Casual Cruelty

[brigid]

2-2-2023

"Amos, here is someone that you know."

"Oh wow, this person is trying to get your attention!"

"Amos, I am a person that you know and I am trying to get YOUR attention."

"Well, I'm not going to respond in any way or acknowledge you, but I am going to mention how embarrassing this is."

Sometimes people want to hug you and you don't want to be hugged and that's fine. But you can stand there and stare at them, or you can tell them that you're not a person who hugs. You can deflect the hug to a handshake or a wave. Just standing there staring at someone greeting you is a real dick move. He hasn't even said hello to her yet. Even if he doesn't recognize her somehow, one of the baselines for civility is to respond when someone greets you. He hasn't done that. Even when she addressed him directly he hasn't responded to her. Instead he's uttered two asides to Edda. It's coming across as him actively snubbing her, giving her the cut direct.

The best read of this is that Amos doesn't recognize her and is embarrassed by his lack of recognition of someone who obviously knows who he is. Edda not only refuses to clarify who this person is, which leaves Amos feeling shame and embarrassment, she's also enjoying Mary's discomfort and embarrassment. She's leaving both people to twist in the wind, feeling embarrassed, so she can feel superior to Mary over... having married Amos ten years ago, or however many it was, after having dated him for even longer.

This is the second time McEldowney has dug up a very minor character who hadn't been seen in a decade real-time, not in-strip-time, to have other characters treat them like shit.

The biggest example, of course, is when McEldowney reintroduced Mark solely so Seth could cheat on him, marry a woman without telling Mark he'd been fucking someone else and gotten engaged while still living with Mark and then painted Mark as the bad person who was acting irrationally about his live-in LONG-term boyfriend cheating on him, getting engaged without telling him, marrying someone else, and refusing entirely to talk about it. Ever. That someone, by the way, is a homophobic bigot who has done nothing but insult Mark both generally and also specifically because he's not masculine and/or straight. Everyone in the strip treated Mark like a real buzzkill who was over reacting.

Again, his long term live-in boyfriend was actively living with him and sharing his bed while also fucking somebody else - somebody who'd regularly verbally abused him and with whom Seth had already cheated on him with. His long term live-in boyfriend was actively living with him and sharing his bed when he got engaged to this person. His ex boyfriend, who he'd been dating for twenty years and with whom he'd lived for some amount of time we'll never know, who shared a bed with him, refused to discuss ANY of this with him and verbally abused him when he tried. And everyone apparently agreed this was... normal behavior, this is how you treat someone you've been with for twenty years, this is how you treat someone who loves you, this is how you treat someone who shares your bed.

There was absolutely no reason for McEldowney to bring Mark back as a character. Seth could very easily have been single, or only dating people casually. The only reason to bring him back was to be cruel, and to have all the other characters reinforce that cruelty as normal and correct.

That story line, which kicked off on June 1st (Pride month), culminated in a hot woman triumphing over a gay man, claiming Seth as her own. This current story line apparently is about Edda triumphing over Mary, someone who has been entirely irrelevant for a good decade now.

I want to restate this: Mary is entirely irrelevant.

Edda's kids are somewhere between the ages of 6 and 10, maybe slightly younger if they're extra precocious. Mary apparently didn't know Edda had had kids. The pregnancy was high risk and Edda was in the hospital toward the end of it. Mary did not know that Edda's pregnancy could have killed her.. Nobody invited Mary to Edda's baby shower (assuming she had one? none was shown). Mary has not spoken to Edda or anyone in her family for at least six years. At least. Mary has been married, and divorced, twice. Edda has not gone to either wedding, apparently did not know that she'd been married at all.

"How have you been?"

"Well, I've been married and divorced twice."

That's what you say to someone you haven't seen in years. The more recently you've seen someone the more immediate the news is. "I got a promotion last year!" "I paid off my student loans five months ago!" "Frank signed the paperwork for our divorce. At last!" "I finally tried that sandwich shop last week!" "OH MY GOD you will not BELIEVE what new bullshit is going on at work!"

Edda is gloating at someone over something that happened over a decade ago. Edda is letting someone suffer social indignities over a ship that sailed over a decade ago. Amos very clearly has no interest in Mary. Amos very clearly is massively invested in his life with Edda, their daughters, and their career. Mary is in no way a threat and frankly never was. But McEldowney brought her back so we can see how Edda is better than her, and by "better than her" I mean small and petty and vindictive.

This is weird. This is weird behavior. Mary's going to go home and tell this story and people are going to laugh at how weird it was, but Mary won't be the butt of the joke. Her weird-ass musician friends who are still heavily invested in the social dynamics of 11th grade will be, though, and rightfully so.