Mack Mackenzie

Michael Jordan Mackenzie is a fictional character on the MTV animated series Daria. He is better known as Mack to everyone except Kevin Thompson, who calls him "Mack Daddy," to Mack's eternal annoyance. An African-American classmate of Daria Morgendorffer and Jane Lane, Mack attends school at Lawndale High with his girlfriend, Jodie Landon. He is known as the captain of the Lawndale Lions football team. The MTV Daria website noted long ago that Mack was a running back.

Little is known about Mack's family, though in "The Misery Chick" he reveals his name was originally "Michael James Mackenzie, but Dad went to a Bulls playoff game when I was twelve and then he changed it." His mother is never mentioned.

Personality and Character
Mack is the only recurring male character of Daria and Jane's age at Lawndale High who acts with courage, intelligence, and integrity, and as such he enjoys their respect. Ironically, in interviews with Kara Wild, both Glenn Eichler and Anne D. Bernstein, two of the driving forces behind the show, stated that this was because Mack was never developed fully, as the show's staff never cast his voice actor to their satisfaction. (Four different voice actors did Mack's voice over five seasons.) Because Mack wasn't fully developed, he wasn't given flaws.

Subtle references are made in the series to Mack's high intelligence, though one wonders if it is high only in comparison with 95% of his fellow students, who often appear to be (generously speaking) morons. With help from the school Computer Club, he and Jodie designed the school's website and he runs the Lawndale Lions sub-site, according to an extinct MTV webpage. He knows Shakespeare at least as well as Daria Morgendorffer ("Cafe Disaffecto" comments about the skull in Hamlet). An avid sports fan, he has an extensive knowledge of American football and its history, making numerous references to the same in a short written speech that appears in The Daria Diaries.

Though Mack is portrayed as being a competent football team captain and a good leader, he is not as competent at playing certain positions in the game. He is unable to successfully perform in the quarterback role when Kevin is knocked out of action by a leg injury in "A Tree Grows in Lawndale."

Mack is quite popular at Lawndale High. Aside from being the football team captain, he has been elected several times running as the Homecoming King for the school's homecoming parade, with Jodie always as the Homecoming Queen ("I Loathe a Parade"). When serving as a football game announcer, Upchuck calls him "Mad Mack" (a play on the character Mad Max of The Road Warrior), which might be his team nickname ("A Tree Grows in Lawndale"). Though Jodie says everyone at school calls him "Mack" ("Gifted"), he signs his class papers as "Michael Mackenzie" ("Murder, She Snored").

In "Parade", he expresses distaste for being made Homecoming King, feeling it's tokenism so everyone can feel good about few minorities living in Lawndale. In the Lawndale Lion's website, he also expresses bitterness with his role in the team (see "Antagonists").



Antagonists
The one exception to his popular standing is Ms. Barch, the misanthropic science teacher. For reasons unknown, Janet Barch appears to have marked Mack as her favorite whipping boy. References to this decidedly ugly conflict abound: "The Lab Brat," "Gifted," "Fair Enough," and The Daria Database, in which he writes, "I will not show Ms. Barch fear, no matter what she does to me." In the same book he is later shown being made by Ms. Barch to write, "I am male, therefore I suck," repeatedly on the blackboard during study hall.

Given the sheer number and tenacity of his antagonists, Mack's level of self-control is astounding. He puts into writing a long list of his difficulties as the football team captain in The Daria Diaries. His New Year's resolutions in The Daria Database all involve attempts to control his irritation with other people: the relentlessly idiotic Kevin, the marginally less idiotic Brittany Taylor, Ms. Barch, and his too-often unavailable girlfriend Jodie. It is significant that there are only two times in the entire show that Mack loses his temper, "See Jane Run" and "Murder, She Snored", and the latter is a fantasy episode inside one of Daria's dreams. (In a moment of rage at being called "Mack Daddy" for the umpteenth time, he whacks Kevin over the head with a golf club.)



Drawbacks
Jodie in "Partner's Complaint" describes Mack as being "bad with money," being overdrawn on his allowance since third grade. Mack finally pays his father back during Is It Fall Yet? and has enough money left from his summer job to take Jodie to Chez Pierre "once."

The only other vaguely negative aspect of his character is a tendency to be sarcastic and cynical to a Daria-ish degree when referring to the school, Ms. Li's policies, and some of his classmates and football team members. "I'm the only one on the team who can count by halves," he tells Ms. Li in "Fizz Ed." His sharp-edged sarcasm is completely missed by most of those listening to him, particularly Kevin Thompson. An example from "I Don't":


 * Mack: When you hear yourself talk, does it make sense to you?
 * Kevin: Sometimes.

Mack participated in the betting pool on Mr. DeMartino's upcoming roller-hockey battle in "The Big House", but so did everyone else, so gambling is not likely one of his vices, if he has any. Fanfic writers have noted that writing an "evil Mack" story is nearly impossible, as there is so little in canon on which to hook it.

