Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Charlie Brown Religion: Exploring the Life and Spiritual Work of Charles M. Schulz

2018; Penn State University Press; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/studamerhumor.4.2.0334

2333-9934

Larry Bush,

Comics and Graphic Narratives

Charles Schulz was not the first cartoonist to use biblical or religious references, and he would not be the last, but the religious references in his Peanuts strip had a greater impact than those in other cartoons because it was perhaps the most popular strip of all time. Motivated by this impact, Stephen J. Lind has researched the religious life of the creator of Peanuts in the amply illustrated A Charlie Brown Religion: Exploring the Spiritual Life and Work of Charles M. Schulz. Lind acknowledges that he is not the first to assess the religious teachings in Peanuts; it was also undertaken by Robert L. Short in The Gospel According to Peanuts (1965).In his introduction, Lind gives a lengthy disclaimer of his objective and his bias in his research. He states, “Peanuts has and likely always will be a personal favorite of mine. I also had the privilege of growing up in a loving Christian home, and my faith remains important to me today.” However, he continues, “such connection should not supplant open-minded, well-studied approaches to complex subject matter” (xiii). Lind also points out, as others have, that even though Schulz can be channeled by any of the Peanuts characters in any given situation, he shines through most often in Charlie Brown. That premise is also the basis of the book Charlie Brown and Charlie Schulz (1970) by Lee Mendelson, an author that Lind cites several times.Lind's first chapter delves into Schulz's childhood. Schulz, an only child, had a close relationship with his parents, but he grew up in a home bereft of any strong religion. It was not until Schulz joined the armed forces during World War II that he began taking an interest in religion. When he returned from the war, he began to study Christianity in earnest. Lind suggests that Schulz was not interested in proselytizing but rather in finding answers for himself. Throughout the book, Lind makes clear that Schultz went to church for himself and pressured no one in his family to join him—although they could if they wished.In chapter 1, the author also sets the stage for Schulz's introduction of Christianity into his strip. While Peanuts included some religious text, Schulz did not wish to make religion a primary objective of the strip. In fact, another strip, Brother Juniper by Fred McCarthy, which ran in up to 185 newspapers from 1958 to 1989, had more religious content, but it was an overtly Catholic cartoon strip that readers could choose to skip knowing that the Catholic ethic would figure in each tableau's story line. Schulz's use of religion and/or biblical text, by contrast, was infrequent and may have come as an unpleasant surprise to the irreligious. Lind explains that Schulz also created two other less popular cartoons to explore his religious interests. Young Pillars (1956 to 1965) draws on the energy and innocence of teenagers to look at religion. Two by Fours (1965 to 1973) exploits the naivety of young children with their malapropisms and mondegreens. These two strips appeared primarily in religious publications.In chapter 2, Lind tells the story of Schulz stealthily inserting biblical passages into cartoon strips as early as 1959 with his use of a passage from Matthew 7. Although it had been done by other cartoonists in other features, Schulz knew that “just the mere fact of quoting from the Bible … was forbidden in comic strips because somehow they just didn't want you to go near these areas” (40). His surreptitious references to the Bible earned him the support of the American clergy, which then allowed him to become more overt in his allusions. Lind argues that Schulz “would eventually begin explicitly mentioning the book and verse as well” (41).Chapter 3 tells the story of the creation of the Peanuts Christmas special A Charlie Brown Christmas, which first aired on December 9, 1965. Lind describes a poignant scene that did not make the cut and tells of the trepidation producers felt when Schulz made the decision to eschew laugh tracks, use Vince Guaraldi's jazz music, and include Linus's soliloquy from Luke 2: 8–14 in the King James Bible. The fear was that because the norms of television were being violated, the special would be a monumental flop. The chapter ends with Lind quoting the rave reviews from the newspapers the following day and the congratulatory letters that poured in to the sponsor, Coca-Cola, following the airing. He concludes by mentioning other media that riffed off the Peanuts Christmas special and held it up as a positive example of what television programming could be.In chapter 5, Lind ventures into the arena of the theory of pictorial humor in his discussion of the vast number of letters Schulz received from readers who apparently offered a wide variety of interpretations of the panels, many of which Schulz did not endorse. Lind argues that such misinterpretations (or alternative interpretations) are a function of the “gutters” in the strips. The gutters are the spaces between panels where time passes between pictured actions. He maintains that in the gutter is where interpretations of the artist's intent may vary from one reader to the next; that is where the magic and mystery are—and, apparently, where many of the letters come from as well.Chapter 5 also deals with Shulz's divorce, one of the most traumatic events of both his religious life and personal life, and it shows how the strip reflected this momentous change. Lind notes how Schulz stopped making biblical references in the strip during the years in which he divorced his first wife and married for a second time. Lind summarizes a Newsweek cover story that reported that “the cartoonist had recently stopped attending church” (118). Schulz favored privacy in his life, and the publicity surrounding his divorce was challenging to him.Lind's volume makes only passing references to the other cartoon strips that likewise made scriptural references during the second half of the twentieth century. Perhaps that was wise in that it would have naturally suggested that comparisons should be made. However, one part of Schulz's legacy is that by venturing into a previously taboo area for the art form, he made it easier for cartoonists like Teri Libenson and others to insert religion into their cartoons without recriminations. By the time Libenson was creating The Pajama Diaries in 2006, Schulz had already paved the way for cartoonists to bring religion into cartoon strips. Charles Schulz helped to change the culture of cartoon strips, and Lind's research shows the way Schulz addressed the taboo on religion. As cartoonists continue to contemplate how best to deal with religious content, there will be a need for researchers to document how cartoonists contribute to changing the cultural discourse on the topic. A Charlie Brown Religion provides a valuable template to use for that documentation.