#Carmen Sandiego is a great Heroic Thief story

[secretmellowblog]

Carmen Sandiego Hot Take

THIS SHOW IS GREAT AND I LOVE IT

Positives:

Short answer: the best parts of this show are the central character, the action scenes, and the visuals

I love the Heroic Thief/Robin Hood archetype, and this show does it beautifully! 20/10!!! 

Their new take on Carmen Sandiego is suave and snarky and compelling and I love her

 She’s a thief-themed superhero, a liminal figure  who “belongs nowhere so she can belong anywhere,” the kind of rebellious anti-heroine I wish I had as a kid 

Friendly Archenemy Relationships! “I’m fighting you but I also know/care about/respect you” drama! Both with VILE and the police! Always good

The action scenes are all  fun and engaging, and every heist/chase/other big set-piece feels totally different. They found a lot of cool ways for Carmen to use her thief-skills and a lot of compelling situations for her to use them in, and it’s really fun to watch.

A diverse cast and tons of cool female heroes and villains

Carmen is an action adventure show first and a comedy second, and I love that. I’m glad we’re finally recognizing that people, including kids, want to watch mANY different genres of animation

This show’s gorgeous my dudes

It’s seriously worth watching for the designs/animation alone.

 It’s got this Art Deco Poster style that’s both beautiful and fits perfectly with the Heist Movie tone of the story

Really though, props to all the artists who worked on this show. It looks so gorgeous and unique

so pretty animation

THE MUSIC

THE INTRO

The backgrounds and the locations are as much as a star of the show as Carmen herself. In hindsight I wanna praise the background designers/painters/layout artists and stuff for their absolutely gorgeous work, especially cuz as an “adventure around the world” story the show doesn’t get to reuse most of the backgrounds/designs!

I ship Julmen, predictably

Things that could be improved:

Like She-ra, this show has “Season One Problems”-- tONS of setup/exposition and some early pacing issues. It also has the bad luck of having the Exact Same Premise as She-ra ( brainwashed soldier of evil organization learns outside world isn’t like what she was taught, and rebels against her former friends.) And the thing is….

Carmen isn’t “worse” than She-ra, but it’s tonally very different, which is why it sucks their premises are so similar you can’t help but compare them. SPOP episodes center around personalities/relationships,  while Carmen’s episodes center around heists/action sequences. She-ra’s action scenes work because of the Character Drama(tm), Carmen’s action scenes work because they’re just good action scenes. But even then.....there’s a scene where Carmen reunites with an old friend But Now They’re Enemies, and I might’ve really enjoyed it if I hadn’t just seen Catra/Adora do the exact same thing but with more emotional weight

This show features three characters-- Player, Zack, and Ivy- who were the POV characters in the original games. The problem is that this show is from Carmen’s POV. So if these guys aren’t our POV audience-insert characters anymore, who are they? The show is having trouble figuring this out, especially with Zack and Ivy

There’s been a recent trend of cartoons where the only “butch-coded” women are antagonists? Jasper/Topaz/Bismuth from SU (until Bismuth got brought back), Scorpia from She-ra, and now Coach Brunt. Eh. Another villain is the “evil girly-girl” stock character, which feels very “come on, you’re better than this” in a series that otherwise has actually interesting female antagonists

It often feels like someone behind the scenes was saying “we can’t tell kids that stealing is cool!” and that message just doesn’t work in a show about a Robin Hood. Kids aren’t dumb-- MCU Captain America is now a criminal  on the run from the cops because his heroism is against the law, Carmen can be that too, and it won’t turn kids into the people from the Purge movies

All in all I really enjoyed this show so far! Even if some of the side characters/world-building get messy, anytime Carmen is onscreen snarking and pulling off Master Thief Moves it’s great. It’s a flawed but solid start with tons of potential.  I hope it gets another season because I’m excited to see where it goes next! 

