The picture above shows a new Netflix show that premiered this year. This show has been around long before I was born. I decided to watch it because I remember watching it when I was a kid with my family. The show is about a young girl who was abandoned on an island that was inhabited by a school of professional criminals. The young girl grew up with no biological family around her. The people she knew on the island were the ones who took care of her and a cycle of nannies that taught her basic education. Throughout the first two episodes of the show, we see a young girl growing up in a remote island learning from the people around her. Pranking the people around her, without any sort of punishment. She learned to pickpocket, she learned to sneak around, she learned to keep a secret, she learned how to hide things. The young girl never had a real name and went by the code name “Black Sheep”, she learned all the wrong values in life. She idolized the young people that would study at the school of crime and fantasized of one day too graduating and becoming a criminal. A sharp turn, however, happened when she was finally allowed to join the school and was close to graduating. She failed her final exam and was not allowed to go on the mission. Due to her desire to prove herself and graduate she decided to go on the mission. What she saw on the mission changed her whole world view. Who she thought were her friends, turned out to be people who would go to any lengths in order to steal what they wanted. She witnessed people she trained with murder others that were in their way. After this, she decided to use her skills in order to stop the criminal acts of the people who ran the school of crime.
When watching this show the themes that stood out to me where, primary groups, secondary groups, in-group, out-group, and the labeling theory.
Carmen, as she now goes by, grew up without a mother or father or any siblings. Those who took care of her and socialized her were a cycle of nannies she grew up with. The nannies were her secondary group as she never built a strong emotional bond from them, and none of them stayed with her long enough to become her family. Those who I consider were her primary family was the headmistress of the school. She was the one I saw that would give Carmen any comfort and empathy. Carmen also stated that she felt bad for making the headmistress feel guilty for her defiance. Because Carmen grew up in the school isolated for the real world she saw everyone on the island both old and new as people that belonged in her in-group. She later realized that they were in the wrong for all the things they do to innocent people. The turn I mention in the previous paragraph leads me to conclude that the people she once saw as her in-group became her out-group and in correlation her enemies.
The Labeling theory, people internalize and self prophesize the labels that are given to them in society. Carmen never had a real name and was given the code name of Black Sheep. I think naming her the Black Sheep is a foreshadow to what she will end up doing, however, I also think Carmen internalized that name and became a black sheep. She learned everything the students at the school learned and did them better. She believed she was better because she was younger and smarter, and even though all the students worked toward the same goal, she believed she was meant to become a criminal. Once she started to defy the people on the island, she began to go by the name Carmen Sandiego. The name marked the moment she left the island and the moment she beat on the headmasters of the school. She was no longer a student at that school nor was she tied to anyone on that island. Accordingly, to the labeling theory, she internalized her name and abandoned the feelings of loyalty to the people on the island and became their opponent.
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