October 24, 2014
Let’s talk about whimsy. Dictionary definition: playfully quaint or fanciful behavior or humor. (Examples: Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch, the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski, Diane Keaton’s fashion statement in Annie Hall, half the tracks on Sgt. Pepper or The White Album) I realize I’ve dated myself with that list, but you get the point.
College campuses breed and thrive on whimsy. They assemble a lot of smart, creative people in a contained space, with a certain amount of free time on their hands and a desire to entertain and be entertained. Hence zombie apocalypses, etc. But it would be hard to come up with a better example of “playfully quaint or fanciful behavior or humor” at its best than the Outing Club’s canoe and kayak regatta on the pond in front of the new Kennedy Arts Center a few weeks ago, with the Director of Outdoor Leadership Andrew Jillings presiding as pirate king (complete with appropriate headgear and sword). It was funny, it was participatory, it involved a lot of co-conspirators, and it entertained a lot of on-lookers. And it was free, and once completed, left no trace behind, except perhaps a whiff of whimsical enchantment in the air.
And then, unfortunately, as a counter-example, there’s “Alex,” the new college mascot. Some bright, creative and well-intentioned folks, who doubtlessly believe he is destined to become a beloved part of Hamilton tradition, thought up Alex. As a mascot, Alex aspires to whimsy (giant head, comic features), but he fails. He is, frankly, flimsy whimsy.
First of all, we had a perfectly good mascot already, the plush pink pig thing called “Al Ham”. I remember how at a Great Names event some years back, Jon Stewart mercilessly mocked our late mascot, who was wandering around in the Field House, doing his mascot chores. The pig beamed back beatifically at Stewart, grateful to be noticed at all, utterly tranquil even while under sustained assault from a celebrity comic famed for his acerbic wit. “Grace under pressure,” as Hemingway would say. “Radiant,” and “Some pig,” as Charlotte (the spider) would write in her web, and the plush pink pig thing has always reminded me a bit of Wilbur in E.B. White’s whimsical classic Charlotte’s Web.
Our former mascot had another quality. Apart from species, whatever it was was hard to classify. The pig had no identifiable gender, race, age or (I suppose if plush pink pigs are so inclined) sexual orientation. Accordingly, everyone could, in theory, identify with him/her/it. Now we’ve got an old, white guy for a mascot. Nothing is wrong with old white guys (I’m one). The real Alexander Hamilton, the one commemorated by the statue in front of the Chapel, deserves his long-established prominence in College iconography. Still, the trend around here, at least since Kirkland College arrived on the Hill in 1968, has been for more inclusion and inclusive imagery, not less. The University of Mississippi, “Ole Miss,” had “Colonel Reb” for its mascot for many years, a figure bearing a marked resemblance to our new mascot (old, white, male and military-ish). But he proved a problematic and increasingly controversial symbol for the university for all the obvious reasons. Ole Miss replaced him in 2010 with a bear. We’ve gone in the opposite direction.
A final problem with flimsy-whimsy Alex: who asked for him? What crying need brought him into existence? I have heard many complaints over the years on this campus from many students and many colleagues on many issues. We really do like to complain. But I have never once heard anyone say, “Why can’t we have a new mascot whimsically modeled on our college’s namesake?” It just hasn’t come up. Did I miss the survey of the community by the team appointed to design Alex as to whether we really needed a new mascot, and, if so, what sort of mascot? Whimsy, true whimsy, encourages participation, not passive consumption. Alex, apparently modeled on a bobble-head tsotchke awarded annual fund donors in previous years, is somebody’s (some consultant’s, some committee’s) idea of what a whimsical mascot should look like. He has been delivered by administrative fiat. He is non-participatory. And frankly, as one of my students said the other day in class, he’s kind of creepy-looking.
I predict bobble-head Alex will not be strutting his stuff for long on this campus. Bring back plush pink pig thing. If for some mysterious public relations/marketing reasons we absolutely have to have a non-pig mascot, ask for opinions from the community. Or, at least ask the pirate king. He gets whimsy.
Maurice Isserman is the Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of History at Hamilton College, which he thinks is a pretty whimsical title.
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