Gripes About Miss Molly

[5Cats]

Forgive any spoilers, don't read on if you haven't read #46!

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Why Oh Why must (nearly) every evil, axe-murdering female have to be sexually abused as a child? I mean, can't they just be crazy? Like the "I don't like Mondays" girl? Now there's a real live-wire! They have to have a "reason"? They can only respond? They can't act out on their own? We get dinged with this tid-bit of information on the very last page, ack! It makes IMO much of her other endearing flamboyant behaviour seem trite. I know a dozen or more women who were sexually abused as children and not one of them has chopped anyone to bits. A host of other odd behaviour yes, but that level of crazy? Nah.

Of course, I do catch the idea that her Dad might not have done anything at all; that she just thought he did and hacked him up. THAT would be cool! Genuine crazy-person behaviour, hooray! After all, all her hubbie did was look at porn, and she treated it like a physical assault! After, of course, she got rejected by the publishers. And she seemed to equate what each person had "done to her". And she seemed to have planned to hack Mr #2 to bits from the start. All on the last page. This would be a more suitable treatment. Again, IMO.

I loved the "walking contradiction Molly" in Juniour High! The spotted bow in her hair (very Femme) and the face paint and tight dog collar! lol! Trez mixed up! Also sweet was the picking of the knife. This one's big, but not big enough, aaah! The cleaver! Chop chop! And the bat was cute too. What's with the worm in the apple though?

This issue would have been nice as an 'aside' or extra issue. Much like Molly and Poo was. Miss Molly is NOT the most evil charecter in SiP, that would be Veronica, no contest.


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No will but thy will
No law but the laws you make
2cats + 2cats = 5Cats!
Self-proclaimed "LairPet"...Wierder than the average cat!
Captain TMI!...Resident Feline Expert! >^..^<
Coined the phrase "intellectualosexual"

[Thrasymachos]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="comic sans ms, jester, Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by 5Cats:

Why Oh Why must (nearly) every evil, axe-murdering female have to be sexually abused as a child?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good Golly, Miss Molly!
Now, now, 5 Cats, there has been no hint that Darcy, Tambi, Bambi, Veronica, or any of the Parker Girls was a molested child. They are as bad as they want to be. In reality, such behaviour as Molly's, accompanied by delusions, is primarily due to paranoid schizophrenia.

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Peregrinator in paradiso.

[Jaxom 27]

Am I the ONLY one who sees Molly as more of an amalgamation of most of the female characters in the story?

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Before allowing drunken friend to cheat on his girl, you must attempt one
intervention. If he is able to get on his feet, look you in the eye, and deliver
a "F...OFF!" You are absolved of your of responsibility.

[5Cats]

Hi Thrasy! Not in SiP, I mean in general. Whenever a woman kills someone or murders her children or stuff like that, the old 'I was abused as a child' thing pops up. Of course some of that is defence lawyer posturing, but still! And guys use the abuse thing too, but they really have to prove it, and it has to be really really awful before it generates any sympathy.

Yes Jaxom, you could indeed be the only one. I don't see any Francine or Casey in Miss Molly. Unless you equate tattoos with boob jobs...

I'm leaning more and more to the 'delusional' idea. That she just imagined her "daddys" were bad to her and therefor deserved to be chopped up. It puts the story in a better light, IMO.

[Mibbitmaker]

"Most" of the women in SIP, in this instance, can exclude Casey and Francine, though maybe they tie in more subtly than, f'rinstance, Katchoo or Veronica.

I agree about the pop culture needing horribly violent women to have past abuse as the motivating factor. With men, it's just,"Oh, those violent men!", the macho pig thing. Of course, in real life, there are women for whom abuse leads them to violent behavior, and men who are violent macho pigs. But to create characters based ONLY on this narrow view of character possibilities is way too simplistic. Can't a violent woman in a story(comics, TV, etc.) just be violent, whether the violence is seen as acceptable or not in the particular story?

I do have a character(not in the story with the mibbits, but in most other comics ideas currently waiting for me to get off my butt or develop further) who is female and has a violent side, more cartoony violent than criminal, and she's only an unabused tomboy.

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"It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide" -Mad

[5Cats]

Hooray for Mibbit, breaking the stereotype rules!

Terry has done a fair amount of stereotype-avoiding, which is part of what makes SiP great. Darcy, for example, is just plain evil. We have no idea why, but she just seems to like it that way... She's the abuser, esp with David, and makes no excuses about it. Refreshing!

People are people, and to pidgeon-hole them based on race or gender & etc is popular, even PC (Politically Correct) but I don't like it.

Part of my gripe is that people often believe that crazy people are crazy for some reason which implies that if that problem were "fixed" they'd no longer be crazy. While this may be true in a bio-chemical way, it is usually applied to the wrong place: life experiences. IMO, it's insanity that causes many life experiences, not the other way around. And I oughta know! So to imply (as I think Terry is) that the abuse 'caused' the chop-chop behaviour is backwards, IMO. I think insanity leaves one vulnerable to abuse in many forms, real or imagined, that it was there before any 'abuse'.

Yes, I'm reading a lot into one page of the story, but he did dedicate a whole issue to this...

[GaMookie]

I think it comes from the fact that violent approaches to situations are often the most childish approaches to situations.

Hence, axe murderers tend to think of themselves a hurt children lashing out rather than responsible adults taking responsibility for their actions. And for someone not willing to take responsibility for their own actions, the most common root is to look for a person or thing to place the blame upon.

I don't think this sort of behavior is limited to female characters, though. If you want a laughably bad example of a male character using "father issues" to justify sado-masochistic behavior, you don't have to go any further than the villian in The Crow.

Not to make too much light of a serious situation, but it seems that being abused as a child will more likely than not turn you into a performance artist rather than an axe murderer.

-RT

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http://www.stickleyandjones.com - The Daily Online comic that is funnier than 'Mark Trail' and 'Steve Canyon' combined!

[5Cats]

As long as it doesn't make you a **shudder!** MIME

[Thrasymachos]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="comic sans ms, jester, Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by 5Cats:
her Dad might not have done anything at all; that she just thought he did and hacked him up. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Although we can't be sure exactly what Terry intended here, your speculation is highly probable for real-life situations. Schizophrenia is a hereditary disease that often strikes in early adulthood. It is a progressive disease whose initial symptoms may pass unrecognized. It is totally untreatable by "the dead religion of psychoanalysis" (as Thomas Harris calls it), but it is partially treatable by drugs.
Note that at the literary reception, Molly exhibits no signs of madness. She is not much different from Francine in this scene.
Later, in the bar, she soaks a patron who had not insulted her. But she read an insult into his casual words. Schizophrenics have auditory illusions such as hearing whispers. When other people refuse to acknowledge the whispers, this can lead to the schizophrenic becoming paranoid. The "revelation" of childhood sexual abuse comes after Molly has been locked up, with no hint of it in the middle school or early adult episodes. Contrast her behaviour with Katchoo's in High School. In short, Molly shows many signs of schizophrenia.

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Peregrinator in paradiso.

[5Cats]

**nod nod nod**

That's what I mean, there doesn't have to be a "reason" for her insanity. She could simply be sick, not her fault, not anyone's "fault" at all.

Thanks Thrasy. Also, time going by can help too, but sometimes it only gets worse. Schizophrenia is sometimes used as a 'catch-all' term, but really it does have specific symptoms.