There are always many claimants to a position of authority. Invariably, conflict will arise as parties clamoring for power fight, each believing they have been given the destiny to rule. You want a historical example of this? BOOM WAR OF THE ROSES BITCHES! Oh, but now you're complaining that Henry VI is too outdated for you to relate to? Well first off, screw you for not appreciating the glory that is having a war between two families because of, if I remember my history correctly, Charlie Rose interviewed the House of York instead of the House of Lancaster. Secondly, North Korea. Those sly little buggers are just absolutely convinced that someone out there gives a damn about their threats.
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| "I...I tried to do my hair nicely for you, USA-senpai." |
So yeah, conflict is kind of a big deal in life. Hell, Sigmund Freud based his entire psychoanalytic theory on conflict. Conflict and penises, but since we try not to go into R-rated territory, we'll keep talking about conflict sans genitals. How can we expose children to conflict's escalation throughout the hierarchy of society? Such a complicated concept can't be easily ingrained into pop culture. Or so you thought! Enter Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck!
I don't think Bugs and Daffy require any legitimate introduction, besides saying that if you need an introduction you never had a childhood. What did you do all day, play outside? Psh, loser! Daffy and Bugs represent the quintessential format of conflict that has been repeated through time immemorial, or at least whatever form of conflict can be manipulated into matching this post. Daffy and Bugs spent years struggling against each other for some type of control or attention, but if that was all the necessary criteria for this post my sister and I would be the best example.
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Mom never paid attention, not even when
I intentionally snapped my own neck... |
No, you see Daffy and Bugs are the prime example of a political power struggle thanks to their personalities and how they are shown in the conflict. Daffy Duck, in case you don't recall asinine children's cartoons like I do, was always intensely competitive about his supposed rivalry with Bugs Bunny, who was always flippant and nonchalant. Besides always upsetting me because holy Hell, why is the socially awkward guy with a lisp allowed to get absolutely wrecked every episode, this mirrors almost perfectly how these conflicts play out in real life.
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Though the historical Bugs destroyed the economy by
devoting all resources to carrot plantations. |
Let's consider the Daffy Duck side of the issue. Have you ever met someone that just refuses to pay you any heed? You try desperately to get their attention, but it feels like they're unaware you even exist. We all have, but let's scale that up from the individual to the size of a nation. For instance, we'll resume with North Korea because those jokes are always both easy and fun. North Korea wants to noticed more than anything else, craving the recognition of other countries as a major world player. However, just like your suave as shit older brother, the United States plays it cool and only notices North Korea when they strip naked, cover themselves in glitter paint, and start stabbing the dirt because, "it looked at me funny." Daffy Duck got some attention when he exploded, and so does North Korea, but hopefully not literally because they're kind of at the dirt-stabbing mode right now.
Bugs plays the authority figure, confident in his position. He knows that his power is secure because he knows it has been granted by a higher power. At least externally, he's cool as a cucumber that has been locked in a freezer and wears sunglasses and a leather jacket all the time. Damn, that's one cool sounding vegetable right there. Anyway, the Bugs persona has manifested itself countless times. He's Julius Caesar entering Rome having after the die was cast. He's Napoleon marching through Germany, having crowned himself Emperor. He's Bart Simpson prank-calling Moe's Tavern and asking for I. P. Freely, assured that Moe will never be able to find him and follow through on his threats to "cut [him] like a fish and drink [his] blood." Also, Moe is a psychopath. And so it goes on, with Bugs always playing it off, only furthering angering Daffy.
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"That's it Bugs, I'm going to choke you with your own entrails
and offer your remains to the High Demon Beelzebub!" |
And so it plays out again and again. In some depressing sense, aren't we all Daffy though? I mean, we spend this indeterminate period of time chasing after...something. Maybe a possible future or a lost past. Maybe fame or anonymity. Regardless, we just want it to be ours because we deserve it to be ours, but some jackass keeps coming along and taking it out from underneath our feet and he didn't even have to put any effort into it, whereas we've been trying for years. In an hour he charmed the girl you've been chasing for years, and you sit in the dark thinking about what could have been. You push yourself deeper into the self-loathing, just wishing that you could have had one more chance. One chance is all you needed to show the world your worth! But the asshole that is the world refused to give you even that. So there you sit, alone once again. Imagining that maybe in some parallel world, you have a family. A girlfriend and some young ones. Maybe the you in that world is happy. You can hope.
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| And you hope they don't wear pants either. |
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