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Subj: I took a break from the Parodyverse this weekend to go to the exhibit on R. Crumb at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle. Here, now, are my thoughts on that: Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 01:05:58 am EST (Viewed 378 times) | |||
Spent the weekend with the folks, watching CNN and FOX News coverage of the presidential primaries on Saturday (good news for Obama and Huckabee, to say the least), and visiting the Frye Art Museum in Seattle on Sunday, specifically for the purpose of seeing their extensive R. Crumb exhibit (not just his comic covers and pages, but also his sketchbook pages, his album covers, portraits of heads he painted on thread spools, trading cards he drew up for jazz and blues musicians, and a slightly larger-than-life-size sculpture that he made of his "Devil Girl" character). Interesting to discuss his unflinchingly self-aware attitudes toward women with the parents, especially given the confrontationally uncensored and pornographic ways in which Crumb expressed them in his work. Many feminists, Trina Robbins among them, can't fucking stand him, but I have to admit there's an uncomfortable amount of his angst about women that I can understand from the inside - not just that it comes from a fellow submissive, perverted, nerdy, straight white boy, but also the familiarity of the self-flagellating, fetishistic quality of his fascination with, and fear of, those women whom he deems "goddesses." My take is that anyone who accuses Crumb of hating, or even disrespecting, women simply doesn't get the distinction between "misogyny" and "misanthropy," because within the contexts of the harrowingly twisted worlds which Crumb depicts, even an intentionally provocative and offensive stereotype like "Angelfood McSpade" comes across as relatively strong, respectable ... hell, arguably even admirable, when compared to sleazy, self-serving freeloaders like "Fritz the Cat." In order to make a credible argument that Crumb's work is inherently denigrating to women, one would necessarily have to come up with male characters whom he's treated appreciably better, and if anything, most of his men come across far worse than his women, with Crumb's caricatured (but often, allegedly non-fictional) portrayals of himself serving as the best example of this. Indeed, in all of Crumb's accounts of his dealings with women, he makes himself out to be a weak, neurotic, obsessive, awkward, unattractive geek, whereas by contrast, the women whom he ogles (and occasionally succeeds at hooking up with) all appear as hyper-sexualized Amazons - tall, muscular and yet fully rounded, with big feet, long legs, thick thighs, fat asses, roomy hips, pointy nipples, and smiles that, at best, resemble disdainfully tolerant sneers. Even when such female characters submit to Crumb's desires, there's never any question of where the true power in those dynamics lie. These women are better than he deserves, only suffer his foolishness for their own amusement, and could break his ass in two without even breaking a sweat, and not only does Crumb know it, but he wouldn't have it any other way. For some reason, I can relate to that.  | |||
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