Profiles in Heroism: Charlie Brown

 

(Spoilers for Various Charlie Brown Specials and Films)

Though unusual for this series, today’s profile will be focusing on a fictional character.  After all, plenty of fictional characters have served as inspiration for many people.  So today, the post will focus on someone who is known for his boundless struggle in the face of certain failure and still getting through it.  That character is Charlie Brown.

One of the Pixar Rules of storytelling (and my own second key rule) is “You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.”  Struggle remains the heart of any story and a character’s ability to face that struggle is what defines them as the hero more than where they end up when the story ends.  Often, their prudence in that regard is what inspires us when we find ourselves facing our own struggles and demons.

More than anyone, Charlie Brown faces struggles throughout his day to day life.  He is extremely unpopular among his fellow classmates, he struggles to fit in wherever he is, he often makes blunders that put him at odds with accomplishing his goals, and sometimes the universe seems stacked against him.  Be it failing to win the spelling bee, receiving no cards on St. Valentines Day, getting nothing but rocks on Halloween, the overwhelming disinterest he receives from his actors while directing a Christmas pageant, or his never ending attempt to gain the favor of the Little Red Haired Girl, often Charlie faces more failures than triumphs, even if he does not succeed at the end.

Yet, he never gives up nor ever loses hope.  Whenever a new opportunity or adventure arises, he still goes headfirst into it as though success is still possible and he will see it to the end.  Charlie Brown is amazingly resilient.

Throughout “The Peanuts Movie,” he continues to pursue goals that will win the affection of the Little Red Haired Girl across the street.  He enters a talent show but dumps his act in order to help save his sister’s act, he writes an entire paper analyzing “War and Peace” before it is torn to pieces by the Red Baron, he bombs at the dance competition despite this being his best chance to dance with his crush, and he admits that there was a mistake made grading his test despite the fact that he became a local celebrity due to the incorrect high rating.  In the process, he fails to win at any of the smaller goals he is set forward to do.

Yet, despite not being the best at any of these, Charlie Brown gains from each interaction.  From the talent show he realizes how important his relationship with his sister is, from the paper he proves he can actually write that and is smarter than he gives himself credit, the same is true for the dance competition, and from admitting that he did not get a perfect score on the standardized test he proved his honesty.  This is what wins the affection of his crush as he proves that he may not be the most capable, but he is the best person.

Charlie Brown’s struggles and mistakes remain what we learn from each story.  His picking a Christmas tree that was unpopular led to his friends coming together to discover the true meaning of Christmas, realizing they had forgotten to give him a valentine lead to them realizing he deserved one after St. Valentine’s Day, and failing at the spelling bee reminded him that the world does not end just because we do not always succeed.  Each time, his struggle reminds us of what is good in the world and the audience learns from.

There are probably many reasons why the Peanuts endure, but that simple truth remains a big reason why Charlie Brown endures.  The fact that he tries and never gives up until he loses is why we are endeared to him and what makes him a hero.  So never forget, even in our darkest moments, seeing to the end is better than not showing up.

The Inconsistent World of Dead Island

  When constructing any story, the one important goal is to immerse the audience into the world that is created.  Everything must flow in a way that makes it feel natural to the story, characters, and the world that they exhibit.  One example of something that failed to accomplish exactly that would be the video game Dead Island.  Despite large locations, beautiful visuals, and fascinating subtext, they largely fail to mesh together in a coherent fashion.  This gives the game the impression that Dead Island is less a properly planned out location and more collage of different elements that were thrown together during the writing process.
The game takes place on the fictional resort island of Banoi, which is off the coast of Papua New Guinea.  The levels on the island themselves are broken down into four key regions of the resort, the city, the jungle, and the prison.  Throughout the game, the protagonists go through all four regions in a search for a way to get off the island, mostly being motivated by “The Voice” on the radio, while helping survivors by getting them aid or supplies.  Overall, this is a very simple setting for a sandbox style zombie that provides opportunities for exploration and fighting the undead.
One of the more interesting points of the game actually is the location.  Although zombies have been overused in culture and in different stories, the concept of doing them in a tropical resort is not as overdone so there is more merit in the location.  In addition, it provides an interesting contrast between the resort and the inevitable death zombies represent.
As was noted by author J.P. Beaubien, zombies represent the slow, inevitable march of death that we all fear.  They are literal walking corpses, people who were once alive but no longer, coming to takes us with them to the after life.  Even if we do manage to outlast them, one day we will join them as none of us can escape death’s embrace.
The resort area is an excellent representation of this.  Most of the zombies were actually people that had just come to have a good time and enjoy a vacation, only to become the vile undead that all people fear.  In a way, it represents the harsh reality that even in the best of places, the most beautiful of locations, none of us can escape the hard reality of pain and suffering.
After that though, the next regions go to a run down city, the jungle, a lab in the jungle, and a prison.  The theme of that as well as the uniqueness of the setting disappears as we go to regions unrelated to a resort and are seen far more regularly in other games.  The uniqueness of the original setting is lost as the game progresses to more familiar locations.
To an extent, it is also worth asking what the regions have to do with each other.  It makes sense that there is a city on the island as it is unlikely a place could exist without a working population, but a jungle loaded with natives (who randomly appear out of nowhere with no foreshadowing), a government lab, and a high security prison surrounded by mines with the world’s foremost criminals seems odd to put next to a resort.  One would wonder why someone would build a resort next to potential lawsuits waiting to happen.

