[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.

[Schmerika]

98.15% of American voters in 2024 voted either for a party funding, arming, and abetting a well documented genocide; or for one that promised to fund, arm, and aid that genocide even more.

Those same parties have raised ICE's budget every year since its inception, inflicted sanctions that have killed millions of innocent civilians over the last couple decades, and spent trillions upon trillions in a 'war on terror' that has only increased instability. Not to mention the bipartisan support for torture, mass surveillance, surveillance of world leaders, threats to ICC judges, sanctions on UN Rapporteurs, threats to The Hague, massive subsidies to polluters, etc etc etc etc etc.

You can argue all you like that the voters were trying to be practical, that there were no other truly viable options, or try and say that history's most documented genocide of all time wasn't a real genocide somehow...

But it says an incredible amount about the character and quality of modern US society. None of it good.

[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/