When you see the word “threesome” in a comic strip, do you get offended?
Does it make a difference if the Brenda Starr comic isn’t really about sex — despite one woman holding handcuffs and another with a riding crop — but is meant to be amusing and suggestive?
That is one of several questions of taste, especially over the volatile issues of sex and gender, that have riled both Tribune readers and staff members.
A column by Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times appeared on the Tribune’s March 4 Commentary page. He wrote that women needed a replacement heroine for Hillary Clinton because she is poised to lose the race for the Oval Office. (That was before results from the Texas and Ohio primaries came in. Timing is everything.) Stein trades in satire; it doesn’t always work. E-mailers decried that tongue-in-cheek piece headlined “A little something for the ladies” as “sexist garbage.” One writer insisted no one read the column before putting it in the paper. “That’s it, right? You guys couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to think that insulting half your readership with those lame, hackneyed, sexist tropes was a good idea.”
Even a few who recognized the column as satiric were upset.
I also received complaints from staffers who thought a piece on The Guy Page in a recent Sunday Q section was beyond the pale when talking about “For Guys: What women say online, what they mean.” One called it “shamelessly sexist” and “outright creepy.”
Because some readers are offended, it doesn’t mean the article is wrong for everyone. One reason customers buy publications is to see new worlds and be surprised or nudged by different attitudes. Articles and columns are meant to provoke thought and conversation. Sports columnists, for instance, like to be loved or hated; they just don’t want to be ignored.
The Tribune has standards, not only about ethics but governing acceptable language and imagery. Editors also recognize that each day the print version and Web site cover a wide landscape of events and information and encompass an even wider readership.
Most of the time, the consideration is context. A satirical piece doesn’t belong in the news section, but is appropriate for the op-ed page where opinions are meant to get the blood boiling.
Anything that appears under a page heading The Guy Page is probably geared to young men and women and not those looking for foreign policy discussions.
I asked the editor of the Q section, Denise Joyce, about The Guy Page article, especially the reference to a strategically placed orchid tattoo and an OB/GYN exam. She responded that while she doesn’t purposefully set out to offend readers, the mission of her section is to be “a bit quirky and have a little attitude.”
Joyce said she and other women read the piece and didn’t feel compelled to question it. “The orchid line was one of the funniest in the piece. … If a column offends some people, then the column is doing its job.”
I considered it dumb and sophomoric while others obviously thought it hilarious and insightful.
OK, one reader’s edgy is another reader’s tawdry. I have to admit that a totally inoffensive newspaper wouldn’t have much to offer. For that reason, my simple answer for many of the pieces that cause offense is to turn the page, just as you change channels on the TV when you notice something you don’t like.
As for the venerable Brenda Starr, I asked the cartoon’s writer and Tribune Metro columnist Mary Schmich about the story line of two women conning a corrupt senator’s aide who thinks he’s conning them. I asked her about complaints from parents whose children questioned what a “threesome” means.
“I don’t write a comic strip aimed at children,” she replied without any hesitation. “I understand it’s a family newspaper and I have to observe the boundaries of taste as I understand them.
“But I don’t think many children are reading the newspaper and, if anything, our comic pages are hobbled when we treat them like a 1950s kids-oriented feature. The comics are not any more ‘for kids’ than the rest of the paper is ‘for kids.'”
Geoff Brown, the associate managing editor for features who oversees the comic pages, said he recognizes that some comics are more adult-oriented than others and he regularly faces controversy over topics that offend one set of readers or another.
“But if you set a standard that is immovable,” said Brown, “then you take away judgment and become mired in a bygone era.”
These aren’t questions easily answered; they are arguable and I would like your thoughts for a future column.
———-
tmcnulty@tribune.com
