Charles Schulz's 1965 Charlie Brown Christmas special is an undeniable holiday classic, one of the few that I dust off and re-watch every mid-December.
It can be a sad turn to have a cherished childhood experience not age well. Just in the last year, I tried to watch a children's BBC miniseries I adored in middle school and couldn't get past the third episode--just bored with it. The movie "The Warriors," a visually beautiful piece of cinema which I loved once upon a time--a modern adaptation of Xenophon's Anabasis, contains a few cringey homophobic lines that now ruin it for me.
What you have described here is a touching lifelong journey with a piece of media, from childhood innocence and enjoyment, through adult disillusionment, to acceptance, however imperfect, for the enjoyment still contained therein, but also as a continued catalyst for self-reflection.
Because is it a part of our cultural canon, A Charlie Brown Christmas certainly deserves the critical analysis to which you have subjected it. I found myself, in my reading of your article, agreeing with you and knowing that I would never have arrived at that place through any number of personal viewings.
Robert L. Short, in his book The Gospel According to Peanuts, identifies Snoopy as the primary Christ figure for a Charles M. Schultz who, however unwittingly--as a professed Christian--expressed his faith in his comic. And Snoopy is indeed Jesus in this movie as well. The rank commercialization of the contest he enters is the best modern parallel to the man who scandalized his age by dining with sinners. He participates there, loving the other contestants by his very presence, meeting them where they are at.
We are all Charlie Brown, self-important hypocrites who judge the other. And we are all Linus, occasionally catching a glimpse of the numinous.
Thank you for this well-observed comment! The Gospel According to Peanuts has been added to my Amazon wishlist. I think we can still enjoy The Warriors because the homophobe gets his comeuppance when he's attacked by the Baseball Furies on the subway platform if I'm not mistaken. I'll have to re-watch and reassess though.
I just assumed that he committed young to a loveless marriage with the castrating Peppermint Patty, and spent his days pining for the Little Redhead Girl. Either way, it's not a happy ending.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/charlie-browns-interior-christmas-adventure/617484/
(Yours is better)
^What Keith said xx
Many of my best efforts at critical thought are mere variations on "what Keith said"
It can be a sad turn to have a cherished childhood experience not age well. Just in the last year, I tried to watch a children's BBC miniseries I adored in middle school and couldn't get past the third episode--just bored with it. The movie "The Warriors," a visually beautiful piece of cinema which I loved once upon a time--a modern adaptation of Xenophon's Anabasis, contains a few cringey homophobic lines that now ruin it for me.
What you have described here is a touching lifelong journey with a piece of media, from childhood innocence and enjoyment, through adult disillusionment, to acceptance, however imperfect, for the enjoyment still contained therein, but also as a continued catalyst for self-reflection.
Because is it a part of our cultural canon, A Charlie Brown Christmas certainly deserves the critical analysis to which you have subjected it. I found myself, in my reading of your article, agreeing with you and knowing that I would never have arrived at that place through any number of personal viewings.
Robert L. Short, in his book The Gospel According to Peanuts, identifies Snoopy as the primary Christ figure for a Charles M. Schultz who, however unwittingly--as a professed Christian--expressed his faith in his comic. And Snoopy is indeed Jesus in this movie as well. The rank commercialization of the contest he enters is the best modern parallel to the man who scandalized his age by dining with sinners. He participates there, loving the other contestants by his very presence, meeting them where they are at.
We are all Charlie Brown, self-important hypocrites who judge the other. And we are all Linus, occasionally catching a glimpse of the numinous.
Thank you for this well-observed comment! The Gospel According to Peanuts has been added to my Amazon wishlist. I think we can still enjoy The Warriors because the homophobe gets his comeuppance when he's attacked by the Baseball Furies on the subway platform if I'm not mistaken. I'll have to re-watch and reassess though.
Do we think Charlie Brown grew up to be an incel? The football-kicking gag with Lucy is for sure a metaphor.
I just assumed that he committed young to a loveless marriage with the castrating Peppermint Patty, and spent his days pining for the Little Redhead Girl. Either way, it's not a happy ending.