Episode 48: "The Middle of Nowhere" - a podcast by JG Media

So, imagine a cabal of greedy white people setting off to Indigenous territories that they know nothing about in order to unearth rich stores of profitable natural resources and make BILLIONS in the process? Yeah, you don’t really need to imagine that because it happens all the time, and it happens in this week’s (uncharacteristically relevant) episode of Jem and the Holograms.

No-eyeball-having Ba Nee apparently has enough eyesight to have a pen pal in Alaska named Utu, who tells Ba Nee that her brother wants to sell the particular swath of the Alaskan tundra her family owns to money grubbing capitalists from the Mainland. Ba Nee learns that those greedy bastards (who—to no one’s surprise--are later revealed to be Eric Raymond, Pizzazz, and Mr. Gabor) want to dig for oil, which will cause all the seals to die.

In a rare act of lenience and humanity, Jem temporarily relieves Ba Nee from her child-labouring duties in Cali so that the orphan gal and the Holograms can head to Alaska to live out Jem’s white saviour fantasy. Oh, and the band also has a tour in the region (???) but we never actually see that go down.

In some ways, this episode could be perceived as “woke,” but in true Jemly fashion, the portrayal of Indigenous people is fairly problematic. In particular, the way that Utu’s brother is painted as some sort of race traitor for the fact that he wants to sell their ancestral land so that his family can have some sort of social mobility, is kind of fucked up. All these white rich girls from California roll through and try to tell him that there’s more to life than money, all the while knowing nothing of this person’s life. Obvi we Jem Girls are generally not pro-pipeline (official stance?) but this issue does have SOME nuance.

LOL Jem and the Holograms and nuance? Girl, where?

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