This comic strip took me by surprise. (It's Mother Goose and Grimm, if you're wondering.)

I'm surprised by this strip because it's referencing a very classic, but very obscure and largely unknown, piece of literature: "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. It just doesn't seem like something a comic strip would choose to parody, since I am guessing a vast majority of the people who read the strip won't have a clue what it means. I notice, however, that the cartoonist spelled it "Grey", which is not how the book spelled it.

If you know the novel, color me impressed.

The plot of the book was very controversial at the time, and some people would find it controversial still today. Let's examine the main elements here:

The main theme of the story is hedonism. This is the philosophy that pleasure is of ultimate importance. It was controversial when the novel was published in 1890 because the world was transitioning from Romanticism to Modernism. But even today, the subject would still cause debate. Anyone who follows this philosophy in full would care about nothing except themselves. This, naturally, goes against most religions and also goes against most "moral codes" that human beings have established for themselves. It's generally accepted that a selfish person is not a good person.

The other theme of the story is homosexuality. This was controversial then, and I don't even need to explain how it's still controversial today. Unless you've been living under a rock, you should be fully aware of what's been happening in the world in regards to the gay rights movement and the opinion of homosexuals in general.

The homosexual references in the novel are quite subtle, but they're there. Both Basil and Henry are infatuated with Dorian because of his beauty. And it's suggested several times throughout the story that Dorian's relationship with the men in his life goes beyond that of platonic.

The book itself is considered a classic. As such, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. I love it because Wilde chose a very controversial subject (homosexuality), and combined it with a movement that he pioneered (the Decadence transition to Modernism). He then dropped it into a Gothic horror story. It's very well done.

I hate it because it's one of many such stories where a man's homosexual tendencies leads to his destruction, thus further fueling the damaging stereotyping of homosexuals.