So, I just watched the reboot of “Money Warriors from Planet Capitalism,” my favorite cartoon when I was a child, and I have to say that I think it’s totally unfair of them to twist the meaning of the original I.P. in order to cram their ideology down our throats.
In the old “Money Warriors from Planet Capitalism” (or “Arise, Ye Prisoners of Starvation,” as it was originally released in the U.S.S.R.), the Money Warriors are just normal, scary bad guys who want as much money as possible, and the Underpeople are just normal, brave mole-humans who band together to fight back so that everyone can have some money. At no point did that show pause the action to get up on a soapbox and be all didactic for the sake of scoring some easy points with the woke left.
Fast-forward to 2021, when I show this abominable reboot to my daughter, so that we can bond over something on my terms, and she turns to me and says, “The Underpeople are just like that worker at Target you spat on for asking you to wear a mask.” What’s next, an episode on critical race theory?
Don’t even get me started on the total Mary Sue at the center of it all. Yes, in the version of the show I loved as a kid, Leeda, the resourceful mole-lady, was the leader of the Underpeople in their fight against the Money Warriors, but she obviously wasn’t based on an actual female politician. (Were there even any?) Now I watch the reboot and I’m, like, Um, A.O.C. vibes? Great.
Oh, and how they butchered my favorite character, KARLMARX 2000, the wise little robot who inspires the Underpeople in their fight against the Money Warriors. It’s not enough for him to be a wise little robot who scoots around on rocket boosters. No, all of a sudden he has to be some kind of allegory.
I feel like I’m going insane. I’m a thousand-per-cent sure that “Robocop” isn’t about the privatization of law enforcement; that “Alien” doesn’t explore how human beings can be violently exploited by a corporate machine in pursuit of profit; and that “Money Warriors from Planet Capitalism” isn’t at all implying that we viewers are currently living on Planet Capitalism. If we’re living on Planet Capitalism, then where are the God Emperors who’ve hatched a plan to escape in rockets once the planet becomes uninhabitable. Hello?!
Why does everything need to be political, anyway? Why can’t “Money Warriors” be like my new favorite show, “Slum Executioner,” about a rugged but noble ex-cop who makes sure that nobody who needs to steal to survive steals anything from his two-million-dollar home in Evanston, Illinois? The good people at Showtime haven’t made that show inherently political, and if they have then at least it’s in a way that reflects my personal politics.
Here’s what you’ve forced me to do. I’m going to make a Twitter hashtag, #RejectCapitalism, to prove to everyone how serious I am about cancelling this needlessly political TV show. I’m going to start a petition to get the reboot re-rebooted, because collective action is the only way to get anything done around here. And I’m going to cancel my subscription to this streaming service, which is owned by a massive corporation. Take that, snowflakes! It’s just like KARLMARX 2000 said: “Let the ruling classes tremble at our revolution, for we have nothing to lose but our chains. Bleep, bloop.”