Class/wealth
Mack appears to be in a lower-middle class or working class family:


 * In "Is It Fall Yet?", when irked that Jodie views his job as easy, he attacks her for not knowing what a minimum wage job is like with "your glamour jobs". He and Jodie both consider Chez Pierre to be too expensive for him to afford.


 * In "Is It College Yet?", Mack's family can only afford "State University" - he can only get into his preferred college, Vance, with a scholarship.

Mack's secret anger
While Mack is usually level-headed and calm on the show, outside of bursts of anger, off-screen media like the websites and "The Daria Database" have shown that Mack is secretly angry and bitter about many things.

In "Database", Mack is forced to do a speech praising Kevin's accomplishments at the end-of-season dinner. His draft shows he's increasingly unable to think of anything nice ("Coach, do I have to do this?") and resisting the urge to tear into Kevin for stealing credit from the rest of the team. His New Year Resolution's in the same book have him deciding to let Kevin injure himself, expresses his fear of Janet Barch and recurring fantasy of tricking Brittany into jumping out of a window, and anger with Jodie putting him last after "every other damn thing".

In the Lawndale Lions website, he expresses secret disgust with the rest of the team and the adults around it: "Sports are a great way to build character. You learn how to take orders from an ignorant, often abusive authority figure, abandon any semblance of thinking for yourself, and sublimate your own values and ethics in order to bring some kind of cheap glory to a community of frustrated, embittered fatcats too old and well fed to go out on the field themselves... we'll get college scholarships, unlimited credit at all the stores on campus and our pick of female students to mistreat. And not one of these mindless cretins to the left and right of me on the line of scrimmage will ever give a second thought to whether they deserve any of it."

Relationship with Jodie
Mack's and Jodie's relationship exists throughout the series, and the two are often seen together and have sometimes down their own version of the Daria/Jane snarkfest on the idiots around them. Often, their relationship seems stable and positive. The implication is made in "My Night at Daria's" is that the couple is sexually active, though we don't know to what degree. Jodie promises to tell Daria all about it "once my parents are dead."

However, Jodie often places a higher priority on her own commitments than on maintaining the relationship. Mack is often disappointed when he attempts to get time together with Jodie but is rebuffed. His frustration is quite clear in a number of episodes and was a running subplot through "Is It Fall Yet?", and in "The Daria Database" Mack's new year resolutions to not be bothered that she puts "every damn thing" ahead of him. In the MTV feature "It Takes Two To Tangle", this stress and frustration is presented as the defining factor of their relationship and it adds "They should sign up for a 12-step program--but she only has time for two."

A dark spin on their relationship is raised in "The Daria Diaries", where Jodie covertly questions whether she's dating Mack because she genuinely likes him or "because he's who he is and you're who you are and others don't care to question the equation?".

Mack is clearly and specifically portrayed as coming from a lower socioeconomic class than Jodie, though the details are not known. (Being in a lower socioeconomic class than Jodie Landon is not difficult.) In Is It College Yet?, he states that he can get into Vance University only if he gets a scholarship, which he does. In Is It Fall Yet? Mack drives an ice-cream truck for a summer job so he can pay off debts, while Jodie works at a congressman's office, takes golf lessons, etc.

Relationship with Kevin
Mack is constantly shown to be around Kevin, and the two both serve on the Lawndale Lions team. Kevin's intense stupidity and inability to get Mack's name right irritate him considerably, and "Database" shows him unable to say anything nice about the lad. Despite that, Mack is shown spending time around Kevin when he wouldn't be required to: "I Don't" has him hanging around Kevin outside of school, he consoles Kevin when the lad is down and helps get him back on the team in "The F Word". Kevin also spends more time around Mack (on screen) than other Lions members. The two appear to be, against all odds, actual friends.

In their 'future ego' in Is It College Yet?, the two were shown to be running an ice-cream company together, "Bro & QB". While this was meant as a gag, it has been taken literally in several fanfics.



Saint Mack
Mack is in a curious position in the pantheon of Daria characters in that he seems to be without fault, or at least lacking major drawbacks as a male in a female-dominated story universe. This characterization is sometimes referred to as "Saint Mack." One extreme example of a "Saint Mack" is "The Thirteenth Man," by The Angst Guy. A less extreme instance appears in Bob Marley's "You Don't Know Mack." He became President of the United States in "Twenty Years from Today," by Michael J. Pfeffer. A common vocation for him in post-canon stories is as a heroic soldier (e.g., "Gimme Skelter," "Drive"). In science-fiction tales he is usually a superhero (Legion of Lawndale Heroes series), but once in a while not ("Outcasts from Beyond"). Even without superpowers, he is still a good guy.

Mack-Who-Belongs-With-Someone-Else
Debate has arisen on a number of occasion over the issue of why Mack dates Jodie (see Joma). Is it because they are among the very few black students at Lawndale High, a situation implied several times in the series? Couldn't they find anyone else to date? This is the late 1990s in the series, after all. Worse, canon depicts their relationship as riddled with conflict and frustration.

