I decided to write my second think piece on a media artifact that I have long wanted to re-examine from a critical adult perspective. G.I. Joe started as a doll in the sixties and slowly grew to encompass a media empire of comics, figures, and television shows. What interests me is what these characters represent, and what values they instill into the young, impressionable minds that are tuning into to after school cartoons. When I was watching these shows during the mid eighties, the characters seemed natural, but as I’ve grown, I’ve been able to read into the stereotypes and archtypes that are embedded into the basic plot of G.I. Joe. These symbols and impressions left large footprints on my psyche when I was young, and by re-examining them now, I hope to be able to read into the creators intentions as opposed to just absorbing them. Did they create these characters to entertain, or to reinforce patriotic stereotypes into the minds of young males across the country?
In 1982, I was five years old. That was the year that G.I. Joe made it’s debut as a comic book. Within a couple years, the comic had a few mini-series on national television, and by 1985, when I was eight, G.I. Joe was beginning it’s daily run of cartoons. The television cartoons lasted in their original form until 1988 when the series went off the air with a horrible theatrical release. The show comes back in various incarnations, but it was the first series, from 1985-88 that had a significant impact on my life. I am lucky enough to own a videocassette of the second hour and a half long miniseries that was released in 1984, so I am basing my character analysis upon the group of characters in this early version. Most of the characters remained for the entirety of the series, but since this is one of the first televised, there is quite a bit of character development which will help me in finding examples.
Before I dive into the characters, some of the basic plot points should probably be explained. G.I. Joe is a group similar, I would imagine, to a special forces unit. Their main purpose is to stop C.O.B.R.A., “ a ruthless terrorist organization determined to control the world!” according to the shows opening theme. Besides representing the basic elements of good and evil, this show takes things a step further by representing good and evil as America and Terrorists. While this certainly seems applicable post 9/11, in the climate of opinion of the Regan eighties the representation was seen as more America versus communism. This cold war mentality was constantly reinforced by the show’s writers and animators who claimed that even you neighbor could be an agent, and almost every agent of C.O.B.R.A. was wearing a mask, symbolically suggested the faceless masses of fascism. While there were other shows in the action cartoon genre that had similar cold war symbolism ( Transformers, Go-Bots,Superman, and Captian America to name a few) none of them had human characters, and I think that part of the appeal of the show was that regular humans, not superheros or robots, were able to consistently defeat their enemy using only God given strength and a fantastic arsenal of futuristic weapons.
As this was a popular franchise, there were many characters made and added, so I will just focus on a few. To begin with we will look at the good guys, G.I. Joe, and examine some of the characteristics and stereotypes that they represent.
Duke is the leader of the G.I. Joe squad. He is a strong leader and plays things very much by the book.. His backstory includes a Midwestern upbringing in Iowa, and of course, a high school quarterback position. Duke represents the never say die attitude of the common American. He’s not the brightest member of the team, and his speech is peppered with horrible down homey quips like “ This place is going to be shaking more than a ten cent milkshake!” when faced with eminent danger, in this case an earthquake. He is a classic American archetype, the blond haired, blue eyed, cornfed All American Boy. In fact, Duke himself becomes a symbol in many episodes when he is captured and the rest of the team must work together without his guidance to save him. When Duke is held hostage, it is as if the entire balance of America hangs in the balance, as if the loss of Duke would signal the end of democracy, the end of an ideal. And, as the second picture illustrates, it is usually Duke who gets to use the jet packs to fly the American flag back to it’s home on whatever structure C.O.B.R.A. had desecrated. Usually it was the Statue of Liberty.
