Why Environmentalists Hate Captain Planet
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- All of this is much easier to see in retrospect, which I think is telling. It's hard to see bias in the moment, and it's easy to feel justified in simplifying the stories of your adversaries when you're in the middle of what you see as a war. But that's why it's good to look back at things like this.
I think it's fine to create content for any age that accurately portrays the difficulties we face as a species...that's a completely apolitical act. But while the creators of Captain Planet will tell you that each of the villains represents the extremes, not the norms, none of those things are (at least in the beginning) modeled in nuanced ways. I am particularly troubled by the portrayal of the laborers as sub-human. It's one thing for billionaire Looten Plunder to be terrible (and yes, his pony tail is appropriately grotesque) but modeling the people who are laboring as garbage collectors or machine operators as monsters, at this point, downright pisses me off.
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My dad was an engineer in the plastics industry. He was also a safety officer, and he showed me how things like industrial waste could be handled properly and resources not wasted. I loved Captain Planet as a kid, and didn’t draw any parallels between the eco-villains and people like my dad. The villains were the people who did things irresponsibly.
One thing to point out, is that one of the villains eventually got redeemed.
The planeteers find out he's, once again, cutting trees, but when they confront him he explains he is no longer stripping the land bare but choping only part of it, with the proper permits, and after the area is cleared they replant young trees.
Even Captain Planet agrees with the guy and they just leave him be.
That is the responsible way for tree cutting. After cutting down a tree, they plant a new one in its place. Knowing that you can't just take, you also have to give back.
@@alexanderpytko5394 Yup. It also plays into the old wisdom "You reap what you sow". If you sow nothing, you will reap nothing.
The phrase is more about working though: If you want to get anything done in life, you have to work.
You will find all the insufferable busybodies that claim society is unfair and they are "opressed" to be lazy. Ask them if they would do physical labor like farming or mining and they will look at you with disdain, and probably answer something along the lines of "an intelectual like me doesn't have to work" or "I'm too smart for that work".
But I'm getting carried away.
Notice how the other guy, Garbage man or whatever, was lazy and hence he sought the easiers and quickest ways to dispose of the garbage rather than setting up proper facilities.
Also, anther word of Wisdom:
"Evil claims the ignorant and the miserable".
All the villains are miserable, and they only seek to spread their misery.
To me, this show also demonstrated the saying, "We're not inheriting the world from our ancestors, we're borrowing it from our children."
Except we need old growth forests. This method leads to monocultures which eliminate biodiversity and are weak, prone to fire and disease, and look like crap.
environmentalists hate a lot of completely innocuous things because the cognition required to be an environmentalist is correlated to being an idjit
Never once did I think that the villains of Captain Planet were working class people. Even though I was a kid, I assumed they were all mutated by pollution and wanted to spread it more, or were assholes that really liked money. I literally NEVER looked at images of oil workers and thought, "huh, looks the same"... LITERALLY NEVER UNTIL JUST NOW WHEN YOU BROUGHT IT UP.
I heard the intention was the opposite, the show made them intentionally, cartoonishly, unmistakably, unrealistically, evil to the point that even kids could recognize that there's no way people like this exist in real life specifically because they knew kids were smarter than that or because they thought kids may have parents that work in these industries and didn't want to make their parents look bad.
The message isn't "industry always bad nature always good" like every shameless brainless copycat environmentalist show (blue cat people.) The message was how to be a better steward of the environment. Ironically I think the problem is people reading too much into it, the message can't be found in the action scenes that were meant to grab kids attention, the real message was blatantly, directly, Dora the Explorerly told to them afterwards.
I still don't
Probably, a good thing i was older when this came out. I was that kid who liked the villains better, a few years earlier. (Decepticons, in particular)
☺️
Propaganda 101: dehumanize the opposition.
so environmentalists hate the show because it makes them look bad... 🤣
The "garbage man" villain, was actually converted into becoming a good guy.
When he learned about how much recycled goods could make in profit! :D
that is the whole point of the villains, they don't do that for fun they do that cause the only green they care is the green of money
capitalism
@@chronictimewasterdisease Well that’s not entirely true the rat guy genuinely does just want destruction he’s kind of like the joker
@NoChill Not to mention most grades of plastics are NOT recyclable. And the ones that are also are the grades used in making supplement combustible fuels through refining with still limited chemicals for processing. Between making another plastic bottle and making more plastic based combustibles, which takes priority???
Nuclear power is how we beat climate change.. for this reason Duke Nukem should have been worked with but instead Captain Planet may have doomed us all.
The message was, “The power is YOURS!”
As a kid, this meant to me that it’s my responsibility to do what I can to help the Earth.
So did you save the planet? How is that corny catchphrase going for you?
@@TheLastPierrot I was around 7 when the show aired, it was the first show I saw that highlighted environmental issues and I was explaining what it meant to me as a kid; that I have my own individual responsibility regarding those issues.
One person cannot save the planet- I don’t understand why you thought that was my mindset, it wasn’t as a child nor at the time I wrote the comment.
Regarding the corny message, of course it was corny- it had to be simple and direct as this was aimed eliciting an emotional response from children.
If it was too subtle it could have flown under the radar and if it was too complicated then it would have been over our heads.
@@TheLastPierrot I still pick up people's trash and don't throw mine on the streets. From your comment you seem like the kind of person that would drive all 50 cars in one day if you owned 50 cars. You're not helping bro
@@saloniki2242 that's your perspective, and that never crossed my mind before watching this video.
@@atcera8714 what made you thinl he would drive 50 cars? You are blaming someone over something they never did but you assume they are doing. From YOUR comment it doesn't seem like you are not a responsible person at all and trying to look good on the internet. Does that make it true?
3 rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
7 for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
9 for mortal men doomed to die,
5 for teenagers?!
And one for Captain Planet on his Dark Throne
+
In the land of Mordor where the pollution lies.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the greenhouse gas bind them,
In the Land of Mordor where the Carbon dioxide lies.
Three were given to the elves, wisest and fairest of all beings
Seven, to the dwarf- lords great miners and craftsman of the mountain hall
Nine were given to the race of men... who above all else desired power
But they were all of them deceived, for five other rings were made
Deep in the forest, in the heart of the earth
The dark goddes gaya forged in secret five rings to dominate all life,
In these rings she poured her fire earth air water and heart
Together these formed... captain planet.
Lol, nice one!
But... but... he's gonna take pollution down to 0!
And productivity!
I, for one, support someone who is our powers magnified and is fighting on the planet's side.
I don't have anything mean to say here or in the last 2 video sorry jay you didn't give me any thing good to work with
That's okay Munjee. They'll be other videos. You can be mean to me in the future. Don't feel bad.
ya, wasn't he also the power magnified.. and fighting on the Planet Side!! :D
The show just made me stop littering lol. I never really thought about that deeply as a kid. My brain was like “trash bad grass good” Go planet!
Me too
I was taught to clean up my own mess by my parents.
Same. 🤣
grass good!!!😆
Holy molly others too, not just me!
Princess Mononoke is arguably not for young children, but it does portray some environmental issues with nuance. In that, the "villains" are mostly just doing what they think is right to help those who depend of them.
Except they should have died, especially that one guy. But no, I don't know why they were allowed to live while the innocent ones died.
@@Disneyfan82Sounds realistic tbh
If I remember correctly, the villains were made to be straw characters precisely so that they wouldn't be targeting or harming 'real' workers and other individuals in extractive industries - i.e. the villains are so flanderized that no real oilrigger watching the show for example would be threatened or offended by that, whereas a more nuanced or realistic version might cause uncanny resemblances amongst people. I really doubt people got offended by CAPTAIN PLANET episodes lmao
"I really doubt people got offended by CAPTAIN PLANET episodes lmao" you underestimate how triggered consumerists can get.
@@owenbevt3 "I am a sanitation worker. I make a living properly disposing of some of the worst garbage humanity has to offer so that sea turtles don't choke to death. My passion for evil knows no bounds."
That's not how straw mans work...
I heard the intention was the opposite, the show made them intentionally, cartoonishly, unmistakably, unrealistically, evil to the point that even kids could recognize that there's no way people like this exist in real life specifically because they knew kids were smarter than that or because they thought kids may have parents that work in these industries and didn't want to make their parents look bad.
