Why is Doug the way he is?
The hit ’90s Nickelodeon television show Doug followed the life of Doug Funnie, an eleven-and-a-half year-old middle schooler dealing with the failures of life, mostly emotionally. Every interaction Doug goes through comes with the horrible possibility of the worst case scenario. When he needs a haircut, Doug believes that everyone in middle school will hate him. When Doug shares his plans to get a haircut with his best friend Skeeter, he takes Skeeter’s comment of “getting his ears lowered” too personally, believing it to be a dig at the size of his ears. When school bully Roger makes fun of Doug’s shoes, Doug stresses that he must buy a new pair soon or face total human humiliation forever. Doug is always on the defense, consistently afraid of the worst possible outcome of every decision he’s about to make, yet he doesn’t need to be. He’s a good friend, a great neighbor, an excellent son and student. So why doesn’t Doug just take a chill pill and live life easy?
Because Doug is ridden with Catholic guilt. And he’s a little self-absorbed.
Doug is an autobiographical show in the grand scheme of things. Series creator Jim Jinkins based the show on his childhood spent in Richmond, Virginia, most of which was pretty basic and unremarkable, hence the imaginative world that is Doug’s fictional Bluffington. However the true aspects of Jinkins’ childhood are laced in the characters and the emotional turmoil found within Doug’s own conscience. Characters like Patti Mayonnaise and Skeeter and Roger are based on real people, and emotional triumphs like Doug’s fear of being hated, humiliated, and ultimately yelled at are of Jinkins’ own upbringing in a religious household.
“We had a family of deep faith,” Jinkins told Splitsider. “And we were always going to church. It was just a very important part of our lives.”
In the show, if an episode took place on a Sunday, Doug and his family were dressed appropriately for church. Of course being a children’s program prohibited any strong religious undertone to be at the forefront of Doug’s adventures, but it was still prevalent. Doug’s entire personality is flawed by the idea of failure and the wrath of God, or to put it into childish terms, the wrath of middle school.
“There were some very dark things,” Jinkins once said to the LA Times about the titular character. Continuing, he describes the show as “not autobiographical, emotionally it’s very accurate,” so the “dark things” he referred to could absolutely be Doug’s own fear of failure, similar to Jinkins’ struggling period as a creative.
Recently it’s become an internet meme that Doug is “crazy,” perhaps with schizophrenia due to his visual hallucinations. However, the social stigma of “crazy” stops all discussion of the why; it ignores the cause and over dramatizes the effect. Doug isn’t crazy, he just has a mental disorder likely tied to OCD, which has the common symptom of guilt. He writes in his journal, he overthinks all his decisions no matter how small or minuscule, and he daydreams about finding a solution via a superhero surrogate. Also, he’s an eleven year-old who is self-absorbed…because he’s eleven. The world outside of Doug’s view doesn’t exist yet and that’s okay. Nothing Doug’s life shouts “crazy.” In fact, the only thing “wrong” with Doug is guilt, and being bullied by Roger fuels it.
Most episodes of Doug are plot-driven by Roger’s cruel comments to our main character. A story will start, Doug will gain anxiety over failure, then Roger voices that failure aloud only fueling the guilt. Roger isn’t helpful, and it’s unfortunate that Jinkins had to deal with a real-life Roger who shared the character’s last name, Klotz, making the “dark things” more accurate.
Poor Doug would likely have a more satisfying life if Roger didn’t exist. His religious upbringing effects him on one level, but the bullying deepens it, killing any sign of self-confidence. Thankfully, though, each episode of Doug ends with a moral. Bullying is wrong, have courage and faith in yourself, and who cares about image? Doug learned from his life’s experiences. If only his embedded guilt and Roger’s mean behavior would lay off of him.
(P.S.
I’m aware this is a cartoon)
