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SPOILER WARNING
People ususally mark issue 187 as the point where the mysogny kicks in. I think its an issue of Reads. But really its a pretty casual, easy to ignore mysogny in comparrison to about 60 issues or so later when he published his crazy Tangents essay. It's right at that point where the author's madness becomes more interesting than the story, but even then it was a while before the really offensive stuff got into the comic itself, instead of just the letter collums.
Its not till fairly close to the end of the series that the hard misogyny makes it into the story. For a long time in my mind I was imagining evil Dave Sim writing the letter columns and essays, while the good Dave Sim (disguised so the evil Dave can't find him) struggled to say something through the stories.
There's an interview with Sim (I think its in an issue of Following Cerebus) where he discusses the scene in Cerebus where Cerebus and Jaka split for the last time after the long journey to Cerebus's childhood home. It was the end of Going Home. When I first read those issues, I read the scene as Cerebus telling Jaka to leave because Cerebus knows that even though she loves him enough to be with forever, she would end up being forced to be a house slave/wife in that traditional women-have-no-rights-or-brains little town. He knows it won't work in a way where they'd both be happy and so he ends it, sending her away to be free.
It really read that way to me. Reading that Dave Sim interview in following Cerebus though, I was surprised to find that his interpretation was the exact opposite. Sim said that Cerebus sent her away because Jaka was such a terrible person that she would have ruined things for Cerebus and his noble women-have-no-rights-or-brains family by trying to be independent or think for herself not do slave chores all day. He basically said any thing to get you to car about Jaka was a trick on his part to fool the stupid readers.
And that's where my evil Dave Sim/good Dave Sim theory comes from. When I went back and looked at those pages again though, the first reading I had still read like the right one. It was like the last bit of Love inside Dave Sim struggling to communicate to the world while the Misogynyst Madness closed in on him.
After Going Home Cerebus becomes the leader (pope again? I forget) of the huge Rick-insipired Church and sends his armies around taking over cities and getting people to vote on which women from their hometown's to kill (and surprise surprise, it only takes a little bit of convincing to get all the men to realise those women deserve death), so by this time the misogyny pedal is all the way to the metal.
I would still recommend reading the series to the end though. I still haven't given it a complete read myself, there was a lot I couldn't be bothered reading in single issue form, but there's still a lot of innovative stuff in there, and the last issue (REGENCY ELF!!!) really brings the series home for you. |
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