Well, fortunately, a coworker of mine who has family in Jamaica did actually have an explanation of how a region like that could theoretically exist.  The resort could have an airstrip which would allow guests to avoid the other parts of the island, the city would provide workers and potential shops for interested patrons, the jungle could provide camping and hiking opportunities and be ignored if it was particularly remote, and in game the island was originally a penal colony.  All these explanations do provide a sense of connection.
However, the game itself did not properly give a feel of how it is all related.  Instead of naturally continuing from one region to the next, everything is largely separated as different zones when continuing through the game.  As a result, the coherence is weakened when there could be a narrative fit.
Overall, there is a sense that the game was largely a mishmash of different elements that don’t always fit, as though the writers were trying to weave a story or location together instead of actually making a coherent story around the setting.  The best description would be they came up with the idea for zombies at a resort and then just added whatever they felt like to actually have a purpose for the game to exist.  Not helped by this is the fact that none of the main characters have an arc or the fact that a third of the game is spent at the resort while the other regions get progressively less screen time.
In the end, that becomes the problem with world building in a story.  Everything should have a flow around the main setting.  If we are skipping from place to place, we should be actually going to different locations far away from each other instead of feeling like there are a bunch of unnecessary locations next to each other.  Otherwise, this can break the immersion.
There are plenty of examples of proper coherency, but the best would be a comparison to another zombie game such as Resident Evil.  It is weird that the Umbrella Corporation would build a mansion to hide a lab, but if you can accept that as a possibility, then the layout of the mansion is coherent.  The mansion disguises the lab from unwanted travelers while the lab is specifically out in the middle of nowhere to hide it from large populations should something leak.  This narrative is cohesive and makes sense.
This becomes an issue with over focus on one element and not the rest.  Every story that progresses should feel like the regions are connected properly and not hastily thrown together.  Connecting it can give a sense of world building, while adding it for the sake of adding it will make it feel forced and disconnected.  Remember that when crafting a location.

The Importance of Objectivity

  Objectivity is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the fact of being based on facts and not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings.”  In appliance to ideas, opinions, and decisions, that would mean defining things based on independent criteria.  What rarely gets discussed anymore though is the need for objectivity standards in morality and purpose.