The message isn't "industry always bad nature always good" like every shameless brainless copycat environmentalist show (blue cat people.) The message was how to be a better steward of the environment. Ironically I think the problem is people reading too much into it, the message can't be found in the action scenes that were meant to grab kids attention, the real message was blatantly, directly, Dora the Explorerly told to them afterwards.
My father does work in the oil industry and was annoyed by the show. It's easy to say that you know exactly what a show intends when you actually have time to watch it and aren't trying to make a living. As a kid I was able to tell it was a little silly, but I knew quite a few kids who were dumb enough to take it the wrong way.
Honestly for me the villains were actually a good example of how *not* to behave if I ever ended up with a similar job. At no point did I make the assumption that there were actual real people who behaved this way since they were so ridiculous.
Obviously nobody behaved that way. It's purposefully trying to make people doing those jobs look bad just for even existing. You obviously wouldn't need this show to tell you not to behave some made up way that nobody in the industry behaves like.
@@DlcEnergy it's for kids who don't know any of this stuff until they get older
@@silvertongue.242_99 It's for kids who don't want to be at school but cry that they should be at school. lol Parroting what some grown ups are telling them to think.
@@DlcEnergy idk about that 😂
@@silvertongue.242_99 Greta Thunberg
It shouldn't be forgotten that Captain Planet did enlighten children on difficult social issues like trying to destigmaize HIV and understanding drug addiction.
This is very true.
So... they cancel out?
Like, don't do drugs unless you're sharing needles?
Now in Cali, knowingly infecting people with aids is no longer a felony
Cool
Did it do it good tho?
Well, it certainly tried. Tried being the operative word.
Even though Captain Planet was heavy-handed, I always thought about the "bad guys" not as destroying the earth for funsies, but just doing their thing, not realizing what they were doing. Even as a child I recognized it as a caricature. Children understand nuance and lack thereof.
They were clearly doing it for fun and profit.
@@Elyseon Not even profit, one episode had one of the bad guys build a fully featured refrigerators factory at the north pole, with the last step of the production line being to *cut the fridges in half* to release CFCs in the atmosphere. Even my young child brain was left perplexed by that!
@@SonoNessuno After you make so much money, you really just start doing stuff just for fun.
@@SonoNessuno Well TBF, Duke Nukem was the only actual supervillain out of the main villains. And he thrived on all types of radiation.
I always saw the "bad guys" as doing it for no reason other than funsies. To me all they did was make factories with the primary purpose of making pollution. I couldn't understand the idea of making a mess for the sake of making a mess. If there was a widget factory that made mess because of a lake of environmental safeguards I could have accepted that.
I had a parent who has worked in oil and natural gas for 40+ years and I regularly enjoyed watching Captain Planet. While I know my experience is not everyone else’s, I can say that this cartoon never made those kinds of feelings come out. The show creators expressly stated they wanted to make over the top caricatures to make it hard for kids like me to identify their loved ones as the villains, and they accomplished this for me personally. There are a lot of bad faith actors in that industry, and some are nearly as outrageous as the slightly flatter characters they are represented by. There isn’t room for much civility when they are planning for their own safety during catastrophic geological events and leaving the rest of us to die. So I would happily lead the charge shouting GO PLANET!
I was immediately convinced by the video that the show wanted to portray poor people and working class as the source of all evil, but now that I've read your comment I can see how fool I was... sometimes when people show us what we want to see we just buy it...
I've seen other producer of stories for children saying the same thing, how they didn't want kids to identify with the villain. You're right
But if I was the one writing the show I would have made the villain some kind of mr burns guy, which I think would also have worked as a character kids would dislike
"There are a lot of bad faith actors in that industry, and some are nearly as outrageous as the slightly flatter characters they are represented by. There isn’t room for much civility when they are planning for their own safety during catastrophic geological events and leaving the rest of us to die. " Who are you talking about? What are their names?
@Gregina Bogosian Jeff Bazos.
@@jeffreygao3956 Not just him but
>Elon Musk
>Bill Gates
>Mark Zuckerberg
>Klaus Schwab
>Vladimir Putin
>Joseph R. Biden
>Donald J. Trump
>Emmanuel Macron
>King Salman bin Abdulaziz
>Nicolas Maduro
>Sheikh Tamim b. Hamad Al Thani
>Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah
>Bashar al-Assad
And many more people besides the ones the list
I always watched the show for pure tongue in cheek entertainment, I didn't take it seriously at all.
The best children's media to tackle environmentalism, that I remember, was an episode of Magic School Bus, which comes as no surprise, given how well that show often handled complex issues. It was the one where Ms Frizzle had leased(?) a cocoa tree, to show the class how chocolate was made, but the beans came back all small and withered. When they took their field trip to check on the tree, they found the tree was perfectly fine, but the habitat for its pollinators was destroyed by a local construction company. I felt the show did an excellent job portraying the construction workers, and even the company, as just normal people, doing their jobs, and that protecting the environment is a complex issue, that we all need to work together on to solve.
Saying so much in a mere 4 minutes, now that I think about it, that is one hell of a skill, you brothers are awesome
I realize this when I have a chat with my parent and or friend, it take so long for me to explain a simple thing, I definitely need to learn and get better at it
にゃあエイリアンMeowAlien to be fair, vlogbrothers is scripted, I don't think anyone could give such a succinct answer without a script
And it will have been edited
It's called jump cuts, and you can't cut the boring seconds out and jump to the interesting bits in real life. Get used to not sounding as smart in real life without being highly prepared. What you see here is a trick of editing... It's movie magic created from talking for 10 minutes and boiling it down to the best four minutes. Comedians do it all the time in what is referred to as a "tight five".
It's also done with a script...
Before I had this chat with you I had a script go through three revisions over five days, so I just want to be transparent that I don't, like, talk like this :-)
I actually started watching this again recently because of the simple nostalgia factor. I never realized how over exaggerated and heavy handed some of the episodes are. The show has it's heart in the right place but you raise some great points here
And the Hitler episode! Can we talk about the Hitler episode? Like, what was that?
i rewatch it again too, and i my first thought was: "was captain planet skin always this blue?"
the Belfast episode is the most tragically misinformed, misguided thing with the worst attempt at our accents ive ever seen. The troubles were still happening and they still got everything wrong,
The best episode is when the Planeteers deal with Gang Violence in the inner city, and you hear background music about Rosa Parks.
Facts
I loved this show back then and i still do, i like how the heroes were from different parts of the world, they even had a Soviet girl as a hero in a time where they were mostly portrayed as bad guys
I had a super-crush on said Soviet girl (am American).
Yeah pretty awesome show I never noticed she was Soviet but I did like they were from different parts of the planet
@@silvertongue.242_99 You must have been young. She had every Russian stereotype you could think of.
The thing is the 90s were still post Berlin Wall coming down. And the opening credits describe her as being from Eastern Europe.
Though if you really want to split hairs Linka could be described as Ukrainian or Georgian because of how those stereotypes run.
And because of the timeframe the word Soviet isn't an apt descriptor. At best it's a sloppy holdover of a synonym.
@@MorinehtarTheBlue I was a kid so yeah
Doing Her part for Mother Russia.
Is it bad that when I used to watch Captain Planet, I rooted for the bad guys?
I did too and I was eight. I mean the Planeteers rode around in that jet which obviously couldn’t be environmentally friendly as they claimed as there were absolutely no solar panels on that thing to convert sunlight into energy which every machine needs in order to function, the Heart ring was essentially a form of mind control that brainwashes people into doing whatever you wanted them to do which is pretty evil no matter what the intentions were in the first place and why the Imperius Curse in the Harry Potter series is considered to be so unforgivable even though the victim feels a calm pleasurable happy feeling when under the curse, and the other four rings could theoretically cause or spread pollution around even more and make matters worse. Earth causes earthquakes and that leads to buildings being destroyed and leaving behind debris which clutters the area and acts as a safety hazard and even possibly letting dangerous gases and/or chemicals escape from the debris. Wind and water can easily spread pollution with very little effort and doesn’t actually solve the issue. And Fire creates pollution with the smoke and we literally see that ring holder melt asphalt in the opening credits which is definitely causing pollution. And if they were all supposed to have the most important elements of nature then where is the Plant ring? Plants are among the most important things on the planet as they give us oxygen, food, and materials we need to survive. You’re telling me that mind control is more important? That is really really messed up.
