Political correctness makes for terrible writing...
I couldn't agree with you more. Barks was never one to let political correctness get in the way of biting social satire, and we have that to thank for the gems he produced. I wonder, though, how much he'd be able to get away with in today's hypersensitive environment (to be clear, I'm not referring to the inarguably problematic and dated representations of indigenous populations in stories like "Darkest Africa" or "Voodoo Hoodoo", but his more subtle observations of interpersonal dynamics based on class, gender, etc).
Unless either of you has experienced some form of discrimination based on your gender, race, sexuality, or ability I kindly invite you to shut up about "hypersensitivity" and political correctness. Because if you think marginalized communities calling out offensive depictions of them in media is offensive in any way, then you are probably someone I would rather not know IRL or online.
Signed: an autistic bisexual woman who is done with your privileged BS
We're talking about how Donald doesn't get the respect he deserves from the other characters! Remember that Daisy the female has the right to kick him and hit him, and treat him like a kid, but Donad can't do the same thing to her.
And yes Barks did some bad problematic representation but it was in the 40's! Way before the black panther movement or Luther King. He did products of his time (as Herge with Tintin in Congo), but later, he would not do these sterotypes!
We're talking about how Donald doesn't get the respect he deserves from the other characters! Remember that Daisy the female has the right to kick him and hit him, and treat him like a kid, but Donad can't do the same thing to her.
And yes Barks did some bad problematic representation but it was in the 40's! Way before the black panther movement or Luther King. He did products of his time (as Herge with Tintin in Congo), but later, he would not do these sterotypes!
Yes, and I clearly did point out in my post that I was not defending racial stereotypes in Barks stories like "Darkest Africa" and "Voodoo Hoodoo", which I pointedly stated were offensive and unacceptable (though, as marco996 points out, a product of their times). I was thinking more along the lines of stories like the ten-pager in WDC&S 124 (1951), and "Financial Fable" (WDC&S 126 (1951)), which depended on class-based political satire, and portrayals of the Donald-Daisy relationship, which are highly dependent of preconceived notions of gender roles. How about those panels of Scrooge dressed as a woman for some reason posted earlier in this thread? Is that considered acceptable humor nowadays? Barks never wrote any stories poking fun at particular ethnic or minority groups, so the question of my defending such stories does not arise. "Privileged BS" is a bit uncalled for here, I think. But I will let this post clarify what I meant and leave it at that.
The Political Correctness angle is off-kilter on this thread considering I doubt that's much of a consideration for Rosa at any time. Please avoid it or continue it elsewhere.
Can you remind me in which stories Scrooge has a group of dogs to chase Donald?? That's the genius of Barks, Scrooge uses dogs to chase Donalds (a bad thing!), but it's for Donald's benefit as he wants to make him heir and responsible for all his money later (a good thing!)
Oh no, I didn't mean Scrooge has a group of dogs to chase Donald! They run across the city on foot. Sorry I really can't remember which story it is, but Barks wrote it for sure.
Oh no, I didn't mean Scrooge has a group of dogs to chase Donald! They run across the city on foot. Sorry I really can't remember which story it is, but Barks wrote it for sure.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Dec 2, 2017 10:14:25 GMT
I am on the side of Thad, Minotaur and Matilda on this issue: no political correctness involved here. At all. (By the way, Rosa published in Denmark some decades ago: much less PC than what you could imagine, especially if you are a young fan from the US. )
To me the situation is very simple. Let's see if I can explain it equally simply.
From 1955 on, Barks reduced the volcanic temper of Donald. Also, in his Scrooge stories he made Donald more and more a "background character". (Even if he was almost always careful to devote at least a panel or a joke to Donald, so to justify his presence...something that many Italian writers should note down, soit dit en passant...) This was just a natural, most probably involuntary, evolution of the character due to Barks's fantasy and energies: he did that to Donald just because that kind of stories came to his mind in those late years of his comic work, not because he felt the necessity of "make the psychology of the character evolve".
Of course, if you (are so stubborn to) read Barks's duck work as a continuity, then you are obliged to interpret Donald as a character whose psychology evolves over a few years: a very hot tempered young man who quiets down in his thirties, starting to have even some depression tendencies. This is already in Barks's work, guys, not a Rosa invention! Now, as we all know, Rosa decided to assume the continuity approach. So he had to pick a moment of this evolution of Donald. Clearly, he chose to set most of his stories in the later "calmed-down/partially depressed" era of Barks's Donald. You may not like it (personally, I do not like it very much, because the continuity premise is utterly wrong), but you must admit that there is a strong coherence in what Rosa did. And he did it in a completely conscious way: Rosa knows all this and expressed it in at least one of his stories. Look at the beginning of The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros!, which is the climax of the abusive acts on Rosa's Donald. In that moment HD&L, complaining an pitying about the sad situation in which Donald is, explicitly state "He does not even loose his temper anymore as he used to do once!" (Remark: this is not the quote of the English version, I own the story in French, so I am translating). In that line Rosa was already - I think consciously, on clear purpose - answering the kind of objection raised by this thread: his Donald used to be hot tempered, and used to react to abusive behavior in a non-passive way.
You may not like it (personally, I do not like it very much, because the continuity premise is utterly wrong),
Now, now, don't blame Don Rosa for something he never said. His personal stories' premise was to treat Barks's works as a strict continuity, but it's not like he insisted Barks meant it that way at all — he wasn't interpreting Barks "wrong", he just had his own spin on it, which we may or may not like.
You may not like it (personally, I do not like it very much, because the continuity premise is utterly wrong),
Now, now, don't blame Don Rosa for something he never said. His personal stories' premise was to treat Barks's works as a strict continuity, but it's not like he insisted Barks meant it that way at all — he wasn't interpreting Barks "wrong", he just had his own spin on it, which we may or may not like.
Wait, you completely misunderstood my message. I am not saying that Rosa did get Barks wrong. Rosa is not stupid.
I was saying that it is wrong to write (and above all read) stories as if they were in a continuity.
Agreed! That's some of the reasons I mostly dislike Rosa's Donald. He is like that he lost the flame he had in Barks' stories. I like the Italian stories and even there at times Donald doesn't appear as much as of a loser and desperate as in many stories of Rosa.
Don Rosa’s Donald, much like his Scrooge and the others, is a much more human character than the cartoonish archetypes used in other stories. Because of the greater level of humanity, the bumps and bruises Donald receives sting a little more, not just for the Duck, but for his readers as well. More so than most other Duck authors, sometimes I have to be in the right mood to read a Rosa story, because in good and bad ways, they ask more of the reader than most other people’s stories.
Don Rosa’s Donald, much like his Scrooge and the others, is a much more human character than the cartoonish archetypes used in other stories. Because of the greater level of humanity, the bumps and bruises Donald receives sting a little more, not just for the Duck, but for his readers as well. More so than most other Duck authors, sometimes I have to be in the right mood to read a Rosa story, because in good and bad ways, they ask more of the reader than most other people’s stories.
About Scrooge I agree but not with Donald because that makes him a miserable "human". Also Rosa's HLD being all-knowing is defenitely not how a human children would react.