Ah Charles Schulz’ classic comic strip Peanuts and its various television and stage derivatives. There’s nothing like seeing allegories for real-world problems acted by children, particularly ones that are pertinent to current events. In this case I’m particularly struck by the song “Glee Club Rehearsal” from the musical You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.
“Glee Club Rehearsal” opens with the Peanuts Gang singing the masterpiece of Nineteenth Century Americana “Home on the Range.” Of course the rehearsal immediately goes south when Linus and Lucy get into a fight over how he stole her pencil. It takes only 30 seconds for Lucy to utter the scandalous accusation “What are you trying to do stifle my freedom of speech?!” Later in the rehearsal Lucy spreads a false rumor that Linus called Sally an enigma. Sally’s response: “What a terrible thing to call— What’s an enigma?” All of this takes place in under two minutes of nicely contrasting counterpoint to “Home on the Range.”
To me “Glee Club Rehearsal” in 2019 becomes an allegory for the toxic effect of politics and invocation of irrelevant constitutional and legal texts on social media (“By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents….The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute)”). I’m especially reminded of Twitter since if this wasn’t set in the 60s the song’s contrapuntal lines could easily have been tweeted. In this two minute minor show tune we hear a whole milieu of increasingly irrelevant outlandish accusations and vitriol; so much like the politics of today.