comic where the punchline ties up the dilemma. Most good standup has the twist as "they're both retarded" and comes to a punchline that defies expectations by the synthesis of two retarded positions.. Watterson just stops at "they're both retarded" and leaves it to the audience to identify with one or the other broken position.

This, he's describing his own strip and saying it wouldn't be funny if Calvin's mom wasn't a nag, his dad wasn't a lazy goof-off, and Calvin wasn't a brat.

Dad and Mom in Calvin an Hobbes aren't either goo-off or nag. Considering the son they have, they are exemplary parents.

>Are you a '90s soccer mom who thinks that watching Tom & Jerry will make your kids murder each other?
Nice strawman. It's going to be more nuanced than that. No one thinks a character solving his problems with violence means problems in real life should be solved with violence. But the way a tv show might present certain attitudes or personalities can impact how a person thinks they should behave themselves.

Fiction shouldn't be constrained by being forced to serve the public good.

Watterson's sophisticated enough that characters speak honestly from a particular point of view, rather than have one or more character be a mouthpiece that everything else serves.

That strip describes the gender debate very well.

Watterson isn't even making a real point.

That's such a typically problematic privileged cisgender attitude, you permacucked soyboy.

>Pseud is probably the wrong word, but I can't think of a comic where the punchline ties up the dilemma
Or it could be that this isn't the format to make a decisive statement about the nature of printed content?

101, l00|< @t d15 n3\/\/13 131tc1-1

But that's one of the things why people liked watterson- he tried to tackle mature topics in a mature way in a Sunday funnies comic.

Interestingly, one of the people who disagree with you is George Orwell:

>"One ought to be able to hold in one’s head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other. The first thing that we demand of a wall is that it shall stand up. If it stands up, it is a good wall, and the question of what purpose it serves is separable from that. And yet even the best wall in the world deserves to be pulled down if it surrounds a concentration camp. In the same way it should be possible to say, 'This is a good book or a good picture, and it ought to be burned by the public hangman.' Unless one can say that, at least in imagination, one is shirking the implications of the fact that an artist is also a citizen and a human being."

I read in the tenth anniversary book that Calvin expresses the bratty self serving desires everyone has, and that he serves as kind of a n outlet for all the things he wants, but knows are wrong or just selfish.

Really makes you think......

offensive!

>Totally spam
Works only because of context. This would be a tough sell.
>Lubricated
Makes sense, but would probably turn into "easy," or "cool" in the same sense as "slick."
>Phasing
Works just fine as slang, and I'm debating adopting it.

Makes you appreciate Dobson even more

You say it like they can't both be right here. We might be better off if we just had more positive representations of people in the media, but those positive representations usually don't sell becuase they aren't funny or interesting.

These Honeymooners-style fictional portrayals, from a cultural perspective, are completely fine in themselves. This shit only becomes a problem when people cling to fiction for virtues and values due to a lack of role models in real life. But hey, it's not like there are major demographics in America with historic rates of single-parent households or anything!

You can't sell out if no one wants to buy.

Sounds more like he meant you shouldn't hold works by human garbage in esteem.

>The year of our Lord 2018
>Watterson announces the triumphant return of Calvin & Hobbes
>It's as good as ever
>Syndicate pulls the plug after social media backlash to the "problematic" content

He'd be able to go indie, easily.

Stop inventing scenarios to make yourself feel upset

I wonder if Calvin and Hobbes could work in an age of social media and the internet.

>I wonder if Calvin and Hobbes could work in an age that's more easily mockable than ever
ftfy

I think Calvin and Hobbes ruined me. I read it religiously at a young age and ever since then I've been a cynical asshole.