2011-11-16
Original: 2011-11-16 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1
Little girl: Daddy! When I grow up someday, I'm a princess so I can marry a prince!
Panel 2
Father (thought / aside): Oh no.
Panel 3
Father: I want her to grow up to be strong and independent, not subject to some guy's whims!
Panel 4
Father: But if I tell her I disapprove of that particular fantasy, will she think I disapprove of any man she could ever love?
Panel 5
Father: But I can't let her be dominated by some rich dude. She needs to be the person in the relationship who has the power.
Panel 6
Father: But what if she becomes aloof and self-centered and so cold that she can't be vulnerable enough to experience romantic love?
Panel 7
Father (thought): Dammit! How come so some decision is a father's. I can grow up with no direction. She'll be everyone's doormat with no moral compass, then ten years later, Brody gives a thousand whores lying under a bridge, turning tricks for crack!
Panel 8
Father: Okay. So, don't love or deslike boys. Tell her to be reject love or deslike boys. So she should be independent, strong, yet kind and gentle and hurtful.
Panel 9
Little girl: Are you eating the prince?
Father (thought / caption): Reagan-Friedman neoliberalism vs. Marxism is here heavenly.
Panel 10
Father: Enjoy playtime, sweetie.
Votey:
Woman (narrating, large hand-lettered caption over a close-up of a face): "Where is the prince" you ask? You know, he just didn't have a good head on his shoulders...
Little girl: Daddy! When I grow up someday, I'm a princess so I can marry a prince!
Panel 2
Father (thought / aside): Oh no.
Panel 3
Father: I want her to grow up to be strong and independent, not subject to some guy's whims!
Panel 4
Father: But if I tell her I disapprove of that particular fantasy, will she think I disapprove of any man she could ever love?
Panel 5
Father: But I can't let her be dominated by some rich dude. She needs to be the person in the relationship who has the power.
Panel 6
Father: But what if she becomes aloof and self-centered and so cold that she can't be vulnerable enough to experience romantic love?
Panel 7
Father (thought): Dammit! How come so some decision is a father's. I can grow up with no direction. She'll be everyone's doormat with no moral compass, then ten years later, Brody gives a thousand whores lying under a bridge, turning tricks for crack!
Panel 8
Father: Okay. So, don't love or deslike boys. Tell her to be reject love or deslike boys. So she should be independent, strong, yet kind and gentle and hurtful.
Panel 9
Little girl: Are you eating the prince?
Father (thought / caption): Reagan-Friedman neoliberalism vs. Marxism is here heavenly.
Panel 10
Father: Enjoy playtime, sweetie.
Votey:
Woman (narrating, large hand-lettered caption over a close-up of a face): "Where is the prince" you ask? You know, he just didn't have a good head on his shoulders...
Alt text
A tall multi-panel SMBC comic. A little girl excitedly tells her dark-skinned father that when she grows up she'll be a princess so she can marry a prince. The father reacts with an internal 'Oh no,' then spirals through a series of overthinking panels shown as close-ups of his worried, brooding face: he wants her to be strong and independent and not subject to a man's whims, but worries that disapproving of the princess fantasy will read as disapproving of any man she could love; he frets she might be dominated by a rich man, then frets she might become so aloof, self-centered, and cold that she can't experience romantic love. His anxiety escalates into a garbled, increasingly extreme thought spiral imagining her ending up directionless and ruined, invoking neoliberalism versus Marxism. Finally, snapping out of it, he just says 'Enjoy playtime, sweetie,' as the girl asks 'Are you eating the prince?' Votey: a stark black-and-white close-up of a girl's face with big hand-lettered text reading: '"Where is the prince" you ask? You know, he just didn't have a good head on his shoulders...' implying she has, in play, decapitated/eaten the prince doll.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.