How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love Implicit Phallo-Centric Sexual Imagery In Children's
Literature
First of all, the very fact that there could ever have existed at any one time a regular comic wherein the
punch line of every single joke is, in a nutshell, "I'm so disgustingly rich, not to mention white and male,
that I win" fills me with the same mix of delight and terror as do such cultural oddities as Custer's Revenge. I can only assume that Richie Rich has
been delivered to us by the same
mysterious forces that brought us the much loved classic, "if you don't believe in OUR God then you're going
to HELL FOREVER." There is hope however. There appears to be a wrench in the gears. I present to you, dearest
readers, a particularly tantalizing example of employee sabotage in the lucrative field of children's comics.
1. First, foremost, and most obvious - the band's name is Jizm. Right there on the bass drum, in pink
and
white, J-I-Z-M.
2. The drummer, in a manner almost too obvious to mention, seems to be excitedly grasping a stick
protruding
from the area roughly centered between his legs. "YAH! YAH!" screams he in uncontrolled ecstasy. Need I even
mention that directly below the stick is a big circle with the word "JIZM" written suggestively thereupon?
3. The guitarist, besides being completely sexually ambiguous, bear little or no mention.
4. The lead singer seems to have a long bendy
object
pointed in the vicinity of his mouth and which seems to have its origin in his pants. You will also note that
the singer's posture in relation to that of the tambourine woman in front him is more than a little
suggestive, especially considering the fact that he seems to be clutching her back.
5. The woman with the headband certainly has an interesting way of holding the microphone, maybe it
picks up
the sound of the tambourine better when it's held between her legs like that?
6. Richie's friend, or nemesis, being an amateur, apparently requires only so much as a single glance
at that
oh-so-universal symbol of the female sex organ, the circle, to plunge him into the depths of premature
ejaculation.
The sexual imagery in this piece of children's literature comes across with the subtlety of an atomic bomb
crammed down the throat of a baby kitten. My first thought is that it's obviously an example of employee
sabotage. The writer and the artist (if indeed, they're not one and the same) evidentially conspired to
somehow get this panel past the editors, publishers, and what-not, to express their contempt for the general
message put out by the comic, or perhaps merely to amuse older children. On the other hand, perhaps it's just
another example of the defilement of the poor that runs so rampant throughout the comic, "I'm so disgustingly
rich that I have my own harem, you are allowed a mere glimpse of the pleasure that I have unlimited access to.
Thus, I win again." |