I wanted to call this “Planetina Did Nothing Wrong” because it would be funny, but unfortunately, Planetina did a lot wrong during her appearance as a parody of Captain Planet on season 5, episode 3 of Rick and Morty. Media false equivalence between the right and left extends even into fiction where things like this episode of Rick and Morty, which is supposed to just be entertainment, turn out to be neoliberal propaganda. The left does nothing, and we get fictional representations of ourselves perpetrating horrific crimes; the right does something horrific in real life, and the media buries the political angle.
This post was inspired by Doug J. Balloon’s “New York Times Pitchbot” account on Twitter:
Right after multiple people attacked power stations in Moore County, North Carolina with firearms, resulting in a power outage that affected 45,000 people (most of those people still don’t have power), a right-wing insurrectionist named Emily Rainey claimed that the attack was motivated by a desire to disrupt a drag show.
We know that far-right terrorists have motive, means, and opportunity as it relates the terrorist attack. Conservatives have been purposefully conflating drag performances, trans people, and pedophilia. (In truth, these are three entirely separate things.) Moreover, the trend of fascists plotting to attack electrical infrastructure in the US dates back to 2019 (pdf). Authorities agree that the attack on the electrical system in Moore county was an intentional attack, but they won’t say it was likely done by right-wing conservatives of the white supremacist Christian variety, even though it is obvious. To find a media outlet willing to state the obvious, we have to go to the left side of Twitter or an LGBTQ+ news site.
In the Planetina episode of Rick and Morty, Planetina starts out using her elemental powers to save people from disasters. When she changes her focus to defending the planet against capitalism, suddenly the tone of the narrative changes. Where she was portrayed as human-focused before, now she is portrayed as irrationally valuing the planet itself to the exclusion of human beings. It’s an interesting angle because — first off — this is exactly how conservatives (of both stripes) portray environmentalists — as people who care more about “nature” than humanity, but also because this planet is the one and only human habitat and the quality of that habitat directly affects every human being. Humanity and the planet are inseparable; concern for the condition of this planet is concern for human beings.
A writer of fiction has the option of having their characters behave in a way that illustrates a point even if the “real” person would never behave that way. Certainly, it was necessary for Planetina’s relationship with Morty to end, but they could easily have used Morty’s extremely flawed character to solve that problem; blaming it on Planetina was a purposeful criticism of environmentalism. Her slaughter of 300 miners was a choice that anti-environmentalist writers made. Real-life environmentalism is focused on getting control of Earth’s climate in order to save billions of human lives. Meanwhile, real-life fascists are willing to cut off power to 45,000 random people in winter just to stop a few people they hate from having fun (they failed).
It isn’t just Planetina or the terrorist attack in North Carolina that are the issue. We see this pattern in the media all the time. The “both sides” narrative divides the truth into the Democrat side and the Republican side, with the intended purpose of erasing the left’s position on every single political issue or recent event. The left’s positions have become absurd (i.e., they are perceived as absurd) despite being ethical, practical, and fact-based thanks to this prolonged propaganda campaign by traditional conservatives and neoliberals.
Related: The Many Flavors of Conservative
Related: The American Death Cult