Right.
Here's my problem. I fall into the camp that thinks that Sinfest is not as good as it used to be. Oh, believe me, that's not to say that I don't like it now, it's still one of the first three pages I open in a morning. But... for me, a lot of what made Sinfest special has gone. I doubt it'll be returning either, but unlike other internet commentators, I can accept the comic for what it is right now, a rather slow at times, kinda heavy-handed feminist comic.
So what did I like?
Originally I liked it as a subversion of all those twee cartoons I'd grown up with in newspapers, Peanuts, Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes and so on. Much like another of my favorites, Nemi, it went places that I'd not seen this format go before, and was funny with it. More surreal than Nemi, and so not afraid to take risks with it's subject matter (God can be a dick, Satan gets frustrated with his place in life, and they both have gushing fanboys that they're kinda irritated by), but this was a comic with heart. And at this heart we found Slick and 'Nique, the duo around whom all this happens.
Not gonna lie, I was a pretty latecomer to the comic. I started reading just before the Sisterhood thing started, so I'm looking back at these earlier comics not as someone who was there and is angry that ten years of slow development has been tossed by the wayside. But in devouring ten years worth of daily comics overnight, I discovered something. This was what I'd been looking for.
I'm a pretty complicated dude. Some of which I've only worked out recently. I'm a highly sexualised person. Most of what I do revolves around it. I have a complicated guilt/shame thing about sex though, and am only recently starting to come round to the idea that, hey, sex, in whatever form I choose to take it, is okay. I'm an introvert, sure, but I'm also a peacock. I want people to notice me for how I'm looking (and, yes, the scruffy rockstar look is the one I choose.) and yep, I want people to want me. But I am afraid of making the personal connection, I hold people at a distance. I'm an artist, who suffers crippling self-doubt and frequent creative blockages. I'm searching for my own identity in life.
I looked at Sinfest, and found a role model.
As the comic went on, 'Nique became a person, a fully rounded person with fears and hopes. She's smart and sassy, not afraid of who she is, and owns that shit. She was a person who owned and embraced her sexuality, and I found that admirable. No, let me rephrase that. She was a person who owned her sexuality, and yet that was not her defining characteristic. She still had doubts about herself, body issues, creative blocks. She was at times lonely, and frustrated. She's politically aware (her first strip sets this up, it's her second that brings her overt sexuality into the strip.), but just wants to have a life full of good times. She's act stupid with her friends, chill out on a hill with them, do everything real people wish they had time to do with their friends. Even the burgeoning romance with Slick (which they both seem to want, but are afraid of committing to for differing reasons) was not the be-all and end all of her.
I saw a lot of myself in that. I don't trust people enough to have a relationship with them until I know them, and that invariably means entering the much-dreaded 'FRIENDZONE' and running the risk of getting stuck there. I know politics, but not enough to effect real change, and I just want to spend my time chilling with friends.
Somewhere along the way though, Ishida changed, and the focus of the comic changed. He spent several strips apologising for some of the stuff he'd done before, apologising for the racial stereotypes, the blatant sexuality. (that one felt like a slap in the face to someone me, coming from someone who'd created a character who'd helped me out so much) Slowly, Slick and 'Nique were pushed to the sides, and the Sister hood, and their ongoing battles with The Patriarchy became forefront. Characters were changed to fit this new worldview or left out. Most obviously, 'Nique stopped hanging around Slick and started trying to make friends with Devilgirls, ashamed of her 'man-pleasing' past. Lil 'E (minature Satan and possibly the most overtly evil person in the strip) had his memory wiped and became an adorable innocent, a blank slate to be taught.
I do have issues with the Sisterhoods aims. Xanthe seems to want men to be subservient to women, there's a small child in a helmet who wields the Monkey-Kings staff and wants to 'kill all men.' There's another who shamed Slick for owning a sextoy(technically, it was a robot girlfriend),* which is surely more in line with their aims than having him go out and leer at women? There doesn't seem to be a moderate amongst them.
The comic is now anti-pornography, and pretty much anti-BDSM, both of which I am very much pro, thankyouverymuch. The new direction seems almost... sex-negative? Is sex-negative feminism a thing? That I don't know, but... I'm a liberal, and I'm insecure, and having a publicly sex-positive comic alter that particular message...
The strip is still funny, and still well worth my time in the morning. I just keep getting tired of anyone who says they prefer the old Sinfest and get shot down in flames for allegedy just wanting 'Nique to be a sex object again, patriarchy bastard! I accept Sinfest is a different beast now, but I cannot help yearning for the older sex-positive version. I'll leave you with a couple of examples of the old Sinfests heart, but I do encourage you to check it out for yourselves.
*One of the things that bothers the fuck right out of me with our society, why is it socially acceptable for women to own sex toys, but men who do are sad, pathetic losers? Hell, Poundland of all places are selling vibrators right now. Lemme know when you see a Fleshlight in there, yeah?
No comments:
Post a Comment