That’s the adorable mouse-children movie of my childhood. ^.^ My mom made my big brother a Fievel costume.
Ctrl+C D@
That’s right, the adorable mouse-children movie where multiple people die and we get to witness the horrible late 19th century racism and depravity of Europe and America.
THANKS DON BLUTH!
Doctor_Who
My childhood was haunted by nightmares featuring the Owl from Secret of Nimh, the demonic dragon thing from All Dogs go to Heaven, Sharptooth, and the Giant Mouse of Minsk.
Needless to say, when Bluth started crowdfunding to get the Dragon’s Lair movie off the ground, I couldn’t open my wallet fast enough.
Gareth
The otherday I rewatched the first Bluth movie from my childhood (The Land Before Time).
When it got to the bit with the shadow it hit me in the feels so hard that I yelled out that Don Bluth “is a sadist”
Narf
Shut up and take my money!
Leorale
Wait, characters died in that series? I don’t remember that. I do remember adorable mouse race-relations, and that lady-cat’s perfume. Guess I’ll have to watch it again as a grownup…
Leorale
Also Tanya Mouskowitz was the best.
ChrisHerself
Cat lady was in the sequel which wasn’t directed by Bluth FWIW.
Roborat
I thought the sequel was better than the original.
ChrisHerself
It was certainly…… louder.
ChrisHerself
Thank you indeed Don Bluth! At least when his themes are horrifying they’re horrifying for LOTS of interesting reasons and not just “This girl is underage” a la Disney. Which is a nice effect of not pulling 1000% of your source material from centuries-old fairy tales.
Uniqueantique
Disney pulled his sorce mat’l from his head and elsewhere: he surely did not follow the original fairy tales.
Those originals were written to teach a morale in as gruesome a way as possible.
Cinderella’s stepmother ended up dancing at her wedding while wearing iron shoes on a bed of hot coals.
He prettied up her suffering under that stepmother and ended up having her saved by a prince-Heaven forbid she could save herself because of the code of her environrment.
Watch Disney’s Fantasia while you’re high. You’ll remember the dragon – devil unwrapping his wings off the mt. top, if you remember nothing else.
No fairy tales were cute little fun bed time stories. They were meant to teach kids to survive in the world and society.
J.Crowe
That was Snow White’s stepmother that danced on coals. Cinderella’s adoptive family was mauled by birds.
Chris
Saw that in the theatre as a wee child – my very first movie. I love the tune of Night on Bald Mountain, but I still cannot forget that demon/devil scene.
ChrisHerself
Uhm–seriously don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Disney films. I just like Bluth also. 🙂 But you seem to be confirming exactly the point I was trying to make. Disney prettied up the suffering of the protagonists in his films versus their original darker source material and that’s why Bluth ended up becoming more interesting to me. It wasn’t so watered down. It was gritty.
“Watch Disney’s Fantasia while you’re high. ”
LOL way ahead of you. I love the Night on Bald Mountain sequence. Interestingly a lot of the artists who worked on the pastoral sequences were later mortified at how little justice they’d done the original classical scores. They thought they were making high art, but came to view it as embarassingly gauche and tacky looking back at it later. Which is a shame, I liked those sequences the most as a small child because UNICORNS AND PEGASI AND CENTAURS
Ed Rhodes
I will buy MOST of what you’re saying. But don’t lay the “she needed a prince to save her, she couldn’t save herself” card on Disney. The old fairy tales constantly had the prince saving the girl. I remember one where the girl had to gather thistles and weave shirts for her brothers who’d been changed into swans. She was warned that she couldn’t speak to anyone or the spell would not be broken. The people got it into their heads that she was bewitched somehow and sent for the prince. He decided if she wouldn’t speak, he would have her executed as a witch. At the last minute, on the chopping block, she finished up MOST of the shirts and put them on her swan brothers (one sleeve wasn’t finished and that brother kept a wing for the rest of his life – thanks prince) THEN she told the prince everything that was happening and the prince asked for her hand in marriage. “Sure, you rushing my work so one of my brothers will have a wing for an arm for the rest of his life and you almost killing me for the crime of NOT TALKING is of no consequence at all! I’ll be happy to marry you!”
ChrisHerself
I wasn’t saying that’s exclusive to Disney in the slightest. I was saying that if the Disney machine took your fairy tale, by the time they were through with it the darkness of the original would have been watered down considerably to make it more ‘palatable’ for a modern audience. Bluth didn’t do that so much. Till he gave up and did. And then we got Thumbelina.
I still think that Don Bluth is the reason that to this day, I prefer a tear-jerker movie to a comedy or romance movie.
The first several movies I saw in theaters were by Bluth, not Disney. The Disney Renaissance started in 1989 with The Little Mermaid. I was only 6 at that time, but I’d already seen several Don Bluth movies, had a few on VHS, and had Fievel as my ever-present imaginary friend by the time Ariel came in to my life.
I certainly grew up on Disney, and feel fortunate that I was in the generation able to grow-up with the Disney Renaissance, but it’s Bluth’s movies that made me love animation, movies, and art. They were certainly dark as far as children’s movies go, but it liked that about them. There was a real sense of danger and that maybe, just maybe, everything wouldn’t turn out alright in the end. That made the movie more exciting and enjoyable to me.
ChrisHerself
All of this!
Yet_One_More_Idiot
I love Disney movies – Don Bluth’s work, for the most part, I don’t think I’ve even seen (apart from the first one or maybe two of the Land Before Times).
One of my top animated movies of all time though?
Rankin-Bass’ “The Flight of Dragons”. For it’s animation, it’s storytelling, it’s characterisations, action scenes, and the fact that characters DO genuinely die (although magic brings some back in the coda), it is my fave.
And another one is “The Princess and the Goblin”, again for many if not all of the same reasons as above. 🙂
(I also own and love all the Disney animated movies) 😀
The sequels to the Land Before Time weren’t directed by Bluth at all. The original Land Before Time is the only one that counts as a Bluth film and (as far as I know) is the only one that carries Bluth’s signature style in both art design and storytelling.
Along with Land Before Time, The Secret of NIMH and All Dogs Go to Heaven are very much worth watching at least once.
I’m also particularly fond of Titan AE, which, even though it came out around 15+ years after the others we’re talking about, is still a decent movie. Though it’s not as emotional as his work from the 80s. I often wonder that if it had been, if it would have done better at the box office.
I adored that movie. I’d be willing to bet that I still know it word-for-word.
For several years my imaginary friend was Fievel. I’d freak the heck out if my mother made me wear an outfit without pockets because then Fievel would have a hard time hitching a ride on me wherever I went. If I had pockets, he could just hop in there.
Since we’re all talking about American Tail, can I ask why people always keep referencing that song as a romantic duet? They’re siblings for goodness sake.
Valentines Day sort of invaded Germany in the last 20-30 years but still it’s not a thing that is largely observed (at least in my age group ;). A lot of people treat it as a conspiracy of the flower and sweets industry to sell more stuff.
