Mack Mackenzie: Difference between revisions

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]]").

 

===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]]," ''[[The Daria Database]]'' (in which he writes, "I will not show Ms. Barch fear, no matter what she does to me," and 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 the only time in the entire show that Mack loses his temper is in a fantasy episode, "[[Murder, She Snored]]," inside one of Daria's [[dream world|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.)