Paw Patrol: The Movie: The review: Greg Bruce and Zanna Gillespie get to grips with a phenomenon

Paw Patrol.

Married reviewers and parents-of-three Greg Bruce and Zanna Gillespie watch the movie kids everywhere can’t get enough of.

SHE SAW

Are the creators of Paw Patrol geniuses? Or does the show have subliminal messages encoded in it that turn kids into addicts? If you play the Paw Patrol theme song backwards, does it have words of worship embedded? I know that theme song more intimately than I have ever wanted to know any piece of music and I don’t think so but I just can’t understand what it is about Paw Patrol that has made it such a cultural phenomenon. This 2021 movie has been hovering around the top two spots on Netflix since it dropped weeks and weeks ago. But why? It’s not good.

We had already watched Paw Patrol: The Movie two years ago but when I suggested to the kids we watch again, there was universal elation even from my almost 10-year-old, who you’d assume would’ve aged out of it by now. The premise of a young boy, Ryder, running a rescue agency made up of six puppies - five boys, one girl, because girls can do cool stuff too, they just do it in pink - is silly. Everyone knows puppies are useless at performing rescues.

Perhaps the fact that the Paw Patrol gives authority to a child and a pack of baby dogs appeals to children’s general lack of agency. The adults in the show are constantly bowing down to the Paw Patrol’s authority. There’s wish-fulfilment in that but there’s got to be more to it than that.

Could it be that the puppies are essentially a dog version of the Village People: a construction dog, police dog, recycling dog, water dog, fireman dog and … girl dog? It’s pretty astonishing that a show created in 2013 thought that a good gender balance for the agency was five boys and one girl, whose main character trait is that she’s a girl. Everything that women have been complaining about in regards to representation in Hollywood is right there. Of course, the movie does its best to rectify that with a female scientist (voiced by Yara Shahidi) and a new girl puppy recruit, Liberty (voiced by Marsai Martin).

So, if we don’t understand its appeal and don’t approve of its gender politics, how can we convince ourselves that it’s okay for our children to keep it in the top two spots on Netflix through their thousandth viewing these school holidays? Here’s how: there’s strong positive role-modelling about helping those in need, being a good friend and facing your fears. And 16 days is a long time for children to be at home.

HE SAW

No rational adult who has ever watched an episode of Paw Patrol can understand its popularity. The storylines are insipid, the heroes uninspiring and underdeveloped, the gender imbalance appalling. Yes, the theme song is fire, but the show is otherwise dismal sauce with a side of regressive politics.

Five years ago, I took our two girls – then 4 and 2 – to a live Paw Patrol stage show at Trusts Stadium. Every child in Auckland was there to watch the giant puppy puppets going on some ridiculous adventure. I can’t say for sure what it was about. The point of Paw Patrol, as with any entertainment for preschoolers is not to engage parents but to give them some respite from the relentless physical-emotional ordeal of caring for those preschoolers.

Those two girls are now 10 and 8 and their brother is 6 and, while they no longer watch Paw Patrol the series regularly, they were frighteningly excited at the idea of watching the movie. I, however, expected and even hoped to mentally switch off from the get-go, so I was surprised to instead find myself relatively engaged and sometimes even laughing.

The content had been adultified using the now-familiar playbook for animated family movies: a multitude of high-profile celebrity voices, gags that make grown-ups feel smart, and the obligatory Trump parody. I’m not saying it was great, but it was at least watchable.

But while the movie has fixed some of the show’s entertainment problems, it’s done nothing to address its social or political bleakness: elected officials are either corrupt or incompetent and citizens are in a perpetual state of crisis that can be addressed only by the intervention of a privately funded band of mercenaries. In other words, Adventure Bay is Putin’s Russia and the Paw Patrol is the Wagner Group.

You might say that if I hate its disturbing and regressive politics so much, I shouldn’t let my kids watch it, and yes, you make a fair point, childless person who is always able to wipe your butt without interruption. The big issue for me, however, is not the impact of the show’s dismal messaging but the fact that the messaging seems to be instinctively and globally popular with children.

If our kids are hardwired to love this nonsense - and it appears they are - there’s no need to worry about the climate apocalypse. We’re not going to make it that far.

Paw Patrol: The Movie is now streaming on Netflix.