News Briefs for December 21, 2009

Comments ³

1. henry clausner

   homer, as a child…looked like “the yellow kid”

2. Mike Peterswon

   “Homer Simon specifically resembles a character called Jiggs in an American comic strip from 1913, according to Heer. Jiggs is an illiterate layabout construction worker who gets rich quick (heâ??s also a social climber).”

   What a load of rot. Jiggs was a symbol of the Irish-American who refused to be assimilated, while Maggie couldn’t wait to get the stink of the Old Country off her. The comic strip made a hero of Jiggs and a laughabe, nagging, social-climbing phony of his wife. As for the idea that the stereotype of the Irish drunk was concocted by Victorian England to suppress the revolution, it is utter nonsense. The music hall Irishman was a product of a racist society, certainly, but so were minstrel shows and depictions of stuck-up English toffs. The same music halls curried favor with Irish-American audiences with American-written songs like “Mother Macree,” “Galway Bay,” “The Boston Burglar” and, godhelpus, “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”

   Jiggs was as positive a character as Mr. Dooley and just as much a symbol of the Irish attitude of “Oh, yeah? Come say it to me face!” “Bringing Up Father” is cited as a turning point towards a positive depiction of the race in mass media.

   This fool needs to show up for the second lecture in his sophomore Irish history course before he starts lecturing the rest of the world on the topic.

3. Shane Davis

   Erin Go Braugh!