pynchon's misogyny

[Henry M]

You're a braver man than I am, Andrew Dinn.

On 31 Oct 96 at 17:05, Andrew Dinn wrote:

> Anyway, to get back to stereotyping I'll throw in another related
> data point which I think does inform. I just bought and devoured
> volume 5 of the collected works of Robert Crumb the other day. Aside
> from recommending it to everyone (I noticed several Pynchon themes,
> in particular one cartoon called Shit or Shinola, and doubtless
> there are many more connections) it provides a similar case to TRP.
> 
> Crumb has a black female character called Angelfood McSpade who is a
> stereotypical `jungle' black with fat lips, hair tied up and secured
> by a bone, naked breasts and a grass skirt barely covering the most
> enormously callipygian butt you will ever see, even in a Crumb
> cartoon (that's saying something, his women usually have massive
> thighs and arses). She is a portrayed as a lust filled sexpot and
> Crumb consigns her to the jungle lest she blow the minds (ok, not
> just the minds) of weak EuroAmerican males with her sexual wiles
> (all of which are lovingly described and occasionally depicted in
> obscene detail).
> 
> Although such caricatures were originally drawn out of ignorance and
> prejudice (see e.g. early Tintin cartoons where the same imagery is
> used with no attempt to reflect back on the society which conceived
> it), Crumb uses Angelfood very knowingly to explore EuroAmerican
> male attitudes both to sex and to blacks. He uses equally
> stereotyped images of hippies, young girls, the family (that lays
> together . . .) etc. for the same purpose. Crumb may well have his
> own problems with these subjects and his cartoons may be based as
> much on insights into his own character as into the hearts and minds
> of the people who were round him at the time. But Angelfood says
> nothing about black women and everything about western cultural
> attitudes to black women. To even consider that such a character is
> meant to represent real people is ridiculous. Is this not also as
> true of Margarita, Bianca, Katje (Blicero, Gottfried et al) as it is
> of Lolita or Angelfood?
> 
> If there is any character whose presentation approaches being
> rounded and full it is . . . Slothrop? . . . naah, not him he hardly
> even exists on his own terms let alone as everyman . . . no, it's
> Poekler, who gets to play with pretty much a full deck. So how do we
> interpret those scenes with him and his `daughter'? Well they sure
> as hell are not real i.e. they are presented as part of a fantasy.
> But they are part of Poekler's reality, part of what makes Poekler
> Poekler.  Just as in Vineland it is part of Prairie's reality that
> she has fantasies about wearing frilly knickers and turning Zoyd on.
> Or is there really no sexual element to a father/daughter
> relationship? Well having no kids I don't know from personal
> experience but then what's a mere single missing data point. I do
> have eyes and ears and friends or relatives who are parents. At the
> very least I think every father speculates about whether and with
> whom his teenage daughter is having sex - probably right down to the
> intimate details and often with quality graphic rendering to boot.
> Does a little personal erotic involvement never cross his mind too?
> Especially when circumstances militate towards it as in Poekler's or
> Zoyd's case. I doubt it.
> 
> Oh and any fathers who want to lecture me on how `you could never
> say that if you were a father - fatherhood just changes everything
> about you and your attitudes to things' can forget it right now
> (ditto mothers and motherhood). I'll just reply that you don't know
> how much fatherhood (motherhood) blinds you to your own worst
> characteristics, what with all those kids around all the time
> messing up your endocrine system. There is perspective and there are
> perspectives.
> 
> 
> Andrew Dinn
> -----------
> And though Earthliness forget you,
> To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
> To the rushing water speak:  I am.
> 

Keep Cool, but care. -- TRP
http://www.nicom.com/~gravity