Eco-Tainment #3: Captain Planet and the Planeteers

I know I'm going to suffer the wrath of the Internet for saying this, but . . . most 1990s cartoons weren't all that good. There, I said it.
But what about Rugrats, you ask? Barely watchable.
Rocket Power? A shameless product of its time.
Doug? Unfunny and boring.
The first seasons of Pokémon? Just as cheesy then as it is now.
But while those shows all had some redeeming value--and I don't actively hate them-- there is one show that embodies the nadir of ridiculous trends in 90s cartoons. And that show is Captain Planet. Groan-inducing puns, one-dimensional characters, and heavy-handed morals, this show had it all.
Captain Planet was a children's TV series commissioned in 1990 by TV mogul Ted Turner, which aired on Turner's TBS network and later on Cartoon Network and Kids' WB as well. The show told of the adventures of five teenagers from different parts of the world--the Planeteers-- who possessed magic rings gifted to them by the Earth goddess Gaia. These rings, as well as giving them superpowers of their own, allowed them to summon Earth's defender, Captain Planet.
So, with such an interesting premise, how does the series hold up? Unfortunately, not very well. For starters, none of the characters are very three-dimensional. The villains have names like "Looten Plunder" and "Dr. Blight", and seemingly exist solely to pollute the Earth. In other words series chooses to frame environmentalism as a fantasy battle of good and evil, glossing over the complexities these problems actually represent.
One final character worth mentioning is Wheeler, the Planeteer from the United States. In contrast to his teammates, he was characterized as a cynical complainer who was only vaguely interested in environmental matters, and often caused problems as much as he solved them. There is little subtlety here--Wheeler is meant to represent the stereotypical view of environmentalism by Americans. This is made ironic both by the fact that Ted Turner, the show's creator, is himself American, and by the fact that another one of the Planeteers is from Russia, a country with an even worse environmental record than the United States!
 I suppose, then, that the problem with Captain Planet is not the concept but the execution. If it had taken time to explain to its viewers that pollution is not caused by supervillains with no goal other than to be evil, but by ordinary people like themselves, it could have been a fascinating "edu-tainment" series. If it had dropped the education pretense altogether and simply focused on the superhero aspect, it would have been enjoyable as well.  A lot of ifs could have made Captain Planet more enjoyable, but unfortunately it comes off as a huge wasted opportunity.

        Captain Planet is an entertaining TV show, but as an introduction to environmental concepts it is unfortunately lacking in real-world context.

Eco-Tainment #2: WALL-E

Pixar is perhaps the closest American equivalent of Hiyao Miyazaki's works. There are some obvious differences--for example, Pixar's movies are computer-animated rather than hand drawn, and none have a rating higher than PG--but both studios share their devotion to the artistic, story-driven side of animation. And, as it happens, both have produced films with nuanced, well-thought-out environmental morals.
In WALL-E, a polluted and lifeless Earth has been abandoned by humanity.Among the various relics of civilization that the title character, a solitary garbage-collecting robot, discovers is an old shoe with a plant growing in it--possibly the only one left in the world. This attracts the attention of EVE, a robotic sampling spacecraft sent to determine if Earth has become habitable for humans again. WALL-E is thus brought aboard the gigantic starship Axiom, which contains the remaining population of humans.
Aboard the Axiom, humans have grown obese from centuries of being pampered by the ship's robot crew. They have forgotten that Earth exists, and have no interest in returning. When the Axiom's intelligent autopilot (shades of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey) learns about the plant, he refuses to have the ship returned to Earth, and it is up to WALL-E and EVE to stop him.
The environmental messages in WALL-E are underlying rather than stated outright--indeed, the director of the film has stated that is was not even his original intent to write an environmental story, but he was surprised that so many people read an environmental message into it anyway. That said, it is hard to watch the captain of the Axiom marvel at the bygone wonders of Earth and not think that the writers had these themes in mind.
The Earth in WALL-E is in a dreadfully poor state. Besides the plant that kicks off the film's plot, the only living organism we see on Earth is a single cockroach, which WALL-E befriends early on in the movie. The implication, of course, is that all other animals and plants have died from humanity's mistreatment of the world.
Intentional or not, WALL-E is a welcome addition to the environmental film genre. Its animation is breathtaking, and the message is applied in such a way that it carries the story rather than overwhelming it--which is more than I can say for my next entry. . .

The title protagonist of WALL-E, a film that manages to convey its environmental message without being heavy-handed or overly proselytizing.