Jimmy's Bastards #4

[history79]

"For some time now I've noticed the liberal left getting caught up in silly games of identity politics and social commentary, games that not enough other people want to play. They seem determined to hang onto the moral high ground no matter what the cost — depressingly familiar ground for the left, I'm sorry to say. I want them to win, but the appallingly pompous, humorless road they're stuck on seems to lead only to defeat."

- Garth Ennis

Source: https://www.previewsworld.com/Article/193481-Insane-Inebriation-Jolts-Jimmys-Bastards




9 pages of 28

Comments

[lucean]

It would be easier to accept Ennis's criticism of that dreaded 'Identity politics' if it appeared he had any damn idea what that is even beyond. Instead everything here seems to be laughing at some kind of a strawman he constructed while probably patting himself on the back about really getting what matters.

[miramira]

Yeah, that "gender fluid" sequence may be one of the stupidest set of panels I've ever seen. Which is saying something.

[cainofdreaming]

So, basically, Ennis swiped this story from Giffen's Lobo: Infanticide?

[md84]

At what point did "civil rights" become "identity politics"?

[captainbellman]

Just go to hell already, Garth. We have enough old white men being unpleasant in public, ta very much.

[janegray]

Since always. Arguing that women are treated unfairly is "playing the woman card," arguing that black people are treated unfairly is "playing the race card," arguing that gay people are treated unfairly is "making it all about your sexuality, there is more to people than that," and so on and on and on.

I must say, I too have been growing increasingly angry (ok, more like utterly livid, really) with the Left for being so goddamned suicidally "determined to hang onto the moral high ground no matter what the cost." But that's in response to, say, refusing to vote for candidates that are not 100% morally pure because "the lesser of two evils is still evil!!!111" and consequently letting the unholy spawns of Voldemort, Jabba The Hutt and Captain Planet villains seize power and kill us all. The attitude that pragmatism is a dirty word, and that chemotherapy is as bad as cancer. I wish I could burn it down, shoot the ashes into the sun, and nuke the sun.

But pushing the blame on a demographic with a 50% suicide rate, a demographic that honest-to-god risks being beaten to death whenever they so much as need to pee outside the home... it's just so LOW. Ennis act as though fighting back against bathroom bills is vanity project. Makes me wonder, if he had been around in the 50s, would he have called fighting to let black people drink from the same fountains as white people "a silly game"?

[quatoria]

What a cool thing to wake up to after a shitty night. Good to get the morning on the right fucking foot.

[nyadnar17]

If the Liberal Left wins would Garth Ennis even be allowed in the public square? Would he just be a blacklist outcast over a lot of shit he has written?

[alicemacher]

"I want them to win"

Really? You've got an odd way of showing it, Ennis.

Ennis seems to want to have it both ways politically. In Preacher, as we've seen, he provides a spot-on refutation of patriarchy in the flashbacks to Tulip's upbringing. He also mocks a feminist pundit character by having Jesse make her admit all she really wants is cock (that her misogynist conservative rival guest on the radio show also wants cock is, I suspect, window dressing).

Similarly, here in Jimmy's Bastards he beyond-caricatures social justice activism while having the title character constantly declare (as he himself does in the interview quoted here) that really, he's on the side of "social progress" (Issue #1) after all.

So which is it, Garth? If you really side with the progressives, then mean it by not taking cheap strawman potshots at us. And if you really side with conservatives, then at least respect our intelligence and be up-front about it. As it is, your writing often reminds me of muckracking journalists who report on sex scandals and violent crimes with a superficially sanctimonious, disapproving tone while it's obvious they're fapping to it under the table.