My Thoughts on Mega Leech: We’re all missing the point!
While we’re all clowning about whether or not Adrien is a sentimonster, we’re not discussing the positively gorgeous thematic content of this episode! I would like to fix that.
First off, we have a young girl is literally afraid of her own shadow. But she’s knowledgeable and she’s passionate. And she knows something is wrong and no one is listening to her. And she picks herself up and finds her courage over and over and over and over again to speak out.
This is beautiful guys! Because this is what activism feels like! No one cares!!
And who is she speaking out against?
She’s standing in the way of a giant tractor come to destroy the park.
She’s standing up to the friggin’ mayor of Paris who would prefer to dismiss her for being young and naive. A man in a position of privilege who cannot respond to resistance or take criticism on his own. He sends the police to put this rabble rouser back in her place.
FOR LAW AND ORDER.
And he does it! The police officer removes Mylene and Ivan from the scene. They literally showed the police officer blatantly in the wrong! Do you know how rare that is?! And how good of a potential conversation that is between kids and their parents - to have an example where the police officer is not protecting the citizens, but rather doing the bidding of wealthy white men?
And at first, even her friends are like, “Why are you against this project that is for the environment?”
And she explains!! That’s what they want you to think!! They say they’re going to help, but they are literally going to destroy this planet so they can sell us clean air in cans while they claim to be the ones saving it. Something that should be free - something the trees are already doing. And something that would could make better by planting more trees!! Not cutting them all down. (It even points out that solving these problems is not that simple! That we’re going to need a ton of different small ways to tackle the problem).
(I even appreciate the Adrien bit where he’s like - I didn’t know that’s what this commercial was for. It models how we exploit our own - make them represent and fight for the system that destroy the world they are supposed to inherit).
And then, after fighting so hard, and maybe even gaining some traction because now there is public pressure and media pressure on the politician. Asking him, is this true? Is this what you’re trying to do? After all of that, the wealthy and the powerful take over the narrative completely with literal brainwashing!! They take Mylene’s friends and family. They are now all against her. And what does she do???
She starts giving Marinette a pep talk about how fear is okay. It’s normal. And that we have to keep going forward anyway.
But then even Marinette is overcome by brainwashing, and Mylene is alone. She’s lost everything. She’s in a puddle on the floor crying about how it’s all her fault! And how does Ladybug pick her up and inspire her to be a hero?
BY REPEATING EVERYTHING MYLENE HAS BEEN SAYING THE WHOLE EPISODE RIGHT BACK AT HER!! Because Mylene just needed to hear it from someone else because she was beginning to doubt the voice in her head.
And what super power shall we give to the aspiring activist?
Why the ability to turn into a friggin’ army! We give her the power of many. The ability to share her message with everyone! The ability to destroy the brainwashing, and help people to see the truth.
And the episode continues to hammer home the idea that this corruption (the powerful who are literally LEECHING off this world and all the people who live here) is so big with so many resources with millions of akumas, that it feels impossible to fight. How can anyone fight all that?
Well, you need a really big dedicated team!! (One of which has the power to be an army all by herself!)
Now, am I optimisitc enough to think one vague comment from a well meaning super-heroine is enough to generate public pressure to get politicians to start at least pretending to act in our interests? No, not really. But I can appreciate the optimism of a children’s show that gave so many conversation starters with a simple example to talk about real issues that affect children and their futures, that gave a simplified template for how to do something!
This episode was amazing! In a tier with Guiltrip, and I hope is more what our filler episodes look like in the future.
But no, go ahead and keep obsessing over this scene:
(Okay, okay, but what if Adrien IS a senti-monster and Gabriel just doesn’t know?! Yeah, yeah... I’m a clown, too...)