The last several decades have seen the slow erosion of any semblance of religion and with that, values that were once the bedrock of western society, culture, or law.  Though one may debate the merit of religion or morality in the public space, there has been nothing to replace it in the public sphere.  As a result, the push has come towards the belief that morality is primarily subjective.
Subjective morality is pointless because if two ideas that are at odds with each other are given equal weight, then they are both worthless as they cannot be true at the same time.  From the immortal words of the film The Incredibles, “everyone’s special...which is another way of saying nobody is.”  Without standards to actually determine which is good and which is bad, what is well made and what is shoddy, everything lacks value.
Objectivity allows us to critically evaluate concepts, art, work, anything under the sun for its purpose and the impact it has.  After all, Christ has said “For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.  For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.”  One can only determine whether or not something is good then if one has an objective set of standards to determine them by.
The past few years have seen crusades against a myriad of concepts, such as “racism,” “sexism,” “inequality,” and other such problems that members of our society seek to address.  However, lacking objectivity, we have no definition of what those words mean and therefore no way to actively address them.  We would need those standards to determine what success would look like in addressing them.
“Inequality” provides the best example of the need for objective clarity.  Afterall, in terms of wealth inequality, the difference between rich and poor could just as easily be solved by making everyone poor as it would by making everyone wealthy.  Those reading this are likely revulsed by the former notion and that shows the problem with a lack of clarity in objective standards as that revulsion suggests inequality elimination may not be the actual goal since that would be an unpleasant outcome.  Therefore, the objective goal is actually the elimination of destitution and eliminating inequality is only a means to accomplish that.
Without objective standards, one cannot know what success looks like, what our goals are, and how we know what we are doing accomplishes those goals.  After all, many different goals may be accomplished by different methods than what was expected.  The focus on method instead of those goals then can lead to disastrous results.
Look no further than Trump’s famed border wall, which he repeatedly promised to build in 2016 to reduce illegal immigration.  At the time of writing this, the wall is still not built, but illegal immigrant border crossings reduced 78% over seven consecutive months in 2019.  If the goal was to build a wall, Trump objectively failed, while if the goal was to reduce illegal border crossings, Trump succeeded (I take no stance on that, merely use it as an example).  One needs to be clear on the goal or else the end results will not make sense with it.
Having these standards, more than limiting us in archaic beliefs, actually allows us to accomplish good and push closer to it.  This allows us to make decisions and progress forward on the right path.  After all, C. S. Lewis once noted “Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.”
Now reading this, one might wonder what is objectively good or for the definitions this blogpost discussed.  Well, that is another matter worthy of its own discussion and blogpost.  In the short term though, remember that it is important to push for the truth (not YOUR truth but THE truth) as that is the best way to find it.
In the meantime, getting to the need for objectivity is important in and of itself.  If we do not have that realization, we will not pursue objectivity.  Once that is determined, the truth and objective reality can be accepted.
Therefore, as society pushes forward in its quest for morality and purpose, it is important to understand the reasons for why and what they hope to accomplish.  If the end result is purely subjective, then the end goal and the methods to accomplish it are meaningless.  We need objectivity and objective morality or else everything is equally worthless.

The Measure of a Man: Goodbye Chadwick Boseman

Though this blogpost comes late on his passing, I thought it important to discuss the passing of Chadwick Boseman.  The passing of any person is a tragedy, and Boseman’s is no different as he was a prominent actor that had done a lot of worthwhile films.  So it is worth discussing the impact his career has had and the hard work he put in to please the general audience while struggling with cancer.

To the general person, Boseman’s most prolific role at this point is his portrayal of Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The film Black Panther was extremely prolific in 2018 as it went on to make over $1.3 billion at the box office.  The character Black Panther, though, had existed since the 60s, but outside of comic book fans, most people had probably never heard of him.  Boseman brought the character to life and gave T’Challa attention in popular culture.

However, before he donned the mask, he brought real world African American figures to prominence in film.  He played singer James Brown in Get on Up, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in Marshall, and Jackie Robinson in 42.  Though all these individuals were well known before he played them, he brought them to life on the big screen and gave moviegoers the opportunity to learn more about them and their struggles.  It speaks to the impact an actor can have with the roles they pick and the performances they give.

The most impressive thing about Boseman is the pain he went through to please his coworkers and fans.  Boseman was diagnosed with cancer in 2016, yet filming on Black Panther did not begin until 2017.  This meant that he performed the entire film and every movie he was in after it in extreme pain.

It was not only while acting that he had to deal with that, but also meeting with fans, including ones in the hospital.  Despite the pain he felt, he was still willing to go and visit people who looked up to him and admired his work.  Words do not begin to describe how impressive his commitment was to his friends.

Reports said that directors Ryan Coogler and Spike Lee, as well as Kevin Feige, had no idea he was suffering.  His agent said “[his mom] always taught him not to have people fuss over him...He also felt in this business that people trip out about things, and he was a very, very private person.”  So despite everything, he did not want the people he was working with to worry.

In the end, a person is not judged by their ideas nor their words, but their actions.  Boseman put his all into his work and pleasing others.  This is why I made this blogpost in the first place: his commitment is beautiful and deserves to be respected.

There is something we can learn from Chadwick as we should follow his example.  He left behind not only the films he made, but his work in spite of his pain.  So as he leaves this world, we should all follow his example and may his work stand the test of time.

