So real talk: I might have landed a full time job, but when things seem to be going well on the job front is when they tend to go very badly and I am very scared. I’m panicking. Especially because this would be a very good job.
Anyhow let’s talk about Last Kids on Earth!
---
Zombies and Last Kids on Earth!
[Note: this applies to the animated Netflix series, not the book series. I haven’t read the books.]
About a year ago I noticed a book series in Barnes and Noble titled Last Kids on Earth!, aimed at middle-schoolers and seeming to be a kids’ take on a post-apocalypse. Which is weird, but not that weird, all things considered. And then I found out that Netflix had made a series. So I decided why not check that out?
And it’s… okay, I guess. I should go ahead and say that I think if you’re for the target audience it’s probably better and more entertaining. But I felt like even for a cartoon for children, there was this feature that stuck out to me: the main characters all refuse to kill zombies. The town’s infested with them, and at no point does anyone really question this.
So let me backup and explain: Last Kids on Earth! tells the story of Jack Sullivan, a kid in a suburban town that one day inexplicably gets invaded by monsters falling out of portals from the sky. And then a zombie virus instantaneously breaks out. Jack is living in his tree house at the beginning of the series, the only one he knows of that’s alive and well, as his walkie talkie that he used to talk to his best friend Quint is broken. They do eventually link up, along with Dirk, the guy who used to bully Jack and Quint, and June, who is Jack’s crush. They have adventures from Jack’s treehouse and the Plot develops from there as they find out more about the apocalypse and its causes.
You may notice that there’s a lot I glossed over from the situation, and to be clear, the show glosses over it too. It’s not that these kids’ parents aren’t mentioned, but they’re handwaved as being not there for whatever reason. Jack’s a foster kid who’s adopted family up and left, Quint’s family was on vacation, June’s family evacuated the second things started going south, and Dirk… I don’t think he has a family? They’re all conveniently out of the way, and while there does seem to be some trauma about what’s going on with their families, it’s mostly put in the background.
You’d also think there’d be a lot of violence in this show, but there’s not that much? I suppose they do fight monsters and zombies, but rarely ever with anything like lethal force. Jack makes a point to tell his friends that they shouldn’t kill zombies; his excuse being that after all, they can’t help that they’re zombies! And that doesn’t… that doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t seem as if he’s holding out hope for some kind of cure to the zombie virus. He doesn’t even seem particularly bothered to see zombies of people he used to know, like the teachers at school. So they don’t kill zombies, only restrain them, beat them back, or run away from them. And as the zombies are shambling and not very smart, this tends to work.
But… why? Why not kill the zombies? They’re zombies, and they’d very easily kill or turn our protagonists if they had the chance. The protagonists do have spears and blades, but for the most part use a lot of… well, crap and toys that they’ve repurposed into weapons, like launchers of footballs and hockey sticks. There’s a story arc in season two about the zombies mysteriously disappearing, and it’s played as creepy because they don’t know what’s going on, they do seem to be actually horrified that there’s a creature out there taking out the zombies, even though that’s actually a good thing. It gets weird when Dirk becomes attached to the zombie they’re using as bait and does everything he can to save him from being devoured, like he’s the team pet or something.
It feels less like a character decision that makes sense and more indicative that the makers of the series are trying to avoid showing too much on-screen violence. I get that for the audience they’re courting, they don’t want gore and violence, but that’s kind of unavoidable when your setting is a zombie apocalypse. Even if they don’t want to show gore, they could easily do violence without making it graphic.
I’m reminded of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (which had a second season recently, which is fantastic and you should go watch it), which is also a cartoon set during the apocalypse, and in all is not a very dark story. It’s got dark elements, but it’s incredibly optimistic in tone. And to be clear, it also doesn’t have a bunch of graphic violence. But the threat of it is always there, and there’s evidence of it at every turn, and the ongoing fear that it might happen to our protagonists. Wolf wears the skin of an intelligent wolf that she killed and skinned herself. It’s not all up front, but it’s there, and we know that these characters are in actual danger.
Last Kids on Earth! has characters clamp their hands over a zombie’s mouth and no one brings up the fear of being bitten or infected, and that’s poor writing. June has an actual spear, and we at no point see her stabbing something with it. These kids can apparently take down hordes of zombies, but do absolutely nothing to make sure those same hordes don’t get back up again to hurt them or others.
It also diminishes the danger of the story? Because we’re meant to think that the zombie virus took over the world, or at least this small town, and they can be beaten back by a bunch of kids? Creative, skilled kids who know what they’re doing, but still kids. And that’s a bit of an egregious writing blunder. Yes, again, it’s a show aimed at children in middle school, and middle school fiction shouldn’t traumatize its audience, but there are ways to do these kinds of stories that don’t narratively talk down to the audience. There are ways to do violence without making it graphic, for instance.
Not gonna lie though, this story would make one fantastic RPG.
---
No comments:
Post a Comment