Like everyone else, we know “the dumbest dog in the West”, as described by its creator, Morris. Like everyone else too, we made fun of the canine “more stupid than its shadow”. But, at a time when we are more and more interested in animal suffering, it is time to worry about that, psychic, of Rantanplan, an antihero, who has a doggie to move us with his life as a dog. not really hairy.
Rantanplan has nothing plan-plan
The proof: it was imagined as a parody or, worse, a grotesque counterpoint to Rintintin, himself portrayed as prodigiously intelligent. Rantanplan recalls these children who are defined by the negative in comparison to their brother (or sister) whose talents are considered extraordinary. He is then the object of all sorts of projections that demean him. To be loved and accepted, he will conform to what is expected of him, make himself clumsier than he is. What makes you intelligent is the true love we receive and which allows us to use our means, our resources. Lack of affection dulls it, and if Rantanplan is, like Averell, the most stupid of the Dalton brothers, an insatiable eater, it is because both of them suffer from emotional deprivation. His dependence on his parents is symbolized by his close bond with Ma Dalton. He is a real carpet in front of her and then takes the posture of the baby in search of true love without receiving it. Subjected to this all-powerful mother, he is obliged, as in dysfunctional families, to remain glued and to confine himself to the role assigned to him.
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Like the nose in the middle of the face
In his story, Rantanplan is, after a walk, involuntarily separated from his family: from his parents, from his Pekingese younger brother and from his older brother who looks like a coyote and would be the favorite of the mother. A still unconscious way of leaving his toxic family to escape his simpleton status. His instinct for survival pushed him there. However, he finds himself living in a penitentiary, which only reflects the interior prison in which he is locked up and from which he thought he had escaped. Let’s break our bars, that’s what Rantanplan barks at us, casually. Not stupid, the beast! One of its essential characteristics is also its enormous muzzle. It can be seen like the nose in the middle of the face that he is a big nose or rather that he sees himself that way. She is a caricature that shows that one amplifies one’s faults to give them importance, to the detriment of everything else.
A dog with all the flair
From there to also think that she represents the male sex that he does not know how to use, as the victim of a certain form of impotence… However, the power of a dog does not reside in his tail (literally) , but in his flair. Rantanplan has none. A shame, of course, but that does not prevent him from helping Lucky Luke and others, sometimes in spite of himself. So he’s not that nerd or useless. It is often in the shadows that children develop talents, even if they think they are ugly ducklings. All the work, my dear Rantanplan, will consist in highlighting your multiple qualities, an awareness that will act like a caress on your coat. In the enveloping cocoon that the analytical space can be, know that you will find your life energy beyond the gaze of others – who, among us, often confuse kindness with stupidity, unfortunately for them. You too, I promise you, you will be “lucky”.
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Thanks to the psychoanalyst Virginie Megglé, author of Healing from the fear of abandonment: understanding emotional dependence, Eyrolles Pocket.