The few true-blue 'shippers left in Daria fandom have taken pains to hook Mack up with other characters in alternate-universe or post-canon tales. Picking Mack's "best possible" girlfriend is almost a cottage industry. Among those usually chosen as his new mate are Jane Lane (a popular one), Brittany Taylor (also popular, though she did irritate him in the series), and Daria Morgendorffer (a more difficult mix).

In a twist on this, Ruthless Bunny's "A Change in Plans" has Jodie's parents believe Jodie belongs with someone else, viewing Mack as unsuitable because of his class and background.

Saint Mack tales

 * "Daria 3059," by Greystar (Mack as mecha pilot with cybernetic battlesuit)
 * "Gimme Skelter," by TAG and Brother Grimace (1st Lt. Michael Mackenzie fights to save a zombie-overrun alternate universe)
 * "Finn Morgendorffer 25: Captain, My Captain," by HolyGrail2007
 * "History Lesson," by TAG (Mack's surprising ancestry is revealed)
 * "Iron Chef: Mack Mackenzie Has His Day" (PPMB)
 * "Legion of Lawndale Heroes 11.6: Truths Known, Spoken and Undone," by Brother Grimace (Mack gains super-powers thanks to... Janet Barch; see also LLH 11.7 and LLH 12.3)
 * "My Life," by Sam Lincoln
 * "Origin of the Ringbearers: Michael," by Brother Grimace (Mack as a troubled superhero Ringbearer)
 * "Present Moment," by Crusading Saint
 * "Project: FEISTI," by SoCalledGoodeGuy (Mack as super-soldier with cybernetic battlesuit)
 * "The Thirteenth Man" by The Angst Guy (Mack as superhero)
 * "Touchdown Jane," by Mike Quinn (in which Daria helps Mack, who is doing the right thing) @
 * "Trophy Chasers," by Crusading Saint (a rare Mack-centric adventure)
 * "Twenty Years from Today," by Michael J. Pfeffer (Mack as President)
 * "The Winters of Those Gone Before," by Brother Grimace NSFW! (Mack helps Jane through a very difficult time)
 * "With the Help of Her Friends," by Bob Marley (sequel to "You Don't Know Mack" in which Mack helps Daria)
 * "You Don't Know Mack" by Bob Marley (Mack as a good guy with a secret life as... a good guy)

@ Author's note: "... I see him [Mack] as someone who works hard, does well, but is humble about being praised. He's like Muhammad Ali; everyone, including himself, knows he's good; without the boastfulness."

Shipper Pairings
Mack/Jodie (see Joma) Mack/Brittany Mack/Daria Mack/Jane Mack/Andrea Mack/Sandi Mack/Quinn Mack/Anyone
 * "Unseen Phenomenon: A Mere Formality" (Mack/Jodie get married), by Wildgoose
 * "It's All About Respect (Part II)" (Mack/Jodie, but Mack/Brittany hinted), by Brother Grimace
 * "A Slice of Pizza" (Mack/Brittany), by Brother Grimace
 * "Crusts of Pizza" (Mack/Brittany), by Brother Grimace
 * Unnamed ficlet (Mack/Brittany), by Roentgen (scroll down to entry for "Tue May 23, 2006 11:24 am")
 * "A Midsummer Nightmare's Daria" (Mack/Brittany), by TAG
 * "Acts of Cupidity" (Mack/Daria) by Disco316 @
 * "As She Remembered It in the Long Years After" (Mack/Daria), by TAG
 * "Boy Fiend" (Mack/Daria briefly) by Austin Covello
 * "Daria 2010: Destiny Deferred" (Mack/Daria), by Robert Nowall
 * "Lead Us Not into Temptation" (Mack/Daria), by Richard Lobinske
 * Falling Into College series (Mack/Jane, for a time), by Richard Lobinske (affair begins here, ends here)
 * "Iron Chef: Mirror, Mirror..." (Mack/Jane), by TAG
 * "Mack Daddy" (Mack/Jane), by TAG
 * "A Path of Roses and Thorns" (Mack/Jane, but Mack/Daria hinted), by Brother Grimace
 * "Smoking Mirror" (Mack/Jane), by TAG
 * "Drive" (Mack/Jane), by TAG
 * "Anything for Jane" (Mack/Jane), by TAG
 * "Anger Meets Her Match" (Mack/Andrea), by TheEleventy
 * "La Soiree" (Mack/Sandi), by Bacner
 * "The Misery Chicks" (Mack/Sandi), by NightGoblyn
 * "Visitations 3: Like Sandi Through the Hourglass" (Mack/Stacy hinted), by Brother Grimace
 * "Ghosts of Christmas Future" (Mack/Quinn), by Crusading Saint
 * "The Hollow Land," (many potential pairings), by Crusading Saint
 * "Tooth and Nail" - A 2009 PPMB Iron Chef contest: what could happen if suddenly Mack and Jodie broke up, so Mack became available to the large feminine population of LWH...?

@ Quinn's comment to Daria (from story): "Mack was the biggest free agent on the dating market. Even Sandi didn't think she had a chance, and she always thinks she does. Even getting a date with him reflects well on the Morgendorffer name."