[812review]

17 January 2019

The ‘Carmen Effect’: How One Character Helped Shape a Generation

Carmen is a modern day Robin Hood traveling the globe and stealing from V.I.L.E. and giving back to its victims. Carmen is publicly perceived as a criminal by most law enforcement agencies – correction, make that a master criminal due to the sheer scale and theatricality of her heists. We will follow her escapades and get to determine not only where but WHO in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

Carmen Sandiego is back on Netflix January 18th, but for Millennials, she never really left

LOS ANGELES (Jan. 17, 2019) — For kids who grew up chasing the elusive thief, Carmen Sandiego was an icon in every sense of the word—she was an impeccably dressed, fearless world traveler, who even taught them a few things along the way. But in the midst of testing kids’ geography knowledge, Carmen did more than simply bestow Millennials the rank of “Investigator” or “Ace Detective.” An analysis of Carmen-related social conversation over the past five years* reveals those clues on a computer screen gave the generation a sense of independence that has outlived those old floppy disks and CD-ROMs.

Of the 350K+ tweets analyzed, nearly all speak to The Carmen Effect – the deeply personal, long-lasting impact the franchise, and the woman behind it, had on its original generation of fans. A visualization of the conversation, available at thecarmeneffect.com, shows how for some, it’s manifested as a love of travel, passion for geography, or the occasional urge to buy a red coat. For others, Carmen was a first-of-her-kind superhero, showing both girls and boys how to be “sly, funny and brilliant” as a badass Latina role model. And now, almost 20 years later, her legacy lives on as a brand new series debuts on Netflix January 18th, with Gina Rodriguez voicing the lead role.

“Playing the role of Carmen Sandiego is a dream come true,” said Rodriguez. “My sisters and I grew up playing Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? We didn’t know who she was or why she was doing the things she did, but she was this smart, savvy Latina woman who was getting out in the world, seeing all kinds of places and exploring different cultures. I idolized those things about her. And now I’m lucky enough to extend the story of a character who still inspires me everyday, introducing kids not just to her adventures, but also revealing new details about her past.”

If history’s any indication, the next generation of gumshoes are in for more than a globe-trotting expedition as they follow Carmen and sidekick Player (Finn Wolfhard) around the world. Categorizing a selection of Carmen-related tweets uncovered some pretty specific impacts of The Carmen Effect:

Signature Style (60%): Fans can’t get enough of Carmen’s iconic look – her red hat and matching trench have showed up everywhere from high-fashion runways to Halloween parties.

Passport Goals (20%): “Carmen Sandiego” is synonymous with “travel” – many frequent fliers fancy themselves a modern day Carmen, and some even attribute all that virtual jet-setting to an increased sense of wanderlust in adulthood.

Sandiego Smarts (16%): To this day, people admit learning a thing or two from Carmen – many of which they still remember (read: currency of Thailand or the definition of ‘spelunking’).

Trailblazer (7%): For others, the impact of Carmen went a level deeper – she was considered one of the first great role models, admired for her ambition, independence and intellect.

Beyond these categories, there are countless mentions and references of Carmen in pop culture that elevate her to icon status. From the unforgettable theme song to memories of hours spent playing the computer game in elementary school, it’s clear Carmen never really left.

The upcoming Carmen Sandiego series pays tribute to everything fans loved about the original – each episode is filled with fast facts that’ll turn any kid into a Jeopardy pro, following a heroic (and stylish) Carmen from Indonesia to Ecuador in the fight against V.I.L.E. But unlike past iterations of the franchise, the animated series will reveal one of the biggest mysteries of them all: Who is Carmen Sandiego? The first two episodes of the series detail the origin story that led to Carmen becoming the super thief she is today.

ABOUT THE RESEARCH

In partnership with the team behind The Pudding, Netflix used a dataset of 356,798 public tweets dated between 12/14/13-12/14/18 that mentioned “Carmen Sandiego” or variations of the name. Retweets were excluded from the analysis, and tweets that could be deemed offensive were excluded from TheCarmenEffect.com.

ABOUT NETFLIX

Netflix is the world’s leading internet entertainment service with 130 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.

The ‘Carmen Effect’: How One Character Helped Shape a Generation 17 January 2019 The ‘Carmen Effect’: How One Character Helped Shape a Generation Carmen is a modern day Robin Hood traveling the globe and stealing from V.I.L.E.