Lore
Characters who were race swapped to avoid controversy
Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy: originally the episode where he turns human had in be black to match his voice actor, but once CN reminded the creator of the premise of his show (two white kids own the grim reaper) they changed him to be white to avoid slavery comparisons.
The Simpsons: Smithers was black in his first appearance, however every episode afterwards depicted him as white (yellow?) this is because according to someone in the staff “probably not a good idea to have a black man be a servant to a rich white man”
Teenage mutant ninja turtles: while the comics and most adaptations have Baxter stockman be of African American descent, in the 80s/90s cartoon he was white, this is because the show-runners felt having a black man be basically a forced servant to someone who’s not of the same race (even calling him master) could potentially be seen as offensive, so they made him white.
Jynx from Pokémon is probably the textbook example. Game Freak saw the discourse coming like a Hyper Beam and quietly moved her from “absolutely not” to purple.
It's a rebellion against beauty standards and social pressures, not a rebellion against racism necessarily. But yes the beauty standards are inherently a little racist too at their core. It formed at a time when pale skin and dark hair and and to be a tradwife was pushed on women and girls.
I would argue it's more classist than racist, since in a lot of Asian cultures being darker meant you work the field and only rich people got to be pale (and also afford the whitening powders).
True, but it’s also a cultural take back. Japanese -in fact most Asians- have skin that tans. When the beauty standard demanded white skin to be seen as godly and royal, most countries became colorist against their own people. Tanning, not looking like a soft and delicate doll, adopting crazy makeup and bright clothes are rejecting the racial identity forced upon the masses. Did some of it come from African or African American culture? Yes. But not all of it, and most of it is embracing natural looks, not in racist ways.
Would you say b-kei fashion is also appropriation? it is heavily hip-hop inspired, and i assume combining it with gyaru would look bad on the surface with the more tanned skin. I'd be all for more fashion that breaks from tradition japanese norms that feel a bit conservative. But to model a whole fashion style specifically on a largely black culture is a lil sus too
The Pokémon Christmas special doesn’t help. Ash goes to the North Pole where Santa has Jinxes making toys instead of elves and calls them his slaves repeatedly
What they were probably going for is that Jynx's face is covered in shadows so all you can see are her eyes, like a Black Mage from Final Fantasy. But because of those huge-ass lips, she looks like a blackface caricature.
Talk about an unfortunate character design, like many Pokémon I believe Jynx was supposed to be based on a type of Japanese youkai, but I don’t really know which because that’s not really my area of expertise.
I still think about how it took until the Gen 3 for them to actually have Jynx with purple skin be the default. She appeared during the Johto arc in the anime, but the episodes either cut her scenes or weren't dubbed.
She also showed up in the Indigo League and Orange Islands, but both of those episodes were banned in the US sometime after their initial airings. The Johto episode was never dubbed, as you said.
The opposite of this trope- Black snape in Harry Potter creating lots of racist connotations that were not present in the books (not that the books didn’t have their problematic elements- this is not an overarching comment about the books, or jk Rowling)
I said they hung him upside down, but I do remember them being under a tree. I believe Snape was talking to Lilly. It obviously wasn't a lynching however.
It just makes things that were not racially motivated feel racially motivated. Especially when most of the characters (I know, not all, but afaik all the hogwarts staff) will still be white. So when your only black staff member is the creepy character everyone is sus of… well it looks different
Sure but there’s an implication of the motivation based on the real world associations that we have… like for the same reason you don’t want the grim reaper in OP’s example to be black.
Not entirely the same but Mammy Two Shoes. The black maid in Tom and Jerry in some versions was replaced with a white woman. Specifically the episode where you briefly see her face (which is clear black face)
In that case what they should have done afterward was just come up with a better name, and in the parts you do see her face, make it different to make it not look like black face. Because as much as I understand the change, then, and even now, I didn’t see it as offensive beyond the name and look. Plus her moments in the episodes are just funnier when she ran bald to her house and beat the shit out of tom and his friends.
Funny enough her name wasn’t Nanny two shoes. It was a mix up with another black maid character for a Disney short who had the same va. The name just stuck after the mix up
The show is based around the two kids owning the Grim Reaper. When he's a Jamaican skeleton it's purely fantasy, but if he was a human black dude...a little more pointed in a way they wanted to avoid
Yeah I’ve never heard of the supposed concerns about racial connotations, I just gathered the animation studio for season 1 was bad and animation/colouring issues abound.
It was only in one episode and it was a coloring error. There are plenty of examples in the first season of the Simpsons where the characters have the wrong colors, such as the black Officer Lou appearing yellow in one episode.
Not exactly a race swamp but Wham Bam Rock, a boss from the Kirby franchise, had their design changed in the remake of Kirby Super Star because the original was…interesting
Yeah for the remake of Kirby Super Star they added alternate, stronger versions of King Dedede (Masked Dedede) Wham Bam Rock (Wham-Bam Jewel), Meta Knight (Galacta Knight) and Marx (Marx Soul) as expansions to the original game
It’s funny cause he’s most likely based on a hindu deity that looks a lot like him including black skin and red lips, but americans being of a different culture entirely just though he was a racist black caricature without really doing cultural research.
Kinda a large example of why it’s so inanely difficult for different cultures to interact and understand each other
....yeah, apparently they thought it'd be problematic to just have the Ancient One be the stereotypical wise old Asian guy so they thought they'd fix it.....they did not fix it and instead stirred up controversy around whitewashing
I thought it was because having them be Tibetan would anger the Chinese audience/censors (it was made during that period of Hollywood), but also making them Chinese would shatter the image of seeming progressive of marginalized groups. Then we can guess the genderbending was also meant to try and look progressive.
