[pfisherman]

Counterpoint: Charlie Brown

A big part of what makes Charlie Brown so endearing is his undying earnestness and optimism in the face of near constant bad luck and disappointment.

He is exactly the lovable loser archetype that this piece says Americans do not dig. Yet the Peanuts comics and cartoons and an American pop cultural institution.

[svat]

OP here (though I don't claim any special insight, as I said).

It would be interesting to consider the differences between the Charlie Brown and Arthur Dent character archetypes.

One difference seems to me exactly the undying earnestness and optimism you mentioned: in a way, Charlie Brown and other American characters like him are simply not touched by failure (even if bad things happen to them), because of their optimism[1]. This makes them lovable: we appreciate them for this quality that we (most of the audience) do not have.

[1]: (or lack of self-awareness, in some other cases mentioned here like Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin)

Arthur Dent, on the other hand, is not gifted with undying optimism. He's constantly moaning about things, starting with his house and his planet being destroyed. This makes him relatable more than lovable: he's not a “lovable loser” (and for the right audience, does not seem a “loser” at all), he is just us, “my kind of guy” — we feel kinship rather than appreciation. We relate to the moaning (if Arthur Dent were to remain unfailingly optimistic, he'd be… different), whereas if Charlie Brown were to lose his optimism or if Homer were to say "D'oh!" to complain about big things in life rather than hurting his thumb or whatever, they would become less of the endearing American institutions they are IMO.

[jimbokun]

I would not say that Charlie Brown is untouched by failure. He does descend to the depths of despair. But some how rises from it to try (and fail) again. This trope is seen best with Lucy pulling away the football every time he goes to kick it. Even though he knows he's failed every time, he talks himself into this time being different.

This does not contradict your overriding point, just adding nuance to the claim he is "simply not touched by failure".

[vanderZwan]

I suspect that one difference that gives the impression that the characters in Peanuts are "untouched by failure" is that for the most part they don't have real character arcs. Once their archetypes are established they stay the same. Combine that with being the longest running comic written by a single person of all time and it feels like nothing ever changes.

That's not a critique - being a comforting source of unchanging familiarity is part of the point of a newspaper comic. But it is very different to H2G. Arthur Dent might be a bumbling failure who is flung around by forces out of his own control, but his life still changes and he still changes. He still grows a little bit as a person.

[the_gipsy]

But Charlie is a fool, a half-moron. Arthur is not dumb.

[metabagel]

Charlie Brown is a child.

[rolymath]

[flagged]

[jfengel]

Sorta. The whole point of the strip is that they don't talk or act like children.

"Schultz" is German for "brown". He's very much the author's adult POV, using a child-looking character to disarm the cynicism.

[unwind]

Brown in German is actually, wait for it, "braun".

[impossiblefork]

Schultz actually is not German for brown. It's a name deriving from the name of a kind of medieval tax official.

[rags2riches]

> "Schultz" is German for "brown".

Beleg fehlt.

[DoughnutHole]

Homer used to complain about the big things. He tried to kill himself in the third episode due to losing his job. The first 2 seasons are honestly comparatively depressing with some of the heavy topics they touch on.

The Simpsons just leant so far into 1-note characteristics that they became caricatures of themselves - and the term Flanderization was born.

[tclancy]

OP, if you’re still lurking, are you familiar with the Flashman series? I feel like it falls somewhere between the poles here. Either way, would highly recommend it to anyone who likes Adams, history, learning or reprobates.

[jayd16]

In American storytelling, being optimistic overcomes being a failure. In fact, you haven't failed if you still have hope.

Homer Simpson is an idiot, but he doesn't give up. That's endearing enough to hold the protagonist roll.

[okanat]

Yes, that's the part that Americans miss and the previous commenter missed. Charlie Brown is still optimistic.

To dig the English comedy you need to accept that you are or the protagonist is a failure. Your or their life will never significantly improve and they made peace with it. You covet and enjoy small moments of happiness. Happiness is not the winning big but returning home.

[wredcoll]

It's tempting to see some kind of relationship to class/caste systems here.

A hypothetical english person might feel trapped by their class and station and "win" by accepting it but the american character always has a chance to rise

[jfengel]

He's also frequently mean. I don't get the love for him.

That is another aspect of humor that Brits and Americans share, but also do very differently.

[1-more]

I wonder if Candide is the prototype of this.

[zharknado]

Interesting. You have me thinking of Candide as an answer to Quixote.

In very broad strokes, Quixote says my perceptions and ideals are true and apparent evidence to the contrary must be a misunderstanding/ chance/ magic. His agency is to frame the world’s meaning in his own terms. Until finally he gives it up.