@Radio Kaos now that story is hilarious, do you think that happens all over the world or even everywhere in your country ? cause it doesn't lol , a lot of it gets done with bribes and falsifying documents, I know cause it happens a lot in my country and even the police doesn't do shit cause they get payed. Just commented cause you should know it's worse than in that kid's show, not better.
Nope
@Radio Kaos you're a perfecr example of first world oblivious to what is happening in other places. Go to Brazil and see if timber companies are planting one tree for every amazonian tree they destroy. I dare you.
Inspired by Jeff Goldblum's Verminous Skumm, I rescued rats from our school lab at the end of the semester, and found homes for all of them. Rats aren't evil, just opportunistic survivors that clash with humans. Make great pets!
I don't remember anyone saying that everyone in those industries were evil. There are people who do these things irresponsibly, and this cartoon brought it to people's attention. Also, there are some very good episodes, like an episode where one or more of the villains was selling drugs, and kids were taking them, and it showed just how awful and destructive drugs can be to people's health and lives.
Tell that to California. That Episode made today would be called offensive.
But even making drug dealers out to be villains misses the point that prohibition creates black markets. No matter how many drug dealers or rhino poachers you arrest, someone will always take their place as long as there's demand that can't be facilitated in a legal way.
Captain planet should have talked about the tragedy of the commons, gave the logging villain a piece of land and said it can be profitable for as long as you want it to be.
@@Knightmessenger mr whote selling a crumbe of cocke is such gud persone!!!!!!!!
@@AlFredo-sx2yy can't be that bad if such a fine and upstanding citizen like Hunter Biden would be a loyal customer.
“he was blue and came on after power rangers”
Madi isn't America basically the planet?
Jacob Teer damn right it is up top ✋
I don't disagree with the analysis. I am worried there is a bit of over-analysis of a children's show from a different chronological and socio-political context. I get the analysis as metaphor, but in terms of literal application, I think the show was better in terms of environmental activism than most if not all of its peers. I'd like to see how a revamp with nuance would look though. Next project Hank?
Totally agree
I totally disagree with the analysis. The show wasn't saying that all these industries are bad and people are pig men, but showing that there are some people who in public seem like they are doing their part to help society and create jobs, while knowingly and slowly poisoning people like the people in Flint, Michigan. The oil spill on The Gulf of Mexico and so many other examples. That's why the Planeteers and Captain Planet existed, because there are some people in the world who don't believe in climate change and will spread misinformation about vaccines, drugs, healthcare etc. I personally wish I had Mauti's heart power to touch the lawmakers in D.C. and some America people.
Did Lindsay Ellis ghost-write this?
I do love Lindsey Ellis!
That's a compliment.
Nothing makes SJW's happy.
yemo34: why do you people have to ruin every comment thread on every positive video with your silly anti-"SJW" obsession, get over it already!
ENOUGH!!!
I really liked the episode where the villains worked together, got rings of there own and created Captain Pollution
Sure it was silly, but it was fun
Wasn't silly watching it as a child.
Captain Pollution was awesome, best nemesis
I still don't understand how they managed to do that. At least the planeteer's rings were made by the cosmic entity Gaia using magic. How did the polluters have access to that kind of magic?
@@El3ctr0Lun4I know Dr Blight created them, but I can’t recall how. Then again, she and Gaia switched bodies once, so maybe she retained some mystic knowledge.
The villains never planted new trees that were cutdown, and Captain Planet also fought against poachers which can never be justified. The show even taught us about how wars and gangs in one episode are always bad for ourselves and others. There was an episode about AIDS, and drugs was the darkest episode. Captain Planet tackled a number of serious issues.
The points you raise here are why I actually kind of like the Lorax movie. A lot of people balked at showing the Onceler, but having him start out as an idealistic young guy making his way in the world, as many of us are, and then becoming a monster by outside pressures and his own growing greed was a lot more realistic than the kind of villains on Captain Planet and a good relatable cautionary tale.
I think the moral would be much better in Lorax though if it weren't the fault of the family. Just the Onceler's increasing greed, which he would frame as "chasing Dreams". There is actually a deleted song from the soundtrack called "biggering" (it got replaced by "how bad can i be") which would IMO delivery the message better (and is also total banger)
@@a.w.4708 "You see, greed has a little worm inside.
One that always wants to feed and is never satisfied.
But the more you try to find it, the more it tries to hide.
That's a nasty little worm. I like to call it, 'Pride'."
The point of making the Villains so Caricatured was to make them so absurd as to not make actually attack real workers.
I assume you're talking about the original, right? Because in the remake the Onceler is literally just Zac Effron.
I'm entering my senior year as an environmental science major and planning on heading to law school in a year for environmental law. I think Hank brings up such an important point here, regardless of whether you use Captain Planet to explain it or not. I really hope that I can help the environment through compromise while maintaining a respectful relationship with whomever I end up working with. The planet needs major help, and it'll take working together to accomplish anything. This is also true of any other discussion, whether it be political or not. We are all just people trying to make it.
I enjoyed the show when I was a kid. I never took the cartoon villains as literal people, so I never thought of companies as stupid and ignorant people. I just thought of it as symbolic with lessons to teach us. But the one person I liked the most was Wheeler, because he was like a real person who knows we need to protect the planet but has things to learn.
As an Albertan, your video does an excellent job describing the current rift between BC and the rest of Canada regarding the KM pipeline and resource extraction in general. Well done.
We should trust our children. Kids are way smarter than people give them credit; if we try to explain tough concepts to them, they'll get it. Of course it won't be like talking to an adult, but they are much more capable of meaningful discussion than adults often give them credit.
My niece was able to understand how Supply&Demand work, what Inflation is and how it happens (hint: it's the State's fault) and how to cook her own food... by age 9.
Kids are very good learners if you have the patience, skill and proper material to work with them.
@@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf Yup. Kids aren't dumb. Just uninformed and inexperienced. Another area where this is very obvious is music. Kids that are exposed to complex music at a young age, think classical and jazz, tend to be better at music when they're older because their ears have been trained to take in complicated musical ideas... but most adults make the mistake of raising their children with nothing but overly simple "baby music," which hinders their "musical literacy" as they age. Rick Beato has great videos on this.
I love Captain Planet. This was one of my favorite shows when I was younger (so thankful Boomerang ran it so I can see it even though it’s such and old show). Maybe the show is a proto echo chamber that vilified people who pollute with very little nuance but I believe it did more good then harm. “Looting and polluting is not the way”- Captain Planet
I disagree with the notion that we should avoid making children's cartoons about politics because they're "not the place to go for political nuance". I think that is really a symptom of how little we tend to value these shows, most people view cartoons as a waste of time to get their kids to quietly sit for a while instead of what they really are: stories dispersed to millions of people that have a massive impact on how they will view the world in their older years. There are certainly many examples of compelling and responsible political messages imbued in cartoons, but they are always in shows that are clearly made by people who particularly value the medium and think carefully about portraying their message well. The problem with captain planet wasn't that it had villains, it's that the creators just tried to use the same formula of a weekly, objectively evil villain that cartoons were entrenched in at the time, instead of putting any effort into making nuanced characters so their message would be told effectively and respectfully. Hell, for a recent example, look at the lorax movie, and how Dr Seuss's carefully nuanced story was turned into "the man who hates the environment is evil so lets get rid of him" because Illumination didn't care about the message as much as cashing in on the profitable branding. If we stop treating these shows as being so disposable and ensure that the people who are making them care enough to really think about what messages they're espousing, we'll have far more healthy and beneficial political/social commentary from our cartoons.
PS I also think this change is, fortunately, already happening, there are a number of recent cartoons that have been happy to lean a bit political from people who appear to actually care about how their message is portrayed, and I hope that trend continues and develops well. Though, you did say "children's television" and not "children's cartoons", i don't know how much those live action sitcoms on disney and nick are really following on this trend.
I think it's good for shows to teach kids things and have an actual message, instead of just being "villain of the week" stuff or the same simple friendship and kindness message recycled a hundred times. We _really_ underestimate how much childhood shows, toys, and books help shape a kid's identity later on; yes, the creators should work to create accuracy and nuance, but they shouldn't be barred from telling stories about the real world that's effecting the kids watching at home.