But, like in Japan, in the US it seems to be really important for people in romantic relationships? So most people would expect to be treated specially on that day, like it was a relationship anniversary or something?
there’s a lot of conspiracy muttering in the u.s. as well (cuz that is the actual origin), but most people in relationships know better than to use that as an excuse not to buy loads of stuff and over-eat chocolate
FireSTK
It’s more likely your common sense and the fact that people are way better at catching when corporations are trying to manipulate the populace. Then again did Valentine’s day start up around when the Berlin Wall came down? I can Imagine cynicism running strong in that crowd.
About Becky not being thoughtless, is what I mean.
tonyt94
She’s really turning a blind eye towards Becky’s new “lifestyle” and consequently can’t even perceive how much her best friend’s action might be deeply hurting other people.
Oh dear are we in for another avalanche of folks blaming Becky for poisoning the water holes of the world? Cause, I’m gonna be honest. I’m really not up for another 30 person spread of Victim-Blaming Theatre.*
*And no, that last paragraph isn’t directed at you, just that that popped in my head as a worry.
3-I
Becky nuking the closet is the reason Hitler rose to power in the years leading to world war two, you know. AND the reason VHS rose to prominence over Betamax and Laserdisc.
Well I thought that the victory of VHS over better formats was the result of the advantage of open source over propriatary and that Hitler was just one of
Mike’s jokes that got out of hand.
GreyDefender
@Cerberus “Damn VHS aiding lesbians!”
There’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.
FireSTK
I’d less worry about Becky’s sexuality (which is totally her own and she should do as she sees fit in that area) and worry more about her impulsiveness. There’s a fine line between spontaneous and waking up in Nova Scotia with no idea how or when you crossed the border.
Implication being Becky IS a thoughtless jerk because of how she’s jaunted off with her long time object of affection, leaving her current actual still-new girlfriend to stew and wonder and fret about her actual significance to Becky etc. Unclear whether that’s what occurred to Becky, but it’s what the narrative seems to be getting at. Joyce’s misstep is asserting Becky to be thoughtless and jerky in the face of that.
Well, Becky’s problem tends to be that she’s self-sacrificing and selfless to her own detriment. And all of Joyce’s friends have been super worried for her and been shown to dig deeper than they normally would to try and be there for her (Dorothy partially considering sleeping with her if it would make her smile, Sal speaking up for her in a major way, Billie openly worrying about her, Becky offering to come along on this trip).
So it’s not that she’s a thoughtless jerk, just that this was a situation where she did know that Joyce was going to a rough situation and needed a friend and Becky was the only one in a position to even try to come along and support and didn’t know that her girlfriend is threatened by this and worries that she’s just a rebound to Becky.
I suspect we’ll see Becky calling Dina sometime this evening or the following morning just to check in and say hi (and hopefully open up to her about how things are making her feel cause damn it is not healthy for her to repress as much as she does), but this was a perfectly sensible decision to make here and genuinely does show a lot of thought and care.
ESM
I somehow doubt Becky’s reasons for coming with Joyce were quite so noble, which is part of why she’s questioning them herself in panel one.
I think she’s still holding on to the hope that Joyce will decide that actually she IS a lesbian and then Becky and Joyce become an item and Dina Who?
I agree that if you put the most positive possibly spin on literally everything Becky does, she comes off pretty good. Like “that perfect girl” in fact, which is the name of this book. I wonder who That Perfect Girl is. Carla explicitly says she isn’t (which means she might be), and it’s certainly not Mary or Ruth, so that leaves Becky, Joyce, and Dina as the girls the book title could plausible refer to.
Becky’s motivations for coming on this trip are ambiguous. On purpose. That’s why Becky is asking why she came and Joyce is responding that she doesn’t know. It’s not a rhetorical question, it’s the key dramatic mystery of this storyline.
We’ve been given two options as to Becky’s motivations. One, offered by Becky herself, is that it’s a selfless act of support. The other, given by Sarah, is that Becky is still in love with Joyce. This strip is clearly intended to lend credence to Sarah’s theory by having Joyce and Becky herself call her motivations into question. Assuming Becky doesn’t have some mystery third motivation (unlikely), here are the possible endings to this arc.
1. Becky has been entirely selfless, but other characters don’t believe her, leading to drama. She really is “that perfect girl”
2, Becky is still in love with Joyce, and really is just a total selfish prick. Joyce is “that perfect girl” in Becky’s mind
3. Becky is still in love with Joyce, realizes it, and runs off to live happily ever after with Dina (or at least until the next arc involving them). Dina is That Perfect Girl.
I’m putting my money on three. Option one doesn’t resolve properly unless the moral of the story is “stop trying to help people and make out with cute dinosaur girls” which is a weird moral, and being Too Pure For This Sinful Earth isn’t really Willis’ style anyway. Option two would blow up the comment section so hard that I kind of want it to happened in a “some men just want to watch the world burn” way. Option three is thus the most likely. Becky can’t magically turn off being in love with someone, but it’s here that she realizes she’s still hanging on to a false dream, and commits to being with Dina.
I don’t believe she is morally flawless. I believe that she has a major character flaw that causes her to believe that she is a toxin and imposition to everyone in her life and thus is more likely to unhealthily bury her pain and rush to support and talk up her loved ones, especially those she has histories with or crushes on.
And I think they are all “that perfect girl”. Largely all for the same reason to.
Becky, Joyce, Carla, Ruth, Billie, all are under intense pressures to be perfect to be seen as worth loving.
Becky in having to beg for mere tolerance from the closest thing she still has to family and in burying her pain for Joyce’s sake. Joyce in having to bury her doubts and the way she’s starting to view some behaviors of her raising environment as toxic so as to still be flawless for her mother. Jocelyne in having to bury herself and who she is to be still loved by her family and not disowned at best. Ruth in having to navigate blackmail and having to perfectly disguise any sign of her relationship with Billie and rise to actually doing the job of being a good RA, even if that is ripping her apart internally. Billie in having to deal with not being that perfect partner for Ruth anymore because of said blackmail and having to actually look into herself. And Dina in her belief that she is a mere afterthought to Becky and her insecurities about being left behind for Joyce or simply just thrown away.
All are trying to be perfect somethings or are facing demands that they be perfect someones. All are struggling to incorporate their real selves into that. Their flaws and their strengths and make it through with the least amount of damage possible.
Or at least, that’s my take on it.
And I don’t feel that is overly optimistic to say so.
ESM
“I don’t believe she is morally flawless. I believe that she has a major character flaw that causes her to believe that she is a toxin and imposition to everyone in her life and thus is more likely to unhealthily bury her pain and rush to support and talk up her loved ones, especially those she has histories with or crushes on.”
I realize that a lot of people are applying the worst possibile interpretation of everything Becky’s ever done, but this is probably going too far the other way. Becky’s never acted like she was worried she was an imposition on people. Quite the opposite, in fact. She’s loud, brash, kind of obnoxious, and spends money on rad haircuts while Joyce is literally skipping meals. Charitably, she’s caught up in the rush of being able to be honest with people for the first time. Uncharitably, she’s doesn’t think about how her actions affect others. Most fights about Becky are about how charitable you want to be with her, and this arc seems like it’s going to answer the question definitively. Personally, I think she’s a good person and maybe a little caught up in being able to express herself freely for the first time, but I certainly don’t think her character flaw is that she’s a doormat.
“Becky, Joyce, Carla, Ruth, Billie, all are under intense pressures to be perfect to be seen as worth loving.”