Candide accepts societal moral framings (i.e. rationalizations for wrongdoing) naively, but is slowly worn down by the evidence that they’re a sham. But in facing the seemingly intractable harshness of reality, he doesn’t become so cynical as to cede his own agency entirely—“Il faut cultiver notre jardin.”

To me that feels like a wiser response than absurdity or despondency.

[dentemple]

Also a counterpoint, but from the other side (from British Speculative fiction): Terry Pratchett's Discworld series

These books, written by a British author, are full of characters with strong wants who are roused into situation-defying action.

These books are also best-sellers on _both_ sides of the pond, and often share shelves with Adams.

[Intermernet]

Almost all of Pratchett's greatest characters are highly flawed, morally complex and anti-heroic. This is the main point. This premise includes everyone from Cohen the barbarian, through Vimes, Rincewind, Susan, all the witches, Moist Von Lipwig, all the way to DEATH.

That's one of the main reasons that Terry's work comprehensively bridges the genre gap between "children's books" and "modern philosophy".

[zharknado]

My favorite part about Pratchett is that the characters who are most competent choose to act in the best interest of the less competent “normies” who will never understand or appreciate what they’re doing on their behalf.

[Sharlin]

Pratchett did start the series with a loser protagonist, Rincewind, before pivoting to mostly competent main characters.

[dentemple]

Even then, he goes through the typical heroic arc of:

1) Starting the story by Resisting the Call to adventure -- in a way that reveals strong character motivation (a strong desire to live)

2) He suffers a series of trials that slowly push him to the opposite view: That he must act boldly and selflessly if he is to survive (and thereby also save the Discworld)

3) He performs a heroic act (even if only armed with a "half-brick in a sock") contributing to the good side's overall victory

Although to be fair, he does tend to revert by the start of his next story.

[tsumnia]

> Although to be fair, he does tend to revert by the start of his next story.

I'd say that's most of the Discworld series though. Protagonist is living peaceful, MacGuffin ensues chaos, Protagonist (or Arbitrary Thing) saves the day, the Disc goes back to normal, and the Turtle continues to move.

Discworld is my favorite series and I think Hogfather and Feets of Clay should be mandatory reads for people going into AI.

[kergonath]

> He performs a heroic act

Does he, though? I don’t think he acts heroically even once. Though I would not be surprise if Pratchett actually defies expectations and made him a genuine hero once or twice; it’s been a while since I read the Discworld books. Rather, acts that look heroic from the outside if you squint happen to him despite his best, incompetent efforts to stay out of it.

[eli_gottlieb]

You forgot

4) Confusing pretty young women with potatoes.

[notahacker]

tbf Pratchett was blatantly mocking the heroic arc with that, and the series opens with The Colour of Magic which is basically the Hitchikers Guide to the Discworld in which Rincewind completely fails to avoid having a lot of adventures and actually ends up falling off the edge of the world: the resemblance to Adam's creation surely isn't accidental. Pratchett said Rincewind's narrative role was "to meet more interesting people"

[hshdhdhj4444]

99% of references I see to Charlie Brown in the U.S. are as a sucker who never learns.

[tsumnia]

Referencing does not necessarily equate to sentiment though. Similar to seeing Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes peeing on thing decals isn't representative to the admiration to the comic series. The "woop woop woop woop" adult voice is another core element to US culture making fun of authorative figures, but doesn't dismiss them as unneed aspects to life.

[krustyburger]

Those references are to the recurring gag with Lucy and the football.

There’s a lot more to the character than that so I hope 99% is an exaggeration and people are still reading Peanuts and watching the various animated versions. I’m pretty sure they are.

[thaumasiotes]

> Those references are to the recurring gag with Lucy and the football.

Probably, because that's the most popular example of Charlie Brown as a sucker who never learns, but it's a core part of his character and is shown by many, many other gags. There's also a recurring gag with Lucy and April Fool's Day. There's a whole family of them around baseball and Peppermint Patty. There's another recurring gag where he tries to fly a kite.

The comic can't depict Charlie Brown as able to learn - since he never succeeds,† if he could learn, he'd never do anything at all.

† There are a couple of temporary exceptions. When he runs away from home he meets a gang of littler children who respect him. When he has to wear a paper bag over his head at camp, he becomes a success for the duration.

[amiga386]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20241205-how-charles-m...

> Back in 1977, Schulz insisted that the cartoonist's role was mostly to point out problems rather than trying to solve them, but there was one lesson that people could take from his work. He said: "I suppose one of the solutions is, as Charlie Brown, just to keep on trying. He never gives up. And if anybody should give up, he should."

