Cherished Memories

When I was 6, I got a paper route. Every Saturday, I would stuff coupons into the paper and stuff the paper into plastic bags for delivery. Every Sunday, I would wake up early and deliver the ad-driven classifieds-and-coupons "greensheet".

Once a month, I would get paid. I didn't have a large route, so I didn't get paid much. I was six. The first business day after payday, I would cash the check and immediately start begging my parents to take me to a toy store so I could spend my hard-earned money. Every month for years, my paycheck was spent on the same thing.

I owned dozens of GI Joes. I worked and sweated and froze to earn that money. I didn't grow up rich or even well-off. If I wanted toys any time other than Christmas, I had to buy them. Once a month, my collection grew. I played with those "real American heroes" every day until puberty told me I was too old to enjoy them.

Now, Stephen Sommers is whoring my childhood memories to a UN-run world. Jerkface, GI Joe was never about politics. It was about good guys-American soldiers-fighting bad guys and winning. The sides were always clear, and the motives were always obvious. This movie should not be about who is President*. It's about heroes doing heroic things with comic-book panache.

You are destroying the memories of millions of former boys in an effort to cash in on those memories. You are destroying an semblance of credibility you may have had. You are destroying the entire dream of GI Joe to collect some fleeting, minuscule amount of goodwill from a notoriously fickle demographic. This is wrong.

Now you know.




H/T SayUncle.