That’s….certainly an interpretation of things. Becky’s already loved, by Dina, and if she’s hoping to be loved by Joyce as well then Sarah’s right about her, at least partially. Joyce isn’t looking for love (of any kind) in this storyline at all. Her struggle is trying to figure out what she believes anymore. Ruth and Billie aren’t trying to be perfect for love, they have love, they’re trying to beat Ruth. Carla’s not trying to be perfect; she explicitly rejects wanting to/having to be “That Perfect Girl”, though the fact that she said the title means it might end up referring to her after all. Dina might well be the titular “perfect girl” but we’ve seen no sign that she’s trying to change herself for Becky, Grease-style. If Joycelyn’s in this story at all, I’ve missed her (which I might have)
Fair enough, I clearly misspoke with regards to being “perfect”. I suppose I’m meaning it more in terms of having to be perfect in some aspect or demanded to be perfect for some aspect in order to retain their status quo or their humanity, rather than love specifically.
Mea culpa.
“Becky’s never acted like she was worried she was an imposition on people. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
It’s not like she didn’t tell Dina, the woman she loves, that she would have lived under a bridge in her first plan of escape never contacting her or Joyce again, just to keep them safe from her father’s wrath and never put them in harm’s way again: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/fought/
It’s not like she deliberately had her girlfriend take another route in escaping her violent father, trusting that he’d chase her and her “hi-visibility” hair cut instead thus keeping her safe. Self-sacrifice, putting oneself in harm’s way, decreasing the harm to another: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/deceptress/
It’s not like she didn’t literally give up everything, giving herself over freely to the violent abuser who was to take her to a reparative therapy camp where she was to be tortured until she hated herself…at best, all because her standing up for herself was leading to Joyce being triggered and others being put in harms way: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/risk/
Shall I continue?
“and spends money on rad haircuts”
Pfft. Bwahahahaha!
Oh man, every time. Every single time. It always rolls back to that sad little haircut argument. It’s like, oh, is Becky on screen? How long until someone calls her selfish and starts whining that she spent $20 on a haircut instead of infinite poverty solving haircuts.
You know what? Thanks. I needed to laugh like that to help reset.
butting
She’s loud, brash, kind of obnoxious, and spends money on rad haircuts while Joyce is literally skipping meals. Charitably, she’s caught up in the rush of being able to be honest with people for the first time. Uncharitably, she’s doesn’t think about how her actions affect others. Most fights about Becky are about how charitable you want to be with her, and this arc seems like it’s going to answer the question definitively.
Um.
The rad haircut you’re using as a sign of Becky being inconsiderate reads instead to me as a necessary and vital step of establishing and declaring her own identity, in the face of a culture that’s determined to erase her at best. If she were my friend… much as I hate to speak for Joyce, that’d be worth a whole bunch more than skipping some meals.
I’d suggest that this arc isn’t about how charitable anyone should be to Becky but about the wider issue of what restrictions should be placed on her self-identity. Joyce and Toedad have given their answers, and now Hank and Carol are lining up to put the same question to the test in a relatively safe home setting (and the notion of the Brown household being a surrogate home for Becky is important, as is the inverted gender of Joyce/Hank and Toedad/Carol; this is surely not by accident) rather than Toedad’s deluded and violent guns-at-high-noon setting.
But… how charitable should we be with Becky? Could well be an inadvertent word choice there, but I’ll take it any way: I’m with Joyce. I’d maintain that the charity—in several senses—displayed by Dina, Amber/Amazigirl, Joyce, Sal, and an anonymous passerby (doncha just love that it was entirely women who intervened?) fully answers the question. And lest we mistake that as being all about Becky, I think Becky’s heart-breaking final attempt to reason with her father shows that her own concept of how deserving anyone is of that same charity knows few bounds.
thejeff
As for the haircut, which keeps coming up, that’s a really nice sign of how subtle Willis can be – 8 months after the haircut, Ross tells us why she cut it. “Your hair is your womanhood, and you must reclaim it.” That’s what she was reacting to. Not just a girl wasting money on a “rad haircut”, a deliberate, if symbolic, renunciation of the toxic culture she was raised in.
Worth every damn penny.
And so nicely understated. Becky doesn’t explain it. Even Joyce’s reaction fits in that context.
If Joycelyn’s in this story at all, I’ve missed her (which I might have)
Jocelyne, not Joycelyn.
And no you didn’t miss her, she hasn’t shown up so far.
However she was in preview panels on Willis’ tumblrs, so her showing up is a given.
Leorale
People often have multiple motivations for their actions. Becky can be hitching a ride because she wants a sense of family, because she needs her SSN, because she’s supporting Joyce, and because she still loves Joyce, all at once.
The title, I think, is that many characters are reacting to various expectations or perceptions of being That Perfect Girl, and exploring the gap between that pressure vs. their imperfect selves. For example, Carla expressly rejects the expectation that she must be that perfect girl to make up for being a transwoman. Joyce fears that she’ll have to be seen as the perfect daughter, and maybe she was before, but won’t be able to be perfect anymore because she’s changed. Becky and Dina think each other is perfect and can be insecure about their own merits (especially Dina). Mary thinks she is more perfect than you, and Billie and Ruth, who loathe themselves, hate that about her. Billie is actively trying to be the perfect support-girlfriend, to save Ruth. You can bet Jocelyn will have some idea of herself in relation to that construct, too, and maybe others by the time this storyline is done.
Emily
That seems like an unreasonably cynical and OOC interpretation of her actions.
thejeff
If there’s anything self-centered about her going with Joyce, it’s probably her hope that she can connect with Joyce’s parents and find something a bit like family and home again, strengthened by Hank’s reaction and dashed by Carol’s.
If there’s anything about maybe hooking up with Joyce in there, it’s buried way down in the subconscious under a mountain of denial. They’re going to have to recontextualize their relationship at some point to get away from that, since it’s always been friendship on Joyce’s part and (unrealized) crush on Becky’s. Likely that’s going to require some distance to work out, but they’ve both got enough trauma and need enough support right now that this isn’t a good time.
SDGlyph
I think you need to allow Becky to be human and make mistakes too, Cerberus. As above & elsewhere, I don’t think Becky really made a fully-thought-through and intentional decision to come along to support Joyce and (especially) to deflect criticism onto herself, as you’ve suggested; but more specifically to the theme, she’s hurting Dina, however unintentionally, by her fixation on Joyce.
Look again at the recent sequence, from [internal screaming] on; Becky & Dina are happily hand-in-hand until Becky gets panged for Joyce again (thanks Walky). When Joyce has a problem, Becky leaps to her side and poof! Dina’s out of the picture again; now Becky’s impulsively cadged a road trip for a mess of reasons that I don’t think even she fully understands and run off for the weekend with her love-of-my-life, seemingly without a word to her actual girlfriend, who’s missing her and (rightfully) insecure about the relationship.
Becky is treating Dina poorly here, and the last two panels make it pretty clear that she’s just realised it. For all that her cynicism and timing suck, Sarah’s not actually wrong. Happy Valentine’s Day.
SDGlyph
Eh, I took way too long to type this and got severely ninja’d. Oh well! 🙂
SDGlyph
To be clear, in case I wasn’t: Becky is unambiguously Good People. The point is that even Good People can get things wrong and cause hurt without meaning to, and I think Becky has just realised she’s doing that with Dina.
