rcj (12/21/82)
There was an article by a staff writer in the Greensboro, NC Daily News about Beetle Bailey recently. Seems that for about a year now Mort Walker (the author of the strip) has been getting protest/hate mail from irate readers concerning the sexist attitude of his comic strip with regards Miss Buxley, the buxom blonde secretary to General Halftrack. One newspaper in Wisconsin?Minnesota? (somewhere, I forget) even went so far as to refuse to post the strip one day and tagged a note instead telling readers that Beetle Bailey's subject matter was too sexist to be published by their paper. Most other papers, however, have conducted polls and the response has been overwhelmingly in favor of NOT removing Miss Buxley or the strip itself. I tend to agree with one reader who noted (I'm paraphrasing here because I do not have the article here in front of me) that the tyranny you create (censorship) is far worse than the tyranny you destroy (sexism). Mort Walker has written a book on the subject called, I believe, "Miss Buxley: Sexism in Beetle Bailey?" He seems to believe that he is simply portraying life as it really is a lot of the time, and for family viewing reasons he has set certain "rules" (i.e., General Halftrack never lays a hand on Miss Buxley). What's your view? Curtis Jackson (...!floyd!burl!rcj) P.S. Flame to somebody else; I didn't write it, I'm just the piano player
debray (12/23/82)
I like the Beetle Bailey comic strip, and would hate to see Ms Buxley go : and while on the topic of sexism, I'd like to say that I, personally, think that a lot of people spend a lot of time flaming at stuff like sexism in comic strips (for heaven's sake! Is Beetle Bailey the ultimate reality ? Is that an accurate portrayal of the men in the US Armed Forces ?), the smoke they create mostly serves to hide issues that REALLY need to be looked at. Does anyone REALLY think that eliminating Miss Buxley from Beetle Bailey will lead to any change in attitudes to women ? Saumya K. Debray SUNY @ Stony Brook
rogerw (12/24/82)
There is a difference between being sexist and making fun of sexist attitudes. ---Roger Wells [tektronix!tekid!rogerw]