Duck and Cover: A Grad School Story

Okay, I wasn't planning on resorting to MORE videos today, but thanks to Cracked.com (7 Horrifying Moments of Classic Kids' Movies) I've got a truly excellent example of an animated metaphor for my time in graduate school.

The following video is the beginning of the Disney movie "Mickey and the Beanstalk" (the plot being what you might expect). What's great about this particular interpretation of the classic story is how thoroughly Goofy's, Donald's, and Mickey's starvation and poverty are explored. In particular, Donald Duck cracks under the pressure and suffers three separate psychotic breaks, and attempts to murder a disturbingly anthropomorphized cow in one instance.

Watch the video. Analysis will follow:

Okay, first of all, they don't make dark and twisted comedy cartoons like this anymore. Second, while the segment illustrates one duck's descent into madness during a famine, it also serves as a parallel for the grad school experience. Allow me to demonstrate.

We open with three miserable saps drowning in existential despair as they attempt to survive on their meager earnings. This comprises the entirety of English graduate students, complete with an extremely lame pun about the cow being an "udder failure." Englishy-types love lame puns (see title above).

But then with no discernible external cause (around 1:55), one of the sufferers snaps at his own narrator (all graduate students imagine having their own narrator) and completely loses touch with reality. This represents the moment when a grad student realizes his or her sense of personal failure and lashes out against whatever happens to be nearby. Incidentally, there's a double parallel in that I've often felt like reacting EXACTLY as Donald Duck does in this part during particularly difficult times of dieting, complete with fantasies of consuming cutlery and dinnerware.

After calming himself down, Donald goes crazy again (2:20) - this time filled with murderous rage. He's out for blood, much like when grad students begin to harbor violent resentment toward their professors: those who heap the abuse upon them with reckless abandon. As the narrator so aptly explains, "He's suffered too much."

If I murder my Old English professor, the hurting will stop.

(Side Note: There's a solid 15 seconds in this clip where it looks for all the world like Donald is planning to butcher Mickey Mouse and eat his carcass. I love old cartoons.)

As time passes, hope seems to be on the horizon. For the grad student, the misery is almost complete, and better prospects await! Early celebration commences (3:17):

Huzzah! We won't be trapped in existential despair forever!

For me, this occurred just after I finished grad school and began looking for worthwhile employment. Hope sprang eternal. Everything in the future looked bright and happy.

But then.... NO! You can't be saying that I'm going BACK to graduate school!!! I thought the misery and pain was finally over!!! The grad student can't take it anymore. Hanging from ceilings and the pulling out of hair (feathers?) commences:
If Alan Shore is my super-ego, being everything that I hope to be that is rich and cultured and awesome in the world, then Donald Duck is my Id, representing everything evil and batshit crazy that I've secretly longed to express.

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"My therapist is a duck. I'm beginning to think he's a real quack!"