“I think you need to allow Becky to be human and make mistakes too, Cerberus.”
Indeed, I think she has major flaws that hamper her. Her jealousy of Dorothy. Her burying of pain making it difficult for others to emotionally support her (which is probably also modeling bury your pain behavior for Dina that is directly leading to Dina not talking about how much the Joyce stuff is bothering her). I like Becky because she’s a mess and I identify with a number of ways in which she’s a mess.
“I don’t think Becky really made a fully-thought-through and intentional decision to come along to support Joyce and (especially) to deflect criticism onto herself”
I would agree. I don’t think Becky had much of a fully-thought out anything other than “Joyce sad, I need to support, I can offer to come with, she said yes, I’m coming with” and certainly didn’t intend to be a criticism sponge. Hell, part of her was probably clinging to some distant hope that things would go well and she’d find her replacement family.
Interestingly enough, this is an intriguing aspect of Becky as a character. She’s impulsive, which typically means bad in most narratives, but in DoA, it actually works out more often than not. She takes big risks, trusting in her ability to improvise on the fly and make things work. Sometimes they pay off (her 9-11 gambit, her fleeing to Joyce, her admission of attraction to Dina), sometimes they don’t (her coming on to Joyce and kissing her, her split up and lose him in the treeline gambit), but she always keeps on trying and just absorbs the bad and tries to keep a positive demeanor. It’s… I don’t fully know what, maybe a little aspirational, because someone who takes big risks like that is kind of an interesting character.
And as for your sequence of events, I can see where you’re coming from, but I think you’re missing a very key piece.
“seemingly without a word to her actual girlfriend,”
Panel 5:
Hank: “… So who’s that Becky is saying goodbye to?”
Joyce: “That’s Dina, her girlfriend.”
She deliberately went out of her way to say goodbye to Dina. Additionally, Dina was present and made very aware of the offer and the plan, hours before any of that recent sequence. Dina knew this was happening and Becky made sure she said goodbye first.
Which does not seem to support your particular conclusion here.
Also, I will note that the last time that everyone assumed that Becky was doing something wrong, imposing on Joyce and putting her in danger, they were all wrong, Becky was in fact invited and everything was okay and the time shortly after where everyone assumed that Becky was being awful and not saying goodbye to Dina, the next strip was Becky saying goodbye to Dina.
I am fully prepared to be 100% wrong on Becky and Becky’s actions in context. That’s the fun thing about reading a webcomic. But I feel somewhat justified in assuming a better case scenario for Becky’s motivations than most given previous predictions regarding her behavior.
SDGlyph
Ah, yes – you’re right, I forgot that she did say goodbye. I don’t think it invalidates the conclusion, though, to take that specific bit out (I’ll note that I did deliberately cast it from a sympathetic-to-Dina perspective). The thread still seems to be that Dina comes second to Joyce in Becky’s thinking, and knows it.
I get your reading on Dina knowing about Becky’s plan – personally, though, I got the impression that Becky going with Joyce wasn’t so much a ‘done deal’ as a suggestion Becky had made, but was still up in the air. I don’t recall Joyce saying Yes (correct me if I’m wrong!), and I thought the layout from when Becky went over to greet Hank read more like a snap decision than being pre-planned – Joyce didn’t really seem to have been expecting her to come with them, either then or now. Either way, though, Dina seems to have been an onlooker to that discussion, not involved in it.
All of which is not to say, of course, that Becky’s being selfish – she patently isn’t. I do think that she’s neglecting Dina’s feelings in favour of Joyce and needs to recognise that (and in fact just has). It may well be a case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.
thejeff
She’s also in the week or so she’s been here made deliberate attempts to balance her time with Dina and Joyce and talked about that with Dina. In terms of going with them to classes and things like that. We didn’t see the conversation with Dina about the weekend, but we know she knew about it and actually be a major change in their relationship patterns for them not to have talked about it.
Beyond that, while she has a crush on Joyce, she’s also been her best friend forever and she’s only known Dina a week. And Joyce is going through a major crisis, which Becky is directly involved with, while Dina isn’t. Becky isn’t going to cut Joyce out of her life or stop supporting her, that would be a horrible thing to do.
But yes, Dina’s going to feel hurt and insecure about it at times. That’s the low part of a new relationship, to go with the new relationship high. You’re not yet confident and secure enough in the relationship to trust, even when trust is warranted.
Dina’s feeling jealous which is normal and human, but it would’ve been genuinely horrible of Becky to abandon her oldest and dearest friend at an emotionally critical moment simply because of the confusion of her crush and the outside possibility that her new girlfriend would take it the wrong way.
Do they need to talk about the feelings this all arises, Dina about her feelings of jealousy and abandonment and insecurities surrounding being wanted and Becky about her buried stuff and her feelings of needing to sacrifice for those who’ve “saved her” and her fears about family?
Totes. But that’s part of a relationship. And having messy complications with feelings and desires to do good is part of being humans and especially humans in love.
her 9-11 gambit
Her what?
I really do not grok the term.
I tried to educate myself by a look on the google, but all that came up was Trump vs Jeb Bush.
thejeff
“911”, not “9-11”. Emergency response number.
Dialing 911 in the car when she saw Amazi-girl in tow, alerting the police and not incidentally providing evidence to them, but also putting herself more at risk when her dad realized it. That is in fact when he hit her.
That she didn’t do it until someone else was at risk is the relevant point here, I think.
457 thoughts on “Thoughtless”
Ana Chronistic
♪caaaaaaan you feel the looooooove tonight♫
Doctor_Who
I got more of a
♪Somewhere…out there…beneath the pale mooooonliiiight…♫
vibe.
Ctrl+C D@
American Tail high-five!
Leorale
That’s the adorable mouse-children movie of my childhood. ^.^ My mom made my big brother a Fievel costume.
Ctrl+C D@
That’s right, the adorable mouse-children movie where multiple people die and we get to witness the horrible late 19th century racism and depravity of Europe and America.
THANKS DON BLUTH!
Doctor_Who
My childhood was haunted by nightmares featuring the Owl from Secret of Nimh, the demonic dragon thing from All Dogs go to Heaven, Sharptooth, and the Giant Mouse of Minsk.
Needless to say, when Bluth started crowdfunding to get the Dragon’s Lair movie off the ground, I couldn’t open my wallet fast enough.
Gareth
The otherday I rewatched the first Bluth movie from my childhood (The Land Before Time).
When it got to the bit with the shadow it hit me in the feels so hard that I yelled out that Don Bluth “is a sadist”
Narf
Shut up and take my money!
Leorale
Wait, characters died in that series? I don’t remember that. I do remember adorable mouse race-relations, and that lady-cat’s perfume. Guess I’ll have to watch it again as a grownup…
Leorale
Also Tanya Mouskowitz was the best.
ChrisHerself
Cat lady was in the sequel which wasn’t directed by Bluth FWIW.
Roborat
I thought the sequel was better than the original.
ChrisHerself
It was certainly…… louder.
ChrisHerself
Thank you indeed Don Bluth! At least when his themes are horrifying they’re horrifying for LOTS of interesting reasons and not just “This girl is underage” a la Disney. Which is a nice effect of not pulling 1000% of your source material from centuries-old fairy tales.
