I'm back from vacation, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. And to greet me, The Dinette Set examines our sense of personal security and privacy.
Joy stands, as naked as anyone could possibly tolerate, in front of a window which affords a view out onto the world but also allows the world to peer into her house. While she looks through the blinds, the neighborhood has a clear view of her bare midriff sandwiched between a sturdy brassier and a comfortable pair of underwear. And, in a delicious meta-theatrical irony, the reader has a perfect voyeuristic vantage point from within her own house, unimpeded by even a small amount of Venetian blind.
It's not clear what, precisely, this metaphor speaks to. Certainly it could be a general comment about the Internet, which enables unprecedented access to information but also imposes serious risks to one's personal security if not careful (or if AOL publicly publishes your search history). Possibly it expresses a more topical concern regarding the trade-offs of the NSA wiretapping program which violates civil rights while purporting to provide additional security against external threats. It could be a more general commentary and not related to anything specific.
What is perfectly clear, however, is how Joy chooses to deal with the insecurity of living in the modern world: she ignores it completely pretending instead that she is perfectly safe. She hides her head behind the Venetian blinds of life, preferring to believe herself and her privacy secure against all evidence to the contrary, such as the all-too-evident open window just inches below her eyeline.
Pay no attention to the marginalia recording your conversation:
- Burl's reaction to all of this is strangely paradoxical. On the one hand his posture indicates an airy lack of concern. And yet, if my eyes do not deceive me, he has concern lines radiating from his forehead. Either that or his Spidey-sense is tingling.
- Please, God, tell me that dark patch on Joy's underpants is not an Xtreme skid mark.
3 comments:
Who are those passers by? I'm not good at sorting out the rhyming names of the DS regulars yet. But one thing I'm sure of is that the woman on the left of the frame has a real "deer-in-headlights" look to her.
This panel might be resonating with the prior "buy one get one free" one, in a frequency of demand: Joy is Woman. Notice her. Do not discount her because she does not conform to your media-driven body type desires. She has a primal femininity to her. I imagine her as the model for the Venus of Berekhat Ram.
We missed you. Several posts I've seen onother sites have speculated what this one means: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/dinette.asp?date=09232006
(in case that link won't work, it refers to the 9/23 strip)
None of the offered explanations has been very convincing. Honestly, this is not about the extistential undertones of the strip; we just can't figure out what the effing joke is. Help us deconstruct, please!
I think it's a commentary on modern society that I have never, ever read Dinette Set in a newspaper. In fact, the only reason I found this strip was because Josh made fun of it on Comics Curmudgeon. So, anyway, what the hell is wrong with the lady who draws this pile of offal?
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