Please Pass The Pinups

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Martyrdom of the Bab (Baha'i)
Flag Day (Alaska)
Independence Day (Argentina)
Youth Day (Morocco)

 

This week, Dad discovered manga.*

 

Dad loves the bookstore. It is one of the places he can stay happily for hours, browsing CDs and DVDs and most of all books on subjects ranging from the history of the Middle East to biographies of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who fascinates him. Lately he’s also getting new science and books to broaden his horizons, and he recently bought one of the most hilariously illustrated neurological books ever, and we spent hours laughing at the pictures of patients with dementia who have their slips hanging out and others who are projectile vomiting.

 

However, the most interesting thing he decided to pick up was an uncharacteristic book on classic pinup artist Gil Elvgren.  To my surprise, Dad has the same opinion about classic pinups that I do—that they’re delightfully sassy and rather impressively liberated for their time. There’s something so self-aware about the girls in those pictures—you get the feeling they orchestrated their revealing moments. And sometimes the faces of the models intrigue me. Of course, part of why my parents are interested in them is because they knew one of the models, but partly it’s just because they’re fun and cool. So we spent another while passing the book back and forth and enjoying the terrible puns in each title. Good times, good times.

 

But there was a terrible price to pay for this oddball coffee table book. Because in order to get to that book, which was moved since he first saw it, he had to go across … horrors! … The Sci-Fi And Fantasy Section.

 

And then, of course, in front of his destination, there was the manga.

 

Have you ever tried explaining manga to somebody from completely outside the loop? Especially if you’re kind of on the periphery of it yourself?  All Dad knows about it is that it’s “like those stupid cartoons you kids watch,” which could mean anime, but also could mean anything from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Futurama to Boston Legal. We managed to narrow it down to anime, but then had to explain about the differences between the two, which is sometimes hazy. It featured the following conversation snippet:

 

Amelia: It’s like anime, but in comic format.  And at least in America because of regulations about TV, the manga tends to have more adult themes.

妹: Hey, this girl is using her bra as a sail!

Dad: What kind of ‘adult themes’?

Amelia: Well, there’s more violence and gore, and sexual content, but there’s also more complex storylines—

Mom: It’s basically porn.

Amelia: No, that’s hentai.

The Dude: Only hentai’s not exactly porn, because you can’t show—

妹: She’s not wearing anything but an apron!

The Dude: Let me see that book!

Dad: So this ‘maingoo’ just means comics instead of cartoons?

Amelia: We’ll leave it at that.

妹: Ooh! Here’s a witch on a broom!

 

That’s the trouble with having such an open relationship with your parents.  Often you find yourself put in the dreaded role of cultural ambassador, and the roles suddenly get reversed.  Instead of your parents going, “Oh, lord, our daughter asked where babies come from,” you find yourself going, “Oh, lord, Dad asked about comics.”

 

Because they grow up so fast, sometimes you just want to protect their innocence.

 

 
*Or, as he pronounces it, “main-goo.” I think he’s doing it on purpose, but then his low grasp of any linguistics other than English and Medical may mean he isn’t. (This is, after all, a man supposed to be in the very top level of smart, and when he’s not being The Doc he uses ‘ain’t’ and says ‘I’m all wore out.’ Which just goes to show that language is definitely NOT an indicator of intellect.)

Comments

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I didn't even go there. ;)

[kurupira.livejournal.com]

haha, thankfully I've never had to explain manga to my parents, but this reminded me of various other experiences I've had as a "cultural ambassador" to them... with my parents it's particularly bad because they're soooo old... they grew up in the fifties, so yeah, things have really changed. I remember one time my mom was asking about my friends at college and who was dating who, and I had a hard time explaining that none of them were steadily "dating" so much as just "hooking up," and my mom almost drove off the road yelling "You mean girls kiss boys they're not dating?!" oh dear, it was bad.

[viizou.livejournal.com]

When I meet someone for the first time and they learn I'm studying the manga phenomenon, the next thing to come out of their mouths is usually "So what exactly is manga?", and so I now have a pretty well-prepared speech in my head explaining the key-points in a way that anyone should be able to understand. Despite that, I have never even tried to explain it to my father.
My father is an extremely intelligent, open-minded man, and we have loads in common, but manga and sitcoms is where we draw the line. He totally supports what I'm doing, but he just doesn't want to know about it. I think we both sense that he just wouldn't see what I see in it, and we'd both come out of that conversation disappointed. Maybe in time, he'll come around. It took him seven years to catch enough involuntary glimpses of The Simpsons to realize it has a satirical dimension, so maybe if I leave enough manga lying around my parents' place... On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to see my father enjoying something like Love Hina...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

My mother was the one who bought me my first Dragonball manga, and it was my father's love of jazz music which initially incidentally made me discover Cowboy Bebop, all of which they've both watched with me. We've also watched all of Silent Mobius, Nazca and Escaflowne together, plus a few Miyazaki movies. My father read all of the Rurouni Kenshin manga and my mother and I shared a lot of Maison Ikkoku.

There are definitely some ways in which I've been very lucky in life.