YOU'RE IN LOVE, CHARLIE BROWN

Following the success of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", rather than the next Peanuts special be set on another holiday; it's instead set during the last few days of school before summer vacation in a special that could have easily been set on Valentine's Day (given the title)...

It's only a few days before the peanuts gang is let-out of school for summer vacation, and Charlie Brown still being depressed about everything wishes to find something that he can legitimately enjoy in life. On his way to school with his best friend Linus, he sees the Little Red-Haired Girl on the bus that he missed and falls madly in love with her. But since summer vacation is right around the corner, Charlie Brown must try to find a way to woo her, or else he'll have to wait until school starts to try again.

The premises to the previous three Peanuts special were told in a simplistic way but had morals and themes that were deep and adult. Even "Charlie Brown's All-Stars" though not as powerful as the holiday specials, still had an emotional conflicting story to tell. That's not to say that this special isn't emotionally investing to see Charlie Brown try to talk to the girl he likes, in many ways the motions he goes through are quite relatable. But in terms of plot, it's pretty standard. The whole special is just Charlie Brown failing to talk to the girl he likes, as his friends either torment him or try to help him. It's entertaining, but the special doesn't really have much of a message like all the others. And as I was watching it, there were times where I found myself wondering a few things regarding the story. The Little Red-Haired Girl goes to the same school as Charlie Brown does, and is even in his class; so how does he suddenly notice her, let alone fall madly in love with her just as school is nearly ending? There is no indication in the special that he's seen or fell in love with her prior to the events before the special, this is literally the first time he ever sees her, which I find hard to buy. On top of it, his motivation to see her before summer vacation begins makes no sense either since she appears to live in the same town as him, which is very small considering how the kids appear to live close to one another. How will Charlie Brown not see her in the summer? Is she going away on vacation somewhere, it's never really quite addressed.

But as lacking a powerful message and confusing as some parts of the story are, it still maintains the charming elements that the previous specials had. That basic and clunky animation and designs that resemble a comic-strip continues to give the series a distinctive style of its own; the music is soothing for its environment; and the stilted voice acting is cute and lively enough to give each character their own personality. Given that the special takes place in late spring, the backgrounds and designs depicting spring do look as nice as how the other Charlie Brown specials capture the season that each special is set in. However, unlike how the other specials were consumed by the season and showed multiple activities going on to celebrate it, this special pretty much downplays it. But to be fair, the setting is mainly centered on Charlie Brown's life at school, so in that regard, it does its job fairly in depicting the school life for our characters. In terms of the humor provided in the special, there are plenty of good laughs to be had. Whether it's a scene that's part of the story when Charlie Brown gets matched up with the wrong girl; or a pointless bit involving Lucy flirting with Schroder as Charlie Brown waits at Lucy's psychiatry booth for help; there's always some kind of fun and laughter to be had. Even just seeing Charlie Brown's little black eyes suddenly bulge out as much Linus' eyes do in the "Halloween special" brings a bit of a chuckle out of me. But these moments don't become loud and obnoxious where it loses the calm and mild tone that the previous three specials established. An element that the special brings back that I haven't seen since the first one of the franchise is the use of a song. We're only given one, as the first special to try it used two different songs. But that one song is sung twice in the special with a difference in tone. The first time it's used for the opening title that's sung by an off-screen children choir that nicely sets-up its romantic tone and spring setting, while also establishing its cynical out-look on Charlie Brown's life given the song's lyrics. And the second time it’s used is when Lucy and Violent sing it to poke fun at Charlie Brown when they find out about his crush, which is as playfully mean as you'd probably expect it to be in a peanuts cartoon but terribly synched.

