Good grief, Metafilter.

July 5, 2006 10:23 PM

Are there any books out there that talk about the philosophy of Charlie Brown?

I'm looking for books or essays (digital or paper) that discuss the "philosophy" of Charlie Brown and or the Peanuts gang. I've been looking for CB versions of The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet but no luck.

I found The Gospel according to Peanuts but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm not interested in a CB spin on christianity, but maybe Charlie Brown and life. Or maybe Charlie Brown deconstructed.

I haven't been able to find anything: serious, silly, or otherwise.

posted by moonshine to religion & philosophy (13 comments total)

Here's an article on Sartre and Charlie Brown. The author agrees that most analyses of Peanuts are Christian-themed.
posted by painquale at 10:38 PM on July 5, 2006

Seems to me like CB *is* kinda christian-themed, though in sort of a nice non-confrontational way that seems kind of weird compared to most "christian" themed entertainment these days. That being said, there does seem to be a lot of Tao in the whole "Auuugh! Good grief!" of it all. I'm also interested to see if any interesting links come out of this thread!
posted by idontlikewords at 10:49 PM on July 5, 2006

I always thought that the Peanuts was kind of a screwed up thing to show kids. They're all pretty damn neurotic.

Let's see -

Charlie Brown - masochist, clinically depressed
Lucy - sadist, sociopathic
Linus - co-dependent, blanket symbolizes substance abuse
Schroeder - idiot savant
Pigpen - disposophobic, anally expulsive
Snoopy - obviously schizoid, think's he's the red baron, imagines that a little yellow bird always follows him around

Hell, the only sane ones are Peppermint Patty and Marcie, the two lesbians. How's that for your Christian message?
posted by Afroblanco at 11:38 PM on July 5, 2006

Afroblanco, where on Earth are you getting the idea that Woodstock doesn't exist? Linus has interacted with him on at least one occasion that comes to mind. And I'm not certain that calling Schroeder an idiot savant is defensible, either-- while it's true that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of Beethoven, there's never been any evidence that this comes at a price to any of his other mental functions.

Back on subject, I'll agree that Peanuts has a lot of Christian philosophy at its core. And I'm talking about real Christian philosophy, of the sort practiced by people such as Mister Rogers and Jesus. In fact, an argument could even be made for Charlie Brown as a martyr/Christ figure. Turn the other cheek and try to kick the football again, perhaps?
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:24 AM on July 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

Snoopy did not think he was the Red Baron. He was a World War I Flying Ace chasing the Red Baron.

And Woodstock most certainly did exist.
posted by Lucinda at 4:41 AM on July 6, 2006

Johnathan Franzen waxing nostalgic in The Guardian about Charlie Brown. Pseudo-philosphic at times.
posted by youarenothere at 4:55 AM on July 6, 2006

Try When Do The Good Things Start? and I Didn't Ask To Be In This Family by Dr. Abraham Twerski. They're illustrated with Peanuts cartoons/are an exploration of (psychiatric--Dr. Twerski is a psychiatrist) concepts in the cartoons.
posted by needs more cowbell at 5:59 AM on July 6, 2006

Afroblanco, where on Earth are you getting the idea that Woodstock doesn't exist? Linus has interacted with him on at least one occasion that comes to mind.

Interesting. I thought that Snoopy was the only one who saw him. Well, it's been a while since I've seen the cartoons, so I could be wrong about this.

And I'm not certain that calling Schroeder an idiot savant is defensible, either-- while it's true that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of Beethoven, there's never been any evidence that this comes at a price to any of his other mental functions.

Think about it this way - do we ever see him do anything besides play the piano?

Snoopy did not think he was the Red Baron. He was a World War I Flying Ace chasing the Red Baron.

I stand corrected.
posted by Afroblanco at 9:33 AM on July 6, 2006

I'm not entirely sure there is a philosophy to Charlie Brown. Sometimes things look deep that really aren't. You could, of course, make it up. But then you'd be making it up. This is largely what happens with books like "Philosophy and Seinfeld" or "Philosophy and the Sopranos".
posted by ontic at 10:16 AM on July 6, 2006

The introductory essays in the new The Complete Peanuts collections might be a good place to start as well. The 5 editions released so far have lengthy introductions by Garrison Keillor, Walter Cronkite, Matt Groening, Whoopi Goldberg, and the aforementioned Jonathan Franzen.
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:21 PM on July 6, 2006

I'd also recommend the out-of-print biography of Schulz called Good Grief by Rheta Grimsley Johnson. If there's one way to understand any philosophy of Peanuts, it's to understand the philosophy of Charles Schulz.
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:24 PM on July 6, 2006

do we ever see [Schroeder] do anything besides play the piano?

He's the catcher on Charlie Brown's baseball team.
posted by zadcat at 9:03 PM on July 6, 2006

Youarenothere, did you mean this article? because the one you linked to was not actually there. Hmm. However, I plugged your words into yahoo and really liked that article.

In hindsight, I think I phrased this question all wrong. I think I was looking more in the way of Peanuts and social commentary. Err, yeah.

Thanks all for your suggestions, I'm off to the bookstore.
posted by moonshine at 12:47 PM on July 8, 2006