+
Someone had a reply they appear to have deleted (or it isnt showing up on my phone) that seems to be saying (from the small preview i can see) that politics shouldn't be in childrens shows because of how easily influenced children are. I do understand the fear here, we dont want to brainwash children into specific beliefs, however I dont think this would be doing that. Firstly, i want to clarify that im not advocating for *strictly* political shows, such as the very blatant and uninspired captain planet. Im saying they need to be good shows first, and the commentary within it should only be used to bring authentic benefit to the story. When you have shows like this, they do less to mandate what impressionable viewers think and more to pose questions and answers that the audience gets to critique and evaluate for themselves. In general, this is why i value art so much, and i think kids would benefit if we used media directed at them to help them learn to parse more complex messages in the future.
Tbh the lorax (original version, not the 3d movie) is the best example of what im saying. I remember reacting to the book exactly the way im talking about as a kid, trying to wrestle with the impossibility of labelling the rich guy whose name i forget as a good guy or a bad guy and challenging my conception of environmental issues in a beneficial way.
100% agree. The problem with Captain Planet isn't that it is political, it's that it was lazy formulaic writing.
Very well said. That's what immediately came into my head when he said that. I was going down to the comments to see if anyone else shared my view, and I'm glad to see someone else point it out and describe it so well.
They all look like older Magic School Bus kids.
Lela Hamilfan I smell a fan theory
I always loved that the captain planet reaction to "how to deal with the political situation in Northern Ireland?"
Was blatantly just "NUKE BELFAST!"
Or how Cap was weak against Hitler glaring at him.
@@bitwize "hate is kinda like pollution"
@@bitwize It's still funny Hitler did absolutely fucking nothing and defeated Captain Planet
@@realdragon You might want to be careful and not use the phrase "Hitler did nothing" on the internet...
@@bitcoinweasel9274
"Hitler did nothing-"
Me: "Wrong." ☝️😌
Excellent take. Wild Kratts, which is a fun show that casts animal traits as superpowers, suffers from this problem, but to a much lesser extent.
I don't think that there wasn't any nuance on Captain Planet because it was a kid's show. I think it was because it was how we did (and in a lot of cases still do) activism. This manichean way of thinking about the environment and social and economic issues is something we still struggle with now.
It's not just a matter of having to simplify the message for the kids to get it. It's also the way the message is shown to grown ups.
When I watched the show as a kid, I actually liked it by the way. I always saw the villains as rich tycoons. Who took resources for there own ends and profits. Not as though they are the workers or small business owners trying to make ends meet. Honestly these multi-national big tycoon business have a lot of responsibility to harming the environment just to satisfy their own and their shareholders profits.
But of course it's exaggerated if it weren't it would not be a kid friendly show because reality is actually darker and more complexed then captain planet.
hence why a captain planet film would never work if they tried to adapt it on the big screen.
This! Captain Planet helped make me a socialist!
Shockingly, sometimes it is not exaggerated. Mondelez International (formerly Kraft Foods) has been known to use child slaves to farm illegally on protected forests in the Ivory Coast.
You're still missing the point. All those big companies and their shareholders only do what they do because they're satisfying a demand that we, the consumers, create and in doing so they have provided a living for those who work in those industries.
We all bear a measure of responsibility. Those companies aren't destroying the environment for the fun of it. They're destroying the environment because we've all decided that it is a cost worth paying as long as we can heat our homes and fuel our cars.
@@lordrorek1907 Gross
"This greedy, rat looking guy poisoning the waters played by Jeff Goldblum"
*Why? Why would they do that? Why would they not not do that? Why would Jeff Goldblum agree to letting them do that?*
To be fair...he only did it for the first season. I think he probably saw the episodes he was in and was like, "Oh...well...that...I should stop that."
To me,the real villain in these cartoons was the greed, which caused the antagonist to act subhuman. Kids wouldn't get this and are just trying to develop their moral compasses, so the message needed to be simplified by making the physical attributes of the antagonists match the deformity of the actions. As you mentioned in the video, there are almost never portrayals of people conducting these activities responsibly. And if there were, they would not have been deformed, because their greed had not deformed their actions. The message behind the cartoon was one of personal responsibility, taking action, and fighting greed. That's a message I can agree with even today after watching this video.
I love this. As an older millennial Captain Planet for sure shaped my political beliefs. As a teen I got into green anarchism and remained into until my mid to late 20s (not just because I watched Captain Planet but you know...it didn't help lol). I naturally refined my belief system but I recently got a job in the public sector. I got a lot of flack locally from the younger millennial anarchist "scene" where I am at and was even called a "poser" for working for "the system" yet I probably do more with this job for the underprivileged and the growing amount of pollution in our community due to the housing crisis then I could in any other capacity given the fact that I too am underprivileged in that sense. The truth is Gen X/Xennial anarchy was really rooted in environmentalism and the radical animal rights scene of the late 80s, early 90s. I moved away from veganism out of a health concern and after an eating disorder. There is more mainstream acceptance of climate change. And there is more of a commercialization of green living and sort of elitism that started appearing in it. It's really not a subculture any more, its more a mainstream lifestyle. I really moved away from anarchism because the definition of it changed, as it does with every generation. To each generation, the anarchist will look different. To be honest a lot of my personal political beliefs haven't really changed, but wearing it as an aesthetic stopped, you can't really look at me and see where I land politically anymore. And also the people that identify as anarchist in this area are...kind of bullies...they kind of name call, tease, social ostracize people based on how radical they perceive them when that wasn't really how my generation did anarchy. Not that we did it better (there was A LOT of ecoterrorism in the late 80s and 90s), just different. It's now like Mean Girls anarchy, you can't sit with us because on Wednesday we wear black and red lol. I just got passive aggressively shamed online for not writing to my legislators this year...I did have a very intimate conversation with a person close to a state senator and I did have a conversation with a person involved in budgeting at a legislative level though and I know both things resulted in actual change at that level, but I keep it private so I guess it didn't happen lol. But a lot of what you are saying is applicable to the activist world as a whole.
I think this is a great and fair analysis.
Not entirely sure kids' shows *need* villains, but their presence sure makes story telling a lot easier at least.
Kram1032 I think Hank was speaking from the perspective of that show writer, not his personal inclination that kids' shows need villains.
Oh, yeah, I know. It's difficult to keep kids engaged without a clear good/evil dynamic.
I think Steven Universe is a great example of a show that can do that though. Even if people seem "evil" at first, as the show progresses, you get deeper insight in each and every one of them. Everybody is very humanized. Including the literal space invaders.
But it's thus far the only show I personally know, that pulls this off for that age bracket.
It would be more fun if he was an anti-hero like punisher killing the oligarchs and corrupt politicians that are perpetuating the destruction of the planet
I think anti-heroes are an even harder sell for kids' shows. They are supposed to deliver some moral to those kids, right?
But yeah, for adult and teen shows, totally.
Kram1032 well of course. Then dont make it a kids show lol. It would much more interesting to see a badass concept of the conciousness of the planet being inserted into human form taking back the earth as an anti-hero :P
Well it doesn't help that people in Government today act like actual Captain Planet Villains. Like, trying to gut the Endangered Species Act as a sacrifice to Big Oil is extremely evil...
Yup. Pretty hard to argue for nuance when the opposition is litterally trying to burn down the forest
TheFluttershyFan +
While it's true that the current administration is almost cartoonishly evil, I'd say that even their actions have more nuance than Captain Planet portray. They're not trying to destroy the environment for the heck of it, they're doing it because their campaigns are funded by oil companies, and they need that funding to get elected. The problem isn't really the individuals; the problem is the system that motivates their actions and allowed them to come into power.
Some of the ideologues in government may behave cartoonishly, but the concern here is about the people in industry.
Captain Planet's villains weren't politicians who deregulated pollution, they were bad-faith depictions of the polluters themselves.
Part of Hank's point here is that the cultural vilification of necessary industries creates a rift-- and that rift makes it possible for industry lobbyists and small-government ideologues to successfully vilify environmentalists, too.
SyphonLife: the clean energy vampire at it again i see! Well I bet this will rain on your Evil parade: "water"💦 gooooo Planet! (Remember kids when you buy a Captain Planet Action figure to recycle the packaging. Don't forget the three R's Recycle, Reduce and Reuse) 😉🌐
the worst kind of villains are villains who know they are villains and say they are evil
ok true
so 85% corect
I mean, immediately I'm thinking Heath Ledger as Joker and my response is a resounding no..
blarblablarblar the joker never saw himself as evil, he saw himself as an agent of chaos. He thought the world needed chaos so pretty sure he thinks he is more on the neutral/good side as he gave the world wat it needed
thank u
Not always. Bowser from Mario and Dr. Eggman never presume to be anything but the villain in their stories. Sometimes a simple antagonist with simple, clearly telegraphed ambitions is all that is needed.