Lady Jaye and Scarlett are two of the G.I.Joe teams female members. They represent the idealized woman, at least for army men. Both are voluptuous and attractive. Both gladly follow orders and defend their country, and both easily cave to the will of their commanding officers. In fact as the series went on, it was revealed that there was a shy, comically childish romantic connection between Duke and Scarlett, a plot point that seemed innocent enough to a pre-teen, but looks a little more malignant after the disgraces of Abu Garib. Also, when the mission called for it, the girls would gladly us their feminine wiles on the bad guys, leaving countless inept guards knocked out on the floor after being sedated by a quick flash of leg. I think this served as reinforcement to the boys watching the show that girls could be asked to use their body as an object, and that girls were weak. Here you have two members of the most specialized assault team in the world tossing on some mini-skirts in order to exploit their bodies for the government, a practice rarely seen by the males in the show.
A few of the other characters on the G.I. Joe side that embody somewhat stale stereotypes upon reflection are Road Block, Spirit, and Quick Kick. Road Block is an enourmous African American from a northern steel and auto town. He is one of two African American’s on the G.I. Joe team, and the most prominently featured throughout the series. For some reason, not only did the creators give this character the rather racist attribute of speaking in street slang, they also made him the only character to rhyme occasionally when he speaks. Not only does this make the character seem either idiotic or insane, but it also gives birth to gems like these : “ Get off my leg, Sucka” and “ This place has more twists than a pretzel factory with the bends!” I realize that many of the characters were based on their background, for example the marine from Louisiana had a bayou twang and was a surprisingly good chef, but it seems to me that the show could have done a better job by giving the African American character a little more power and respect, perhaps they could have made more a role model out of him since he was featured in many of the episodes. As a representation of the African American race, the character was a gross exaggeration, in my opinion.
Speaking of gross exaggerations, another character that might be more and more distasteful as the years go by is the Native American character, Spirit. Besides his pet eagle companion named Freedom, an awkward attempt to capitalize on the idea that Native Americans have a supernatural link with animals, Spirit only speaks in cryptic, shamenesque sentences delivered in a complete monotone. It is Spirit who gives the calming advice when the tidewaters are filling the cavern, or whenever things seem their most hopeless. In another strange creative choice, Spirit also meditates and knows Kung-Fu, two rather eastern techniques for a Native American. Of course, when I was ten years old, it seemed to me that Native Americans were magical and that there must have been some form of Native American Kung-Fu. In fact, despite the obvious stereotypical elements, Spirit was one of the first pro-active Native American influence’s I had in my life. Of course, he was fighting for America and there was little mention of any political reservations the history of our country might have given him. I think this reinforced the idea that America and the Native Americans had settled their debts to history, or at least that our society had reached the point where we could move on. Also it reinforced the idea that Native American’s who joined colonized American culture would be accepted with open arms by our culture. I suppose anything is possible. Or as Spirit would say, cryptically of course, “ Possibility and impossibility are states of mind, for me there is only the possible.”
The last G.I. Joe I will mention is the Asian character, Quick Kick. Even though he was one of my favorite characters because of his skillful use of nunchucks and ninja stars instead of conventional bullet oriented weapons, looking at the character in retrospect I realize what a hollow, stereotypical, and simple representation he was.
In fact, it really does not make that much sense to go into battle against an army with firearms carrying only ancient Asian weapons at your disposal. When I was younger, I could not see how this representation of Asian culture was simply building up the Bruce Lee mythos of Asians as unstoppable fighting machines whose grasp of ancient and perhaps magical techniques meant they did not need guns. I find it very interesting how the show played off of stereotypes that involved some sort magical talents of the more indigenous characters. While it gives you respect for the powers, it also creates a kind of primal fundamental fear that most Christians have of “magic”, thus reinforcing the viewers bond with the white, non-magical characters.
There are many other characters on the G.I. Joe side, maybe even hundreds, but I’ll move into C.O.B.R.A. characters, whose interesting accents and strange outfits make for substantially prejudicial material for youthful viewers.
