Towards a greater understanding — but not through comic strips

WE seem far too ready to take on board the ugly Americanness which is strangling whatever we have left of our own identity. I can’t bring myself to high five (originally a baseball affectation, it seems) when a handshake would do the trick and I refuse to wear a baseball cap. I cringe when I hear people talking of ‘‘New Year’s’’ when they mean New Year. In fact, I’m in a state of permanent cringe when I listen to the speech of young New Zealanders or read the rubbish dished up in the media by the switchedon advertising experts. A ‘‘Fourth of July Sale’’ and ‘‘Halloween Specials’’ drive me to despair. But, perhaps worst of all, sometimes I can no longer understand what the comic strips are about — a prime symptom of being out of touch. This newspaper, since the demise of Footrot Flats, offers a solid diet of American comic strips and, apart from a onceaweek treat from the New Zealandproduced The Little Things, we are being swallowed up by an alien culture. It is not all bad news, of course. Peanuts provides a world which is as close to a literary icon as anything in the comic world. More than one academic has earned a PhD by exploring ‘‘The Role of the Little Redhaired Girl in the Tragedy of Unrequited Love’’ and Charlie Brown is as fine a portrayal of Everyman as literature has yet produced. I have a soft spot for Calvin and Hobbs as well. The adventures of a 5yearold with real getupandgo living in his own world with a ‘‘friend’’ only he can talk to is part of a fine literary tradition. Like Harvey the rabbit in the Mary Chase play or Mrs Gamp’s imaginary friend Mrs Harris in Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit. I enjoy Calvin’s tormenting of his babysitter because that’s what babysitters like Roslyn deserve isn’t it? Hagar the Horrible simply takes the old sitcom routine of the boorish husband and his dimwitted sidekick at war with a competent and ultimately loving wife and plonks it down in a Viking environment. But only recently I was mystified when the waiter serving Hagar’s table showed delirious glee when the Viking was ready to order, ‘‘Somebody got a callback’’ said the speech bubble. I had to look it up. ‘‘Callback’’ can mean an encore, in English as well as American it seems.

And now the last of the daily offerings — Zits. I rarely find it wildly funny and, worst of all, some days I can’t even understand it. Zits I find is American teenage slang from the 1960s and means ‘‘pimples’’. I so often have to turn to the dictionary to understand the adventures of the lazy, spoiled Jeremy Duncan that I nominate Zits as a prime example of American ‘‘culture’’ doing nothing for me. It’s time his far too forbearing parents had him put down. In humour, the reader shouldn’t have to research the words in the speech bubbles. That way the comedy, if there is any, is soon lost.

You’ll say I’m exaggerating but let’s look at a couple of Zits strips from recent times. In one Jeremy has his nose in his iPad and ‘‘Mom’’ suggests he should be ‘‘studying for his SAT’’. A pause while I look up SAT. It turns out to be a ‘‘standardised test used for college admissions in the United States. Introduced in 1926, and originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test’’. By now I’ve almost lost interest in the obnoxious Jeremy. It seems he was looking at ‘‘skater fail videos’’. These, Google tells me, are ‘‘video compilations of people falling off skateboards’’. They are, at least in America, wildly popular. Jeremy is dreaming of ‘‘a spring break in Cancun’’. Back to the computer. ‘‘Cancun, a Mexican city on the Yucatan Peninsula bordering the Caribbean Sea, is known for its beaches, numerous resorts and nightlife and is a famed destination for students during universities’ spring break period.’’ Jeremy is also a fan of ‘‘beer pong’’ which is ‘‘a drinking game in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer the other end’’. Surely, no further proof is needed that Jeremy is an absolute cretin and my only hope is that Calvin won’t grow up to be like that. Thankfully, people don’t actually get any older in comic strips.

As Americanisation creeps on apace it’s obvious I’ll soon have to give up reading the comic strips unless the beleaguered humanities department at Otago University can find some funding to offer a paper called ‘‘How to Understand American Comics’’. Isn’t that what the humanities are for? To help us understand the world we live in.

❛ Surely, no further proof is needed that Jeremy is an absolute cretin and my only hope is that Calvin won’t grow up to be like that❜