However, as the narrative gets more complex, you do tend to want more depth to your characters. Personally, I like Captain Planet. It clearly doesn't have any depth to its antagonists, but this is what I grew up with and it is the only show I know of that was explicitly about environmentalism.
If that’s the message you got as a kid watching Captain Planet, you weren’t a very bright kid. The fact you think the villains were working class makes it seem like you’re not very bright as an adult either. The villains who bought buildings, machinery, traveled the world, drove limos, trucks, tractors, demolition machinery, bought land, owned monster trucks, boats and planes… Just an average, everyday working class person, right. 🙄
As odd at it seems Disney’s Tarzan handled this actually really well. The people that would harm the harm the environment either just don’t care (but they show that in other way like not caring about the safety of their workers) or just misguided/desperate.
I grew up with Fern Gully on vhs and my dad worked as a manager for a mining company. My dad told me they cut down trees to dog the mine but they replant them at the end of the mines lifecycle. I really thought of the villains in that movie as my dad for a long time like he’s killing the environment for money but also he spends that money feeding me and providing for me. It was a lot to think about for a kid
Oh, I remember that show. I don't think most kids read that much into it though. I definitely didn't.
Matt Roszak I did.
It's not really about how much you read into it though, the messages it imparts at least made some subconscious impact on your brain. We should strive to teach children not to break complicated issues into black and white, good vs. evil, because that thinking gets so ingrained and is very difficult to shake. We can't keep reinforcing to children that people are either with them or against them, and that those who are against them are purely evil who like being mean for fun, or worse, that they're not even human at all.
This is not a process of "reading into" something. I'm reading into it, yes, but our understanding of the world is shaped by the stories we hear. Maybe we know this, maybe we don't...but I think the creators of captain planet believed they were winning over the hearts and minds of children. Otherwise the show would have just been generic good vs generic evil. And I think, in many ways, they succeeded.
Hahaha this and Nicks The Big Help always made me want to help out the environment, but I didn't really know what to do at that age, which was discerning because The Big Help always had these kids on doing amazing things, but looking back you know they had parental guidance to some degree.
Matt Roszak I loved the show growing up and certainly didn't. However, socialization has little to do with what we are actively reading from a story. You don't have to know how something works for it to work on you (like when a doctor administer's medicine). Good or bad, intentional or otherwise the stories we tell have impact. And even though I wouldn't take back any of 7 year old me's Saturday rerun bingeing, I think what Hank says has some substance to it. The mindsets necessary to resolve large problems won't come from a worldviews based on dichotmic narratives.
I used to unironically love watching Captain Planet every morning. Your points on nuance will stick with me for a long time as I try to work together with people with whom I disagree. But I don't agree with you on saying that shows on kids' networks can't effectively discuss political matters! The Legend of Korra (along with its prequel Avatar: The Last Airbender) is a dark and complex story written for both kids and adults, but it covers several clashes of ideology, and different solutions which sometimes make their problems worse.
The heroes and villains alike are simply humans with good intentions but unbalanced ideas and often a lack of empathy. Ultimately, problems only get solved once people have driven themselves to ruin exhausting every other option, until they finally have to recognize each other as human.
Maybe Captain Planet would have been more successful if it taught us that we can't solve problems by blasting away monolithically evil monsters... or the idea that doing too much laundry is what's causing pollution.
Unirony wasn't invented back then!
One of the reasons the show had to portray the villains as, well, villains, is that there was a very cut and dry broadcasting standard back then that basically said villains in a kids' show have to be evil and you can't sympathise with them. The show could definitely have been more... nuanced, and have shown some representation of ways to get materials we need more sustainably, but the lack of nuance in the villain was a product of the time it was made.
However, while it's true that the villains overly simplify things, it's also true that plenty of real life companies bend the law, cut corners, and legislate for the ability to do so, cover up problems, hire people to bend truth and lie on their behalf, all for the sake of their profits, so... yeah.
I actually agree with most of what this guy says. The villains were over the top. We need a Captain Planet reboot. Better opening, better animation, not too cartoony, present day issues, and better messages.
I grew up watching Captain Planet too, the message I got was not that those who extract resources are evil. Rather that if exploitation runs rampant, that projection would be the worst case scenario. So it taught me to be aware and become interested in green tech, and to applaud those who manage to fuel our world without causing global destruction. Shrug..
Exactly.
The critics who say the show wasn't nuanced are missing the many MANY episodes that actually humanize the logger, fisherman, hunter, etc by showing that most of them are just people trying to make a living. The show portrayed these common people not as malicious, but often shortsighted, apathetic, and indifferent when they were "bad". The villains were caricatures yes. But they were accurate as metaphors for specific problems of destructive human behavior.
Looten Plunder-Profit obsessed business and industry that is apathetic of the damage they cause. They would take more shortcuts than they already do if they could legally get away with it. Only thing stopping them is paying fines and jail time, and even then fines aren't a deterrent.
Hoggish Greedly-Over consumption, excess, inefficiency. He is the embodiment of reckless consumerism.
Doctor Blight-These are the scientists and researchers that wish they didn't have to be held to any moral or legal constraints in the pursuit of knowledge.
Verminous Skumm-He represents our carelessness with poisons, toxins, diseases. He is very much a super villain but his weapons are mostly the chemicals, diseases, and pollutants that we have in abundance. He showcases how our negligence with the use of common items can end up easily harming us.
Sly Sludge-He's like the guy who deals with the aftermath of Hoggish's hyper consumerism. He represents our laziness and apathy to properly dispose of waste. In many episodes, he is in fact the garbageman that people pay to get rid of their trash and don't care how he does it.
Zarm-He represents the very parts of our human nature that are naturally destructive. Our greed, hatred, fear, pride, indifference. He relishes in seeing humans killing each other over resources. He believes that humans should live by survival of the fittest.
Duke Nukem- He's another super villain that doesn't represent any particular part of humanity. Like Skumm he showcases the potentially very dangerous properties of modern technology. He showcases the need for regulation of things like nuclear energy.
Agreed. It made me more mindful of what I did everyday like turning off the faucet when brushing teeth and all. Def never though any of the things he mentioned. I think he over thought the show through an adult perspective.
Bingo. I made a separate comment talking about lumber and paper. On the show all they do is cut them down but they don't replace, that's why they are villains.
@@darwinxavier3516 I figured that Duke Nukem represented the same corner-cutting energy mismanagement and relaxed regulations on nuclear energy that brought us the Chernobyl Disaster. But your explanation works too.
(...though I wish that Duke Nukem could have represented the mismanagement of *_all_* forms of energy-harvesting. How many flooding disasters have come about because of poor management among hydroelectric plants?)
Earth! Fire! Wind, Water, Heart! Go Planet!!
I loved that show growing up, I never thought about everything you just said, not once, the show was fun, taught me how to care for the environment and it was one of the few shows that had diversity on it (as a child, I didn’t know that word yet, but I loved that the protagonists were people from all around the world). I think it worked well in the 90s as a kids show, not adults and maybe today it wouldn’t work for neither because times change.
I disagree.
Captain planet showed that a better world can be achieved by cooperating with each other and the environment.
The technology is there, the will of the people often is not.
When i was looking at the show as a kid, i saw them as evil because they were intentionally polluting and destroying the planet. Seeing oil riggers, lumberjacks, and garbage mean being evil in general was not a thought that even somewhat crossed my mind
Although I never watched Captain Planet, I understand why people hate the show. Growing up, I always heard about people poaching and cutting down forests, and thought they were monsters. Yet, when I started secondary school, I flicked through my geography textbook, and saw a bit on rainforests, where there was a testimony from a logger about feeding his family, and logging being good enough work. That changed my view on the issue: these people just wanted to get by, not be bad for the sake of it.
That's what I thought too, that those who cut down forests are monsters for destroying the environment and ruining the Earth along with Humanity's future. Now though, I get that the loggers and other working class people do it to survive so I want to see them given an alternative line of work or aided in some other way so they don't have to cut down forests anymore. I also want to see an alternative means to get resources we need to survive so we don't have to cut down trees anymore or at least insure that new trees emerge and the forests are replenished.
