Picking up the pieces
Picking up the pieces |
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Page 26 of 38  Excerpts from Viz (Viz/John Brown), featuring some of the comic's best-loved characters. The misogynous attitudes expressed in Viz were bound to be a problem sooner or later. The comic had always had a 'laddish' reputation, and traditionally only fifteen per cent of readers were female." Certain strips were potentially more offensive than others. 'Sid the Sexist' had stirred things up, but now there was a new addition that was becoming even more popular: 'The Fat Slags', concerning two overweight friends whose hobbies were sex, fags and as much junk food as they could eat. Unsurprisingly, both strips were excoriated on a number of levels, though it should be said that the creators produced them with a sense of knowing ambiguity. Even today, sexism remains an accusation that the comic has never quite been able to dispel. In this way, Viz was categorized as a focus for controversy (at least in some quarters). How far it was politically or culturally 'subversive' in reality is a moot point: it can be argued that it had much in common with the reactionary 'anti-culture culture' of the Thatcher years. Certainly, despite the outraged headlines, there was never any question that the police would mount a clampdown in the same way as they had against the underground. It just was not 'dangerous' enough. |