[pinnochio]

I'm enjoying the discussion of Charlie Brown, but while Peanuts is indeed an American pop cultural institution, I never really thought of CB as a 'hero', or even really a protagonist.

While there were cartoons where he's the protagonist (I recently watched A Charlie Brown Christmas), his main medium is the comic strips, and Peanuts generally didn't tell a continuous story (if at all), unlike, say, the superhero comic strips. Instead, they're little vignettes of life, and like most serial comic strips, you're meant to relate to them, get a nugget of wisdom or insight, or a chuckle. We mostly read them as kids who were bored and wanted something like a cartoon until Saturday came around (I realize adults read them, too, but today that seems rare, almost unimaginable to me now). So I'm not sure Charlie Brown really counts as a counterexample, here.

Even the cartoons are not so beloved that they're widely rewatched by adults for their storytelling. People have nostalgia for them because they're something they watched as children. This is the main reason I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas recently, and it's kind of a mostly sad story with a weird resolution. Thanksgiving was practically unwatchable. The Garfield cartoons also do not hold up, imo.

[TacticalCoder]

> I never really thought of CB as a 'hero', or even really a protagonist.

Yup totally.

As an european I always saw, as a kid, Snoopy as the hero who had lots of humor and who was likable. I'd describe Charlie Brown as "invisible" as I barely remember him.

[Intermernet]

CB could be called a "midtagonist", but apparently that would be someone who really likes a particular type of fly-fishing lure.

[pinnochio]

I realize 'midtagonist' is a standard sloppy internet neologism, but technically it should be 'midagonist', or maybe 'mesagonist' to keep it fully Greek.

(And yes, I'm delightful at parties.)

[Intermernet]

I appreciate the pedantism, and I'm sure I would happily spend hours at parties discussing similar inanities with you :-)

[Melatonic]

Wouldn't Snoopy be the hero ?

[lenerdenator]

I'd say there are more. Courage the Cowardly Dog? Very much in the lovable loser camp. The Eds from Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy also fit, but I suppose you could say that's a Canadian show.

[freedomben]

Indeed, also a great example of a failing bumbling lovable loser who is frequently considered a hero to many Americans is Homer Simpson. Homer Simpson is a hero to many people in America, especially among the working class. It's not a pure example, because Homer does inadvertently succeed often, but it's almost always because of some crazy luck, not because of some skill or even perseverance.

I largely agree with Douglas Adams assessment of the cultural differences. I think it's pretty clear that he is on to something in a general sense. But there are definitely exceptions in my opinion. It's just way too diverse and way too complex a formula to ratchet down in such a narrow way.

[overfeed]

> Indeed, also a great example of a failing bumbling lovable loser who is frequently considered a hero to many Americans is Homer Simpson.

Homer maybe the lowest version of a protagonist "loser" tolerable to American viewers, but he still has far too much agency compared to a British loser. "Lisa needs braces" and "Do it for her" are very hero-coded, and would never happen in a universe where the Simpsons are a British family.

Another barometer is American remakes of British shows, where the loser character is given redeeming qualities or circumstances rather than just letting them be the losers they are, such as David Brent vs. Michael Scott in their respective "The Office" roles. I suspect soaked-in-the-wool loser characters don't poll well in American focus groups hired by studios.

[UncleSlacky]

That probably also explains the (repeated) failure of American Fawlty Towers remakes - Basil Fawlty is a loser, and Americans can't play them convincingly.

[dyauspitr]

Homer is a great example for this. However, at the end of the day, through all his incompetence and bumbling, he wins. He has a wonderful wife, kids and a home. He has friends and always has an upbeat “winner” attitude. You see him and see a happy, successful person inspite of his failings.

Same with Peter Griffin but he is confident and fiercely dominant. He doesn’t feel like a loser.

Even Michael from the office who is a “loser”, has a lot of redeeming qualities like genuine care for his employees, terrific salesman and a position of leadership.

[jameshart]

Being a loser who is in a position of leadership isn’t a redeeming quality - it’s an indictment of the system he lives in.

[dyauspitr]

Maybe but for his purposes it’s redeeming.

[freedomben]

Great point! Would the Simpsons have done as well had Homer just gotten screwed over and miserable? I would bet not. In the American culture that sort of reality would have shifted the humor into more of a "feels bad man" that probably wouldn't have gone over well.

[dyauspitr]

Courage always overcomes the challenge by being brave even though he is scared.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

If you're not scared, you can't be brave. Bravery is doing something despite fear, it's quite distinct from fearlessness.

[tokai]

Those shows are also on purpose far out and weird in their style and story telling.

[lenerdenator]

Courage the Cowardly Dog definitely is. EEnE is, eh, typical 90s cartoon fare, at least to me.

