The Rocket's Song

[arbre_rieur]

Four pages from ACTION COMICS 5...

Comments

[arilou_skiff]

Gotta love the word "mothermatician"

[valtyr]

Really wondering what that means. The -ician suffix means a specialist in or practitioner of, so she's... a professional mother? A supermother?

[runespoor]

I read that as a portmanteau of "mother"+"mathematician".

[valtyr]

As portmanteaus go, it's a bad one, as he removes most of 'mathema', the root.

Also, what exactly is the combination of mathematics and motherhood? Did she... design her son's genetics? (Could be an element of statistical analysis I suppose.) Or does it just mean she's mother and a mathematician? If so, can we assume that Jor-el's lack of portmanteau, his label solely as 'the father' means he was the homemaker and stay-at-home dad of the couple?

[shadowpsykie]

i think it's to go along with Jor-el's "The Father, what a mind"

and she and Jor-el both worked on the rocket together. so she probably worked out the mathematics.

i don't know, i liked it as a portmanteu. it flowed with the rest of it....

[valtyr]

Then why not "Jor-el. The Father, what a mind. Lara. The mother, the mathematician." It's or, indeed, Jor-el, the what a mindfather. Why is Lara's identity and profession entirely bound up with her motherhood, whereas Jor-el's 'father' quality is separate from his intelligence?

I mean, heaven forbid we describe a woman in a way that doesn't keep her gendered attributes front and centre at all times, even when they need clumsily forcing together. I suppose 'mathematicianess' just sounded too silly.

Anyway, back to womanwork as a civil servantgirl. Admininstrativeofficerwoman. Drafterchick. DID I MENTION I'M A WOMAN IT'S ALWAYS COMPLETELY RELEVANT AND YOU CAN'T GATHER IT FROM ANY CONTEXTUAL CLUES SO I HAVE TO SHOVE IT INTO UNRELATED WORDS THAT I LADYSPEAK OR DAMETYPE.

[valtyr]

Apologies, I wasn't intending to yell at you - more at the writer, if at anyone.

Whether it sounds poetic or not, there's a long tradition of gendering every damn thing women do, while men are more often just allowed to do things without it being about their gender. I'm sure he didn't mean to be negative, but why not come up with something poetic and elegant for Jor-el which intimately combines his reproductive status with his intellect? Why isn't he a fatheriatrist or a dadographer?

I mean, were it a cultural thing that bound up one's parenthood or lack thereof with one's profession and how one performed, that would be original and potentially interesting. As it is, it comes across as the tired old nonsense that even in superadvanced species across the galaxy, a woman's womanhood is the most important thing about her and must never be overshadowed or go unmentioned for a second.

[arbre_rieur]

See, I'd argue that her motherhood is vastly important in this scene and therefore appropriate to mention. That's her and Jor-El's role in the whole mythos, really -- they're the mother and father to the last son of Krypton. And I imagine that's why the AI also explicitly brings up Jor-El's status as the father as well ("Jor-El, the father, such a mind.")

And, as an aside, I also read it, alongside "exquisite calculations," as hints that, as a living AI, the rocket views mathematics as something more than just cold equations the way humans do. Heck, if she programmed "Brainiac" here, than she's his mother, too.

[valtyr]

Mention, yes. I don't have a problem with that at all. Conflate with her profession, no, unnecessary. There's not reason she couldn't be mother and mathematician.

Heck, if she programmed "Brainiac" here, than she's his mother, too.

If mothermatician refers specifically to being an expert in the calculations of the equations to produce new life, that's completely acceptable to me. However, I'd need some actual textual evidence for that. *shrug*

[arbre_rieur]

There's not reason she couldn't be mother and mathematician.

Whereas I read "mothermatician" as meaning just that (like congresswoman means "member of Congress and a woman"), with a wacky portmanteau thrown in for punny fun and to make it more alien and, er, artificial intelligence-ish.

[valtyr]

Yes, but the point is when they do it to the female character and not the male, it ties into a long tradition of insisting a woman's profession cannot be separated from her femininity. Rather than making congresswoman from congressman (a word that already has a gendered component), it makes poetess from poet.

[icon_uk]

I'd have used "Matermatician" myself. :)

[valtyr]

That just sounds like a bad Brooklyn accent. :)

[icon_uk]

That makes it even better, it's an inbuilt Kirby-homage. Morrison would LOVE it!

[jlbarnett]

or it could be looked at as he replaced the "A" with an "O" and added an "R", which I think is what they were going for.

[valtyr]

It still means the root of 'mathematics' isn't present in the word.