To the show's credit, it didn't ALWAYS show strawmen. In fact, the garbage collector (his name was Sly Sludge, and as the Nostalgia Critic pointed out, no one in their right mind would do business with someone who had a name like that), was actually reformed in a later episode when the Planeteers showed him he could make money in the recycling business. There were a number of other cases when innocent people had been conned by the rogues gallery into supporting various destructive things (mass hunting of sharks, for example) and genuinely had their minds changed by the Planeteers at the end of the episode.
That said, I do agree with you about the dehumanization aspect. The basic concept behind the villains was to have each one portray a particular environmental problem. Sly Sludge represented irresponsible disposal of waste (he once dumped so much toxic material into the ocean it caused the creation of a giant squid that attacked a city. I am not making this up). Meg Ryan's scientist character, Dr. Blight, represented unethical science. The rat played by Jeff Goldblum, Verminous Skumm, represented the problems of urban decay and disease (he once infamously caused the Russian Planeteer Linka to get hooked on drugs). But real life environmental problems aren't caused by malevolent people, they just kind of develop on their own without malice aforethought. Hunters weren't consciously TRYING to cause passenger pigeons to go extinct, after all. And portraying them as simplistic and easily solved gives a false sense of what it takes to actually solve our problems. We know that greenhouse gases are causing climate change, but actually changing this without radically altering our lifestyles (anyone want to go back to traveling by horse and buggy?) is a tough nut. So even though I love this show and have seen every episode, its black-white thinking is more suited for Chick tracts than a serious discussion of our problems.
Yes but it was a kids show. If we make the bad guys realistic then we have to make it all realistic and that would change the story. And they did point out stuff people can do to help. I don't remember sly sludge reforming due to getting into recycling and realizing that he can make more money.
Sludge's reform and last appearance was in the episode "No Small Problem". It was fairly late in the series--at the end of Season 5--so it was easy to miss.
I was born in the middle 80s and I think the series helped me to identify myself with being someone who helps saving the environment. I knew at that time, that there where villains to the environment all around us. I could see it from garbage which lay around in the woods or in the streets. The series got me a reason to talk about that with my friends.
I agree with you: this show is the reason I want to protect the environment- I see litter everywhere and it makes me FURIOUS to see!
Especially, if there is a bin not five feet from these people!!
It's unfortunate how, yes, a lot of people still sadly have that 'humans bad' mindset about almost everything humans do even though some of those aren't evil and are also very much needed.
And those same people now hold Positions of Power. Push Environmentist policies that ban controlled burning of Forest to Control forest fires and now we have out of control forest fires destroying communities.
Heck, when a rewilding Policy in Germany reintroduced wolves leading to Farmers loosing livestock. The one who pushed that policy told those farmers to shut it
Some people are evil. It's an uncomfortable thought but its true. It wasn't too long ago when a load of politicians and businessmen wanted schools and work back to normal despite the ongoing lethal pandemic. At best, you could call them selfish, but in reality? The politician wanted to score points with his base and doesn't care that children die, while the businessman wanted to fill his pockets and doesn't care about all the human costs.
Captain Planet was only half-wrong with their portrayal of villains, missing the mark on a few individuals/professions rather than personalities/cruelty, and that is the saddest fact one can observe from Captain Planet.
Also, it's not a good show.
Humans are bad, but that's how I like it.
Just because most of them have empathy, that doesn't mean every one of them has the ability to extend them beyond their immediate surroundings and instant gratification. Few people can or are willing to see the big picture and/or delve further into the specifics of the matter. Perhaps the problem then is not necessarily evil but ignorance - but then what would you call willful ignorance?
Some good habits this show instilled in me:
turn off the faucet while I brush my teeth or wash my hands.
Don't litter and cut the plastic wrings from six pack drinks. I don't drink soda....but I will cut them if I see friends and family throwing them away.
I may not have saved the planet, but I am sure I am not the kid that learned good habits from the show and carried them into adulthood.
I also laugh at how they show offshore oil drilling. I used to work in the offshore rigs and they have cameras watching everything under water. There is no oil seeping from the well into the ocean (so long as all is going to plan.)
Thanks for thinking about this so deeply. We need people like you who can examine the nuance and then present their findings. Very much like a scientist or any academic
"...owns a non-zero amount of private jets."
Great writing!
I watched this a little as a kid, and I think most kids will have learned that cartoon villains are overdone and inaccurate long before this kind of thing will affect their lives. The show just says, "Hey! Don't be a meanie! Hurting the environment makes you a big bad meanie! So remember the three R's, kids!" While this is something that teaches bad politics, I don't think kids really pick up on politics from a corny cartoon. Anyway, the rest of the cartoon world taught that villains are bad regardless, so seeing a redeemable villain would just make kids not like the show.
I disagree strongly. I think a huge problem with modern politics is that people tend to think of the opposition as a "meanie". We're taught at a really young age that we can solve problems just by fighting the bad guys, and that manifests itself in our discourse.
notnormalyet Yes true but I don't think that this teaches kids there is a bad person to fight, rather, a bad practice. The villains themselves never got that much screen time, and when the kids called on captain planet, defeating the person never did much to save the environment, it was just an obstacle in the way of stopping the irresponsible logging or whatever other thing the episode was on. No child that I know would think the story was over until the environment was safe, and I always remembered not to hurt the environment. TL; DR, kids don't remember the details, just the core message.
But the core message is that bad guys are destroying the environment. There are a lot of people who dehumanize logging companies or farmers when talking about environmentalism. Look at PETA or Greenpeace. I wouldn't dismiss shows like Captain Planet as not having a role in that belief.
notnormalyet What I think you're missing here I that this is a kid's show, not a Netflix original sci-fi drama. The age cancels out something I've found is that all the kids shows me and those I know remember are only remembered in about 3 words. For the wiggles, it's "Music is cool". For lazytown it's "go play outside." For teletubbies it's "wtf", and for captain planet, it's "don't hurt nature". The complexity of which real world person is good and bad is lost by the time it would have mattered. While sure, if viewed form an adult, interrogative perspective, the show has these flaws, it's not an adult show, and therefore, only the bluntest and simplest thing stick. I mean, seriously, how many individual moment or plot lines of spongebob do you remember from places other than memes after 10 years?
Jacob Braniger But we know that even if kids don't think too hard about the media they consume, they still internalize the message. Think of the doll test. Just because you don't think about it consciously doesn't mean it doesn't influence children (and later adults) subconsciously.
I really appreciate this insight.
Being both an environmentalist & an independent conservative, it's really refreshing seeing someone bring up the fact that the majority of these people aren't evil monsters - just people living in the world we all share.
This is why I think Princess Mononoke was such a fantastic film. Neither side are the villains. The people of Iron Town are mostly outcasts who are just trying to make a life and defend themselves, but who are harming the forest around them. Meanwhile the spirits of nature admirably want to protect the forest, but are also violent and uncaring (which is how nature often is). Ashitaka is of course the one who needs to find the balance so man and nature can live harmoniously.
Why I disagree: at some point a conscious decision to support and encourage behavior that directly or indirectly harms the environment of earth becomes this sort of evil.
If you burn down your own home to keep yourself warm its weird and probably not the best route, but it atleast only effects you. Do that to your neighbours home, you're already in both illegal and potentially evil territory. Do that to 7 billion people, even with a small level of involvement is a massive moral responsibility that should be taken seriously and isnt.
Captain Planet may have portrayed the villains as the bad guys but its the regular people the show says "the power is yours" to that are the bad guys because its their indifference and selfishness that allows for "burning down our home". The point of the planeteers was to send a message of if we people of this world work together we can save our home from indifference and selfishness which were represented in those villains the planeteers were to combat.
Personally i think thats a great message and is delivered well.
Its not about good vs evil, its about selfish indifference vs survival and to some degree active efforts towards a 'common good'.
Agreed.
Where are you living where a home fire only impacts you?
Exactly. The needs of 'one' outweigh the needs of 'many'. Corporate greed, and lust for power are very real indeed.
You accessed this on a computer. A device manufactured in a factory, made of heavy metals, and powered by fossil fuels. Are you evil?
@@HyperIonMake Yes, it is evil in the sense we now know better, yet still choose to support it, knowing well the consequences. However, you are forced to participate as there is no other alternative at this time, and as you cannot compete in this system/artificial way of life otherwise. (well you can, but severely put yourself at a disadvantage, its like running a marathon, and people using tech aka cars to finish the race... ).
