of the new Mad Magazine
I occasionally leaf through Mad Magazine. A good stable of cartoonists: Sam Henderson, Evan Dorkin, Ted Rall, Sergio Aargaones is still kicking around and seems to be shined on with a bit more a spotlight, Peter Kuper… Bill Wray, if you must.
Despite the fact that it is always Evan Dorkin, via his blog, that clues me in to take a quick look-see through the magazine, I never recall anything I see from him. Ted Rall’s pieces, however, stand out in my mind.
They are political cartoons that dwell back onto high school. A different target audience, but not dumbed down.
A boy is walking the halls in his school with a t-shirt that says “Britney Sucks”. A school administrator tells him that he needs to change the shirt. Why? Because it is too distracting to the school environment. He can express political opinions, though, so he shrugs, crosses out “Britney” and wears a t-shirt that says “Bush Sucks”.
The confused entanglement of school politics, and the interpretation of the First Amendment that you nervously allow any and all political speech (or risk a lawsuit by the ACLU), but can’t abide speech concerning frivolity (nobody is about to take up a suit against expressing hatred of Britney Spears).
Or… we have a discussion concerning the Homecoming Week. “Every year we have the same pointless game, and are sworn to pledge our school spirit. We cheer on our school. Swear hatred to the rival school. Hold huge bonfires and engage in the same ritual. The ridiculous thing is that it’s so arbitrary — if we lived across town, we’d be the other school cheering on the destruction of our rivals, this school.” And then we see the kids walk up to an Army Recruitment table.
It’s a common realization amongst adolescent miscreants, this strange drive toward “school spirit” and its parallel notion in larger society toward patriotism. In school and with our school’s annual football game against the team that is figured that they might actually somehow beat (football record during my stay at my high school: 5 wins, 31 losses), it is innocuous enough. Clyde Lewis noticed it, and he noticed it as being a white-wash of deeper and darker crimes of the school. As for myself, my last year of high school had this weird incidence where a teacher I had trusted and liked for my high school duration made the bizarre comment, “You’ve been resisting dressing up in school colors for four years now!” An odd comment… To resist means that there would have to be a force pushing me in that direction.
(Actually, come to think of it, the drive for “school spirit” was always considered a problem by the administration, and student body elected lackeys. I don’t really know why. A week or so ago, I overheard a teenager from “Deepest Suburbia” say to someone “At my school, even the preppiest of the preppies have piercings and tattoos.” I sort of doubt that, but it does suggest manipulation of teenage popularity toward something that does not exist.)