This is Cobra Commander, the mysterious leader of the terrorists. He always has a mask on, as do the majority of his underlings, it is either the metal mask shown above or a cloth one he tosses on when plotting around the base. Although most of the other evil characters have tell tale accents, the Cobra Commander has probably one of the strangest speaking voice’s in cartoon. I believe in an effort to make him sound as if he has a forked tounge, his voice has a distinct lisp on his s sounds. Although his voice is high and gravelly, the lisp is the dominant factor. Since he has no accent but such a strong lisp, I always wondered if Cobra Commander was supposed to represent a homosexual supervillian. While that might be a stretch, associating a vocal trait that is prevalent in a certain community with an evil madman could create a situation wherein unconsciously someone who watches the show might think that people who speak with lisps are evil. I can say with certainty that in fifth and sixth grade the general consensus around the schoolyard was that of course Cobra Commander is gay, he has no love interest, speaks with a lisp, and laughs maniacally at the wrong moments. The mask is another interesting symbol representing, as I said before, the faceless conformity of communism. Also, it paints the commander as a coward who would not associate his face with his deeds. But it is the lisp that irks me since the majority of the other evil characters have distinctive foreign accents, and the Cobra Commander’s voice has no real trace of nationality. Also, the commander has the classic generic cartoon attribute of being a blundering idiot, and an ego maniac, so that his conquest of the world is less for the glory of C.O.B.R.A. and whatever country they represent, but more for the self satisfaction of his character. This is a common theme that runs through the shows villains, they are all willing to sell each other out if it means more power or wealth for them.
Destro is the Cobra Commander’s second in command. Like in the pictures, Destro always wears his metal mask, which somehow is able to represent facial expressions, an inconsistency I didn’t notice until watching the shows again. Destro has a deep male voice that has a distinctive African accent, but since he never removes his mask, it is impossible to know what Destro’s racial profile is. If he is in fact African, that would make him the only evil character that was not white, but we’ll never know. Destro is C.O.B.R.A.’s technical and weapons expert, and he is constantly building more complicated weaponry with world domination as his only goal. Compared to the Commander, Destro is muscular and athletic, which always caused me to wonder why he didn’t just get rid of the Cobra Commander and become the leader himself. While one could speculate on Destro representing the repressed anger of non-westernized nations, I think that the most obvious symbolic interpretation is that Destro represents the faceless machinery of the weapons build up in the cold war. While Cobra Commander can give the orders, it is Destro who keeps C.O.B.R.A. inspiring fear in the public eye with his evil super weapons. In one episode, Destro writes a pop song for C.O.B.R.A. and then inserts subliminal messages into it, hypnotizing the planet. This is a classic example of communist propaganda techniques, dating back to the McCarthy era of the fifties. Luckily, most of the upper characters in the G.I.Joe ranks are not fans of heavy metal and so avoided the addictive melody.
C.O.B.R.A. has fewer female characters than the Joe’s, but one of the evil female characters is the Baroness. The Baroness is of Russian descent, her accent definitely gives her away. Besides her unexplained hatred of America, the baroness is a complicated character whose motivations are difficult to decipher. As the show went on, there seemed to be a romantic link between between her and Destro, but the link seemed to grow more out of their mutual love for destruction and chaos, rather than any sort of inter-personal relationship. Of course, I always considered the Baroness the sexiest female character, not only is she adventurous and frightening, but the animators saw fit to squeeze her into a tight, black, patent leather jumpsuit every episode. . In fact, the majority of the evil characters had unique, rather bondage-esque type uniforms, which could be a comment on the differences in sexuality within the context of our perceptions of good and evil. Looking at this outfit with the knowledge I have now in my twenties, I understand much better what the Baroness is supposed to represent.The Baroness is a Russian dominatrix or at least a crude sketch of one. What is interesting about that is although she is a dominant and influential part of the C.O.B.R.A. team, she basically follows orders given to her by Cobra Commander or Destro, which is the opposite role of most dominatrix’s. The Baroness represents Czarist Russia, and I believe that she symbolically represents the attractive but deadly nature of communism in the eyes of most Americans
Suprisingly, since the show seemed to rely heavily on stereotypes for characters, there were no Middle Eastern, German, Irish or Asian terrorists on the C.O.B.R.A. team, I suppose this is because the show came out during the Reagan administration and at a time when the Cold War was still alive and kicking, so the most basic stereotypes would work for the one dimensional characters. There were many other characters to examine on both sides, but most are not featured as prevalently on the show as the ones I used as examples. I hope that these few analysis’s will help to understand the content of the show overtly as well as symbolically.
