Post by Matilda on Aug 1, 2017 5:25:09 GMT
I didn't want to get into a discussion of Daisy on a thread about Reginella, so here we are!
Let me start by quoting Drakeborough:
Fun fact: I remember a DCML quote in which Rosa said something like: I won't try making Daisy a more interesting and likable characters, because I have been exposed to decades of stories in which she is uninteresting and unlikable, so a Daisy who is more interesting and likable would seem out of character to me.
Barks expressed similar feelings. He wrote the first short with her, but all her subsequent animated appearances were written by others. He said: "I had nothing against Daisy appearing in Donald Duck cartoons. If business could be invented that would make her role funny and interesting, she was as welcome as sunshine. Seriously though, neither Daisy nor Minnie were basically funny. We wasted little time trying to include such females in the rough-and-tumble heroics of cartoon humor"
Furthermore, Barks even said "Rattlebrains like Daisy Duck are the curse of the earth", adding that he didn't use her much because he found her to be a "diluting influence". >end quotation<
There's a lot not to like in the portrayal of Daisy over the years. On the Gladstone Daisy trading card, it says: "Donald's girlfriend is a blend of female stereotypes, genteel one moment and volatile the next. Barks used Daisy sparingly, considering her a "diluting influence" on the rougher antics of the male ducks. Hers was a world of women's clubs." So my sense is, he saw her as a diluting influence specifically as female.
She certainly was a blend of female stereotypes more than she was a well-rounded character. She was depicted in ways that women were often depicted in mid-20th-century American popular culture, especially when the narrative was going for comedy. She was not particularly competent at anything, and in relationship to Donald she was often manipulative, temperamental and ridiculously jealous. True, as Deb pointed out, you could say that in the Taliaferro strips she and Donald were equally awful to each other. But while Donald kept his hotheadedness in Barks's comics, he was developed into a more well-rounded and sympathetic character with some admirable qualities. Daisy, not so much.
As much as I revere Barks, I'm aware that he didn't do a great job with female characters. Of course, he was writing at a time when popular culture was pretty unreflectively sexist. It would be a long time before there were many female characters in American popular culture who could be adventurers, or who could take the lead without being depicted as unattractive (Captain Ramrod), or who could be funny in ways outside the sexist box.
As a child in the early 1960's who loved the Ducks, I read few stories where Daisy was a likeable character. The "Daisy's Diary" stories, which you would think must have been written with the girl readers in mind, varied wildly in where they fell on the "sexism to feminism" spectrum. This is the case even among stories written by the same author! Of the stories by Bob Gregory in One Shots #1150: Daisy Duck's Diary, "Daringly Different" depicts Daisy as a very attractive character, inventive and individualistic, while "A Sticky Situation" is basically a defense of a sexist worldview: woman who thinks she can function without men gets her comeuppance when she needs to be rescued by them.
I can understand (and find funny!) Rosa's feeling that if he tried to make Daisy more likable she wouldn't be Daisy anymore. Still, I'm glad that some writers have created stories where Daisy is a more attractive character. I think of Hansegård's "Himalayan Hideout" (thank you, IDW!), some of the feminist Brazilian stories like "A Páscoa É Nossa" or "Babá De Caixa-Forte", Lars Jensen's "Who Is Daisy Duck?" where with the help of women friends (Amanda Fox, Rosie, Dora) she captures the Beagle Boys, or the Shaws' "Pass the Parchment," where she and Donald are fighting throughout, but they're each fighting for the right to take on the curse to save the other! Often in recent stories she has a job: editor, print journalist, TV journalist. So at least she’s competent at something. I haven't been able to read any of the Dutch Katrien stories, and I don't approve of the idea that AMJ live with Daisy, but I'm sure her character must be more well-rounded when she is the protagonist.
But too often, the humor in a Daisy story still relies on sexist stereotypes: her unreasonable jealousy, in particular (e.g. William Van Horn's "Duos and Don'ts"). I was disappointed that even a woman writer depicted her as a bridezilla in an alternate timeline where she and Donald are about to get married (Maya Astrup's "Twice Upon a Time") --while many brides do behave badly, I think the whole wedding culture is set up in sexist ways that contribute to that (this is the one day in your life when you get to be the center of attention!) and I'm reluctant to place the blame wholly on the bride.
I've read a bunch of the French Minnie Mag issues (and a few of the Italian girl-focused comics as well), and I'm sad that even in those, Minnie gets better character development and opportunities for adventure than Daisy does. Minnie, not Daisy, gets into adventure among Egyptian ruins (Giovanna Bo's "Minni e il sentiero delle gatte" and Corteggiani's "Minni e lo scettro egiziano"), solves a mystery with her aunt Miss Torple (Giorgio Pezzin) or gets to be a lighthouse keeper (Nino Russo's "Minni luce del... faro"). The present-day Daisy doesn't get such interesting stories. The best Daisy adventure stories are ones where she is playing a role (Daisy as a pirate in Bottaro's "Paperino e la nipote del Corsaro Nero" or as Marian in Scarpa’s “La leggenda di Paperin Hood”) or where she is a lookalike ancestor of herself (Claudia Salvatori's series).
