The World as a High School: What if countries were characters in an Aaron Spelling TV Drama?

A friend of mine who is in Congress told me that Congress is a lot like high school – you have cliques and fractions, the cool kids and the losers. I had heard something similar from someone who worked in the UN.

People think they move past the social complexities of high school but the reality is that high school just gets continuously re-created everywhere you go throughout life.  

It got me thinking – what if you took the world and had to cast each country as a character in a 1990s Aaron Spelling high school TV drama set Southern California. What would each country’s character look like? How would the cliques form? 

As the world becomes more multi-polar with the various competing nation states vying for supremacy, maybe we are best served re-imaging the world as a high school TV drama writ large.

The Atlantic Alliance Clique:

America: America is the jock who is also the class president and drives a G Wagon. His dad owns a bunch of car dealerships – he is rich in a very, dumb capitalist kind of way. He is not necessarily the smartest of his friend group but everyone still follows what he wears and what he listens to. He is a benevolent ruler of the cool clique and the school in general but he does have some weaknesses – his idealism has occasionally verged on the insufferable and he gets too involved in other people’s squabbles. He’s also a little naïve in that he assumes that everyone likes him and while many people do, a lot of folks harbor jealousy and even his friends occasionally submarine him. In recent days, he’s become filled with self-doubt and isn’t really sure who he is anymore. This is partly due to a vicious trolling campaign on Instagram by some of his rivals. His growing psychosis due to social media got so bad in the last year that he broke down and started seeing a therapist to see if he could re-establish some congruency in his personality. All eyes are on him – he’s still the starting quarterback and the king of the mountain – but he looks weaker in the social hierarchy than he did before. Maybe he bounces back. Maybe he doesn’t. The whole high school and especially his enemies are watching.

UK: UK is a distant cousin of America who is slightly older. He was the dominant guy back in freshman year but then by Junior year, America got a lot better at sports and his family came into more money. So the center of the social universe rotated towards America. They’re distantly related and genuine friends – albeit a certain part of UK feels nostalgic for freshman year and feels like he did a better job running the show. Nevertheless, better America on top than anyone else thinks the UK. Afterall, America is family and he did teach America everything America knows. When America throws parties, UK gets the first look and when America picks a fight, even when it is a really stupid fight, the UK generally comes in and throws some punches. UK is going to need America more going forward now that it is distancing itself from the Europe clique.

Canada: Canada is America’s next door neighbor. His dad works for America’s dad at the car dealership – and he basically has everything America has just in smaller quantities. Like his dad is rich but not is rich as America’s dad. He is good at sports and reasonably cool but not as much as America is. He basically just does what America does and doesn’t seem to resent it – even though folks occasionally make fun of him for being America’s side kick. Everyone seems to like Canada where as folks are a little more divided on America – so he has that going for him.

The Europe Clique:

Italy: Italy is part of the Europe clique and is considered a cool kid but was more relevant back in early grade school and is still living off that. He was the first guy to do precocious things – like he was the first one to smoke marijuana and he got a hand job before anyone knew what that was. This precociousness screwed him up a bit and now he’s lazy burnout who hangs out in the parking lot, getting high. He’s smart and maybe, he’ll get motivated again or maybe, he won’t. No one is holding their breath. Everyone just hopes he graduates.

Germany: Germany is the super nice kid who is good at sports and academics but is no longer as openly ambitious as he once was. He was a key member of the cool kid clique but then one year he went kind of crazy. He made a bid for class president and got sort of blocked and it turned into two massive fights. The last one took a whole coalition of students to try and stop. Germany did weirdly evil things during this fight – he sent some kids to the hospital. Germany did eventually get out of this psychotic episode and did apologize profusely afterwards – unlike Japan which did a similar thing and has yet to fully come to terms with it. Germany is now back to doing well. However, everyone constantly reminds him of his prior craziness.

France: France is into his own things – he does drama and art and eschews sports and organizes dinner parties for his friends who feel like they are too cool for high school and instead talk about how much fun they are going to have at the elitist East Coast liberal art schools they plan on attending next year. France imagines himself as the leading member of the Europe clique even though Germany pretty much crushes France on most metrics. France used to have more narrative arcs devoted to himself back in earlier seasons of the show but it is now a bit more on the periphery as the show has gravitated towards the coming showdown between America and China.

Greece: Greece is a lot like Italy – in fact they were the ring leaders back in the day of doing precocious stuff. Today, however, Greece is just a good looking kid in the parking lot doing drugs. The problem is that Greece is actively failing out of school. He has been cheating off of Germany’s test for a while – basically Germany still feels bad about what a dick he was so he lets everyone cheat off him. But the cheating is becoming a lot more egregious and even Germany is now like WTF…

Outer Clique:

Israel: Israel is the new kid who is somehow connected to America through their parents being mutual friends – but isn’t really close to anyone else in the school. Some people claim that he shouldn’t be at the school and attacked him but he beat the crap out of them. Israel is short like 5’6’’ but works out constantly. Many wonder whether Israel’s power derives from itself or from America, which will step into protect him. America at times gets annoyed at how many fights Israel picks but he knows that if he doesn’t step in his mom will yell at him.

