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A review by larrys
Dog Man and Cat Kid by Dav Pilkey
2.0
Has Dav Pilkey sold rights to the movie franchise, because if so that would make this book truly meta. In this story Dog Man gets his own movie. A more muscular version of himself turns up, and a sexified version of Sarah Hatoff turns up too. This Spanish-speaking stand-in immediately becomes an object of sexual desire (and I wonder what Latina readers think about that particular stereotype.) Dog Man enjoys getting his stomach rubbed by this sexy Spanish speaking lady and both he and Kitty bury themselves into her breast at one point. The reader is invited to find her sexy as well. The implied reader here is therefore narrowed down to a heterosexual boy, as per usual. I don't think my nine-year-old daughter had been fully aware that she wasn't the intended audience. I'm reminded of that time Barack Obama disappointed by making a speech using the phrase 'our wives and daughters'. Suddenly all the women in the audience realised he hadn't been talking to them at all. (Feels churlish to make one single complaint about Obama at this point, but the point stands.) This sexy woman needs saving at one point, after getting herself into bother. But in the end it's her who dishes out the (mock-but-also-serious) moral lesson. These are the roles female characters are limited to: object of desire, girl to be saved, and finally, the summer-upperer of lessons.
These Dog Man storylines do follow on from each other, and Kitty has been living at Dog Man's since the last in the series. Petey dresses as an old woman posing as a nanny in order to steal him back. I seem to be the only one who has a problem with the proliferation of this trope in middle grade stories -- the gag in which a male character will dress as a femme character in order to deceive. But then again, not everyone has read *Whipping Girl* by Julia Serrano. If you want to understand the problem I have with this trope, better to just read that entire book.
This story has the same madcap action adventure and the same density of gags and will no doubt continue to please a wide audience. Dav Pilkey is a great gag writer. He could be wholly original if he wanted to. Or maybe he's forced to pump these out a bit too fast. I don't know.
I do get pessimistic, about what 'broad appeal humour' looks like in 2018, and the fact that every series which starts off pretty well eventually relies upon the sort of lazy jokes I can't stand.
These Dog Man storylines do follow on from each other, and Kitty has been living at Dog Man's since the last in the series. Petey dresses as an old woman posing as a nanny in order to steal him back. I seem to be the only one who has a problem with the proliferation of this trope in middle grade stories -- the gag in which a male character will dress as a femme character in order to deceive. But then again, not everyone has read *Whipping Girl* by Julia Serrano. If you want to understand the problem I have with this trope, better to just read that entire book.
This story has the same madcap action adventure and the same density of gags and will no doubt continue to please a wide audience. Dav Pilkey is a great gag writer. He could be wholly original if he wanted to. Or maybe he's forced to pump these out a bit too fast. I don't know.
I do get pessimistic, about what 'broad appeal humour' looks like in 2018, and the fact that every series which starts off pretty well eventually relies upon the sort of lazy jokes I can't stand.