When my brother was born int he 70s, he was sent home from the hospital with a Snoopy doll by his side. Growing up, my mom bought my brother a huge Snoopy doll that came with a variety of clothes that today is worth a few hundred dollars, but still remains at our home. Back in high school, our family adopted an unwanted puppy that I quickly bonded with and named Charlie Brown. He continues to be my best friend and personal fart-machine today. Throughout the years, particularly once I left for college and eventually out of state, my mom -MamaPancakes- and I have expressed our love and gratitude for each other through countless Peanuts-themed cards, toys, books, and clothes. And this year I finished off a two-part tattoo on my arms, depicting this moment from the Schultz comics:

The Peanuts are just part of our family’s pop culture history, one that has lasted for decades and I’ve found myself continuously identifying with the older I get. So needless to say, when the trailer for Blue Sky Studio’s The Peanuts Movie was released sometime last year, I sent it to MamaPancakes and told her that we would be seeing this together. As luck would have it, and I do mean luck since I only get to see her about 3 times a year, we were able to sit down and watch it this Saturday among some enthusiastic children. When the end credits started she turned to me and said, “That was darling”, and I gleefully agreed. To me, that’s the best I could have asked for and I’m so happy I got to see the movie with her.

That being said, I find it interesting that the only other children’s movie I’ve seen this year was Inside Out, another movie that I considered to be a condensed and child-appropriate summary of basic psychology. Whether it was the puns (Deja Vu) or the visualization of the deconstruction of consciousness and unconsciousness (the scene about Abstract Thought comes to mind), that movie aimed to teach children something. I compare the two because Inside Out is certainly a biological composition of child psychology personified with funny cartoon metaphors (though not the first), but The Peanuts Movie stays true and appropriate to the nature of the comic strip which was about the affect of life and childhood visualized in an external slice-of-life context. I submit to you a theory of the three psychological components that are the makeup of the movie.

1. Id and The Animation: Blue Sky Studio has taken great pains to modernize the Peanuts in a way that does not horrifically mutilate their former 2D counterparts (see: Alvin and the Chipmunks or The Smurfs) but instead uses the 3D to help revitalize the 2D style. The best comparison I can think of is the 2D-3D platforming that you’ll find in video games, particularly from Nintendo. The most ingenious part is using the 2D style we’re familiar with in the form of thoughts and expressions whether it’s Charlie Brown internal-monologue with an accompanied animated thought-bubble beside him, or Sally or Lucy fawning over their crushes with popping hearts above their heads, or most vividly when Snoopy throws a tantrum and the entire screen flashes vivid colors and the comic strip panels pop in and out. The animation is quite reactionary with its characters, a simple yet engaging arrangement of colors and design that have been carefully planned out. Minor things like Charlie Brown accidentally giving his red shirt the same black zig-zag or the crayon-like redness that comes across his face when The Little Red Girl looks his way were nice touches. These illustrations to the characters’ emotions and the world around them were created because the cartoon format is the best place to exaggerate human emotion. Many 3D animated films today rely on human-like expressions and strive for that uncanney valley of realism, but here The Peanuts Movie‘s animation is dedicated to the illogical and silliness, one that I think often gets overlooked even in children’s cinema. While Frozen might have its childishness personified in Olaf, he still doesn’t actually match the rest of the fairy-tale like world and the characters and the movie knows that. But here, the silliness of Charlie Brown getting his clothes literally knocked off him with squiggle lines to indicate his confusion are natural and welcomed to the big screen.
2. Ego and Snoopy: Speaking of silliness, here it is personified by the most Joe Cool dog around, Snoopy the Beagle. It was hard not to watch this film and not make comparisons to other shows and movies that have the boy-and-his-dog-proxy-companion that tend to take darker or more comedic routes with the pairing. (Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friend‘s Mac and Bloo came to mind, along with the twisted relationship that is Steve and Stan Smith and Roger from American Dad). The thing is, while Snoopy has his own agenda, his own fantasies and selfish desires, he really is Charlie Brown’s loyalest friend. Snoopy isn’t afraid to make a fool of himself or anyone but he will absolutely give you a hug if you need one and not expect anything else from it (unlike Bloo who was a dick and Roger who [hilariously] has no moral compass). Now Snoopy is just as much if not more of a dreamer than his owner (which probably makes him more Id oriented but shut up this is my article), but even in his fantasies, he always knows just what to do. He’s a problem solver, both in reality and in his head; in a sense he is his own hero. This movie presents Snoopy with goals in mind, ones that he will achieve no matter how rational (completing his first novel) or irrational (gaining an education at a dog-racist school) they may be. But he also is prepared for every situation, and he flaunts his personality in that devil-may-care kind of way. The fascinating part of the movie is how it interweaves Charlie Brown’s anxieties into Snoopy’s interpretation of the movie’s events through his episodic Red Baron adventure. Honestly this is a fine representation of the expression of creative in a way that children can easily understand; by taking real life experiences and internalizing them into a new story. As a writer, it was honestly endearing to watch. Anyway, his relationship and loyalty to Charlie Brown is the heart of the movie, and it’s hard not to smile when the boy acknowledges how Snoopy truly is his best friend. The credits even end on the pose of him and Snoopy giving each other a big squeeze. [Note: The Snoopy portion of the movie is the best part and I could go on and on about how much I loved this and the fact that they even used archived voice recordings of the late Bill Melendez really brought Snoopy to life was such a joy to watch].
3. SuperEgo and Charlie Brown: This is basically the plot of the movie; the complexities of self-identification while navigating elementary school. Charlie Brown, in his attempt to just say hello to his new neighbor, The Little Red-Headed Girl, faces triumphs and failures throughout the school year which constantly cause him to re-examine himself as a person. While the jokes about him getting into a serious relationship too fast when assigned as TLRHG’s partner on a book report are funny, the external crisis Charlie Brown has about himself and how he keeps challenging the problems he faces are actually a mediated look into depression. The stasis of the SuperEgo is a reflection of how one perceives themselves, otherwise known as “Ideal Self”. Charlie Brown’s “Ideal Self” is one where he and TLRHG win the dancing competition or he wins the talent show to the admiration of his peers, but is continually bested by the harshness of reality. In this film, these moments are not as complicated as other Peanuts films, and the melancholy that might be suggested is quickly shied away for the next vignette of the movie, but ultimately the events of the film and Charlie Brown’s quest to befriend TLRHG shatter any illusions about himself. He sees himself as a loser, a failure, a genuine fuck-up which is not helped at all by his peers or more importantly Lucy who uses her psychiatric practice to verbally abuse him some more. The key moment that exemplifies his depression is when he is confronted with his personal insecurities head-on; he cannot see past the loser he has painted himself as to see the genuinely good-natured person he actually is. It takes someone very special to him to point out that the very things he can’t understand, allowing him (and everyone else) to accept him for who he is. No, he isn’t going to be this “Ideal Self” but he will have his moment, he will eventually get that kite to fly.

The hinted melancholy tones that the movie implies, especially with how Charlie Brown and Snoopy both personally deal with the film’s highs and lows, certainly struck a cord with me in a way that Inside Out did not. As far as media goes, this has been quite the year of depicting depression in film and television to a frighteningly accurate point. While this is nowhere near as intense and haunting as a show like BoJack Horseman or Rick and Morty, I saw a lot of myself and the depression I deal with in this movie.  This film is rather gentle in how it deals with the problems and conflicts, but the emotional core that has reigned through decades worth of comic strips and other forms of Peanuts media is still pure.

This is a sweet movie, and sometimes that’s enough.