We grew up with a series where Black Jesus, a perpetually horny twink, a trans slug, a bucket of goo with identity crisis, a rehabilitated rebel/terrorist, and an Irishman reconciled cultural differences to restore a planet following a decades-long occupation. And it was awesome.
Rehabilitated? Her resistance movement won the war and they just promoted her. She was not a rehabilitated rebel/terrorist, she was a successful and proud rebel/terrorist.
The only sad thing about Captain Planet was that it taught me that if you point out the wrong-doings of the rich and powerful, there will be correct action taken by the authorities to right the wrongs and to punish those responsible. The truth is much sadder imho.
It reminds me of that joke that a corporation is an ingenious tool for personal profit without personal responsibility.
It may be radical, but I strongly believe that the people running corporations (aka those making decisions) should be personally held accountable for crimes and wrongdoings of their corporations. It goes against the very idea of a corporations, but absolutely horrible people have been exploiting hiding behind corporations. I bet that if those people had to face the prospect of serious prison time, some actual personal responsibility, they would think twice before committing crimes. (edit for spelling mistakes)
People talk a lot about the ethnic stereotyping of the original Power Rangers, what with the Black Ranger being black (and of course majorly into hip-hop), the Yellow Ranger being Asian and versed in several Asian stereotypes, and the leader being the straight white male (who then gets displaced as leader by another straight white male).
What we don't talk about is how, to spite all of that, it was still a huge step forward for the time to make it such a diverse cast. It was progress, warts and all.
The original idea was to make the Red Ranger Native American which...wow. But still... it'd also have been note worthy for the time too to put a Native American character in this line up, let alone as the leader.
Honorable mention to Billy who, to spite the character not being gay, the actor was (and got harassed for it). I know he's said he never made Billy gay, but I can't help but think there's a reason I identified with Billy as a kid, and not just because he was the nerd.
On behalf of the council of native Americans, the clear monolith that we are, Jason David Frank was already introduced into the list of Honorary Native Americans the moment he tried to beat the fuck out of Goldar without being able to morph. Even if he was made suddenly native despite not being one IRL.
Good luck finding an actual native decorated martial arts actor back in that day. We take every baby step we can get.
While it wasn't as flashy as the others, long range communication, and the ability to mess with someone's head are not to be underestimated. It was fairly useless on its own, but a powerful force multiplier on the others.
Yes. The Heart Ring is the most devastating of the rings of Environmental Power.
By controlling the hearts of its victims it’s able to induce the most horrific feeling known to man: meaninglessness.
While all of his opponents seemed to wither only slightly in battle, over 90% of them eventually committed suicide, as they saw the world move on without them, and found only so much solace in drugs and cheap sex.
There was an episode that showed an alternate timeline where Wheeler refused the fire ring, so the planeteers were never able to summon Captain Planet and couldn't defeat the villains, so they ultimately went their separate ways but kept the rings.
Ma-ti is shown using the heart ring to essentially mug people, altering their minds to force them to give him money.
The 90's were such a weird time for representation. All the higher ups in media were still old white people, but some of them were well meaning and did think it was important to insert people of different ethnicitys and cultures into their programming. Problem was that none of the people of the culture being depicted were involved in the writing, so these characters were often offensive stereotypes. Apu from the Simpsons and Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager are two of the most egregious examples. This all paved the way for actual progressive inclusion in media, but man has a lot of it aged poorly.
The problem with Apu stems deeper then just the character itself though. He embodies a mix of negative and positive stereotypes, but the biggest problem is the fact that he is written more or less exclusively by white men, and voiced by a white man doing an impression of an Indian accent. I think the character could have been pulled off fine if there had been someone of Indian decent offering creative input and voicing the character.
Takes one look at this thread's title and puts on... ♪Captain Planet, he's a hero! Going to take pollution, down to zero! We're the planeteers, you can be one too! Because saying the planet is the thing to do! Looting and polluting is not the way! Here is what Captain Planet has to say! The Power is yours!♪
I'm 50 and I have no idea who captain planet is. When and where was that a thing? Did you need to have cable? Because like 5% of my friends had cable. I've still never paid for it.
Nobody I knew ever watched that show, it was Ted Turner's pet project he threw money into. It's a shame to have it included in the cartoons of that time.
It didn't reflect anything socially except egotistical social engineering experimentation by a megalomaniac.