A recent flap over "Family Circus" and pool safety serves as a reminder that Bil Keane's seemingly gentle comic strip long has been a hotbed of controversy.
The strip in question — depicting the strip's daddy, Bill, paying scant attention to his pool-paddling brood — caused a firestorm of protest from local firefighters, and Keane quickly altered the strip for poster reprint by adding a cautionary caption.
Reader emotion flowed onto the reader-input screens of Amazon.com and was so memorable that the online retailer included the typed tussle in a recent anniversary celebration of wacky reader exchanges. The collective manifesto — which admittedly may be tongue in cheek — is still archived in full on the Web site.
"Keane is a genius," writes one correspondent. " 'Family Circus' is a deconstruction of modern suburban emasculation — sort of like the movie 'American Beauty' but far more clever. I offer my apologies to Mr. Keane. I am simply not good enough to be in the presence of his work. I will now poke out my eyes with my mother's brooches, such is the shame I feel."
Yet another writer digs for the political subtext ruling the world of Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, et al.
"Nihilists and existentialists, look out!" they write. "The profound truths conveyed through the heartwarming, hilarious predicaments of four whimsical moppets and their parents will rock your world view! Secular humanists, manicurists, clergy and lawyers alike will (laugh) out loud or — at least chuckle in self-realization at the sheer depth of humanity presented in Bil Keane's tours de force."
One critic writes that though " 'Family Circus' . . . was once viewed as a lighthearted romp through middle-class society, deeper study might reveal the Marxist overtones of the comic. This is exactly the kind of message that we want the youth of America to absorb. We want young girls to realize that even after many years it's never too late for a new hairstyle. Change and revolution is coming, and Bil Keane is leading the way."
Keane, reached at his Paradise Valley, Ariz., home, said he seldom objects to "Family Circus" satire.
"They select it because of its innocence and its (depiction of) American family life, apple pie and motherhood," he said. "It's the perfect target."