Uniqueantique
Disney pulled his sorce mat’l from his head and elsewhere: he surely did not follow the original fairy tales.
Those originals were written to teach a morale in as gruesome a way as possible.
Cinderella’s stepmother ended up dancing at her wedding while wearing iron shoes on a bed of hot coals.
He prettied up her suffering under that stepmother and ended up having her saved by a prince-Heaven forbid she could save herself because of the code of her environrment.
Watch Disney’s Fantasia while you’re high. You’ll remember the dragon – devil unwrapping his wings off the mt. top, if you remember nothing else.
No fairy tales were cute little fun bed time stories. They were meant to teach kids to survive in the world and society.
J.Crowe
That was Snow White’s stepmother that danced on coals. Cinderella’s adoptive family was mauled by birds.
Chris
Saw that in the theatre as a wee child – my very first movie. I love the tune of Night on Bald Mountain, but I still cannot forget that demon/devil scene.
ChrisHerself
Uhm–seriously don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Disney films. I just like Bluth also. 🙂 But you seem to be confirming exactly the point I was trying to make. Disney prettied up the suffering of the protagonists in his films versus their original darker source material and that’s why Bluth ended up becoming more interesting to me. It wasn’t so watered down. It was gritty.
“Watch Disney’s Fantasia while you’re high. ”
LOL way ahead of you. I love the Night on Bald Mountain sequence. Interestingly a lot of the artists who worked on the pastoral sequences were later mortified at how little justice they’d done the original classical scores. They thought they were making high art, but came to view it as embarassingly gauche and tacky looking back at it later. Which is a shame, I liked those sequences the most as a small child because UNICORNS AND PEGASI AND CENTAURS
Ed Rhodes
I will buy MOST of what you’re saying. But don’t lay the “she needed a prince to save her, she couldn’t save herself” card on Disney. The old fairy tales constantly had the prince saving the girl. I remember one where the girl had to gather thistles and weave shirts for her brothers who’d been changed into swans. She was warned that she couldn’t speak to anyone or the spell would not be broken. The people got it into their heads that she was bewitched somehow and sent for the prince. He decided if she wouldn’t speak, he would have her executed as a witch. At the last minute, on the chopping block, she finished up MOST of the shirts and put them on her swan brothers (one sleeve wasn’t finished and that brother kept a wing for the rest of his life – thanks prince) THEN she told the prince everything that was happening and the prince asked for her hand in marriage. “Sure, you rushing my work so one of my brothers will have a wing for an arm for the rest of his life and you almost killing me for the crime of NOT TALKING is of no consequence at all! I’ll be happy to marry you!”
ChrisHerself
I wasn’t saying that’s exclusive to Disney in the slightest. I was saying that if the Disney machine took your fairy tale, by the time they were through with it the darkness of the original would have been watered down considerably to make it more ‘palatable’ for a modern audience. Bluth didn’t do that so much. Till he gave up and did. And then we got Thumbelina.
Annie
I still think that Don Bluth is the reason that to this day, I prefer a tear-jerker movie to a comedy or romance movie.
The first several movies I saw in theaters were by Bluth, not Disney. The Disney Renaissance started in 1989 with The Little Mermaid. I was only 6 at that time, but I’d already seen several Don Bluth movies, had a few on VHS, and had Fievel as my ever-present imaginary friend by the time Ariel came in to my life.
I certainly grew up on Disney, and feel fortunate that I was in the generation able to grow-up with the Disney Renaissance, but it’s Bluth’s movies that made me love animation, movies, and art. They were certainly dark as far as children’s movies go, but it liked that about them. There was a real sense of danger and that maybe, just maybe, everything wouldn’t turn out alright in the end. That made the movie more exciting and enjoyable to me.
ChrisHerself
All of this!
Yet_One_More_Idiot
I love Disney movies – Don Bluth’s work, for the most part, I don’t think I’ve even seen (apart from the first one or maybe two of the Land Before Times).
One of my top animated movies of all time though?
Rankin-Bass’ “The Flight of Dragons”. For it’s animation, it’s storytelling, it’s characterisations, action scenes, and the fact that characters DO genuinely die (although magic brings some back in the coda), it is my fave.
And another one is “The Princess and the Goblin”, again for many if not all of the same reasons as above. 🙂
(I also own and love all the Disney animated movies) 😀
Annie
The sequels to the Land Before Time weren’t directed by Bluth at all. The original Land Before Time is the only one that counts as a Bluth film and (as far as I know) is the only one that carries Bluth’s signature style in both art design and storytelling.
Along with Land Before Time, The Secret of NIMH and All Dogs Go to Heaven are very much worth watching at least once.
I’m also particularly fond of Titan AE, which, even though it came out around 15+ years after the others we’re talking about, is still a decent movie. Though it’s not as emotional as his work from the 80s. I often wonder that if it had been, if it would have done better at the box office.
Annie
I adored that movie. I’d be willing to bet that I still know it word-for-word.
For several years my imaginary friend was Fievel. I’d freak the heck out if my mother made me wear an outfit without pockets because then Fievel would have a hard time hitching a ride on me wherever I went. If I had pockets, he could just hop in there.
Kyle Voltti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTK4eEqMa3Y
One Little Star
djaevlenselv
Since we’re all talking about American Tail, can I ask why people always keep referencing that song as a romantic duet? They’re siblings for goodness sake.
gkheyf
because on valentine’s day, people who aren’t thoughtless jerks go on road trips away from their girlfriends.
…that was a cheap, inaccurate shot. everyone’s having a rough time and no ones trying to be a jerk. except for the few glaring exceptions
Durandal_1707
It’s not Valentine’s Day in the comic, though, is it? Aren’t the leaves still on the trees?
gkheyf
yup. that’s the inaccurate bit
Annie
Yeah, it’s still autumn in the comic. I know we are before Thanksgiving in the comic, but I’m not sure if we’re still ahead of Halloween?
Jason
First week of October.
Clif
No, the sads are Willis’s valentine gift to us. Which speaks to the nature of our relationship.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
These feeeeeeeeels
They keep on hitting me right in the faaaaaaaace
bobjohnsonandthediglets
For a nickel
(and subs)
CJ
Valentines Day sort of invaded Germany in the last 20-30 years but still it’s not a thing that is largely observed (at least in my age group ;). A lot of people treat it as a conspiracy of the flower and sweets industry to sell more stuff.
But, like in Japan, in the US it seems to be really important for people in romantic relationships? So most people would expect to be treated specially on that day, like it was a relationship anniversary or something?
– or maybe it’s my age group and feminist leanings
happy one billion rising 😉
http://www.onebillionrising.org/
gkheyf
there’s a lot of conspiracy muttering in the u.s. as well (cuz that is the actual origin), but most people in relationships know better than to use that as an excuse not to buy loads of stuff and over-eat chocolate
FireSTK
It’s more likely your common sense and the fact that people are way better at catching when corporations are trying to manipulate the populace. Then again did Valentine’s day start up around when the Berlin Wall came down? I can Imagine cynicism running strong in that crowd.
Tabitha Desanto
Well at least it is not valentines day in comic.
