An Examination of Gender in Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes

The world of Calvin, Bill Watteron’s six-year-old comic book creation is a very complicated one. For him, the planet is a conquerable place where there is endless room for imagination shackled to mandatory acquiescence to grown-ups. Grown-ups come in all shapes and sizes, but overwhelmingly the most contact that young Calvin has is with women. Miss Wormwood the schoolteacher, Rosalyn the babysitter, and his Mom comprise the majority of company that Calvin keeps when he is not playing with Susie Derkins, the neighbor girl, or scheming with Hobbes, his tiger. Overall, the women of Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes are a prudish bunch, who seem distanced from happiness and determined to make Calvin feel the same way. It is important to explore why Watterson chose to create his female characters the way he did and to process some of their interactions with Calvin in a close way. 

Calvin is, in all senses of the word a genius child misunderstood. Watterson has set up a hero as underdog character that fights to stay out of the molds that each grown-up has fixed for him. He is inventive, creative, and hilarious, but it seems that few others ever pick up on his ingenuity. Through Calvin’s character, readers can relish the freedom that Calvin has when he is outside playing on his own, and reminisce about how it felt to have the endless possibilities of a youth looking towards his future. Watterson sets Calvin up as a mixed-up sort of hero. Calvin is usually just trying to get through the muck of life to reach a point where he is allowed to have fun. This theme brings out the comedy of finding different kinds of enjoyment in each season. Sledding in winter and exploring in the warmer seasons are some of Calvin’s favorite activities. However, it should be noted that oftentimes Calvin is made to go outside, even if he does not want to, by grown-ups that feel that he will build character by doing so.