[Forgeties79]

EEnE had a strangely surrealist quality to it that stands out in my memory. It’s goofy and slapstick, but it’s basically its own little vacuum of a world and even feels slightly unsettling at times. It’s hard to put my finger on it exactly. It tends to veer between Looney Tunes rules and being grounded in reality, but it doesn’t really spend much time making the two compatible. It just kind of swings wildly between them (see: their mouths when they eat jawbreakers).

Now that I think about it, that’s probably partially why there’s that old copy pasta about it being a dystopian setting. It lends itself well to the concept.

[cogman10]

I think the fact that the kids are alone and unsupervised basically all the time is what makes it so unsettling. You never see adults in the show. It's always just the same small group of kids. About the only adult interaction with the kids is through sticky notes.

I think that need and loneliness is also expressed in the show. Which is different from other kids shows which are more cartoony (Dexter's Laboratory, for example, though the adults do make appearances)

[bee_rider]

Now this is making me wonder if there was a shift at some point… as far as I remember, kids shows in the past were mostly about the kids. Ed Ed and Eddy and the Peanuts might have taken this to an extreme as part of the joke. These shows were for kids, and so the kids were the focus.

I wonder if kids shows nowadays feel a need to include more adults because adults are more likely to be watching.

[Forgeties79]

No doubt that contributes but there’s also something about the way they interact with each other and how they physically exist in space/the Looney Tunes style physical gags that really stands out to me. It’s often a little… grotesque? Feels like a strong term but it’s the word that comes to mind

[agumonkey]

Only a European, and one who grew up on US stuff, fondly so, charlie brown feels very low on the exposed and perceived American ethos / values. I saw a few strips and refs .. but that's about it.

[iterateoften]

It’s practically institutionalized at school. Major holidays are marked by watching Charlie Brown in class at a young age.

[alistairSH]

I don't recall EVER watching Charlie Brown shows at school (Fairfax Co, VA in the mid 80s).

[interloxia]

I only remember watching Flight of the Navigator year after year.

[esafak]

At school??

[cgriswald]

I watched it at school too but just once. We all sat in the gymnasium. We also had a magician perform, some type of band, and some other activities over the years. Looking back I think there was always some “special” day right around the corner.

Unrelated, in high school we watched History of the World Part I in World History and our teacher had a piece of cardboard that said “censored” or something that he put in front of the screen during various scenes like “Bishop humps Queen” but allowed the audio to play through.

[agumonkey]

So it's very much present as inner culture but not much an influence big mainstream productions (tv shows, movies) that we see as exports, is that right ?

[msabalau]

I think it depends where you live. Peanuts seems to have fairly large presence in Taiwan and Japan--it's currently owned by Sony. It's one of the tentpoles on Apple TV.

According to Wikipedia, as a franchise it's brings in more revenue than Star Trek or the Avengers.

[jimbokun]

As iterateoften points out, the TV shows are mainly tied to US holidays, or at least how those holidays are celebrated in the US. This also makes Peanuts merchandise tied to those holidays very popular.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas are the major ones. I think New Year and Easter were added at some point but not as well known.

Having said that, it makes sense that those shows wouldn't translate as well to a non-US audience.

[zdragnar]

Honestly, in my experience the original stuff largely disappeared. I vaguely remember watching some of it back in the early 90's, but never in school. The holiday specials would be on TV if you went looking for them, but that's about it.

Snoopy was more ensuring than Charlie Brown, but even that was more "cute cartoon" than anything to do with any message.

Edit: I see some sibling comments that it's making a comeback, though I've no idea if any of it is all that faithful to the original.

Charlie Brown had a lot of Christian messaging reflecting Schultz's devout beliefs, and I doubt any of that will show up in whatever Apple and Target and current schools are putting together.

[agumonkey]

talking about snoopy, it was quite popular in france in the 80s, i even have a kid thermos (https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1478487195/thermos-snoopy-an...). but yeah it felt acultural to me at least (to be honest i would have said it was english)

[Izkata]

> Honestly, in my experience the original stuff largely disappeared. I vaguely remember watching some of it back in the early 90's, but never in school. The holiday specials would be on TV if you went looking for them, but that's about it.

Yeah, my dad (a Baby Boomer) loved these and would make sure to watch them every year. I and my Millennial siblings didn't really care, it just felt old-fashioned. I had no idea it was still popular at all.

[t-3]

Nope. Schoolhouse Rock, multiple Monty Python films, The Last Samurai, The Magic Schoolbus, Romeo and Juliet... but never any Charlie Brown. Oh yeah, and The Sandlot. 2 or 3 times I think.