Much like how the Charlie Brown specials after the first one would offer something new to the series that would be widely recognized by people who have watched the cartoons or not, this special does indeed have its fair share. Obviously, this is the first time that Charlie Brown's famous off-screen love interest The Little Red-Haired Girl is introduced in these cartoons, but another famous character who's making her first appearance in the series of Peanuts cartoons are everyone's favorite tomboy (or hinted lesbian as many would say) Peppermint Patty. She's not yet accompanied by her best friend (or possible bisexual lover as some believe) Marcie, but she shines just as much as she would with her, through her colorful boy-like personality as she tries to help out "Chuck" (who she refers to Charlie Brown as) hook-up with the girl he adores. Another important element that this special adds to the franchise is the famous use of a trombone. In the previous two specials when the off-screen adult characters were finally added to the peanuts world to provide the characters with some sense of authority, we'd only know about their presence by seeing the kids looking and speaking to them as the adults would say nothing. So in order to give the off-screen adults more of a presence and still keep the focus strictly on the kids, the special decides to cleverly use a muted trombone sound for whenever they speak. As a kid when I watched the Charlie Brown cartoons I didn't think the concept was at all funny. I found myself more annoyed by it because I was eager to hear what they were actually saying. But watching it now, I can't stop laughing at it every time the special uses it. The reason for it is mainly for how the kids casually respond to this cheesy trombone sound since they understand exactly what the adults are saying, while we the audience don't have a single clue until the kids pretty much translate what the adults are saying to them. And considering how half of the things we hear adults talk about as kids are pretty much "blah, blah, blah", it's more than fitting to give characters we never see in an environment with the kids in the foreground a sound similar to the sound that we used to hear adults say.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Pretty much everything how I summed up "Charlie Brown All-Stars" is how I feel about this special. It's not as emotionally deep when compared to the holiday specials that came out before it, and is the least powerful when comparing them to all the previous three specials. But the story and the emotions surrounding Charlie Brown's obsession with the girl that he loves is still cute and engaging (even if some parts of the story don't make a whole lot of sense). There are plenty of good laughs that the special provides. The tone, music, voice acting, and animation style that we associate the peanuts cartoons with are still charming. And the new characters and elements that it brought to the cartoon franchise make the special important enough for it to be a must see!

FILM ESSAY: DJANGO UNCHAINED: A MODERN EXAMPLE OF A REVISIONIST WESTERN

Ever since the early days of cinema westerns have been a huge staple to the medium. The reasons why these films were so popular was mainly for its sense of adventure by containing a hero who doesn't fear death, action-packed shoot-outs, high thrills, a variety of different locations during the journey, and a romance. Throughout the years there have been all kinds of westerns, whether they would be long Epics, Spaghetti Westerns, Neo-Western (westerns taking place in modern times), and satire. But a famous type of western that would appear within these sub-genres are the Revisionist Westerns. A Revisionist Western are the kind of films that didn't follow the traditional tropes that most westerns were known for. Though there were a few Revisionist Westerns made during the time when Hollywood usually stayed with the traditional formula (The Ox-Bow Incident), the genre didn't launch until the 50s with films like "Broken Arrow" and “The Searchers”. From that point-on films like "The Dollars Trilogy", "The Wild Bunch", "The Outlaw Josey Wales", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and the remake of "True Grit" became some of the popular Revisionist Westerns for being big game changers to the formula by taking the genre to places that it would never usually visit.

 A great example of a modern Revisionist Western, can be found in Quentin Tarantino's first western film...



Tarantino has had a fascinating film career by making films that made tons of callbacks to classic films but were still miles away from feeling like carbon copies of the films and genres he's paying homage to. This was because of the style he brought to the film's that he made by containing long casual conversations that would at times have little connection to the story ("Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" for example); constant use of foul language and racial slurs; stories that were non-linear; dark humor; and extreme violence. And yet underneath all this madness were compelling characters that were relatable despite their horrible deeds, powerful morals, and enough elements left for interpretation for audiences to revisit his films to come up with interesting conclusions. He would successfully entertain and shock his audiences with his insanity while still giving them something familiar and food for thought. So, it would seem natural that Tarantino (who is always a big fan of westerns, particularly the ones made from Sergio Leone) would be the perfect director to make a Revisionist Western, and he successfully does so.



