My Name is Earl, Caitlin Clark, and Dad Envy

In the third season of the crude but rather heartwarming comedy My Name is Earl, there was an episode that helps to explain the hatred directed at Caitlin Clark. In the show there are two half-sisters, one is lily white and named Joy, the other looks like a light-skinned African-American lady named Liberty.

Joy's father had an affair with a black woman and made Liberty. Liberty resented Joy for having a dad and they soon became vicious enemies in a way that only girls can be vicious enemies.

Through wacky comedy plot lines, they end up in a pro-wrestling ring fighting each other. Joy was supposed to go down but instead, she fought Liberty for real and the pair traded escalating insults and blows. Because the internet is the source of all information. I found the transcript in about five minutes and it reads pretty funny.

[Liberty dialogue]

Damn, girl,
you hit me for real!

[Joy dialogue]
And you messed up my eyelashes.

[ Screams in the crowd]

[Liberty dialogue]
What the hell
is wrong with you?

[Joy dialogue]
I'm makin' sure you don't get rich and famous.
...

[Joy dialogue]
This is for slashing
my tires!

[ Screaming ]

[ Groans ]

[Liberty dialogue]
That's for trashin'
my credit ratin'!

[ Moans, Screams ]

[Joy dialogue]
And this is for makin' out
with our math teacher when
you knew he had a crush on me.

Ow!
[ Panting, Gasps ]

[ Earl Narrating ]
Strange as it seems,

this was
the longest these women
had ever talked to each other.

And it was probably healthy
they were airin' out
their grievances.

[Joy's dialogue]
And that was for payin'
my prom date to stab me.

[ Earl Narrating ]
But as painful as Joy's
prom stabbin' had been,

Liberty had a much
deeper pain to share.

[Liberty dialogue]
This is for gettin' to grow up
with my daddy.

This is for wearin' that
"Daddy's Little Girl" T-shirt
all the time.

And this is for
every birthday he missed!
Get up!

And this is
for every holiday!

And this is for knowin'
that the only girl that got
to kiss him good night...

was his precious
little blonde-haired Joy!

[ Earl Narrating ]
Joy suddenly realized that
even though they were sisters,

Joy was the only one
who got to have a dad.

[ Narrating ] After the bout,
Joy and Liberty spent time
together nursin' their wounds.

They even worked on some
you couldn't see.

[Libery dialogue]
Thanks.

[Joy dialogue]
I had no idea.

[Liberty dialogue]
Well, how could you know?

You know, I used
to always imagine Dad
bein' there with you...

and how happy your house
was with the whole family
together on holidays,

and every day, really.

I guess that's why I always
took it out on you.

*******

The show ends with the two half-sisters making up and the song "It's a Family Affair" playing as the credits roll. Cheesy but satisfying, as pretty-good American TV should be.

When I die I suggest scientists study my corpus callosum because I can connect things with other things in a weird way. The scientists should also study the parts of my brain related to memory —while I am still not sure when Father's Day is, after reading Jacob Christner's post about Caitlin Clark I immediately recalled this episode.

My abnormal but fascinating neurology aside, it isn't just Caitlin Clark's race that bothers the ladies of the WNBA. It's dad envy. It also doesn't help that Caitlin Clark is an embodiment of middle-class whiteness. She grew up in a safe, middle-class environment and her father was a practicing Catholic, a responsible husband and father. If Caitlin Clark had not been gifted with a great athletic ability, she would have likely lived a nice stable middle-class life. That makes her not merely a racial outsider but a cultural outsider.

The reason culture stings so much more than race is that culture is not an innate characteristic that can be discounted. Caitlin comes from a culture of stable and supportive families that many ladies in the WNBA don't have but secretly yearn for. But they can't admit it, not even to themselves. So instead they pull dirty fouls and name-calling.