Everyone loves Charlie Brown
Matt Pearl
Years ago, I read about the late, famed cartoonist, Charles M. Schultz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip and its often, pitiful protagonist Charlie Brown. As the article I was reading presented things, it appears (probably to none of our surprise) that much of Charlie Brown’s failures were reflections of the cartoonist’s own shortcomings in life.
When we read that now, our instinct is to feel sorry for Schultz. Despite his great success and the popular, decades-long syndication of a comic strip––one that’s still being rerun in papers nationwide––we feel sorry when we read that the elusive ‘little redheaded girl’ for whom Charlie Brown has unrequited affection was based on an actual girl who rejected Schultz in his younger days.
But here’s the thing: for years, we have enjoyed the comic strip and the TV specials featuring Schultz’s characters, because despite Charlie Brown’s problems, we identify with his imperfections, and we understand his frustrations.
My own frustration these days: it seems like so few people anymore have the capacity to poke fun at themselves like Charles Schultz seemed able to do. We take our lives and our situations so seriously that everything spoken in the social or political arenas that goes against our thinking is an occasion for us to grow offended.
I’m not the political correctness police: I believe that in polite society, we ought to try our best to speak respectfully, and to regard the feelings of others as we present our perspectives. But come on––how can a culture as sophisticated as ours be so overly sensitive? How long has it been since you’ve seen a public figure truly ready to laugh at himself/herself?
Schultz made a living drawing a comic that presented the reader with a boy struggling to understand his world. Charlie Brown rarely got a victory, and for four decades his failures were the stuff of our daily reading. And yet, I don’t really think of him as a loser, do you? I love that character, because of how imperfect yet genuine of figure he is.
Peanuts offered us the opportunity to examine our own embarrassing failures and laugh. Charlie Brown falling flat on his back after Lucy moves the football in the middle of his kick attempt––well that’s the illustrated version of significant portions of my life. I give it my hardest kick, but some obnoxious person just keeps moving the football.
And we don’t feel guilty for laughing at ourselves, using Charlie Brown as our mirror image and target of our self-doubt. It’s helpful. The world could use more of it, for sure.
Comedy shows used to do a better job of it, too. I remember in my late teens watching Saturday Night Live as it parodied anyone (and everyone) with equal absurdity. Its serious moments were limited to national tragedies, and even in the wake of such events, its humor spanned the entire political and social spectrums. Even SNL has chosen to adopt a static political agenda, and has erred in taking itself too seriously, choosing to transition more into a social platform.
Self-effacing humor is dying, perhaps. Or maybe we have just forgotten the cathartic role humor can play when we are able to apply the laughter to our own selves, our own failures and our own lives. We have grown adept at laughing at others, but have lost the ability to wear our own embarrassment with a smile.
It’s no surprise in this day and age of endless mockery and blame on the political landscape. Do our leaders see a bit of Charlie Brown in themselves? Sadly, I doubt it.
Matt Pearl owns and operates newspapers in King City, Albany, and Grant City.