What's common in many westerns is that the setting would usually take place on the plains, or an old town surrounded by a desert landscape. The film does at one point go to a wild western town, but for most of the film, we're taken to a place that many westerns would dare not go which is a plantation full of slaves. That's not to say that westerns didn't show this location, it's just usually the abuse and racism that went on there were hardly ever shown. It would seem at times that slaves were happy serving their master as they cheerfully worked and sang in the cotton-fields. There were very few westerns containing adventure and action that would show the cruelty that went on during slavery at that time. Tarantino doesn't just show the slaves looking miserable as they work and sweat under the blazing hot sun but goes as far to show the physical abuse they suffered. You see them getting tortured, endlessly insulted through the use of the infamous N-word, and killed in the most awful ways imaginable. For a plantation under the title of "Candyland" that would've been appropriate for a plantation in a film downplaying racism like Disney's "Song of the South", this isn't far from sweet or so much as being bitter, its downright poisonous.



Seeing how the film doesn't take slavery lightly (of course, what would you expect from a mad genius like Tarantino), the film does what plenty of Revisionist Westerns are known for doing which is giving empowerment to groups who were usually oppressed. In many westerns, before this subgenre launched, Native Americans were portrayed as bloodthirsty savages who just killed for the sake of killing. In Revisionist Westerns like "Broken Arrow", "The Outlaw Josey Wales", and "Dances with Wolves" Native Americans were given a more positive approach by being portrayed as a sympathetic race of people who lost their land and way of life because of the white man invading their territory. Tarantino does this by giving empowerment to the slaves who we feel complete pain and sorrow for every single step of the way from witnessing their mistreatment. The best part is we don't get a white character as the film's primary hero who's against slavery, but instead a former slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who's given a badass approach as he gruesomely slaughters the people who control the plantation, something you don't see in many westerns. It's not often that you see an African American star as a cowboy. Of course, not all white people in the film are portrayed as heartless racists, the person who frees Django is bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) who hates slavery and gets Django his start in the bounty hunting business as he aids him to search for his wife. In his first scene, he demonstrates his unhappiness with slavery by freeing the other slaves after killing one of their captors while leaving the other severely injured so the slaves can take their revenge. But there's a flip-side to the coin because not all slaves are innocent either. Sometimes slaves can be so loyal to their master that they themselves become just as ruthless which is evidenced through Samuel L Jackson's character Stephen who serves the film's main antagonist Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). That's another element that's hard to find in westerns or so much in films focusing on slavery, usually the slaves are just victims (as they should be portrayed) when they're not seen as happy servants.



A popular trope shown in Revisionist Westerns is how the heroes weren't as perfectly charming and law-abiding as most heroes in a traditional western were. Many of them (especially Clint Eastwood) were cold, selfish, and worked outside the law. Half of the time they would do criminal acts for personal gain, other times it would be for justice that the law couldn’t provide. Schultz is the kind of bounty hunter that Eastwood would play from "The Dollars Trilogy" if he was required to be sophisticated. He fights against criminals and is heavily against slavery, but he is a savage killer who does it for the money and sport, showing no remorse over having a man murdered in front of his own son. His gun is his tool to kill criminals, as his knowledge is to scam people to achieve his desires. Django himself though is a character we pity for due to his horrible life as a slave, and root for during his quest to rescue his wife as he kills slave owners, isn't the idea of a perfect hero either. He inherits Schultz’s rules and skills of being a bounty hunter doing the same unlawful acts as he does. At one point in the film, as Django disguises himself as a slaver, he goes the extra mile by being harshly cruel to the slaves without hesitation despite after suffering so many years of abuse. This behavior disgusts Schultz since he wouldn’t dare act exactly like the people he despises.

The art of film always changes through the passage of time, no matter how popular a story formula or a genre is. If westerns kept going in the same direction as they did when they first began, they would be outdated and no longer seen as relevant for how average they are. We have plenty to thank regarding Revisionist Western films for having the ambition to change the rules by giving audiences something new and exciting instead of showing them something they've already seen before that has become commonplace. Tarantino's involvement in the sub-genre is without a doubt a match made in heaven, who successfully gave audiences a western that has disturbed and thrilled them through its extreme portrayal of slavery and would continue to amaze audiences in his following western film "The Hateful Eight".