We wouldn't of had the vast knowledge we now have otherwise of the world around us and to make well informed, better decisions by such tools. It is a necessary evil which is helpful to mankind.
The question is what is the threshold we will allow this type of detrimental behaviour to continue to meet the needs of people, and go a more eco-friendly way like perhaps recycling?
"When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money."
The problem isn't having the phone, but the greed which has no end, and the stupid decisions we make to continue supporting it. Electronics are know to be Designed to fail..... They end up in land fill instead of being recycled. Even if recycled, its not properly done. Instead of giving humanity products/tools which would outlast many generations, instead you get "low end" specs/ trash designs which need to be updated every few years, ie you wont get the "space ship" which can travel the stars for "free", instead pay your way from bicycle, to car, to plane, rocket, to some sort of hybrid, then electric versions of them etc.... Its all deliberate.
I never watched Captain Planet, but that show still has a special place in my heart because Gi (the water girl) was voiced by Janice Kawaye, who also played my favorite cartoon character, Jenny Wakeman/XJ9 from My Life as a Teenage Robot.
I feel like we often forget that our “enemies” are still just people.
No thy arent
@@Testingthisname yes they are
@@madmonty4761 no they're demons
@@Testingthisname no demons are demons people are people
@@madmonty4761 yeah and our enemies aren't people they're demons
Honestly why is this hard for you
Countepoint: _Some_ people in potentially exploitative industries are attempting to work out of need and to sustain a livelihood.
I would even say _most_ arguably are.
But it's not a children's fantasy that there are absolutely people who are making a conscious decision to be involved in exploitative practices (even legally illicit ones) fully aware of the consequences and with alternatives for making a living available.
(Though it's probably less in, say, the logging or shipping industries and more in areas like poaching. Though even in the former, there are people with socioeconomic clout who will take legal or social action to protect knowingly exploitative practices because they genuinely want to put their business ahead of the environment.
We don't have the power or the right to read motives but this simply does exist though the show probably could have dealt with that more proportionally than having the "villains" almost always be the problem.)
Also, an appraisal that the show doesn't deal with reconciliation or cooperation glosses over the *non-villain* characters that the Planeteers often encounter and have dialogues with.
Honestly I want to see this show come back, but with a more diverse cast of villains. Some pure evil, Some more sympathetic and nuanced. Puss in boots 2 was able to do it right so it’s possible.
Or expand on the villains already in place.
The garbage man eventually turned on a new left, so to speak. So did the deforestation guy who switched from "strip the land bare and move on somewhere else" to "cut part of a forest, replant young trees, then move on somewhere else".
I get *some* of this... but the setting of political policy is still a contest for resources, and that does mean prioritizing the billions of non-super-rich non-polluting people over the just dozens of non-personal mega-polluting corporations (run by humans whose grotesqueness I don't care about and I wish a 90s kids cartoon wouldn't either, but oh well). A rift between these parties is not just useful, it's critical, or else we'll trick ourselves into thinking we can compromise/innovate/free-marketize our way out of a structural sociological problem -- which is how the problem feels and then becomes intractable.
(I get that Hank was talking mostly about sanitation workers and petroleum workers rather than robber barons. I include them in the "billions" group.)
It's interesting to look at Captain Planet along side the other shows that were running around the same time or after like The Magic School Bus, Doug, The Rugrats, Hey Arnold, Animals of Farthing Wood. For me, Captain Planet began and ended with what could happen to the environment if people didn't step in. It felt like that's the only thing it wanted to teach me. Anything I picked up about life and people I got from these other shows.
I disagree with Hank and John on almost everything, but it is episodes like this that keep me a member of Nerdfighteria. Tackling and acknowledging problems with nuance and respect is a rare thing and going out of your way to call out that the other side of any given issue has value is comendable and something we can all aspire to do more regularly.
When I saw the question, my immediate answer was, "Because Captain Planet actually does something, takes responsibility and does not blame others for actions they have not taken"
It's not just this, and it is a lot of this that makes me look more critically at this show. It's also the emphasis on individual behavior to fight the issues they bring up. We now know that the pollution we're seeing is 99% because of industrial waste, not our plastic straws. Or overproduction of clothing, not individual buyer behavior. It reminds me of how Climate Town did an episode of the astroturfing done by O&G to convince people it was their fault and their personal decisions could halt climate change.
There's also the issue that the people who work in extractive industries are actually also living in sacrifice zones and the industry they work in might be the only opportunity in their area to provide a decent standard of living to their families. So they take the jobs despite knowing that the industry itself harms the community it is providing opportunities for, out of a lack of options.
The Captain Planet series smacks of propaganda, in hindsight.
most of the villains are stereotypes
Pretty much they were this ultra personified image of what the story was trying to convey. The garbage guy was just a guy who symbolised humans making more garbage, I never really saw them as needing to be a single evil character, but more of a symbol that is what's in all of us, but I was a really thoughtful kid so I feel like I was probably one of the few thinking about it too much, which probably explains all my panic attacks.
one of the few cartoons where I ended up rooting for the bad guys lol.
That's how I saw Captain Planet's Eco-Villains: Sweeping generalizations of certain cross-sections of society. Doctor Blight? Scientists without ethics. Looten Plunder? Corporations who put profitability first and environmental responsibility a distant second. Duke Nukem (no, not _that other_ Duke Nukem)? The same corner-cutting energy mismanagement that brought us the Chernobyl Disaster. Hoggish Greedly? Reckless industrialization. And so on.
(But for the life of me, I can't explain Verminous Skumm. He represents...what? Mutant animals? Disease-spreading rats? Animals on drugs? What? Same goes for Zarm; what does _he_ represent? Evil ecosystems? Evil gods? o_O )
Sure, the Eco-Villains were gross oversimplifications of real world problems, I agree. But the show was 30 minutes an episode. Shoehorning mega-corporations like Shell into 30 minutes (minus commercial breaks) would have been a serious feat of storytelling!
On the one hand your observation about the dehumanizing/deformity/low class bad guy thing is spot on and I certainly never thought of that, but on the other hand your close just made it sound like "oh well, we were just innocently drilling for oil," which kind of gives major corporations a huge pass for what they've done which is commit huge crimes. I'm sure that was't the intention. But there are actual people and companies who wipe out species or are hugely responsible for climate change who know the damage they are doing but care a lot more about their personal wealth and corporate profits. They sell out the future of the planet for stock. That's actually evil and these people are real. I would say you could remake this series now with the board of Exxon Mobile as villains but explaining stocks as a motive would be hard to do with kids.
But they're not evil. They're products of their society. They were told their entire lives that they should do whatever it takes to support their families or gain influence and their actions are a consequence of that. Obviously that doesn't excuse it, but replacing an evil poor person with an evil rich person isn't going to make the show better. It still has the same problem: dehumanizing the enemy and turning a complicated topic into a "good guys vs. bad guys" narrative. A narrative you yourself have bought into. Punching the rich people in the face isn't going to solve the fundamental problem facing environmentalism: the championing of wealth as success.
I agree that wealth=success is a part of the problem and has a lot to do with all of our societies problems. But people who already have more money than they could ever spend are knowingly destroying the planet for more money. Sorry, but that's evil. I think seeing the nuance in the universe is very healthy. Even essential to understanding. But sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. We are all products of our environments but, as you said, that isn't an excuse. If a person does all that wrong and then chooses to continue then I don't think they should in any way be pardoned. I don't think it's as simple as good guy vs. bad guy (though childrens shows can't really do complicated) but there still are bad guys. They're a huge portion of the problem. it can't be denied.
Dorvid They might be doing wrong, but they don't think they are. Humans will justify quite a bit for comfort. You could probably give a huge portion of your money to charity and live a life of humble poverty, but you're not going to, and there are people who would call YOU evil for that. "Evil" is a subjective construct. They aren't evil, just wrong. I want to actually solve the problem and you can't do that by just punishing people based off of your own personal beliefs. You have to teach people they are wrong in order to change society, name calling and dehumanizing doesn't do that. It just makes them hold on to their beliefs tighter because they are being attacked.
Children shows can be complicated. Steven Universe is entirely about redeeming the bad guys. Avatar doesn't end in the evil king being killed. Don't sell kids short.
Sorry I meant to say they don't do it well. The shows, not the kids. The kids can probably handle it.