Mr. Mendo
Ooooh, Joyce… SO close to sticking the landing…
jayax
What’s she do wrong?
Mr. Mendo
Oh, she didn’t do anything wrong, she just *is* wrong. 🙁
jayax
Joyce is wrong about a lot of stuff in general, but what did she
say that was incorrect in this strip?
Mr. Mendo
About Becky not being thoughtless, is what I mean.
tonyt94
She’s really turning a blind eye towards Becky’s new “lifestyle” and consequently can’t even perceive how much her best friend’s action might be deeply hurting other people.
Arguably a strong case of head-in-the-sand here.
Cerberus
“Lifestyle”?
Oh dear are we in for another avalanche of folks blaming Becky for poisoning the water holes of the world? Cause, I’m gonna be honest. I’m really not up for another 30 person spread of Victim-Blaming Theatre.*
*And no, that last paragraph isn’t directed at you, just that that popped in my head as a worry.
3-I
Becky nuking the closet is the reason Hitler rose to power in the years leading to world war two, you know. AND the reason VHS rose to prominence over Betamax and Laserdisc.
Cerberus
Huh…
Mea culpa I guess. Damn VHS aiding lesbians!
Clif
Well I thought that the victory of VHS over better formats was the result of the advantage of open source over propriatary and that Hitler was just one of
Mike’s jokes that got out of hand.
GreyDefender
@Cerberus “Damn VHS aiding lesbians!”
There’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.
FireSTK
I’d less worry about Becky’s sexuality (which is totally her own and she should do as she sees fit in that area) and worry more about her impulsiveness. There’s a fine line between spontaneous and waking up in Nova Scotia with no idea how or when you crossed the border.
zoelogical
….??????
Leorale
I agree with Joyce on this one.
Carms
Implication being Becky IS a thoughtless jerk because of how she’s jaunted off with her long time object of affection, leaving her current actual still-new girlfriend to stew and wonder and fret about her actual significance to Becky etc. Unclear whether that’s what occurred to Becky, but it’s what the narrative seems to be getting at. Joyce’s misstep is asserting Becky to be thoughtless and jerky in the face of that.
Carms
*to not be thoughtless etc
Cerberus
Well, Becky’s problem tends to be that she’s self-sacrificing and selfless to her own detriment. And all of Joyce’s friends have been super worried for her and been shown to dig deeper than they normally would to try and be there for her (Dorothy partially considering sleeping with her if it would make her smile, Sal speaking up for her in a major way, Billie openly worrying about her, Becky offering to come along on this trip).
So it’s not that she’s a thoughtless jerk, just that this was a situation where she did know that Joyce was going to a rough situation and needed a friend and Becky was the only one in a position to even try to come along and support and didn’t know that her girlfriend is threatened by this and worries that she’s just a rebound to Becky.
I suspect we’ll see Becky calling Dina sometime this evening or the following morning just to check in and say hi (and hopefully open up to her about how things are making her feel cause damn it is not healthy for her to repress as much as she does), but this was a perfectly sensible decision to make here and genuinely does show a lot of thought and care.
ESM
I somehow doubt Becky’s reasons for coming with Joyce were quite so noble, which is part of why she’s questioning them herself in panel one.
I think she’s still holding on to the hope that Joyce will decide that actually she IS a lesbian and then Becky and Joyce become an item and Dina Who?
Cerberus
Well, it’s not like there’s a long comic history of her being unreasonably selfless:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/hittheroad/#comment-967339
So…
ESM
I agree that if you put the most positive possibly spin on literally everything Becky does, she comes off pretty good. Like “that perfect girl” in fact, which is the name of this book. I wonder who That Perfect Girl is. Carla explicitly says she isn’t (which means she might be), and it’s certainly not Mary or Ruth, so that leaves Becky, Joyce, and Dina as the girls the book title could plausible refer to.
Becky’s motivations for coming on this trip are ambiguous. On purpose. That’s why Becky is asking why she came and Joyce is responding that she doesn’t know. It’s not a rhetorical question, it’s the key dramatic mystery of this storyline.
We’ve been given two options as to Becky’s motivations. One, offered by Becky herself, is that it’s a selfless act of support. The other, given by Sarah, is that Becky is still in love with Joyce. This strip is clearly intended to lend credence to Sarah’s theory by having Joyce and Becky herself call her motivations into question. Assuming Becky doesn’t have some mystery third motivation (unlikely), here are the possible endings to this arc.
1. Becky has been entirely selfless, but other characters don’t believe her, leading to drama. She really is “that perfect girl”
2, Becky is still in love with Joyce, and really is just a total selfish prick. Joyce is “that perfect girl” in Becky’s mind
3. Becky is still in love with Joyce, realizes it, and runs off to live happily ever after with Dina (or at least until the next arc involving them). Dina is That Perfect Girl.
I’m putting my money on three. Option one doesn’t resolve properly unless the moral of the story is “stop trying to help people and make out with cute dinosaur girls” which is a weird moral, and being Too Pure For This Sinful Earth isn’t really Willis’ style anyway. Option two would blow up the comment section so hard that I kind of want it to happened in a “some men just want to watch the world burn” way. Option three is thus the most likely. Becky can’t magically turn off being in love with someone, but it’s here that she realizes she’s still hanging on to a false dream, and commits to being with Dina.
Cerberus
I don’t believe she is morally flawless. I believe that she has a major character flaw that causes her to believe that she is a toxin and imposition to everyone in her life and thus is more likely to unhealthily bury her pain and rush to support and talk up her loved ones, especially those she has histories with or crushes on.
And I think they are all “that perfect girl”. Largely all for the same reason to.
Becky, Joyce, Carla, Ruth, Billie, all are under intense pressures to be perfect to be seen as worth loving.
Becky in having to beg for mere tolerance from the closest thing she still has to family and in burying her pain for Joyce’s sake. Joyce in having to bury her doubts and the way she’s starting to view some behaviors of her raising environment as toxic so as to still be flawless for her mother. Jocelyne in having to bury herself and who she is to be still loved by her family and not disowned at best. Ruth in having to navigate blackmail and having to perfectly disguise any sign of her relationship with Billie and rise to actually doing the job of being a good RA, even if that is ripping her apart internally. Billie in having to deal with not being that perfect partner for Ruth anymore because of said blackmail and having to actually look into herself. And Dina in her belief that she is a mere afterthought to Becky and her insecurities about being left behind for Joyce or simply just thrown away.
All are trying to be perfect somethings or are facing demands that they be perfect someones. All are struggling to incorporate their real selves into that. Their flaws and their strengths and make it through with the least amount of damage possible.
Or at least, that’s my take on it.
And I don’t feel that is overly optimistic to say so.
ESM
“I don’t believe she is morally flawless. I believe that she has a major character flaw that causes her to believe that she is a toxin and imposition to everyone in her life and thus is more likely to unhealthily bury her pain and rush to support and talk up her loved ones, especially those she has histories with or crushes on.”