[alistairSH]

Huh, we didn't get those either. Except Schoolhouse Rock. The only other TV I remember was we'd watch every Space Shuttle launch, up until the Challenger explosion, then we didn't watch them any more.

And of course, there was the Oregon Trail video game in middle school. But, as far as I can tell, that was a pretty short-lived thing.

[educasean]

Charlie Brown does feel more like a symbol of a bygone era rather than an embodiment of the 21st century American psyche

[jimbokun]

Yes, a time when children entertained themselves outside interacting with other children, and adults were so peripheral to their lives that they could be portrayed always off screen by a mumbling voice.

[t-3]

Yeah. I remember thinking it was old and boring as a kid in the 90's... Have children born after the millennium even ever seen a newspaper, let alone read the comics?

[MrVandemar]

Not just Charlie Brown. The entire cast of the comic.

* Charlie Brown will never talk to the Red Haired Girl. His kites will always be eaten by a tree. He'll never win a baseball game. He'll never kick the football. He has abominably low self-esteem.

* Lucy's infatuation with Schroder is clearly one-sided; likewise Peppermint Patty / Charlie Brown; also Sally/Linus.

* Snoopy will never get the Red Baron, nor enjoy publishing success

* Linus will never stop believing in The Great Pumpkin and is disappointed every year.

Probably loads more. The comic is about losers, and losing.

[lionsdan]

He did eventually win a baseball game. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/march-30-1993-after...

[cyberrock]

He has more modern versions in Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin. But most of the failures or misfortunes they experience are quite mild or temporary, all things considered.

[yellowstuff]

From Stephen Fry: "You know that scene in Animal House where there’s a fellow playing folk music on the guitar, and John Belushi picks up the guitar and destroys it. And the cinema loves it. Well, the British comedian would want to play the folk singer. We want to play the failure."

Homer and Peter Griffin are idiots but they smash the guitar. Charlie Brown gets his guitar smashed.

[morley]

I think this is a distinction between comedy and non-comedy genres.

There are many examples of protags in American comedies who never get their way -- Party Down, Seinfeld, Always Sunny. Part of this is the need for American sitcoms to maintain the status quo over dozens of episodes / several seasons.

You rarely see Hollywood action heroes who are beset with unrelenting disappointment -- they usually go through hell, but by the end of the third act, achieve some sort of triumph.

A notable counterexample is Sicario, but I wouldn't call it a "Hollywood action movie."

[drdec]

In the first Indiana Jones, the hero makes no positive contribution to the outcome in the end. He is just along for the ride.

To be fair, it requires a little bit of thinking to see. The general audience might see it as success because the outcome was "good" even if it had nothing to do with anything Jones did.

[raattgift]

Indy led Belloq to the Ark. Belloq was looking in the wrong place because he only had the side of the headpiece of the Staff of Ra that was seared into Toht's palm, thus without Jones in the movie, the Nazis might never have acquired the Ark, failing to "take back one kadam to honor the Hebrew God, whose Ark this is".

Moreover, if Indy had not gone to Nepal, then Toht (having obtained the headpiece) and Belloq might have used a staff of the right length to find the Ark. Had they also captured Marion and taken her along to their secret island base, Jones would not have been there to tell her not to look, and thus her face would have melted off too.

Of course, Toht and his henchmen might also just have killed her in Nepal.

Alternatively, as Toht and company followed Jones to Marion, and might not have found her otherwise, they might never have had even half the headpiece of the staff of Ra, and the Ark thus would have remained undisturbed in its resting place, leaving the baddies to deal merely with the wrinkles and creases associated with aging appearing on their faces in the fullness of time.

So: Jones keeps Ravenwood alive, and puts the Belloq and his Nazi colleagues in a position to have their faces melted off. Jones also offed a couple of Nazis and other baddies along the way.

[owisd]

After the Nazis opened the Ark, Jones was able to tell the Americans where to pick it up from. Otherwise when the Nazis sent a crew to look for the missing men they’d have just found and taken the Ark again.

[krapp]

>In the first Indiana Jones, the hero makes no positive contribution to the outcome in the end. He is just along for the ride.

I think that's just bad script writing.

[eli_gottlieb]

> it had nothing to do with anything Jones did

To be absolutely fair, I think in that era of American cinema there was a norm that you very clearly delineate apart what the protagonist accomplishes from what comes about by an act of God. Indiana Jones does nothing because the Nazis have to get their comeuppance for blasphemy.

[Der_Einzige]

Charlie Brown is dying in America. Gen Z doesn't know who he is.

