Updated Aug. 8, 2024 at 4:45 p.m.*
-Essay-
ATHENS — When I was little, my mom used to call me Mafalda. Even if I grew up in Naples, Italy, the Argentine comic strip and its young protagonist were already popular throughout Europe, as well as back in Latin America.
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Not only was I opinionated from an early age just like six-year-old Mafalda, but whenever something displeased me, I would go into comic-like wide-open-mouth cries, screaming for whatever I disliked to end immediately. In Mafalda’s case, her deepest hatred was soup!
It is maybe because of this early-day identification that I feel a deep connection toward Mafalda. Or maybe because I later studied international relations, developing similar concerns around humanity and world peace. Or maybe it is because I spent a long time in Latin America, and even married an Argentine, making Buenos Aires my home for several years. It could also be that I now write a lot about early childhood, and Mafalda’s innocent but serious attitude toward world problems is an excellent example of how engaged children can be with their surroundings.
Mafalda was first published on September 29, 1964 — 60 years ago. Created by Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, better known as Quino, the comic focuses on an outspoken, precocious child living with her middle class family in Buenos Aires. She has a tortoise that is named Bureaucracy.
Like Charles Schultz’s Peanuts and the famous Charlie Brown, the comic focuses on a group of characters — but Mafalda is much more political and cynical, yet hopeful.
Mafalda came at a time when Latin America was going through political censorship, with U.S.-supported military dictatorships taking over in several countries over the years when she was published.
Feminism, war, consumerism
Quino, who died in 2020 at the age of 88, managed to overcome the censorship and continue to be published, in part because the censors considered Mafalda to be intended for kids. Yet he stopped publishing in 1973. He said he had run out of ideas and wanted to respect his readers and his creation.
The paramilitary organization known as "Triple A" raided Quino’s home in 1975, when he refused to let its director use Mafalda for a political campaign. He fled to Milan with his wife in 1976, when the military dictatorship came to power, and only went back to Argentina when it went back to democracy in 1983.
Mafalda addresses all these issues with fresh, simple irony.
The strips were translated in dozens of languages, especially in Europe. She was quickly distributed in Italy, for example, where I grew up. She is also very popular back in Argentina, where a statue was erected in her honor in San Telmo, the Buenos Aires neighborhood where she lives in the comic stories. Two of her friends, Manolito and Susanita, were added later. The statue has become a popular tourist attraction, with fans lining up to sit on the bench next to the girl.
What surprises me most is that Mafalda feels incredibly modern and to the point — not only when it comes to the topics she comments on, but on what she says. Feminism, the media, communism and consumerism, war, inequality — Mafalda addresses all these issues with fresh, simple irony. Which may explain why the beloved comic strip is now getting her own animated adaptation: Netflix announced this week that Oscar-winning director Juan José Campanella would be at the helm, as the streaming platform unveiled its 2024 “Made in Argentina” slate.
Mafalda.... pic.twitter.com/duT1VdU9qf
— Isabel Silva (@Isabelsilva_7) July 16, 2024
Yes, I know there are more problemologists than solutionologists, but what can we do?
Natural questions
According to Spain’s climate-focused magazine Climática, Mafalda could be considered a precursor to the young climate activist that is a mainstay of today's generation.
There are strips that talk about air pollution and overpopulation as challenges to the world. In another one, she comments on the “sad panorama” of an oil-rich region she is traveling through by train. There is one where she is presumably in Patagonia — a beautiful lake surrounded by evergreens — and she says: “My god! This is so beautiful that men will look at it in postcards in order to spoil it!”
There is also a famous one when she opens the door to her friend Felipito, telling him someone is sick at home and he should be quiet. She then leads his friend to a small bed, where a globe is lying down — and the kids look pensively at it.
She could also be a fourth-wave feminist — pushing her mother to stop being a housewife (“Mom, what would you like to do if you had a life”, she asks after seeing all the housework her mom does) and telling her friend Susanita that having children is not the only thing a girl should wish for.
Mafalda epitomizes children’s natural ability to ask questions.
Or a peace activist — her questions around the Vietnam War are probably quite similar to the questions my 5-year-old son Lorenzo asks about what is happening in Ukraine and Gaza. And, just like Mafalda’s father struggles to respond, saying children would not understand what war is about, I have a hard time answering, too.
Or a global South activist — in one strip she realizes how the southern hemisphere is depicted in the globe and she says: “But then … we live upside down!” “My word! I think from now on I’ll feel more attached to this ground!”
Why, why, why, WHY?
What I love most, though, is how Mafalda epitomizes children’s natural ability to ask questions, and how revolutionary questioning can be. In one strip, she talks to her baby brother, Guille, who starts by asking why their father is not at home.
“Papa is at work, Guille.”
“Why?”
“Because when people grow up they need to work.”
“Why?”
“Because if they don’t, they can’t buy food or clothes or anything.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s how our world works, Guille.”
“WHY?”
“One and a half and already a candidate for tear gas,” she replies.
Given that I made my career out of asking questions to other people, this may be the one attitude where I may be most similar to Mafalda, after all — and a way in which she definitely influenced me growing up.
*This article, originally published July 23 18, 2024, was updated Aug. 8, 2024, with new information the upcoming Mafalda series on Netflix, and enriched media.