Issue date: 7/20/06 Section: Opinion

Ivan Flores - The Battalion

The youngsters that made Pokémon a household word have carried their mania for popular culture movements with them into their early 20s. But while young American adults have their holographic Japanime cards stored safely under their beds (and only look at them once a month, thank you very much), the pirate craze has never been more hip; Johnny Depp has become the Pikachu of the 21st century.

Those swashbuckling savants have become so saturated in post-modern frivolity that one hardly passes a day without seeing some reference to them. No less than nine professional and collegiate sports teams get their names from these mythical seafarers. Dave Eggers, author of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" and unofficially the coolest person in the world, runs a shop selling nothing but pirate supplies to support his non-profit organization. Musical allusions to pirates can be found in the work of the Sex Pistols and the Beastie Boys, and International Talk Like a Pirate Day has garnered cult status. Cap'n Crunch, the poster boy for American consumption culture, was a staple growing up for the 20-somethings of today. And to top it all off, a little film called "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" just blasted its way to become the year's top-grossing film in its second week in theaters.

Given that pirates were the smelly, brutish outcasts of the 17th century, it's perplexing that society would embrace them so heartily 400 years later. Perhaps the affection that contemporary culture feels for them is akin to that which they bestow upon the inheritors of the crude-and-vulgar-man tradition: pro-wrestlers. Americans demand the same degree of authenticity from popular depictions of pirates as they do from a WWF Smackdown tournament - none. Both Captain Jack Sparrow and The Rock are, above all else, entertainers, and the American public never forgets it. They enjoy the melodrama of two beefy, spandex-clad men acting out a vendetta, and they much prefer the sex appeal of the Disneyfied buccaneers to the louse-ridden real thing.

So if pro-wrestling serves people's subconscious desire for carnal conflict, what does the popular obsession with pirates indicate about American culture today? Most likely its antipathy toward property rights. It is significant that the pirate phenomenon is occurring today, alongside the rise in Internet piracy.

"Pirates of the Caribbean" does an excellent job of articulating the manifesto behind both the nautical plunderers of the 17th century and the pimply 15-year-old boys illegally downloading Grand Theft Auto today. The film's philosophy is revealed when a giant pink octopus with a halitosis problem threatens to put an end to the looting of merchant ships. "Bad. Bad for every mother's son what calls himself a pirate," grunts Sparrow's appropriately scruffy sidekick when Lord Cutler Beckett's evil plan is finally revealed: making the seas safe for free enterprise. The audience is to understand that the rebellious bandits of the story are the true heroes, while the stodgy old coots of the East India Trading Company are the bourgeois capitalistic villains, not unlike modern depictions of the Recording Industry Association of America.

"Pirates"' landmark success is a way for the younger generation to stick it to, ironically enough, the film and music industries. With the industries' crackdown on illegal file sharing and the plethora of lawsuits it has slapped on college students across the country, the general attitude toward the labels is one of a renewed resentment of "The Man." Orlando Bloom as the endearing William Turner writes a kind of permission slip for ripping that new Nick Lachey album; pirates are, after all, the good guys.

Whatever its message, Disney executives must be twittering with glee over the film's vast commercial triumph. Ten days after its release, Pirates is still pulling in almost three times the cash as anything else at the box office, and its popularity with the younger generation ensures it will become one of the most profitable films in merchandising history. Let's hope they still feel the same way when it becomes one of the most downloaded.

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