[panzagl]

Charlie Brown is actually pretty big right now- my gen z daughter has her entire classroom decked out in him and he's over Target, etc. He fits in with the cozy subculture part of gen z.

[tsunagatta]

Bro literally everyone I know has watched at least the Great Pumpkin and Charlie Brown Christmas. People my age regularly make memes based on the football gag. It’s a cultural icon.

As a general rule actually, I’d say that Gen Z is more likely than may be expected to know about culture from before our time - the internet, after all, is a back catalogue of the best hits of humanity. That’s why spotify thinks we all have a listening age of 70.

[pseudalopex]

> As a general rule actually, I’d say that Gen Z is more likely than may be expected to know about culture from before our time - the internet, after all, is a back catalogue of the best hits of humanity. That’s why spotify thinks we all have a listening age of 70.

I heard many people who grew up before 2000 remark younger people listened to more varied music than they did at the same ages. And I heard none remark the opposite. But some of the same people remarked knowledge of older television and movies had declined seemingly. And none remarked the opposite.

[GMoromisato]

Apple just created a new Charlie Brown series and my 6-year-old daughter has already devoured it. I'm trying to get her to say "good grief!" more often.

[sfink]

Be very, very careful about what you wish for.

[Melatonic]

.....Snoopy is literally making a huge comeback with that generation

[throwaway132448]

I don’t know anything about Charlie Brown, but I’m not sure constant bad luck and disappointment capture the spirit of the British humour being discussed, as that can just as easily be used to describe slapstick humour. Perhaps it’s the existential futility/resignation that’s missing? Charlie Brown is a child, so they perhaps have optimistic naïveté instead (such that their failure be viewed with pity instead of kinship, which is really the distinction here).

[baxtr]

Another counterpoint: Columbo

[jsolson]

Columbo is anything but a failure, though, and the audience knows that. His genius is leveraging humility to convince killers that he's a bumbling idiot, while in reality he's onto them from the first encounter.

_Slow Horses_ came up in another thread. I'd argue that Columbo has more in common with Jackson Lamb than with Charlie Brown.

[ndsipa_pomu]

There's similarities between Columbo and Slow Horses. Lamb is similarly dishevelled, but is the polar opposite of Columbo's charm.

[stronglikedan]

As with everything else, sweeping generalizations about "culture" rarely hold up in the modern world.

[krapp]

Most Americans wouldn't consider Charlie Brown the "hero" of his strip, they would consider him a loser who gets what he deserves, and that's the joke. He isn't cool the way Snoopy is cool.

I think the article is correct that Americans don't feel sympathy for the underdog who doesn't overcome and succeed in the end so much as contempt, due to their inborn sense of entitlement and belief that failure is caused by a lack of moral fortitude and excess of laziness rather than systemic injustice and inequality.

[ewzimm]

Americans are a pretty diverse group, but the most iconic image anyone has of Charlie Brown is perseverance. Lucy sets up a football promising potential success, and despite the fact that she's pulled it away from him at every opportunity, he still tries to kick it anyway.

I think that's a quintessentially American fable. Most people will never achieve great success, but they can experience the thrill of imagining opportunity, and even if they know it's illusory, that moment of faith and effort before failure is the heroic action.

People will do stupid things like bet their life savings on a game or a bad idea, but they feel heroic for having tried regardless, knowing that if enough people keep trying, someone is going to succeed, and they get to experience that success vicariously in some small amount because they tried just as hard as the one who succeeded, experienced the same struggle, and somebody made it, even if it was never going to be them.

[conductr]

The football bit has a subtle touch that I’ve not seen mentioned anywhere. Because it’s not just kick(trust/risk) or not kick(distrust/preservation). When he kicks, he gives it his all, resulting in massive failure if he’s tricked. Yet, he never gives it half effort. Half effort would mean even if she moved the ball, he would still be standing there with only a minor whiff. Then he could slap the ball out of her hand and make her the laughing stock. Point is, he has a lot more than two options that are presented. And I think this says a lot about his character. He’s portrayed as a kid who will likely be a better adult than child. He’s more mature than his peers. I think that is the subtle part of his personality and character that is a little deeper than the obvious.

[Melatonic]

Agreed

[alistairSH]

Perseverance like CB's is just pathetic insanity.

That's how I see Charlie Brown, as do many of my friends. We frequently use the "CB missing the football" as an analogy for the Democratic Party - over the past several decades years, the party has been a long series of swing-and-misses (notably their ability to win the popular vote but lose an election, and even more their inability to beat Trump, twice).

[ewzimm]

That works as reference to a frustrating situation, but Charlie Brown doesn't just miss. We assume that if the football was left where it was promised, he would have kicked it.

