Hello lords and ladies.
Welcome back to Cartoon Hangout, your place for all things cartoon.
A few days ago Netflix released a trailer for another of their reboots of classic cartoons,
this time of Carmen Sandiego.
It’s actually a decent trailer.
It gives us just enough of what the show is about to get a good idea what it’ll be like.
You have Carmen Sandiego, the titular protagonist, training and kicking butt throughout.
Her goals are briefly brought up in the line about her only stealing from thieves.
I’m also slightly digging the art style for the show.
It’s very cartoony (yes I know a cartoon looking like a cartoon, ha ha) and sorta reminds
me of the style of Tangled the Series.
Which is a good thing.
My only complaint, and it’s minor because I don’t know how the rest of the show will
be, is the animation itself.
It looks a little stiff in certain shots and I don’t know if it’s because of the limits
of the particular style they went with or some other reason.
What’s odd is that it makes some movements looks, again, stiff, but then there’s some
action moments in the trailer that look really good.
So is it just a case of a hiccup here and there or what?
However, the fan response is somewhat divided, though the official trailer has 30k likes
and only 1.5k dislikes so far, so it’s more the comments spread across the web.
Some are psyched and, like me, like the art.
Others are peeved that Carmen has gone from a villain with a code to essentially a hero
or anti-hero to be precise.
This is evidenced by the line asking ‘what if Carmen Sandiego was a thief that only steals
from thieves,’ making her out more to be a Robin Hood-type than a thief.
It seems that people besides myself are beginning to tire of Hollywood continually taking villainous
female characters and making them into heroes (or anti-heroes).
Harley Quinn is a popular example, going from a crazy murderer to fighting on the side of
angels (for the most part).
followed by Poison Ivy, with even her brutal killing of some characters in a Batman storyline
a few years ago being retconned away as the Riddler blaming her for it.
And I’ll jump in and say, yeah, it ticks me off, too.
I do think villains need more depth than just ‘muhaha I am evil!’ but it doesn’t need
to go so far as to make them good guys.
While I never really grew up on Carmen Sandiego, it takes only a little bit of searching to
learn that in most media portrayals she is a bad guy.
Yes, she’s often depicted as only stealing for the challenge of it, but in other games
she plans to steal things that could result in the death of millions.
And though ‘stealing from thieves’ isn’t that huge a stretch for the character, it
does continue a stupid trend of female villains never being allowed to really BE villains
and instead they need to also be anti-heroes or just…heroes.
Cause I guess no woman is ever evil, right?
Nope.
Just those dirty ol’ men.
Alright, rant over.
Personally I don’t have a huge emotional attachment to the franchise.
I didn’t grow up with the games, or I have no memory of playing any of them, and I certainly
didn’t catch the TV series thanks to a huge block of my childhood being without cable.
But I do have strong opinions on the trend I just ranted about and I’d love to return
to a time where women could be just as evil and bad as their male counterparts.
Maybe one day.
I don’t know if this show will be good or bad, cause it’s not out so obviously I can’t
determine that (I say only so people will realize I’m commenting on the TRAILER itself
and not the show), but I can see why some would be upset about the direction the show
seems to be taking.
It’s also possible she’ll go full villain before the show is over, but do you really
believe that?
Eh, not me.
Anyway, that’s all from me.
Share your thoughts on the trailer for Netflix’s Carmen Sandiego and I’ll see you in a few
more days for more Cartoon Hangout content.
Thanks for watching, buy the merch, and take care.