Cartoons (Part 1)

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Exo Squad really made me appreciate modern cartoons so much

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Aparently it only takes one accidental click to delete a post. Here’s what I posted originally:

You might have seen my Exosquad night advertised! Here are some things in the first three episodes of ExoSquad:

  • racial slurs used by the good guys
  • labor revolts painted as bad by the good guys
  • racist cop refusing to shake the hand of an oppressed species. The cop is a good guy.
  • good guys shut out a reporter.
  • good guy soldiers cover for the actions of one of their own that kills a work crew.
  • bad guys talk about liberation requiring direct action
  • a good guy tells someone that the underclass just can feel emotions the way we do
    *pirates are suppressed who are later revealed to be pirates because it’s the only way to survive, since they were cut off from society after THEY had a labor revolt
    *the military and war are held up as right and good. As long as it isn’t a war for social justice, that’s bad

This has put the show’s cult popularity into a different, much more depressing, light.

I know later episodes allegedly improve on this awfulness, but the first three episodes are the most rightwing children’s show I’ve ever seen.

I’m posting here partially to work out exactly when the show started turning itself around, or if it ever actually did?

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All I remember of that show is that one of the main cast dies, and his suit contains his brain scanned into it somehow.

But yeah, not surprised the show is right-wing af.

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that explains why the toys were so expensive: they weren’t intended for working class kids!

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Exo Squad’s thing was all that shit was bad and is why all the new bad shit is happening though. Especially when Phaeton ends up being Hitler.

The problem is, there’s not even the slightest hint of this in the first three episodes of the show. I’m considering watching more of it to see exactly when it turns around, but it’s tough to motivate myself after the first three episodes.

And there’s the icky subtext of Hitlers coming from oppressed classes instead of Hitlers coming from the elite. That’s still a problem, even if the show improves in other places. : /

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I mean I’m not saying it’s going to have a big turnaround or that you should keep on with it, but we’re talking about a 25 year old syndicated cartoon that boils down basically to “Racism is bad, now watch these cool robots blow each other up (and buy the toys)”. The fact that it had a message at all (handled well or not), an ongoing plot, and yes, cool robots blowing each other up with cool toys to match, is why it holds it’s cult status more than anything.

Also think it’s a matter of perception, when I rewatched it for the first time since the 90s I thought it was even more on the nose with this stuff than I recall, even from the outset.

The first 3 episodes at no point suggest that racism is bad, they make a point of being even worse than bioshock infinite with the both-sides-ism and the casual vilification of labour movements and minority rights.

Like maybe it says that racism is bad later but to start with it makes pretty clear its position that while slavery may have been bad, the fight for freedom was worse because some white people died. Its pretty much the most reactionary cartoon I have ever seen.

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Yeah, the two episodes I stuck around for were hardcore fascist in every respect. There was no hint whatsoever that the show disapproved of any of the racism, militarism, toxic masculinity, or anti-labor rhetoric depicted. You sit a kid down in front of this and the kid’s gonna think it’s all great. If you need the kid to watch every episode in order to eventually get to a point where the show vaguely intimates that some of this stuff is kind of wrong (which I’m frankly skeptical it ever actually does), then the kid is gonna come out of it with way more of a negative influence than positive.

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think big mouth might be decent but the visual style is so repulsive that i cannot look at it long enough to tell

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At the end of the first season they straight up say that the show is ugly because people get horny for cartoons and it’s about kids jerking off which… Maybe that’s the right choice? It’s good but gosh is it ugly :woman_shrugging:t2:

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as if that ever stopped anyone sufficiently horny

I think there’s a responsibility to try, bov

There’s a nobility in it, even

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I haven’t seen the show but I know I’ve seen enough to know that people are horny for Maya Rudolph’s monster

Yeah, I’ve seen a few clips and I think “this isn’t half bad. Feels like the good parts of american dad.” but man does it take alot to get past the art style.

is there any good-looking western animation that’s not in like, steven universe? like all adult-oriented cartoons are kind of repulsive right? BoJack a little less so maybe

I guess there’s some nice things to look at in what Adult Swim threw money at; Venture Bros. has always looked nice, Boondocks was lovely to the touch, Superjail was aesthetically ugly,

uh,

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are you trying to say that Xavier isn’t a beautiful achievement in Poser

I’m saying it meets my standards for truth, for beauty