The reason I chose this show to examine is because it had a huge influence on me growing up. Since I was between five years old and ten while the show was in it’s first run, I realize that I was pretty much the target audience for this show, and so I wanted to see what sort of prejudices and influences it had on my life. I would say that G.I. Joe definitely drove my and my friends love and interest for the military and America into a more permenant mindset. By glorifying the roles of the All American G.I. Joe’s, the show also glorified military service and our country. By creating villainous character’s who were amalgamation’s of different cultural stereotypes, the show helped to reinforce an isolationist American foreign policy, and helped to generate stereotypes in the mind of it’s viewers. For children, I think the show falls into the two-step flow theory of communication, because as children, cartoons can be role models and opinion leaders. It is easy for me to imagine a young boy saying “ Well, Duke says…” much as an adult would say “ Well, Rush Limbaugh says…” or “ Well, Al Franken says…”.
The patriotic style of the cartoon, and the cryptic intro where the announcer says “G.I.Joe’s purpose? To defend human freedom against C.O.B.R.A., a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.” Has made me often wonder if G.I.Joe was actually a propaganda piece for the U.S. government on a more intentional level than a simple piece of entertainment. Certianly, for impressionable young viewers, G.I.Joe gave us a distorted, skewed view of the American military and it’s power. Also, it planted the seed in our minds that defending freedom gave American Forces the right to go anywhere and do anything necessary to stop terrorism, a theme that has certainly come into prominence since the tragedy of Sept.11th and the American militaries reaction. Since none of the Joe team ever got killed, it also reinforced the idea that the American military was invincible, or at least able to rescue all it’s team members. This definitely led me from interest in phoney, cartoon warfare, to interst in real warfare, especially Viet-Nam, the conflict where in my opinion, the military had the coolest looking guns. During my middle school years I to some extent out grew cartoons and began reading more war fiction, which is less propagandistic and more cerebral but still action packed. This led me to have certain racial ideals of Asians, almost all of whom could be Vietnamese to a ten year old. It was not until eigth grade that I finally came to understand the realities of war. I had gotten around to reading non-fiction stories of the war, and they painted a much different picture than the one I saw on television or in fiction. Finally, during our eigith grade class trip to Washington, I had a sort of catharsis about war when I broke down in tears in front of the War Memorial after I found the names of some of the men who were real life characters in the non-fiction books I was reading. After that point, I found myself a staunch anti-war supporter, and G.I. Joe’s idealistic society seemed alien and to some extent, campy.
By examining these characters I was able to decipher influences on my personality from when I was at an impressionable age. I realize now that these characters acted to reinforce ideals that were inherent in me, that America will always conquer evil, that the military never loses a man, that all types of culturally different Americans can work together if they don’t mention social issues, and that Democracy and Freedom are worth fighting and dying for. The verbal and visual imagry employed by the cartoon also help reinforce patriotic ideals, the American Flag is constantly in the background, the colors of the Joe team insignia are red, white and blue. The color of the cobra insignia is just plain red, another subtle communist inference. In fact, if the show were meant to function as anti-communist propaganda instead of afternoon entertainment, I think it would have proven extremely effective. The lofty ideals and archtypes of the Joe characters gave young viewers a new mythos, the mythos of the patriotic and invincible human hero as opposed to a superhero with inhuman powers.
