6/19/01
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It was raining cats and dogs on Saturday, so I went to the video store with the intention of renting three movies to pass the time. Not too much later, I left the video place, not only having rented three movies, but also having purchased "She-Ra Princess of Power: Gateway to Trouble" (that's an episode of the She-Ra cartoon, not the full-length movie, for any of you who care). My excuses were that A) it reminded me of some of the shining moments of my childhood when I still dreamed of owning a horse that could magically grow wings and B) it was only $3. Now that I've watched it, though, I feel even more justified in buying it because I finally have something on which to base my favorite rant about the state of cartoons these days. Not that I don't think Pokemon are cute. As far as sheer cuteness goes, I'd probably rank them above the Smurfs. However, when I watched the show and the movie, I felt that something was seriously lacking, and now I know what it is. Violence. People can say what they like about cartoon violence and it's detrimental effects on society, but it seems that to make me happy, a show has to have some sort of violent content. Why is it that I feel happier about cartoons that feature laser guns and people (or robots or bizarre magical creatures) getting their asses kicked than I do about cartoons featuring a kid chasing cute creatures around the globe? I've thought long and hard about this, and I think the She-Ra video finally gave me the answer I've been looking for.
The basic plot of this episode of the cartoon is that a minion of Skeletor, the bad guy on He-Man's planet of Eternia, has just invented a machine that can open portals to other planets. Using this ground-breaking technology, Skeletor plans to invade She-Ra's planet of Etheria, with some master scheme that will manage to somehow rid him of He-Man and his entire family, and also piss off Hordak, Etheria's resident bad guy. Unfortunately, the minion decides that Hordak would pay him better for his invention and so goes through an open portal to Etheria, with Skeletor chasing him. Hordak is happy to receive the machine and immediately plans an attack on Eternia so he can take over Skeletor's domain. Luckily, Adam (He-Man) is visiting his sister, She-Ra, and between the two of them they manage to defeat both villains and spoil their plans, and all within the allotted 25 minutes.
When comparing this cartoon to more modern varieties (I'm going to use Pokemon because it annoys me more than anything else I can think of right now), one thing jumps out at me, and that is: conflict. This seems to be the key difference between She-Ra/He-man and Pokemon. In the She-Ra cartoon, there is a strong sense of necessary conflict. Hordak and Skeletor are both trying their best to take over Etheria and Eternia, enslaving She-Ra, He-Man, and their families and friends. She-Ra has already been under the evil sway of Hordak once (see, "The Secret of the Sword") and has no intention of ending up there again, and He-Man of course has no intention of letting a skull-faced, whiny-voiced guy in a cape run his country into the ground. So, the motivation for the conflict is very high. Villains like Hordak and Skeletor aren't the kind of people you negotiate with. As you may guess from what is at stake - the fate of two free worlds - the tension runs high in the 25 minutes of the cartoon. The viewers are drawn into immediate sympathy with Adam and his sister, and therefor want nothing more than to see Hordak and Skeletor get their butts kicked, and the cartoon delivers just that. In the course of the cartoon, robots with blasters attempt to fry He-Man and She-Ra, Skeletor and Hordak fire lasers at each other and drop various pieces of architecture on each other's heads, and of course they both try to take out She-Ra and He-Man, who defend themselves with their famous laser-deflecting swords. Oh, and near the beginning, Hordak drops one of his evil minions through a trap door in the floor, just to make a point. Yes, there is lots of violence. But (and this is very important) no one gets hurt. Yes, that's right. The lasers and blasters only stun. Even the little guy Hordak drops through the floor climbs out a minute later, his only torment, it appears, being that he is covered in pink slime. Actually, the worst damage that occurs to anything in the show is to the portal machine. She-Ra and He-Man are clearly not out to kill, maim, or even damage the bad guys very much. All they want to do is deter them from their evil schemes. In fact, after Hordak has been routed, He-Man and She-Ra call some sort of a truce with Skeletor, and the three of them engage in some light banter before the end of the episode. Oh, and then before they let you go, the cartoon directors send on a little guy dressed in rainbow socks to point out the moral of the story (an element of the cartoon that I had forgotten). I believe the moral in this story was about greed. Don't be greedy for other worlds, or else you'll end up like Hordak's invasion fleet, who crashed on a swampy planet when the portal malfunctioned, and at last sight were being jumped on by round pink aliens with absurdly long arms and legs.
Now, to compare this epic with what I can recall of Pokemon cartoons. They involve a kid who wants to collect all of the Pokemon in the world so that he can be the best Pokemon trainer in the world. He collects these Pokemon by using the ones he already has to fight and subdue the ones he wants (this reminds me of Roman games like bear-baiting and more modern blood sports like cockfighting). Oh, and he has to get them before his rival trainer wannabe's get to them. The advantages to this cartoon are that it gives the animators wide scope for creating pretty spots of the world and really nifty creatures. Visually, it's not too bad. However, watching two ridiculously cute creatures zap each other with lightning from their butts or beat them with their wings or whatever, I find less than stimulating. Why are these two nice creatures fighting? Just so one more Pokemon can be shut up inside a Pokeball to satisfy the power trip of one lousy kid? Granted, the writers insist that the creatures like being in the Pokeballs, but I'm not about to buy that unless they stop fighting the process of being put in there. So, overall, the cartoon appears to be about oppressing innocent creatures for the selfish motives of power and domination. The Pokemon are too mindless to sympathize with (not to mention too annoying - whoever came up with the idea of a creature that could only say "pika" should be shot), and the kid is too selfish, not to mention apparently having the most trouble-free life ever. As far as I can remember, he is never seriously threatened by anything. This is a black mark in my book. How can you get interested in something with so little at stake?
It was suggested to me that the insipid nature of Pokemon is symptomatic of the apathy of today's kids. Not that it is necessarily their fault. What else have we given them? We are a Star Wars generation, and He-Man and She-Ra show that in everything from the story line to the design of Hordak's troops. They aren't realistic, but they still instilled in many of us the anti-empire, pro-rebellion mindset that may in some of us translate into real life. What do these kids have? Even the modern cartoons that show purposeful conflict, like The Powerpuff Girls (which is my favorite modern cartoon), water it down. The villains in The Powerpuff Girls are often clownish, and while the morals are good, the sharper edge of villainy is missing. This is ostensibly to protect kids from evil influences, but it seems that we are giving kids less and less credit for perceiving the differences between good and evil. Not that we make it easy, with new and more realistic techniques of animation, but isn't cartoon violence - real, bloodless cartoon violence - that shows people standing up against the attacks of evil better than a kid collecting endless (living) possessions? Quite frankly, the violence disturbs me less. Greed, as the little guy in the rainbow socks pointed out, only leads you through a gate of trouble. And then you end up in a nuclear arms race . . . or in a swamp being jumped on by pink aliens.
~chloe