Maybe you suspect a similar situation with the Democrats, that those holding power sabotage their efforts, or maybe the analogy doesn't work in that way, but I think that people like this Charlie Brown trope because his failure isn't the result of a lack of ability; it's an excess of hope and trust.

I've heard plenty of people say that Americans are idiots because they don't realize the system is rigged against them and they believe the American Dream that anyone can achieve success. I think plenty of them know that the world is a harsh place with untrustworthy and adversarial people and that they are at a personal disadvantage compared to the wealthy and powerful, but they choose to persevere regardless because they believe hope is better than nihilism.

That can work against them. They might vote for a political party even if it fails them. I'm not saying that kind of hope is sane or rational from a game theory perspective, but it's very American to keep it up anyway.

[thaumasiotes]

> but Charlie Brown doesn't just miss. We assume that if the football was left where it was promised, he would have kicked it.

You shouldn't; when Lucy doesn't pull the ball away, he does indeed miss, kicking her in the hand and putting her in a cast.

Charlie Brown never succeeds at anything.

[kevin_thibedeau]

They turned their back on their base voters to cater to tiny special interest groups. It's not surprising that the other side was able to draw them in with deceptive messaging. The funny thing is that the other side has perfected the art of constantly pulling away the football while blaming others to reinforce their support.

[lapcat]

> Most Americans wouldn't consider Charlie Brown the "hero" of his strip, they would consider him a loser who gets what he deserves, and that's the joke.

I don't think you speak for most Americans. That's the cruelest interpretation I've ever heard of Charlie Brown.

[krapp]

Real life is cruel to the Charlie Browns of the world.

And from what I've seen of the cruelty and lack of empathy in American culture, I stand by my assessment.

[AlanYx]

The enduring success of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special (despite its hokey Coca-Cola sponsored origins) strongly runs counter to this idea. The other kids in the special are outright mean to Charlie, but at the end no one identifies with the other kids' perspective, nor do they themselves.

Part of the reason the Halloween Special never gained the same cultural relevance/popularity is probably because it doesn't have the same progression. The other kids are mean to Linus and he persists despite it all, but ultimately it ends with no resolution to the mocking.

[paroxon]

[Content warning: this post has been written while the author is on cold medicine and before having any coffee. Read at your own risk!]

But you know those other kids are going to go right back to being assholes as soon as "the magic of Christmastime" wears off.

It seems like the message is kind of, "It's ok to be an asshole, as long as at certain, 'special' moments, you show a token gesture of goodwill."

I haven't watched the whole show through in decades, so it's possible my memory is faulty, but I don't recall any of the mean kids making any sort of apology or atoning for their behaviour. It's just "and now we're all friends because Christmas!"

And then the next day, Lucy's back to tormenting her ostensible "friend".

[d-us-vb]

It's easy enough to interpret Peanuts as being that. But Charles Schultz was not trying to present that. He was presenting the world as it is, and how one person can still maintain his optimism in spite of all that. This is made abundantly clear in some of the other strips, like the Father's day strip where he explains to Violet that no matter what, his dad will always love him, and he doesn't care that Violet's dad can buy her all the things.

Schultz was a relatively devout Presbyterian (though still very much a free thinker and criticized the direction American Christianity was going and its attitude about the various wars during the 60s-80s). He was incredibly optimistic about humanity, but he showed in Peanuts the reality of our "default" state, especially among kids.

Keep in mind that these are all 2nd and 3rd graders in the story.

[AlanYx]

In the Christmas Special, the kids come to see Charlie Brown as right and are fairly vocal about this ("he's not a blockhead after all", etc.). It is somewhat tethered to the religious elements voiced by Linus, which gives the turnaround to Charlie's perspective a kind of cultural weight, i.e., the audience is intended to understand the kids as wrong in some kind of fundamental way. It's not as simple as "the magic of Christmas".

In the Halloween Special, the kids don't do the same for Linus, apart from Lucy who pulls him out of the cold and tucks him into bed.

The dynamic between Lucy and Charlie is a lot deeper than her cynical kicking the ball trick. Schultz uses their interactions (the psychiatry booth, him keeping her on the baseball team even though she's consistently terrible) to reinforce an overall theme that optimism is better than pessimism. Occasionally he directly peels back the layers behind Lucy's crabbiness like when Charlie's in the hospital.

[jimbokun]

The message is that kids are often assholes to other kids, picking one or a few to gang up on. Which is true.

[lapcat]

It appears from your other comments that you're American too. So the question is, are you that cruel too, or you do posit yourself as the one magical exception to the rule?

