Olive Oyl: Comic relief or Woman stereotype?

So my sister's been watching a lot of Popeye, and I can't help but notice what a horrible character Olive Oyl is. I mean, she's fickle, easily being swayed by either of her suitors (Bluto and Popeye). She's ignorant, superstitious, helpless, naive, superficial, and not the brightest crayon in the box.

Now, was this to provide comic relief by using women's foibles, or was it a classic case of sexist stereotyping, leading men to believe that all women are like her? I'm not a feminist, and traditional female roles don't bother me at all, but this kind of stereotyping riles me up.

Anyway, discuss.

 

I haven't watched a whole of Popeye, but I know that they are really old cartoons. It was originally made in the 1920s, and women those days were mostly seen as housewives. Olive Oyl was almost definitely portraying the stereotypical female of that time. It doesn't bother me as much in the old cartoons, but for any newer ones, I'd be a bit worried if she was still like that, at least to that extent (they wouldn't want to change the character too much, of course).

 

Like Lovegood said, Popeye is an older cartoon and it is not surprising to see this. Like in the old Tom and Jerry cartoons there was much more black stereotyping (like using blackface alot. now edited out that is shown on CN)