Upon this re-examination, I could see how people could consider the purpose of this show to be of a propagandist nature, and since it was made in a style that appealed greatly to the Reagan youth in the context of the eighties one does have to look back and question whether the content was a fair representation of the world we lived in, or if it was simply an action packed misrepresentation. Since we have learned that all media is subject to the scrutiny and opinions of it’s creators, I think that looking at these characters through a media critic’s lense as opposed to a childs offers some interesting and valuable insight to the purpose and intention of this cartoon, as well as a good lesson in patriotic cartoon prejudices. Or, as it is referred to in scholarly circles, P.C.P. (insert comical rimshot sound)
In 1982, I was five years old. That was the year that G.I. Joe made it’s debut as a comic book. Within a couple years, the comic had a few mini-series on national television, and by 1985, when I was eight, G.I. Joe was beginning it’s daily run of cartoons. The television cartoons lasted in their original form until 1988 when the series went off the air with a horrible theatrical release. The show comes back in various incarnations, but it was the first series, from 1985-88 that had a significant impact on my life. I am lucky enough to own a videocassette of the second hour and a half long miniseries that was released in 1984, so I am basing my character analysis upon the group of characters in this early version. Most of the characters remained for the entirety of the series, but since this is one of the first televised, there is quite a bit of character development which will help me in finding examples.
Before I dive into the characters, some of the basic plot points should probably be explained. G.I. Joe is a group similar, I would imagine, to a special forces unit. Their main purpose is to stop C.O.B.R.A., “ a ruthless terrorist organization determined to control the world!” according to the shows opening theme. Besides representing the basic elements of good and evil, this show takes things a step further by representing good and evil as America and Terrorists. While this certainly seems applicable post 9/11, in the climate of opinion of the Regan eighties the representation was seen as more America versus communism. This cold war mentality was constantly reinforced by the show’s writers and animators who claimed that even you neighbor could be an agent, and almost every agent of C.O.B.R.A. was wearing a mask, symbolically suggested the faceless masses of fascism. While there were other shows in the action cartoon genre that had similar cold war symbolism ( Transformers, Go-Bots,Superman, and Captian America to name a few) none of them had human characters, and I think that part of the appeal of the show was that regular humans, not superheros or robots, were able to consistently defeat their enemy using only God given strength and a fantastic arsenal of futuristic weapons.
As this was a popular franchise, there were many characters made and added, so I will just focus on a few. To begin with we will look at the good guys, G.I. Joe, and examine some of the characteristics and stereotypes that they represent.
Duke is the leader of the G.I. Joe squad. He is a strong leader and plays things very much by the book.. His backstory includes a Midwestern upbringing in Iowa, and of course, a high school quarterback position. Duke represents the never say die attitude of the common American. He’s not the brightest member of the team, and his speech is peppered with horrible down homey quips like “ This place is going to be shaking more than a ten cent milkshake!” when faced with eminent danger, in this case an earthquake. He is a classic American archetype, the blond haired, blue eyed, cornfed All American Boy. In fact, Duke himself becomes a symbol in many episodes when he is captured and the rest of the team must work together without his guidance to save him. When Duke is held hostage, it is as if the entire balance of America hangs in the balance, as if the loss of Duke would signal the end of democracy, the end of an ideal. And, as the second picture illustrates, it is usually Duke who gets to use the jet packs to fly the American flag back to it’s home on whatever structure C.O.B.R.A. had desecrated. Usually it was the Statue of Liberty.
Lady Jaye and Scarlett are two of the G.I.Joe teams female members. They represent the idealized woman, at least for army men. Both are voluptuous and attractive. Both gladly follow orders and defend their country, and both easily cave to the will of their commanding officers. In fact as the series went on, it was revealed that there was a shy, comically childish romantic connection between Duke and Scarlett, a plot point that seemed innocent enough to a pre-teen, but looks a little more malignant after the disgraces of Abu Garib. Also, when the mission called for it, the girls would gladly us their feminine wiles on the bad guys, leaving countless inept guards knocked out on the floor after being sedated by a quick flash of leg. I think this served as reinforcement to the boys watching the show that girls could be asked to use their body as an object, and that girls were weak. Here you have two members of the most specialized assault team in the world tossing on some mini-skirts in order to exploit their bodies for the government, a practice rarely seen by the males in the show.