Have any of you read stories where Daisy is a character you'd like to know?
Let me start by quoting Drakeborough:
Fun fact: I remember a DCML quote in which Rosa said something like: I won't try making Daisy a more interesting and likable characters, because I have been exposed to decades of stories in which she is uninteresting and unlikable, so a Daisy who is more interesting and likable would seem out of character to me.
Barks expressed similar feelings. He wrote the first short with her, but all her subsequent animated appearances were written by others. He said: "I had nothing against Daisy appearing in Donald Duck cartoons. If business could be invented that would make her role funny and interesting, she was as welcome as sunshine. Seriously though, neither Daisy nor Minnie were basically funny. We wasted little time trying to include such females in the rough-and-tumble heroics of cartoon humor"
Furthermore, Barks even said "Rattlebrains like Daisy Duck are the curse of the earth", adding that he didn't use her much because he found her to be a "diluting influence". >end quotation<
There's a lot not to like in the portrayal of Daisy over the years. On the Gladstone Daisy trading card, it says: "Donald's girlfriend is a blend of female stereotypes, genteel one moment and volatile the next. Barks used Daisy sparingly, considering her a "diluting influence" on the rougher antics of the male ducks. Hers was a world of women's clubs." So my sense is, he saw her as a diluting influence specifically as female.
She certainly was a blend of female stereotypes more than she was a well-rounded character. She was depicted in ways that women were often depicted in mid-20th-century American popular culture, especially when the narrative was going for comedy. She was not particularly competent at anything, and in relationship to Donald she was often manipulative, temperamental and ridiculously jealous. True, as Deb pointed out, you could say that in the Taliaferro strips she and Donald were equally awful to each other. But while Donald kept his hotheadedness in Barks's comics, he was developed into a more well-rounded and sympathetic character with some admirable qualities. Daisy, not so much.
As much as I revere Barks, I'm aware that he didn't do a great job with female characters. Of course, he was writing at a time when popular culture was pretty unreflectively sexist. It would be a long time before there were many female characters in American popular culture who could be adventurers, or who could take the lead without being depicted as unattractive (Captain Ramrod), or who could be funny in ways outside the sexist box.
As a child in the early 1960's who loved the Ducks, I read few stories where Daisy was a likeable character. The "Daisy's Diary" stories, which you would think must have been written with the girl readers in mind, varied wildly in where they fell on the "sexism to feminism" spectrum. This is the case even among stories written by the same author! Of the stories by Bob Gregory in One Shots #1150: Daisy Duck's Diary, "Daringly Different" depicts Daisy as a very attractive character, inventive and individualistic, while "A Sticky Situation" is basically a defense of a sexist worldview: woman who thinks she can function without men gets her comeuppance when she needs to be rescued by them.
I can understand (and find funny!) Rosa's feeling that if he tried to make Daisy more likable she wouldn't be Daisy anymore. Still, I'm glad that some writers have created stories where Daisy is a more attractive character. I think of Hansegård's "Himalayan Hideout" (thank you, IDW!), some of the feminist Brazilian stories like "A Páscoa É Nossa" or "Babá De Caixa-Forte", Lars Jensen's "Who Is Daisy Duck?" where with the help of women friends (Amanda Fox, Rosie, Dora) she captures the Beagle Boys, or the Shaws' "Pass the Parchment," where she and Donald are fighting throughout, but they're each fighting for the right to take on the curse to save the other! Often in recent stories she has a job: editor, print journalist, TV journalist. So at least she’s competent at something. I haven't been able to read any of the Dutch Katrien stories, and I don't approve of the idea that AMJ live with Daisy, but I'm sure her character must be more well-rounded when she is the protagonist.
But too often, the humor in a Daisy story still relies on sexist stereotypes: her unreasonable jealousy, in particular (e.g. William Van Horn's "Duos and Don'ts"). I was disappointed that even a woman writer depicted her as a bridezilla in an alternate timeline where she and Donald are about to get married (Maya Astrup's "Twice Upon a Time") --while many brides do behave badly, I think the whole wedding culture is set up in sexist ways that contribute to that (this is the one day in your life when you get to be the center of attention!) and I'm reluctant to place the blame wholly on the bride.
I've read a bunch of the French Minnie Mag issues (and a few of the Italian girl-focused comics as well), and I'm sad that even in those, Minnie gets better character development and opportunities for adventure than Daisy does. Minnie, not Daisy, gets into adventure among Egyptian ruins (Giovanna Bo's "Minni e il sentiero delle gatte" and Corteggiani's "Minni e lo scettro egiziano"), solves a mystery with her aunt Miss Torple (Giorgio Pezzin) or gets to be a lighthouse keeper (Nino Russo's "Minni luce del... faro"). The present-day Daisy doesn't get such interesting stories. The best Daisy adventure stories are ones where she is playing a role (Daisy as a pirate in Bottaro's "Paperino e la nipote del Corsaro Nero" or as Marian in Scarpa’s “La leggenda di Paperin Hood”) or where she is a lookalike ancestor of herself (Claudia Salvatori's series).
Have any of you read stories where Daisy is a character you'd like to know?