<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Olivier,<DIV><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">Here, we see Donald beat Daisy to what would be pulp normally.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">And it's not funny.</SPAN></FONT></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Fair enough.</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">Dr Wertham would have found his job already done for him with this story; he might even have said that the ending shows beating Daisy was not enough; even her true self is violent at the end, rather than thankful. He would have concluded she (and women, through her) was depicted as evil, and/or that Donald had not beaten her enough (a woman needs a good beating).</SPAN></FONT></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>This is a more problematic assessment. I didn't take that meaning at all. You do say that you didn't think the creators meant to convey it, so it would appear were both taking things more subjectively here.</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; ">I'm sorry if my criticism sounded harsh (towards the authors and Gemstone). If it were not for this climactic beating, the story would be okay; but I can't find any justification for one character so graphically beating up a female character (or children if that had been the case) in a Disney comic.</SPAN></FONT></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV><DIV>I don't think you were being harsh. You explained your views well and honestly. And, as you've probably discerned, your points interest me.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>This one in particular: above you venture the statement "…but I can't find justification for one character so graphically beating up a female character…", which is perfectly straightforward. But I have a problem with the object's adjective, which leaves us with the idea - my extraction, not your intent - that it is okay for a male character to be beaten up without justification.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>That's actually the idea that sits at the center of how things work between Donald and Daisy. This story may take it a bit farther than usual, but we've seen the dynamic in action in countless stories over the years, where Daisy has been depicted as a thoughtless, selfish, reactionary shrew who thinks nothing of beating Donald to a pulp verbally and/or physically on the slightest pretext. It's a horribly dated stereotype of the female psyche, yet Daisy is still saddled with it, and Donald still takes the abuse with equally stereotypical male aplomb.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Here we have a story where Donald finally responds to Daisy's abuse in kind...sort of. Donald's justification for beating up the possessed Daisy may seem flimsy, but it's still far sounder than Daisy's justification for her relentless hammering on an unpossessed Donald. More generally, we've got two characters who visually appear to be physical equals, assigned gender roles mainly through dress, and while the one wearing the ribbon is allowed and even expected to express a bullying pathology, the one wearing the sailer hat, though similarly temperamental, shocks by doing the same.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I'll be straightforward myself: I've never found Daisy's abuse of Donald funny. I accept it as a convention of long standing, the wholesale rejection of which would cause unassessed rejection of a great deal of material. When a story comes along that actually forces that convention out of its usual channels, or at least pokes it in the eye, that gives it a leg up in my book (so to speak). Whether it ultimately entertains readers is, of course, another matter.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Gary</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>