A few of the other characters on the G.I. Joe side that embody somewhat stale stereotypes upon reflection are Road Block, Spirit, and Quick Kick. Road Block is an enourmous African American from a northern steel and auto town. He is one of two African American’s on the G.I. Joe team, and the most prominently featured throughout the series. For some reason, not only did the creators give this character the rather racist attribute of speaking in street slang, they also made him the only character to rhyme occasionally when he speaks. Not only does this make the character seem either idiotic or insane, but it also gives birth to gems like these : “ Get off my leg, Sucka” and “ This place has more twists than a pretzel factory with the bends!” I realize that many of the characters were based on their background, for example the marine from Louisiana had a bayou twang and was a surprisingly good chef, but it seems to me that the show could have done a better job by giving the African American character a little more power and respect, perhaps they could have made more a role model out of him since he was featured in many of the episodes. As a representation of the African American race, the character was a gross exaggeration, in my opinion.
Speaking of gross exaggerations, another character that might be more and more distasteful as the years go by is the Native American character, Spirit. Besides his pet eagle companion named Freedom, an awkward attempt to capitalize on the idea that Native Americans have a supernatural link with animals, Spirit only speaks in cryptic, shamenesque sentences delivered in a complete monotone. It is Spirit who gives the calming advice when the tidewaters are filling the cavern, or whenever things seem their most hopeless. In another strange creative choice, Spirit also meditates and knows Kung-Fu, two rather eastern techniques for a Native American. Of course, when I was ten years old, it seemed to me that Native Americans were magical and that there must have been some form of Native American Kung-Fu. In fact, despite the obvious stereotypical elements, Spirit was one of the first pro-active Native American influence’s I had in my life. Of course, he was fighting for America and there was little mention of any political reservations the history of our country might have given him. I think this reinforced the idea that America and the Native Americans had settled their debts to history, or at least that our society had reached the point where we could move on. Also it reinforced the idea that Native American’s who joined colonized American culture would be accepted with open arms by our culture. I suppose anything is possible. Or as Spirit would say, cryptically of course, “ Possibility and impossibility are states of mind, for me there is only the possible.”
The last G.I. Joe I will mention is the Asian character, Quick Kick. Even though he was one of my favorite characters because of his skillful use of nunchucks and ninja stars instead of conventional bullet oriented weapons, looking at the character in retrospect I realize what a hollow, stereotypical, and simple representation he was.
In fact, it really does not make that much sense to go into battle against an army with firearms carrying only ancient Asian weapons at your disposal. When I was younger, I could not see how this representation of Asian culture was simply building up the Bruce Lee mythos of Asians as unstoppable fighting machines whose grasp of ancient and perhaps magical techniques meant they did not need guns. I find it very interesting how the show played off of stereotypes that involved some sort magical talents of the more indigenous characters. While it gives you respect for the powers, it also creates a kind of primal fundamental fear that most Christians have of “magic”, thus reinforcing the viewers bond with the white, non-magical characters.
There are many other characters on the G.I. Joe side, maybe even hundreds, but I’ll move into C.O.B.R.A. characters, whose interesting accents and strange outfits make for substantially prejudicial material for youthful viewers.
