Argentina’s Mafalda and lessons for capitalism in the Trump era

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Living and working as a journalist in Washington, D.C., I’m usually looking for new perspectives to better understand the buzz of activity in the nation’s capital. So I turned to a six-year-old girl not long ago.

But the girl is fictional. Her name is Mafalda and she is an idealistic and precocious Argentinian child who starred in the eponymous comic strip that caught fire in Argentina and beyond from 1964 to 1973. The soup-hating, Beatles-loving character was drawn by the late cartoonist. known as Quino. The comic has been described like “Charlie Brown with socialism”.

My uncle Roberto – a long-time Mafalda enthusiast – described it another way: Charlie Brown put reality aside, but Mafalda did not. “The real world existed for her,” he said.

“Mafalda” is the product of turbulent times, as Latin America grappled with coups that installed military leaders in Argentina, Peru and Brazil in the 1960s. But it’s certainly not a relic of the past, either. Mafalda and his friends question capitalism, democracy, nationalism and war with a mix of disarming humor and theatrical antics that demonstrate a never-ending curiosity about improving their dysfunctional world. Their observations take on new relevance, especially as democratic safeguards are eroded under the second Trump administration. I can’t remember the last time I came across such enjoyable, timely, and heartwarming political satire. I keep Mafalda close to me during the holidays.

In a famous episode, Mafalda gets a pet turtle and names it “Bureaucracy”. In another, his friend Felipe despairs when he realizes “monstrously” that there is more paper money in circulation than printed books. “Wouldn’t the world be a better place if libraries were more important than banks?” he asks. Felipe is quickly labeled an “extremist” by another character who devoutly believes in the free market.

Mafalda has been translated into English for the first time in June. I’m surprised this didn’t happen much sooner in the United States. Perhaps Americans are a little more willing now to hear a young girl trash politicians of all stripes, at a time when President Donald Trump is forcing private and public institutions into submission. including the legislative power, with little resistance.

In a single stripMafalda’s bourgeois parents are delighted to surprise her with an evening at the children’s theater. “I think Mafalda will love this,” said one. “They’re all great actors and people say it’s a really hilarious prank.” When Mafalda’s father asks her to guess their destination for the evening, she replies, “I heard, to Congress.”

To be clear, this year was not the first time I heard about Mafalda. My mother, aunts, and uncle were big fans of the comics growing up in Peru. In my mother’s case, she played with a Mafalda doll. In my case, I recently retrieved the entire series to read it in the original Spanish.

More than six decades after it was featured in an Argentinian news magazine, Mafalda’s star has not faded in the Spanish-speaking world. Last year, Netflix announced a new animated series based on the comic book.

Its popularity doesn’t stop there. The Peruvian capital, Lima, inaugurated a Mafalda bench in 2023 where fans can take a photo next to a life-size statue of the character, sporting his ’60s bob cut. Every time I visited Buenos Aires over the past two years, I saw lines of at least a dozen people waiting for a long time to have their photo taken at the original Mafalda bench. I’m still waiting for a chance against mine.

In the past, Quino has stated that he never intended to make Mafalda a children’s comic. He always had an adult audience in mind. However, he laments that the world has not changed much over the years. Quino retired the comic in 1973 after a right-wing military dictatorship took power in Argentina. Partly out of boredom, he says, but partly out of fear too. He went into exile three years later. Finally, he returns to Argentina.

“I’m flattered that Mafalda is still read, but it’s sad to think that the issues she spoke about back then still exist,” Quino said in a 2000 interview. “Many essential things have not changed. The world she criticized in 1973 is the same, if not worse.”

He is not far from the mark, yesterday and today. I will read Mafalda and follow her journey to diagnose the fevers that afflict our world. Sometimes children like her are better at telling things like they are than the adults in the room. Even a fictional girl from Argentina.