Thursday, May 19, 2011

(A Toxic Text) Captain Planet and the Planeteers

I hope that some of you actually remember this particular 90s cartoon series and brainchild of Ted Turner. I could give you a short introduction, but I would rather have the intro and the credits speak for themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpXM9bj-WPU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo0D6bzxLLw


Sadly, the catchy theme song is the best part of the show. Admittedly, an environmentalist cartoon is actually not a bad idea, but it has to be done right to have an effect on its target audience. Captain Planet and the Planeteers was promoted as edutainment, but I would hesitate to call it such. It simply falls into the trap of taking children for fools. Its paper-thin plot only serves as a brittle exoskeleton for a stark black and white ideology, namely that industry/capitalism/mankind (remember, those five young people are special) is wrong or even evil and nature is good. Thus, an irreversible binary opposition is established.

The anthropomorphic, female representation of the Earth "Gaia" not surprisingly serves as the “damsel in distress”, who has to be constantly saved from stereotypical, "mustache-twirling" villains who go by such subtle names as “Dr. Blight”, “Duke Nukem”, “Sly Sludge“ or "Captain Pollution". The audience is confronted with bland characters and insubstantial storylines, while being steadily force-fed with an all too obvious ideology, which in turn loses all of its impact. Furthermore, the big marketing campaign behind the show, producing toys, video games, bedclothes etcetera simply led the series ad absurdum. The corporations obviously tried greenwashing their actions and making their products “safe to buy” by basing them on environmentalist entertainment.

(P.S. Give the show a try if you haven't watched it yet. It is good for the laughs. When ever have you seen an entity called “Captain Pollution” talking with a “California surfer accent”?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-fP1zqvfcE


Posted by Christopher O'Sullivan

Posted by at

3 comments:

  1. Timo LampeMay 20, 2011 at 1:44 AM

    I noticed something quite interesting, even though it's not specifically about pullotion. Look who has which powers. The young African American has the power of earth, probably because he is associated with the wild, rough, edgy landscape back in Africa. The young asian girl has water associated with her, because of her roots in, I guess, Japan, an Island surrounded by water. So there definitely is some racial prejudice. The way we automatically connect certain attributes with people from different ethnic groups.

    ReplyDelete
  2. chad davidsonMay 20, 2011 at 7:57 AM

    Nice moves, guys. Both of you. Christopher, this is a wonderful post--and some very savvy critical prose, as well (lively, smart, witty).

    I wonder how you'd see this series in relation to, say, Spiderman or Batman. That is, how might the Cold War influence these two radically different versions of superheroes and the causes worth their effort? Toxicity takes a decidedly different significance in Spiderman, since it bestows up Peter Parker his special powers. These five were just GIVEN the rings, right?

    We're going to be watching a short clip of Slovenian theorist Slavoj Zizek about how environmentalism can dangerously become a kind of surrogate religion. I wonder here if a little bit of that is happening. That is, I wonder how this idea of "being chosen" to save the world from pollutive threats is both a sign of post-Cold War environmental anxieties but also a sign inflected with Christian notions of a saviour.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ConnerMay 22, 2011 at 7:26 AM

    Okay, for those who haven't noticed: I'm a geek.
    That said, here's is a link to a review of the third Captain Planet Comic.
    It's part of a segment Linkara (the host) calls "PSA HELL" (PSA comics that epicly fail):
    http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2009/05/captain-planet-and-planteers-3-and.html

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)