This is Cobra Commander, the mysterious leader of the terrorists. He always has a mask on, as do the majority of his underlings, it is either the metal mask shown above or a cloth one he tosses on when plotting around the base. Although most of the other evil characters have tell tale accents, the Cobra Commander has probably one of the strangest speaking voice’s in cartoon. I believe in an effort to make him sound as if he has a forked tounge, his voice has a distinct lisp on his s sounds. Although his voice is high and gravelly, the lisp is the dominant factor. Since he has no accent but such a strong lisp, I always wondered if Cobra Commander was supposed to represent a homosexual supervillian. While that might be a stretch, associating a vocal trait that is prevalent in a certain community with an evil madman could create a situation wherein unconsciously someone who watches the show might think that people who speak with lisps are evil. I can say with certainty that in fifth and sixth grade the general consensus around the schoolyard was that of course Cobra Commander is gay, he has no love interest, speaks with a lisp, and laughs maniacally at the wrong moments. The mask is another interesting symbol representing, as I said before, the faceless conformity of communism. Also, it paints the commander as a coward who would not associate his face with his deeds. But it is the lisp that irks me since the majority of the other evil characters have distinctive foreign accents, and the Cobra Commander’s voice has no real trace of nationality. Also, the commander has the classic generic cartoon attribute of being a blundering idiot, and an ego maniac, so that his conquest of the world is less for the glory of C.O.B.R.A. and whatever country they represent, but more for the self satisfaction of his character. This is a common theme that runs through the shows villains, they are all willing to sell each other out if it means more power or wealth for them.
Destro is the Cobra Commander’s second in command. Like in the pictures, Destro always wears his metal mask, which somehow is able to represent facial expressions, an inconsistency I didn’t notice until watching the shows again. Destro has a deep male voice that has a distinctive African accent, but since he never removes his mask, it is impossible to know what Destro’s racial profile is. If he is in fact African, that would make him the only evil character that was not white, but we’ll never know. Destro is C.O.B.R.A.’s technical and weapons expert, and he is constantly building more complicated weaponry with world domination as his only goal. Compared to the Commander, Destro is muscular and athletic, which always caused me to wonder why he didn’t just get rid of the Cobra Commander and become the leader himself. While one could speculate on Destro representing the repressed anger of non-westernized nations, I think that the most obvious symbolic interpretation is that Destro represents the faceless machinery of the weapons build up in the cold war. While Cobra Commander can give the orders, it is Destro who keeps C.O.B.R.A. inspiring fear in the public eye with his evil super weapons. In one episode, Destro writes a pop song for C.O.B.R.A. and then inserts subliminal messages into it, hypnotizing the planet. This is a classic example of communist propaganda techniques, dating back to the McCarthy era of the fifties. Luckily, most of the upper characters in the G.I.Joe ranks are not fans of heavy metal and so avoided the addictive melody.
C.O.B.R.A. has fewer female characters than the Joe’s, but one of the evil female characters is the Baroness. The Baroness is of Russian descent, her accent definitely gives her away. Besides her unexplained hatred of America, the baroness is a complicated character whose motivations are difficult to decipher. As the show went on, there seemed to be a romantic link between between her and Destro, but the link seemed to grow more out of their mutual love for destruction and chaos, rather than any sort of inter-personal relationship. Of course, I always considered the Baroness the sexiest female character, not only is she adventurous and frightening, but the animators saw fit to squeeze her into a tight, black, patent leather jumpsuit every episode. . In fact, the majority of the evil characters had unique, rather bondage-esque type uniforms, which could be a comment on the differences in sexuality within the context of our perceptions of good and evil. Looking at this outfit with the knowledge I have now in my twenties, I understand much better what the Baroness is supposed to represent.The Baroness is a Russian dominatrix or at least a crude sketch of one. What is interesting about that is although she is a dominant and influential part of the C.O.B.R.A. team, she basically follows orders given to her by Cobra Commander or Destro, which is the opposite role of most dominatrix’s. The Baroness represents Czarist Russia, and I believe that she symbolically represents the attractive but deadly nature of communism in the eyes of most Americans
Suprisingly, since the show seemed to rely heavily on stereotypes for characters, there were no Middle Eastern, German, Irish or Asian terrorists on the C.O.B.R.A. team, I suppose this is because the show came out during the Reagan administration and at a time when the Cold War was still alive and kicking, so the most basic stereotypes would work for the one dimensional characters. There were many other characters to examine on both sides, but most are not featured as prevalently on the show as the ones I used as examples. I hope that these few analysis’s will help to understand the content of the show overtly as well as symbolically.
