Regarding The Powerpuff Girls Reboot
One of my first and foremost loves is of animation and cartoons. I watched Saturday Morning Cartoons on every channel as a kid. I can name some obscure shit even people my age have never seen, like Denver: The Last Dinosaur. So when the “What A Cartoon” block premiered on the then-young Cartoon Network, I was intrigued by this new wave of cartoons like Dexter’s Laboratory, Cow & Chicken, and The Powerpuff Girls. The duo of Genndy Tartakovsky and Craig McCracken dominated cartoons for almost a decade before folding to what I call The Dark Years of Adult Swim and nonsensical flash animation shows that seemed to focus more on “stoner humor” and things for ADD children then anything good.
The Powerpuff Girls was a show that charmed me in the same way I enjoyed Ren & Stimpy, Rocko’s Modern Life, and a lot of Nickelodeon’s programming when they were the kings of animation in the late 90’s. These were shows that were produced for a female audience, but were written and executed in a way that people of all ages could enjoy. I was always afraid to tell people back then that I enjoyed PPG, because I feared they’d think I was some kind of sissyboy. I know this sounds silly in today’s social justice world, but I lived in a more conservative part of the country, and appearances were important to me where now I give zero fucks and you can say whatever you want about me, Blossom is the motherfucking shit and you bitches ain’t got nothing on her.
So naturally when I watched the short clip from the planned reboot this morning, it generated mixed feelings for me. I am not too broken up about the replacement of voice talent, because it happens, and I think that it suits a reboot, but my major concerns are the animation style and the plot and characterization. Each girl has a specific character, Blossom is the smart, scientific, but self-conscious. Bubbles is vibrant and whimsical, but naive and insecure. Buttercup is headstrong and tough, but also insecure. These characterizations are what is tested in every episode, such as “Bubblevicious” where Bubbles sets the training simulator to eleven to prove she is not a baby, or Blossom’s new freezing ability in “Ice Sore” that earns her the ire of her sisters, and Buttercup in “Buttercrush” showing her affection for a “bad boy” until he double-crosses her. So really, the idea of a lumberjack-man teasing Buttercup for being a “princess” and getting clobbered isn’t really new territory for a show that has always been about pushing boundaries. We coo and caw over Steven Universe, but you had female superheroes, an intelligent women who pretty much ran the city due to the Mayor being complete shit, an intelligent but misunderstood evil genius monkey, a trans-sexual Satan, a bumfuck yokel pink bear, green kids, several smart female saboteurs, you name it, it was done. But no one character or story ever played itself up, and it was always humble about suggesting that these things were always there and you always knew, and you didn’t care. As for the animation, as long as they retained most of the original style, I was fine. They had a CGI shot a year or two ago that I NOPE’D right the fuck out. I don’t need another soft-face bug-eye cartoon apart from the girls themselves, who were always exaggerated compared to the rest of the townsfolk.
Ultimately, in the end, the Polygons, the Mary Sues, all of the usual outlets are going to act as if the last eighteen years have been a wash and this show is TOTES REVOLUTIONARY, they’ll gamedrop, and suggest the writers are totally trying to stick it to the patriarchy, or whatever. I just want the show to recapture some of the magic of cartoons from yesteryear, when we were not concerned with shoving everything in your face, where subtlety and finesse instead made the point for you without you realizing it. I won’t hold my breath though, because subtlety and finesse is something lost in today’s media, everything has to be spelled out and in-your-face because we’ve apparently forgotten how to enjoy entertainment. Entertainment is serious business.