I realize that a lot of people are applying the worst possibile interpretation of everything Becky’s ever done, but this is probably going too far the other way. Becky’s never acted like she was worried she was an imposition on people. Quite the opposite, in fact. She’s loud, brash, kind of obnoxious, and spends money on rad haircuts while Joyce is literally skipping meals. Charitably, she’s caught up in the rush of being able to be honest with people for the first time. Uncharitably, she’s doesn’t think about how her actions affect others. Most fights about Becky are about how charitable you want to be with her, and this arc seems like it’s going to answer the question definitively. Personally, I think she’s a good person and maybe a little caught up in being able to express herself freely for the first time, but I certainly don’t think her character flaw is that she’s a doormat.
“Becky, Joyce, Carla, Ruth, Billie, all are under intense pressures to be perfect to be seen as worth loving.”
That’s….certainly an interpretation of things. Becky’s already loved, by Dina, and if she’s hoping to be loved by Joyce as well then Sarah’s right about her, at least partially. Joyce isn’t looking for love (of any kind) in this storyline at all. Her struggle is trying to figure out what she believes anymore. Ruth and Billie aren’t trying to be perfect for love, they have love, they’re trying to beat Ruth. Carla’s not trying to be perfect; she explicitly rejects wanting to/having to be “That Perfect Girl”, though the fact that she said the title means it might end up referring to her after all. Dina might well be the titular “perfect girl” but we’ve seen no sign that she’s trying to change herself for Becky, Grease-style. If Joycelyn’s in this story at all, I’ve missed her (which I might have)
Cerberus
Fair enough, I clearly misspoke with regards to being “perfect”. I suppose I’m meaning it more in terms of having to be perfect in some aspect or demanded to be perfect for some aspect in order to retain their status quo or their humanity, rather than love specifically.
Mea culpa.
“Becky’s never acted like she was worried she was an imposition on people. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Yeah, it’s really an odd idea, is it not?
It’s not like her brashness is a deliberate front:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/downer/
It’s not like she doesn’t beat herself up for past actions if she thinks they had the potential to hurt someone she cares about:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/bubbling/
It’s not like she says that everything is her fault because of the fallout from her situation, imploding with guilt as she watches loved ones suffer:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/fault/
It’s not like she believes that her presence has broken everything and that by being here she’s toxic to her loved ones:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/lob/
It’s not like she doesn’t worry that her habits are taken as deliberate attacks to said loved ones and seek to clarify them:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/originalsin/
It’s not like her reaction to a girlfriend wanting to treat her is to ask for company while she looks for a job instead because she doesn’t want to take advantage of her friends, despite it being about one single week since she got here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/aspirations/
It’s not like she refused to take Dina’s phone as that would inconvenience Dina:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/sticks/
It’s not like she’ll put herself in physical danger in order to try and save a stranger’s life:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/restore/
It’s not like she hides the most deeply painful personal experiences so they won’t inconvenience her friends:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/hi-2/
It’s not like she puts aside recovering from majorly terrifying events to emotionally support her friends first:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/damn/
It’s not like she didn’t tell Dina, the woman she loves, that she would have lived under a bridge in her first plan of escape never contacting her or Joyce again, just to keep them safe from her father’s wrath and never put them in harm’s way again:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/fought/
It’s not like she deliberately had her girlfriend take another route in escaping her violent father, trusting that he’d chase her and her “hi-visibility” hair cut instead thus keeping her safe. Self-sacrifice, putting oneself in harm’s way, decreasing the harm to another:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/deceptress/
It’s not like she didn’t literally give up everything, giving herself over freely to the violent abuser who was to take her to a reparative therapy camp where she was to be tortured until she hated herself…at best, all because her standing up for herself was leading to Joyce being triggered and others being put in harms way:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/risk/
Shall I continue?
“and spends money on rad haircuts”
Pfft. Bwahahahaha!
Oh man, every time. Every single time. It always rolls back to that sad little haircut argument. It’s like, oh, is Becky on screen? How long until someone calls her selfish and starts whining that she spent $20 on a haircut instead of infinite poverty solving haircuts.
You know what? Thanks. I needed to laugh like that to help reset.
butting
She’s loud, brash, kind of obnoxious, and spends money on rad haircuts while Joyce is literally skipping meals. Charitably, she’s caught up in the rush of being able to be honest with people for the first time. Uncharitably, she’s doesn’t think about how her actions affect others. Most fights about Becky are about how charitable you want to be with her, and this arc seems like it’s going to answer the question definitively.
Um.
The rad haircut you’re using as a sign of Becky being inconsiderate reads instead to me as a necessary and vital step of establishing and declaring her own identity, in the face of a culture that’s determined to erase her at best. If she were my friend… much as I hate to speak for Joyce, that’d be worth a whole bunch more than skipping some meals.
I’d suggest that this arc isn’t about how charitable anyone should be to Becky but about the wider issue of what restrictions should be placed on her self-identity. Joyce and Toedad have given their answers, and now Hank and Carol are lining up to put the same question to the test in a relatively safe home setting (and the notion of the Brown household being a surrogate home for Becky is important, as is the inverted gender of Joyce/Hank and Toedad/Carol; this is surely not by accident) rather than Toedad’s deluded and violent guns-at-high-noon setting.
But… how charitable should we be with Becky? Could well be an inadvertent word choice there, but I’ll take it any way: I’m with Joyce. I’d maintain that the charity—in several senses—displayed by Dina, Amber/Amazigirl, Joyce, Sal, and an anonymous passerby (doncha just love that it was entirely women who intervened?) fully answers the question. And lest we mistake that as being all about Becky, I think Becky’s heart-breaking final attempt to reason with her father shows that her own concept of how deserving anyone is of that same charity knows few bounds.
thejeff
As for the haircut, which keeps coming up, that’s a really nice sign of how subtle Willis can be – 8 months after the haircut, Ross tells us why she cut it. “Your hair is your womanhood, and you must reclaim it.” That’s what she was reacting to. Not just a girl wasting money on a “rad haircut”, a deliberate, if symbolic, renunciation of the toxic culture she was raised in.
Worth every damn penny.
And so nicely understated. Becky doesn’t explain it. Even Joyce’s reaction fits in that context.
Amazi-Stool
If Joycelyn’s in this story at all, I’ve missed her (which I might have)
Jocelyne, not Joycelyn.
And no you didn’t miss her, she hasn’t shown up so far.
However she was in preview panels on Willis’ tumblrs, so her showing up is a given.
Leorale
People often have multiple motivations for their actions. Becky can be hitching a ride because she wants a sense of family, because she needs her SSN, because she’s supporting Joyce, and because she still loves Joyce, all at once.
The title, I think, is that many characters are reacting to various expectations or perceptions of being That Perfect Girl, and exploring the gap between that pressure vs. their imperfect selves. For example, Carla expressly rejects the expectation that she must be that perfect girl to make up for being a transwoman. Joyce fears that she’ll have to be seen as the perfect daughter, and maybe she was before, but won’t be able to be perfect anymore because she’s changed. Becky and Dina think each other is perfect and can be insecure about their own merits (especially Dina). Mary thinks she is more perfect than you, and Billie and Ruth, who loathe themselves, hate that about her. Billie is actively trying to be the perfect support-girlfriend, to save Ruth. You can bet Jocelyn will have some idea of herself in relation to that construct, too, and maybe others by the time this storyline is done.
Emily
That seems like an unreasonably cynical and OOC interpretation of her actions.
thejeff
If there’s anything self-centered about her going with Joyce, it’s probably her hope that she can connect with Joyce’s parents and find something a bit like family and home again, strengthened by Hank’s reaction and dashed by Carol’s.
