G. I wonder why the revamp, Joe ... Mark Steyn

Steyn Online | 24 Sep 2007 | Mark Steyn

[Wicket]

So’d I.

[horse_doc]

G.I. Joe went through that horrible "Adventure Team" thing in the 70's, as well.

The good news is that you can walk into any Wal-Mart in America and buy an Ultimate Soldier, which is a G.I. Joe-type figure from 21st Century Toys. They have WW II weapons and equipment far better than the original.

[toddlintown]

“That means he sells rockets to Israel AND Hams...”

Selling hams to Israel, eh? /s

[Billthedrill]

Internationalization - "globalization" if you prefer - of this sort of thing has been a wet dream in the popular media since The Man From U.N.C.L.E offered to an enraptured public a romantic TV version of a U.S.-Soviet buddy movie under the control of an avuncular British spymaster. Enthusiastic fans all over the country were motivated to volunteer for a purely fictional entity bearing no resemblance whatever to INTERPOL or the real UNCLE. Those who pursued it were disappointed to find that the reality wasn't a bunch of gun-slinging avengers, but a bunch of paper-pushing nonentities.

That was 1964-68, a period when genuine heroes were fighting real villains in the jungles and plains of Vietnam, getting the back of the hand from the same public that celebrated Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin. Even then it was apparent who, from the point of view of Hollywood, was enlightened and who was not.

There was, as well, a fellow named Bond whose business it was to oppose his opposite numbers not in the appropriately multicultural and fictional SPECTRE, but in the very real KGB. That lasted one movie and even then was carefully adjusted to absolve the Soviets of the responsibility for the actions of the movie's principal villains. This was not an attempt to fit the movie to any Soviet audience, but it was a reflection of an "enlightened," i.e. non-bipolar political alignment.

As far as G.I. Joe goes, this sort of globalist fantasy land is merely another manifestation of the preference for sanitized, cartoon villains and mawkish, politically correct heroes over the gritty realities of either. One can pretend to be Luke Skywalker at any age but one has to grow up to be a Marine. Hollywood doesn't deal well with grownups - kids, even superannuated ones, are a much easier sell.