The reason I chose this show to examine is because it had a huge influence on me growing up. Since I was between five years old and ten while the show was in it’s first run, I realize that I was pretty much the target audience for this show, and so I wanted to see what sort of prejudices and influences it had on my life. I would say that G.I. Joe definitely drove my and my friends love and interest for the military and America into a more permenant mindset. By glorifying the roles of the All American G.I. Joe’s, the show also glorified military service and our country. By creating villainous character’s who were amalgamation’s of different cultural stereotypes, the show helped to reinforce an isolationist American foreign policy, and helped to generate stereotypes in the mind of it’s viewers. For children, I think the show falls into the two-step flow theory of communication, because as children, cartoons can be role models and opinion leaders. It is easy for me to imagine a young boy saying “ Well, Duke says…” much as an adult would say “ Well, Rush Limbaugh says…” or “ Well, Al Franken says…”.
The patriotic style of the cartoon, and the cryptic intro where the announcer says “G.I.Joe’s purpose? To defend human freedom against C.O.B.R.A., a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.” Has made me often wonder if G.I.Joe was actually a propaganda piece for the U.S. government on a more intentional level than a simple piece of entertainment. Certianly, for impressionable young viewers, G.I.Joe gave us a distorted, skewed view of the American military and it’s power. Also, it planted the seed in our minds that defending freedom gave American Forces the right to go anywhere and do anything necessary to stop terrorism, a theme that has certainly come into prominence since the tragedy of Sept.11th and the American militaries reaction. Since none of the Joe team ever got killed, it also reinforced the idea that the American military was invincible, or at least able to rescue all it’s team members. This definitely led me from interest in phoney, cartoon warfare, to interst in real warfare, especially Viet-Nam, the conflict where in my opinion, the military had the coolest looking guns. During my middle school years I to some extent out grew cartoons and began reading more war fiction, which is less propagandistic and more cerebral but still action packed. This led me to have certain racial ideals of Asians, almost all of whom could be Vietnamese to a ten year old. It was not until eigth grade that I finally came to understand the realities of war. I had gotten around to reading non-fiction stories of the war, and they painted a much different picture than the one I saw on television or in fiction. Finally, during our eigith grade class trip to Washington, I had a sort of catharsis about war when I broke down in tears in front of the War Memorial after I found the names of some of the men who were real life characters in the non-fiction books I was reading. After that point, I found myself a staunch anti-war supporter, and G.I. Joe’s idealistic society seemed alien and to some extent, campy.
By examining these characters I was able to decipher influences on my personality from when I was at an impressionable age. I realize now that these characters acted to reinforce ideals that were inherent in me, that America will always conquer evil, that the military never loses a man, that all types of culturally different Americans can work together if they don’t mention social issues, and that Democracy and Freedom are worth fighting and dying for. The verbal and visual imagry employed by the cartoon also help reinforce patriotic ideals, the American Flag is constantly in the background, the colors of the Joe team insignia are red, white and blue. The color of the cobra insignia is just plain red, another subtle communist inference. In fact, if the show were meant to function as anti-communist propaganda instead of afternoon entertainment, I think it would have proven extremely effective. The lofty ideals and archtypes of the Joe characters gave young viewers a new mythos, the mythos of the patriotic and invincible human hero as opposed to a superhero with inhuman powers.
Upon this re-examination, I could see how people could consider the purpose of this show to be of a propagandist nature, and since it was made in a style that appealed greatly to the Reagan youth in the context of the eighties one does have to look back and question whether the content was a fair representation of the world we lived in, or if it was simply an action packed misrepresentation. Since we have learned that all media is subject to the scrutiny and opinions of it’s creators, I think that looking at these characters through a media critic’s lense as opposed to a childs offers some interesting and valuable insight to the purpose and intention of this cartoon, as well as a good lesson in patriotic cartoon prejudices. Or, as it is referred to in scholarly circles, P.C.P. (insert comical rimshot sound)
Comments