But anyway about your main point, you've lost me now. I completely disagree. Moral relativism used that way can excuse or justify anything. And by this way of thinking, criminals shouldn't be punished. I want change above all but I think it's still reasonable and helpful to call for justice. And I also realize most wrongdoing isn't evil. Real evil is pretty rare. But it exists and I can't think of many better examples than this one. And the other examples I can think of involve people who think they were right and being reasonable. You don't have to think you're doing evil to do evil.
And I realize you weren't really trying to make declarative statements about me, you were just making an example. But I actually do give money to environmental charity every year, I don't make a ton of money and I don't live beyond my means. So I'm not the best example. I still understand your point but I do feel most people don't do enough.
Dorvid Criminals shouldn't be punished, but rehabilitated. Places with harsh sentences and bad prison conditions have significantly higher recidivism rates than places that focus on rehabilitation. The same concept needs to be applied here. Fining a billionaire or taking away his money may solve the problem in the short term, but in order to make real change you have to fundamentally alter society or else someone just takes their place. And you can't make real change by encouraging division.
CAPTAIN PLANET! HE'S OUR HERO! GONNA BRING POLLUTION BACK TO ZERO!
OnTheWall TheHouseplant. Yes, although bringing pollution down to zero is impossible we might be able to get close. I know that's the theme song but I wanted to react to it.
HE'S OUR POWERS MAGNIFIED AND HE'S FIGHTING ON THE PLANET'S SIDE!
we're the planeteers and you can be one too!
@@EyeHeartThePanda saving our planet is the thing to do!
🙌
Speaking as a person who leans right, I found this video politically responsible and conversationally sustainable.
All this taught me is that you cannot summon a hippie superhero with a mullet from the ground using special rings.
My favorite episode is when Captain Planet goes to Belfast and tries to stop the Troubles. Yes that episode exists
Brendan Murphy they also solved apartheid and Israel-Palestine in the same episode.
WHAT
This show covered AIDS too. It was more comprehensive than people give it credit for.
My favorite line from that episode was when a gang of Protestants were going to attack Wheeler saying he was a catholic, and wheeler says “I’m not catholic I’m American”. We have a reached a new level of writing here people.
"lukin fer yer cat-olic buddy sean are ye!"
I wasn't aware that Captain Planet was bad, I thought it was pretty good as a childrens show trying to sell toys as ya did back in the early 90s.
It is good. This content is crap, and designed to muddy the waters about something that's very easily understandable.
Just because the author of this video isn't aware how the actions of a few powerful businesspeople/politicians can affect millions, doesn't mean that Captain Planet is actually intending you to think that the garbage dude on your street is actually an evil dude.
Its not bad, there is always one idiot who need to twist things to suit his own narrative and they always do it passively like this
I think Captain Planet is due for a comeback.
A more nuanced approach to environmental protection with superhero action seems like something perfect for now.
I mean, the President is basically pig-man Hoggish Greedly.... That makes sense as a starting plot.
Joshua Pelfrey it's kind of perfect since they can take amazing examples of a villain from a person who's already existing.
This is what we call overthinking something by assuming the villains are a portrayal of all workers in those fields, as opposed to the corrupt few.
The thing that made me laugh the most about this show was the drug episode.
The cousin of one of the kids with the rings moves in the neighborhood, but feels a bit bummed you know? Leaving your friends and old life behind, can make you feel a bit lonely.
So what does he do?
He walks around and once he meets him immediately goes for the yellow glowing pills bough from a mutant ratman.
Teens amarite?
I like this reading so much, because there really is an issue with choosing to demonize people in an attempt to bolster one's own political goals. I see this so often in daily discourse now, where a person will nonchalantly dehumanize someone they politically disagree with, and if you try to encourage compassion for those people, you're accused of having their beliefs.
I'm not even sure it's *possible* to have perfectly clear, straightforward beliefs about anything, especially as one's knowledge of a topic expands, so to be so certain of a perspective that outright vilifying other people is acceptable seems just a little extreme...
B Things But B2B only exists because there is a consumer at the bottom of the chain. Your argument implies that MLM schemes done actually have a flaw.
freekzero My comment didn't say anything about business models...
"...many coded to be lower class for some reason?" For example...? I can only think of Rigger who is a sidekick. Looten Plunder is coded as upper class... Hoggish Greedly is based off Southern Oil Tycoons. MAL and Doctor Blight are in no way lower class. Verminous Skumm is literally the king of the rat people...
The garbage man villain, Sly Sludge, is constantly trying to dump trash into nature rather than landfills - that's why he's bad. And no, he's not lower class, he runs a garbage collections operation as a scheme to dump trash and make cash.
Do you even remember the show or are you just parroting the ideas of other people?
I didn't like the show as a kid but not for those reasons. The environmental messages always seemed too forced and the heros were forgettable. The one thing I liked was the wide cast of villains that each represented a different form of environmental harm. It was good that they weren't too complex and had obvious deformities because they needed to each represent a bad attitude toward the planet.
What the show needed was more nuance in the protagonists, give them more internal struggles to stop their polluting ways... and to a small degree they did this, but it was always in some bland "Oh, character X is holding a bad attitude that no one else agrees with! All their loving friends educate them but it's not until they fight the villain of the week that they understand why their attitude was wrong, but that's okay, their friends forgive them!" :/ Even as a kid I could see how fake that shit was.
I remember this show, and I remember vividly the episode about drugs, and it scared me so much and it scared me out of drugs.
Right! It also had a lot of good commentary about AIDs
Yeah, but counterpoint: It was a cartoon from the 90s.
As an environemental scientist, I think this cartoon is ... fine, taken light heartedly.
It sent a good message, and since then those people (us) obviously learnt the complexities of the situation.
Thank you! I loved this show as a kid but the exaggerations scared me to death. I was so afraid of the earth ending because of pollution because they made it seem like "any day now". Even as a kid the villains never made sense to me. When I looked back at the show I had all of the same criticisms as you. Probably more.
As a child I loved this cartoon, and really influenced in some aspects in my life, this show make me concious about the planet and i became an enviromentalist since
Why do adults assume that kids can't tell the difference between fiction and reality? These were the bad guys on a cartoon. We didn't even connect them with real life, any more than we thought there was a real Shredder out there.
This is the TV causes violence idea all over again.
Spot on! I almost LOL'd when the guy basically said "adults can't work with the polluters of today because they watched Capt Planet and think he's just a deformed pig man or something."
Because half the time, even the adults can't?
But... can I still be a Planeteer?
You sure can! The power is yours!
Honestly even as a child I never thought of the villains as working class. I always thought they were obscenely greedy business people willing to destroy the environment for money.
Usually there were more realistic parallels to the villains. Often the planeteers would talk to local people who were polluting or wasting water or electricity and help them solve a problem. Eventually, the villain would be defeated because the community changed their behavior.
When it comes to superheroes and supervillains, even as a little kid, I understood that these things didn’t exist in real life. There was no polluting monster destroying our world. These villains are representations of exaggerated evil and greed that can cause pollution. Maybe I didn’t understand it in those words, but I definitely knew that blue superheroes didn’t exist and that there weren’t evil pig people deliberately spilling oil into the oceans, but there are definitely environmental disasters that are caused by greed and cutting corners.
Sure, you want to have a good working relationship with people in the industries you want to improve, but if you’re less willing to save the planet because of a cheesy children’s cartoon from early 90s… I dunno. I don’t have much sympathy.
But but but “CAPTAIN PLANET HE’S A HERO!”.... i actually like this show
Maybe but as long as there are some people out there who care about cleaning up the planet. Watching captain planet made me a better person learning from my parents about protection against pollution made me a better person and nothing anyone can say change a single thing about. Long live planet earth!
And on top of that Captain planet does not suck!
I so agree it also created a generation of environmentalists that didn't understand that just wanting to help and having good intentions were just the first step not the last. That without industry input many times more damage was done just removing the "Evil Humans" and blowing up their stuff was never ever ever the answer. Life is not simple.
Tell that to James Cameron and the AVATAR Audiences.
Why was Captain Planet cancelled? Simple. As an adult now who loved Capt. Planet, the message was clear. It means think of all the stuff you do just to live the high life. How long before the world suffers from people who don't think of the long-term damage they do to the environment?
I’ve recently been thinking about how dehumanizing the other side has caused rifts in society. This video gave me a new way of looking at one of the most beloved shows of my generation, and how it may have affected the way I think about some of these corporations. I always learn something new from your videos, thank you for making this!