Profiles in Heroism: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw

  The truth about the world is that there is no semblance of destiny or really a right side of history.  Often heroes do not get to ride off into the sunset, do not get to see the full impact of their actions, and do not even see the success they want in their lifetime.  However, it is their hard work, passion, and the actions they take in their life that can make all the difference for the future they do not see.  This is especially true for Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, leader of the African American 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Shaw was the son of a wealthy abolitionist family in Massachusetts.  Notably, his family were friends of the prominent authors of the time period such as Nathanial Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emmerson who were also abolitionists.  Needless to say, opposition to slavery and support for the rights of man was something he had exposure to growing up.

After Shaw’s family moved to Staten Island, his uncle Joseph Coolidge Shaw, a convert to Catholicism and priest, convinced his parents to send him to the Second Division of St. John’s College.  After the death of his uncle, he struggled to adapt to the college and instead went to Germany for college before returning to the US and attending Harvard.  Inevitably, he failed to obtain a degree as he hated his time there and spent most of his college time either getting involved in social events or dedicating himself to his personal beliefs and interests such as reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin repeatedly.  He later got a job with another uncle, which he also hated.

Once the civil war started, he volunteered, serving initially for a New York regiment before serving for Massachusetts.  He served as a line and then staff officer during the Battle of Antietam and was wounded twice during his service.  Finally, he had found his calling as he continued to rise up in the ranks.

In 1863, Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts, with the allowance of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, announced the intent of creating an African Regiment.  This was harder than expected as Massachusetts did not have a large enough free African American population so they had to import supporters from as far as Canada.  However, as there was skepticism towards allowing such a regiment, Shaw was selected to oversee it, train it, and prepare those troops for battle.

Despite skepticism that such a regiment could reach the same military preparation as white regiments, Shaw was quickly able to prove that the soldiers were ready for military preparation.  Unfortunately, the regiment was still not allowed to get involved with actual combat as it was instead used for manual labor.  To make matters worse, it was involved in burning a town to the ground during a siege as commanded by Shaw’s superiors.  None of this was fair to the men of the unit as the regiment was used more for dirty work than actual combat.

Nevertheless, Shaw found this abhorrent and persisted to make the unit accepted for combat.  Eventually, his constant lobbying found a way to win supporters and he was able to convince his superiors to allow the 54th to lead the charge on James Island against Fort Wagner.  The fort was highly fortified and taking it seemed so unlikely that the colonel confided in a friend that he thought there was a high possibility that he would not be coming home.

The 54th led the charge and managed to push forward under heavy fire from confederate forces.  Eventually, they scaled the walls of the fort and continued to fight, getting so close that union and confederate forces engaged in hand to hand combat.  Shaw himself was shot cheering his men onwards and fell into the fort, dead.

Despite falling, the brave and loyal men of the 54th continued fighting onwards until they no longer could.  They paved the way for even more union regiments to continue forward, but the fort was never taken.  In the end, the 54th faced 42% casualties and Shaw himself was among them.

Before continuing, it is important to remember that the amount of pressure on the all African American regiment was incredibly high.  Not only did it need to prove it could do the job of a regiment on par with white units, it had to prove that there was a place for African Americans in the Union Army and on the battlefield.  Despite the failure at Fort Wagner and Shaw’s own death, they succeeded.

Following the battle, enlistment among free African Americans increased significantly in the North.  Enlistment was so high that they made up 10% of the union army and received equal pay with their white counterparts.  Sgt. William H. Carney, who saved the flag of the 54th at the battle, was later the first African American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  The courage and valor of the men of the 54th was important for the cause of letting African Americans in the army and without them or the tireless work of Shaw to get them in the fight, we never have gotten that or the eventual integration of the armed forces almost 100 years later.

As for Shaw, he was buried with the men of the 54th.  The confederates who did so thought it was an insult to be buried with African Americans, but his parents said he would have considered it an honor.  The young man who was never able to find where belonged did finally find his place, and it was alongside the men he led to end slavery, both in life and death.

The story of Colonel Shaw, the young idealist that never belonged who became a proud patriot that worked tirelessly for equality, is one of sacrifice and the betterment of mankind.  Though he never got to see the fruits of his labor and those who served under him.  Yet the world is better for his work and the country owes him a great debt.  May the United States honor him as a great hero like many others.