Comics I Don’t Understand

Happy

Cidu Bill on Aug 24th 2008

This strip

was a CIDU for me, which wasn’t at all cleared up
by this follow-up strip:

Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, The Norm, comic strips, comics, humor | 30 responses so far

30 Responses to “Happy”

eeyore19 Aug 24th 2008 at 12:47 am 1

“Happy” as in “gay.”
Kit Aug 24th 2008 at 01:01 am 2

/disagree “happy” does NOT mean “gay” sorry
Brian Aug 24th 2008 at 01:27 am 3

The two commenters above me are both right. The cartoonist has one character using “happy” to mean the same as “gay,” in an attempt to create humorous misunderstanding. He failed, because absolutely no one on the planet ever uses the word in that context, ever.

So instead of humorous misunderstanding, we have nonsense and CIDU.
Rob Aug 24th 2008 at 02:45 am 4

Have to agree with Brian on that. Kit, “happy” and “gay” are synonyms when talking about being cheerful and joyous. In this strip it is using that synonymous relationship to imply that happy can be used to say “gay” in its homosexual context.

I think the key to understanding the joke is that happy is in quotations implying an emphasis of some kind and in the followup strip when the girl makes it obvious that Ford’s mood is not the point of discussion, that’s also a tip.
Andrew Aug 24th 2008 at 06:21 am 5

I agree with the previous posters, but I’m confused as to where the cartoonist got the idea of using “happy” to mean “homosexual” - is it the latest step on the euphemism treadmill, inspired by “gay”? In which case is it the cartoonists idea of what his characters would be saying, or mandated by an editor? However, a simple substitution of gay for happy doesn’t work in this strip, since most “does gay mean happy or homosexual” jokes have to do a lot of work demonstrating that a character is using the word to mean “happy”, unlike this strip where the strip’s doing a lot of work to establish that the character means something else by “happy”.
Powers Aug 24th 2008 at 08:10 am 6

Reine is clearly using “happy” because she doesn’t want to say “gay”. Why she assumes everyone will know what she means (maybe it’s the quotation marks), I have no idea.
HighJinx Aug 24th 2008 at 08:38 am 7

Actually, the gay connotation popped into my head immediately upon first reading. But by the light of day, I’m thinking these strips may just be wry commentary on the differences between men and women. I think men are quicker to state that they’re happy if they’re simply not unhappy, whereas women have a whole lot more gradations in between and sideways.
Trish Aug 24th 2008 at 09:38 am 8

I don’t think gay-ness has anything at all to do with this. I think “are you happy?” vs “but are you really happy?” means ok so you are happy on the surface right now, but seriously deep down are you happy with life?
Are you OK? vs Are you truly content?
Rain Aug 24th 2008 at 10:50 am 9

about five or ten years ago, “Happy” was definitely used instead of “gay”, and exactly as it’s being used in this strip. At least in NYC, where I was living at the time.

There were definitely conversations about “so do you THINK he’s ‘happy’?” and they definitely were NOT inquiring about the person’s emotional state.

Maybe it hasn’t been in common usage, but I would say that in the late 1990’s in NYC, most people I knew (although, I DID work for the Gap and had two gay roommates) would have “gotten” this joke.

It makes sense to me.
That's Me Aug 24th 2008 at 12:25 pm 10

Actually, this is an old strip. Reine (the woman) is convinced that Ford cannot be “happy” so long as he is single. She pushes this point until Ford becomes disgruntled and leaves, unhappy in both senses.
Mel Aug 24th 2008 at 01:55 pm 11

At first glance, I didn’t get the comic either.

However, it isn’t so extreme to think that the woman in the strip meant “gay” instead of “happy.” Not too long ago the word gay did mean happy (pick up a Nancy Drew book and you’ll see what I mean).

I suppose one could say that the woman meant “happy” on a deeper level (as in happy with his life, love life, etc).

Although the “gay” theory seems to work better for me.
Jim Aug 24th 2008 at 03:32 pm 12

The complicating factor for me is the first panel, which makes a clear point of happiness as an emotion…but then the rest of the strip apparently goes elsewhere.
Mark in Boston Aug 24th 2008 at 04:14 pm 13

So many euphemisms are getting euphemisms of their own now. “Special” is another one in the process of becoming a bad word. “Special”, as in “special class” or “special needs student”, is a euphemism for “retarded”, which is a euphemism for “idiot” or “imbecile”, both once scientific terms and now Very Bad Words.

I don’t think this is a particularly happy strip but I think it’s a very special strip.
DPWally Aug 24th 2008 at 04:58 pm 14

Maybe there’s a tiny sub-subcultural group, populated by one cartoonist, one Gap, and Rain’s old roommates, where “happy” is used that way.