Russia: Russia is the kid who plays loner, endurance sports like cross country – he’s not into teams, he’s into suffering – mainly by himself. He’s kind of stand off-ish and is a dick to America who he founds particularly insufferable. He likes to think of himself as on the same level as America but the reality is that his family isn’t that rich and he’s not that cool. He is annoyed that America gets all the credit for quelling Germany’s psychotic outburst when the reality was that he, Russia, did most of the work and America didn’t show up until Germany’s initial thrashing about had subsided a great deal. Russia’s sister is really hot and everyone constantly is going after her, which also annoys him.

Brazil: Brazil is tall and good looking – he has all the tools to stand out and everyone thinks that it is about to be his year. But it never seems to be his year. The reality is that he’s too interested in hanging out at the beach with his cousin Italy and getting high. No one really blames him for it – if you’re that good looking why try all that hard?

Mexico: Mexico is the super nice kid who comes from a working-class background. He lives in a much smaller house besides America’s McMansion. America treats Mexico like he is his servant, which is sort of fine for now. Mexico is dealing with a lot of trauma and chaos at home as his dad drinks a lot and as a result is spending more and more time in America’s basement which America is getting increasingly annoyed with. But they are neighbors so America is kind of stuck with Mexico.

Asia:

China: China is the quiet kid whose parents all the sudden became very wealthy – almost overnight. China appeared at first be trying to fit in but it became clear over time that that was a ruse – he wants to be number one. He cheated off America for a while and America wasn’t paying attention and didn’t seem to care. America snapped out of it and now seems to care and is now telling everyone to stop hanging out with China. China isn’t sure if he’s cool enough yet to really take on America – China has a few friends but they are clearly into him because of his money. He can be nice but most people thinks he’s untrustworthy at the end of the day. He just tries too hard. Like, he wasn’t particularly good at sports but then a got a bunch of private lessons and is now even giving America a run for his money in that department. His rivalry increases with America by the day. If he buys a speedboat this summer, he could really own the summer lake scene, which would be a devastating blow to America’s social cachet. His parents still aren’t allowed into the main country club, which is controlled by America’s parents. So they probably are imparting a lot of their bitterness onto him.

North Korea: North Korea is the kid who wears a trench coat and listens to goth music and is friends with no one. China is sort of cool with him because they grew up across the street from each other back before China moved into a bigger house but even China tells people “yeah, I don’t know he might blow up the school at some point and he doesn’t listen to me anymore.” America doesn’t know what to make of North Korea – alternating between being a dick to him because he’s weird to trying to be nice to see if he’ll be less psychotic. So far nothing seems to work and North Korea lurks in the background, saying weird shit to girls and sort of slightly scaring everyone but also not really doing anything.

Japan: Japan is a nice rich kid from a good family who wears fresh but dorky clothes every day. The cool kids want to make fun of him for being a dork but they also just can’t help but like him as he is so nice. That said, he does live far away so no one really knows him. And while everyone really likes him, there is a lurking memory of this strange episode from sophomore year when Japan sucker punched America. He then started knifing China because China was close by. This went on for a while in the parking lot. At first, Japan was wailing on America because he had the element of surprise but then America was able to lever his superior height and weight and regain control of the fight – whereby he beat the crap out of Japan to the point that Japan had to go to the hospital. The amazing thing was that they became best friends afterwards. America visited Japan every day. He was running for class president against Russia and needed all the votes he could get and Japan as a fellow rich kid was an important vote. Today it seems inconceivable that this nice rich looking kid from a good family once knifed China in the stomach in a parking lot. As China becomes a bigger douche, America secretly wonders quietly if Japan might not be willing to do it again…

Iran: Iran is pretty confused about his identity. He hung out with Italy and Greece back in grade school – they were all the cool kids back then – but he lived so far away that he just didn’t quite evolve with them. His family is not that rich but they are not poor either. He’s sort of good sports but not really. The only thing that Iran knows for certain is that America can burn in hell (Israel can also burn in hell). The irony is that Iran was actually pretty tight with America for a bit and then things took a big 180 turn after Iran attended a Bible camp and became more religious and decided that America was too much of a party boy. Then America hooked up with his sister and it really escalated from there. They haven’t actually brawled with each other but they constantly make fun of each other to their friend groups – albeit Iran is a lot more into the rivalry than America is, which sort of stopped caring pretty quickly. Iran’s hatred of America will be a key plot line going forward for the series. He might team up with China and Russia and try to ruin America’s prom night.

India: India is the smart kid from a poor family who gets good grades but is also disorganized – he will turn in papers late and not show up for school for a while. No one has any idea what the fuck goes in on in his house where he lives with his eight brothers and sisters. His parents don’t seem to have much control and the place is a zoo. That said, India is smart and he isn’t a douche like China or insufferable like America. Maybe, somewhere deep in the future, he ends up becoming class president out of nowhere. That said, he first needs to do things like not miss school for five days in a row randomly.

Everyone Else:

Developing World: There are a lot of characters on the show who exist but don’t necessarily have speaking roles or are relevant to the key narrative arcs. These characters go to America’s parties or China’s parties. Some of them are sort of friends with Russia too. They are growing in number and in power and some of them will start to get speaking roles as that happens but for now they are your back ground actors and extras if you will.

So that in the world is a nutshell – I’m sure there are some key countries and characters that were left out – wasn’t really sure how to describe Iran for instance. The point is that when you think about the world as an Aaron Spelling high school drama, geopolitics sort of makes more sense.