OPINION:
On June 13, the comic strip Annie - or, as it used to be known, Little Orphan Annie - will conclude an impressive 85-year run in the funny pages.
Unfortunately, very few people will see or read the final panels. While Annie inspired a popular Broadway musical, Hollywood movie and radio and TV programs, the once-legendary strip is carried by fewer than 20 newspapers today. For fans and occasional readers, it’s a sad ending to an important piece of Americana.
But they’re not the only ones who should mourn the passing of Annie. Those of us on the right of the political spectrum also should pay homage to the strip’s historical role in promoting capitalism, a free-market economy and political conservatism to a wider audience.
Annie’s creator, Harold Gray, was once described by comics historian Coulton Waugh as “Republican and conservative to his toenails.” During the Great Depression, the cartoonist was a fierce opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. He detested labor unions and communism. He railed against corruption in all aspects of society, especially Big Business.
Gray eventually morphed his political and economic philosophies into his creation. As noted by Richard Marshall in the book “America’s Great Comic Strip Artists,” “Annie’s homilies and examples of self-reliance and realistic optimism struck a chord with millions of readers who formed a fanatical and loyal corps of followers.” But it went much deeper than that. Marshall also wrote that Annie became a “personalized creation in which [Gray’s] own voice obviously predominated, yet one that featured a succession of characters and situations so vivid as to move adherents to tears and detractors to impotent fury over events in the ’lives’ of mere paper actors.”
This is especially true with respect to one of Gray’s main characters, Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks. Liberals and socialists typically viewed him as a tough, greedy businessman who would crush his enemies like bugs. Meanwhile, conservatives and right-leaning liberals often regarded Warbucks as a successful, hardworking financial tycoon.
Which view is correct? I’m in the latter camp, so my position is obvious. For nonpolitical types, it depends on whether you support the character’s positions about Democrats (distrusted them), free markets (supported them), family values (true love for his little orphan girl), and promoting an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay (believed rich and poor should follow this mantra). If you do, you’re pro-Warbucks.
It’s also worth mentioning Annie’s significant role in transforming political conservatism.
Left-leaning comics historian Jeet Heer said in a May 2009 interview that the strip “helped reshape conservatism in America, giving birth in the 1930s to a form of cultural populism that you can still see on Fox News.” Heer’s point is well-taken. Gray shifted from progressive Republicanism to more modern conservative positions opposing liberal elites, smug leftist thinking and individuals who refused to respect individual rights and freedoms. Conservatives like Clare Boothe Luce, Ronald Reagan and various National Review editors were big fans of Gray’s strip, and this had a positive effect on the evolution of their future political and economic positions.
But that was then, and this is now. Today’s Annie is a pale imitation of its former self. Gray passed away in 1968. The conservative-oriented political commentary is a distant memory. The engaging story lines have long since disappeared. Character development stalled some decades ago, and the strip unfortunately has become dull and uninteresting.
To be sure, I will miss Annie, Daddy Warbucks and the rest of Gray’s cast of characters. It was a classic comic strip that transformed the U.S. political system and helped give conservatism a more positive and upbeat image. But to paraphrase the little orphan girl, “Leapin’ lizards, I’d like to forget the past 25 years or so, if that’s OK with you!”
Michael Taube is a former speechwriter for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and has written on history and trends in animation and comic strips.
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