[krapp]

I'm not the one magical exception, no. But I and Americans like myself are clearly not representative of mainstream culture or politics here. You can't argue for the overall humanism and empathy of American culture after we voted for Trump twice and while 40% of us still support the administration, ICE and everything that's happening here.

And of course when I say "mainstream" culture I mean "white." The cultures of oppressed people necessarily harbor more empathy than the culture of the oppressors, because their survival depends on it.

And yes I'm white, too. Your gotcha didn't work. Better luck next time.

[lapcat]

> 40% of us still support the administration, ICE and everything that's happening here.

This number is misleading. Overall job approval does not entail equal approval for "everything." Typically, job approval depends a lot or even mostly on the economy. There was a famous expression from the Bill Clinton Presidential campaign...

Anyway, back when I studied math, 40% represented a minority, not a majority. And I'd like to see your polling on Charlie Brown; it feels like you're just projecting your personal feelings onto that rather than relying on any empirical data.

[K0balt]

Systemic? It goes way beyond that.

Nature itself ensures that life is short, brutal, violent, and punctuated with horrors. Happiness is a transient state that loses its power if it is present more than part of the time, and joy can only exist in a backdrop of disappointment, or it just becomes another day in the life. We are wired for a life of failure, disappointment, trauma, tragedy, and loss.

That we have wrested a comfortable civilization from these dire circumstances is a great testament to the resolve and resourcefulness of men and women.

We have the great privilege and responsibility of living in this elevated plane, with a long (as biologicaly possible) life lived in relative comfort, and even insulated from the horrors of life by the drapery of civil machinery.

Even so, the only justice in this world is the justice we create ourselves.

The universe owes us nothing, and sometimes collects its debt for the entropy we take from it.

[jimbokun]

Charlie Brown is more like Peter Parker.

He always does the right thing. In spite of always being punished for it.

[bigstrat2003]

When you go out of your way to bash American culture for no reason (with some bonus racism thrown in a few comments down!) it really drags the discussion down. I really wish you wouldn't do that, it's just making the site worse for everyone.

[krapp]

>When you go out of your way to bash American culture for no reason (with some bonus racism thrown in a few comments down!) it really drags the discussion down.

This discussion is about American culture, and I have reasons for my criticisms. That you can't conceive of any such criticism as having any possible rationale beyond randomness and racism is what makes good faith discussion difficult here. Forgive me if I've given up even attempting nuance after having my efforts be met with snark and midwit dismissals time and again.

But in the future I will keep in mind that only pro-American views are allowed in threads like these. I keep forgetting this is supposed to be a safe space for the very people responsible for the myriad problems we're not supposed to mention. Sorry for harshing the vibe.

[Vrondi]

I think the fact that most Americans call it "Charlie Brown" when the name of it is actually "Peanuts" proves you wrong.

[t-3]

The cartoon is Peanuts, the movies and TV specials all have Charlie Brown in the name. The name "Snoopy" is also common, but probably only among older people? Snoopy doesn't seem to feature much in any of the stuff I saw as a kid.

[krapp]

I think that doesn't actually prove anything beyond the name of the character being more memorable.

[Supermancho]

Baby Yoda show vs Mandelorian, sure.

Even at the height of popularity, it was never the "Bart" show, it was always the Simpsons.

The specials are largely how people are introduced to Peanuts today, are from shows that are named:

* A Charlie Brown Christmas

* It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

I think the takeaway is that the character name is more memorable because Charlie Brown is more recognizable due to being better marketed, today.

[JumpCrisscross]

> they would consider him a loser

What about Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes?

[piltdownman]

Stu from Rugrats was a wonderful homage to the 90s everyman and the incoming new reality of men taking up some of the domestic drudgery. It was one of the few shows at the time that had some incredible adult insight and humour for a 'kids' show and never spoke down to its audience - Hey Arnold being another exemplar.

The episode where Angelica breaks her leg and Stu is basically forced into indentured servitude as a result is a masterpiece:

Didi: Stu? What are you doing?

Stu: Making chocolate pudding.

Didi: It's 4:00 in the morning. Why on Earth are you making chocolate pudding?

Stu: Because I've lost control of my life.

[d-us-vb]

Calvin is such an interesting character. He never "learns", similar to Charlie Brown, but his outlook is that of a scientist who just wants to "see what'll happen". Anything to occupy his hyperactive mind, whether it be spaceman spiff or a trip to the Triassic, or closer to reality, pranking Susie Derkins or trying to get the better of Moe (or Hobbes for that matter). He's not optimistic, but cynical. But his cynicism is irrelevant because he's driven by his avoidance of boredom.

[kstenerud]

To this day, the C&H strip I remember most is https://cl.pinterest.com/pin/313633561533127275/