If there’s anything about maybe hooking up with Joyce in there, it’s buried way down in the subconscious under a mountain of denial. They’re going to have to recontextualize their relationship at some point to get away from that, since it’s always been friendship on Joyce’s part and (unrealized) crush on Becky’s. Likely that’s going to require some distance to work out, but they’ve both got enough trauma and need enough support right now that this isn’t a good time.
SDGlyph
I think you need to allow Becky to be human and make mistakes too, Cerberus. As above & elsewhere, I don’t think Becky really made a fully-thought-through and intentional decision to come along to support Joyce and (especially) to deflect criticism onto herself, as you’ve suggested; but more specifically to the theme, she’s hurting Dina, however unintentionally, by her fixation on Joyce.
Look again at the recent sequence, from [internal screaming] on; Becky & Dina are happily hand-in-hand until Becky gets panged for Joyce again (thanks Walky). When Joyce has a problem, Becky leaps to her side and poof! Dina’s out of the picture again; now Becky’s impulsively cadged a road trip for a mess of reasons that I don’t think even she fully understands and run off for the weekend with her love-of-my-life, seemingly without a word to her actual girlfriend, who’s missing her and (rightfully) insecure about the relationship.
Becky is treating Dina poorly here, and the last two panels make it pretty clear that she’s just realised it. For all that her cynicism and timing suck, Sarah’s not actually wrong. Happy Valentine’s Day.
SDGlyph
Eh, I took way too long to type this and got severely ninja’d. Oh well! 🙂
SDGlyph
To be clear, in case I wasn’t: Becky is unambiguously Good People. The point is that even Good People can get things wrong and cause hurt without meaning to, and I think Becky has just realised she’s doing that with Dina.
Cerberus
“I think you need to allow Becky to be human and make mistakes too, Cerberus.”
Indeed, I think she has major flaws that hamper her. Her jealousy of Dorothy. Her burying of pain making it difficult for others to emotionally support her (which is probably also modeling bury your pain behavior for Dina that is directly leading to Dina not talking about how much the Joyce stuff is bothering her). I like Becky because she’s a mess and I identify with a number of ways in which she’s a mess.
“I don’t think Becky really made a fully-thought-through and intentional decision to come along to support Joyce and (especially) to deflect criticism onto herself”
I would agree. I don’t think Becky had much of a fully-thought out anything other than “Joyce sad, I need to support, I can offer to come with, she said yes, I’m coming with” and certainly didn’t intend to be a criticism sponge. Hell, part of her was probably clinging to some distant hope that things would go well and she’d find her replacement family.
Interestingly enough, this is an intriguing aspect of Becky as a character. She’s impulsive, which typically means bad in most narratives, but in DoA, it actually works out more often than not. She takes big risks, trusting in her ability to improvise on the fly and make things work. Sometimes they pay off (her 9-11 gambit, her fleeing to Joyce, her admission of attraction to Dina), sometimes they don’t (her coming on to Joyce and kissing her, her split up and lose him in the treeline gambit), but she always keeps on trying and just absorbs the bad and tries to keep a positive demeanor. It’s… I don’t fully know what, maybe a little aspirational, because someone who takes big risks like that is kind of an interesting character.
And as for your sequence of events, I can see where you’re coming from, but I think you’re missing a very key piece.
“seemingly without a word to her actual girlfriend,”
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/humility/
Panel 5:
Hank: “… So who’s that Becky is saying goodbye to?”
Joyce: “That’s Dina, her girlfriend.”
She deliberately went out of her way to say goodbye to Dina. Additionally, Dina was present and made very aware of the offer and the plan, hours before any of that recent sequence. Dina knew this was happening and Becky made sure she said goodbye first.
Which does not seem to support your particular conclusion here.
Also, I will note that the last time that everyone assumed that Becky was doing something wrong, imposing on Joyce and putting her in danger, they were all wrong, Becky was in fact invited and everything was okay and the time shortly after where everyone assumed that Becky was being awful and not saying goodbye to Dina, the next strip was Becky saying goodbye to Dina.
I am fully prepared to be 100% wrong on Becky and Becky’s actions in context. That’s the fun thing about reading a webcomic. But I feel somewhat justified in assuming a better case scenario for Becky’s motivations than most given previous predictions regarding her behavior.
SDGlyph
Ah, yes – you’re right, I forgot that she did say goodbye. I don’t think it invalidates the conclusion, though, to take that specific bit out (I’ll note that I did deliberately cast it from a sympathetic-to-Dina perspective). The thread still seems to be that Dina comes second to Joyce in Becky’s thinking, and knows it.
I get your reading on Dina knowing about Becky’s plan – personally, though, I got the impression that Becky going with Joyce wasn’t so much a ‘done deal’ as a suggestion Becky had made, but was still up in the air. I don’t recall Joyce saying Yes (correct me if I’m wrong!), and I thought the layout from when Becky went over to greet Hank read more like a snap decision than being pre-planned – Joyce didn’t really seem to have been expecting her to come with them, either then or now. Either way, though, Dina seems to have been an onlooker to that discussion, not involved in it.
All of which is not to say, of course, that Becky’s being selfish – she patently isn’t. I do think that she’s neglecting Dina’s feelings in favour of Joyce and needs to recognise that (and in fact just has). It may well be a case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.
thejeff
She’s also in the week or so she’s been here made deliberate attempts to balance her time with Dina and Joyce and talked about that with Dina. In terms of going with them to classes and things like that. We didn’t see the conversation with Dina about the weekend, but we know she knew about it and actually be a major change in their relationship patterns for them not to have talked about it.
Beyond that, while she has a crush on Joyce, she’s also been her best friend forever and she’s only known Dina a week. And Joyce is going through a major crisis, which Becky is directly involved with, while Dina isn’t. Becky isn’t going to cut Joyce out of her life or stop supporting her, that would be a horrible thing to do.
But yes, Dina’s going to feel hurt and insecure about it at times. That’s the low part of a new relationship, to go with the new relationship high. You’re not yet confident and secure enough in the relationship to trust, even when trust is warranted.
Cerberus
thejeff-
This.
Dina’s feeling jealous which is normal and human, but it would’ve been genuinely horrible of Becky to abandon her oldest and dearest friend at an emotionally critical moment simply because of the confusion of her crush and the outside possibility that her new girlfriend would take it the wrong way.
Do they need to talk about the feelings this all arises, Dina about her feelings of jealousy and abandonment and insecurities surrounding being wanted and Becky about her buried stuff and her feelings of needing to sacrifice for those who’ve “saved her” and her fears about family?
Totes. But that’s part of a relationship. And having messy complications with feelings and desires to do good is part of being humans and especially humans in love.
Amazi-Stool
her 9-11 gambit
Her what?
I really do not grok the term.
I tried to educate myself by a look on the google, but all that came up was Trump vs Jeb Bush.
thejeff
“911”, not “9-11”. Emergency response number.
Dialing 911 in the car when she saw Amazi-girl in tow, alerting the police and not incidentally providing evidence to them, but also putting herself more at risk when her dad realized it. That is in fact when he hit her.
That she didn’t do it until someone else was at risk is the relevant point here, I think.