I live in NYC, and did 5 and 10 years ago, and have known many gay people, and have never heard “happy” used to mean gay. That’s known, not “known”.
Oz Aug 24th 2008 at 08:13 pm 15

Gay can mean happy, I think, but not the other way around. The former sense, by the way, is still perfectly legitimate; “Gay” is even still in rare use as a female name. Not too long ago I saw a Jeopardy contestant in her forties named Gay.
Big Julie Aug 25th 2008 at 12:05 am 16

I think this woman is one fry short of a Happy Meal.

By the way, “gay” has had an alternative meaning for over 150 years, if New York City newspapers from the 1860s can be believed. The word was on the way to changing long before any of us were born.
Powers Aug 25th 2008 at 07:00 am 17

This comic just doesn’t make sense unless she means “gay”.
Rain Aug 25th 2008 at 08:00 am 18

DPWally–there were 30 Gap stores in Manhattan at that time

but bonus points to you for “I’ve known, not ‘known’” Now THAT’S a LOL!!!!!!!!!
Size Aug 25th 2008 at 10:04 am 19

I’m with Hijinx and Trish on this one. I didn’t think it had anything to do with being homosexual. I was frankly surprised that so many commenters read it that way, because to me nothing in the strip implies homosexuality. In fact the author even says it’s about emotions in the first panel.

To me it was a commentary on how the man can say he’s happy because he is happy at the moment, but the woman says he’s not happy because he is not settled down, with a family, and a wife to order him around, etc.
Mark in Boston Aug 25th 2008 at 10:51 am 20

I hope these people don’t order Happy Meals at McDonalds.
Jeff S. Aug 25th 2008 at 12:39 pm 21

Don’t you mean, ‘”Happy” Meals’? Meals designed for their “special” dietary “needs”. I “so” love “quotation marks”!
Renard Muldrake Aug 25th 2008 at 02:10 pm 22

“We’re all gay, and it’s okay, ’cause gay means happy and happy means gay.” - Big Gay Al’s boat ride

Really, after reading through all the responses I agree with the interpretation that it’s supposed to mean the woman has a more complicated, specific idea of happiness than the man, and that’s supposed to be the “joke”. It still doesn’t make much sense.
Gary Aug 25th 2008 at 02:25 pm 23

My first thought was along the line of “He’s not really happy. He only *thinks* he’s happy”.

But it didn’t make much sense that way either.
Dan Aug 25th 2008 at 08:05 pm 24

Gay can mean happy; gay can mean homosexual. But there’s no transitive property at work here; happy doesn’t mean homosexual.

It’s gotta just be the different connotations of happy. That is, they both mean happy as in not sad, but they have different perspectives on what that specifically means.
Powers Aug 26th 2008 at 08:29 am 25

It can’t be “different connotations of happy”. Reine indicates she’s uncovered some sort of secret in the third panel of the first strip. “Yes! I knew he was really content with his life!” doesn’t make sense. “Yes! I knew he was homosexual!” does.

In the second strip, Reine makes it clear that she means “happy” in a sense different than “not miserable”. The only possible sense of “happy” that isn’t the opposite of “miserable” is “gay-but-I-don’t-want-to-say-’gay’-so-I’ll-say-’happy’-instead”.
Lord Jubjub Aug 26th 2008 at 06:26 pm 26

It seems to me that Reine is confusing ‘gay’ and ‘happy’, thinking that the terms are interchangeable in relation to homosexuality.

Once Ford realized that Reine thinks he’s gay, he’s no longer quite as happy as he was.
Dan Aug 27th 2008 at 12:08 am 27

But “happy” does not mean “homosexual.”

If that is what the artist intended, he’s got his connotations all screwed up.
Powers Aug 27th 2008 at 07:01 am 28

Yes, Dan, that’s what’s confusing everyone. But Reine obviously thinks that “happy” is an accepted euphemism for “gay”. The fact that this belief is idiosyncratic at best (and unheard of at worst) *is part of the joke*.
Jack Aug 27th 2008 at 04:17 pm 29

It gives you a decent throught experiment by which you could understand how misunderstanding could arise when a old word takes on a new meaning. Reminds me of the scene in the movie Blast from the Past when the old-fashioned, naive main character responded to the statement that a certain other character is gay by telling him, “Good for you;” our main character was obviously under the mistaken impression that the word was being used in the traditional, old-fashioned sense.
Alex Aug 29th 2008 at 10:51 am 30

This comic would have been much better received in 1995, when that connotation was actually somewhat better known (mainly owing to people being more nervous about homosexuality).

However, even if it makes sense, it’s still not a good joke. It’s the comedic equivalent of making fun of British people for calling cigarettes “fags.”