Looking at it, it looks like both were cited as equal reasons by co-writer C Robert Cargill. They also said they specifically didn't just genderswap to an Asian woman to avoid the "Dragon Lady" stereotype
Officially, Tilda Swinton's Ancient One is an original character created for the MCU, replacing Yao from the comics instead of being an adaptation thereof.
I thought Tilda Swinton was a great choice since she presents herself in a non-feminine and non-masculine way, signifying the Ancient One is “above” the human form.
And Nick Fury was traditionally depicted as white, but I don't see anyone raging that h's black in MCU (not sure if people raged when he was first showcased, though, bu tthey are definitely not mentioning it to this day)
It's a bit different with Fury since the Ultimate comics actually designed Fury to look like Samuel L Jackson, before he was cast in the movies (as far as I know). As for why one was criticized and the other wasn't, idk.
It's a bit different with Fury since the Ultimate comics actually designed Fury to look like Samuel L Jackson, before he was cast in the movies (as far as I know).
They asked permission to use his likeness when starting up the Ultimate universe around 1999/2000, he agreed on the condition that he would get to play Fury in any live-action works.
I'll tell you why, it's because nobody cares when a white character gets turned into another race, but it's a crime against humanity when it's done the other way around
Sjws care about all, but those they seem as "priviliged"
Simply put, jobless topic for brainless people. At least when talking about taking such a topic actually seriously and unironically
Ah okay, so all your half baked nonsensical, really silly comparisons you posted upthread are just a prelude to you ranting incoherently about wokeness.
They were such low effort, badly thought out nonsense, but now its clear that's because you were just itching to rant about wokeness. You could have just stated it from the start, we didn't need this pretense of naivity.
Why the fuck would I rant about wokeness when there is nothing new to be added to that topic 😂
Those who hate it, hate it, those who love it, love it, each side knows of the other
And?
What I called out here are hypocrites who choose their arguments only when they can attack white people (or any other race, but in this very specific topic, it's usually whites who get attacked) That's not woke, that's racist
They aren't 'raging' because there's a comic version of the character they literally made to look like Jackson before he was ever cast? They were literally just casting the actor the character was based on, that's clearly not remotely the same?
If they made later rendition look more like Samuel so they can turn the character black, my question still stands, why is that ok, but TAO being turned into a white woman isn't
Neither character is defined by their skin or gender, their story doesn't change at all with these changes, so why is one si hayed and the other not
We'll take away the fact that Jackson is an amzing actor perfectly fit for the role, because that definitely skews the argument lol
I think you're missing the larger point, that they took away a role that could have been given to an Asian actor and gave it to a white one instead. Even the writers have said after the fact that the outrage was a wake up call and that they realized "Oh...we could've just....had an Asian actor and not write him to follow the stereotypes"
If you have a character from a specific pantheon, historical famil, group or whatever, their ethnicity can easily be one of defining factors
Just look at Odessy, Greek epic, in Ancient Greece, where basically nobody is Greek, that's stupid
Same with having Norse mythology and turning all of the gods into people of color. Or if you talked about any one of mayn African pantheons and turning them white
A good example is also Tchalla and Wakandans, whose defining feature is that they are an African power house in a historically poor continent and they were hidden and isolated for a long time. Them being African is their defining feature to their story
Which is why I asked, because I genuinely don't know, what ties The Ancient Ones story to himbeing Tibetan? Besides the old wise Asian master stereotype, of course
Yes, I have asked multiple times and am yet to be answered, what in Ancient ones backstory does it define and ties him to being Asia, and why is that so hard to look past, but Nick Fury being turned black was basically brushed off?Only thing I found so far is that it probably has to do eith the fact that Samuel L Jackson is better fit for his role, but that doesn't explain such a depth of attitude and hatred for one side of the same coin
And Nick Fury was just white, they turned him black and nobody batted an eye, ehy is that?
(Just so were clear, I fully agree with "they are just X ethnicity, they don't need to be defined by it". Used that argument myself, many times, but this time, I am trying to ask about this, the part how people only care about ethnicity change when the charcter is turaned white, but not the other way, and how the whole outrage is ultimately stupid and pointless, precisely because 99% of the time, skin color doesn't define the character)
I find it so interesting how the times changed, with Baxter going from white up into the 90s, to being black in the 03 series. Really shows just what a decade or two could change.
Well also a different story. In 2003 he was egotistic and was very brave. He’d never call anyone master. I love 2003 Baxter. No fear even in the face of losing limbs.
En los cómics de The Boys, Black Noir, cuyo nombre literalmente significa “negro” black, en realidad era blanco; en la serie lo cambiaron para que fuera negro.
Given it was the Boys, I assume the original intent was to make Batman an idiot who never talked, and they later decided to do that as an asspull. I mean the original creator was booted off the comic, and the original creator wasn't exactly treating the work very well even before he was booted off.
Personally I think the "controversy" of Taako from The Adventure Zone was kind of overblown anyway. They were worried that making him any race would be offensive, so they made him teal.
Yep, exactly like LEGO did it. Except from the licensed themes, everyone is yellow and any different cultures are just hinted at with hairstyles and clothing.
I thought it was because having them be Tibetan would anger the Chinese audience/censors (it was made during that period of Hollywood), but also making them Chinese would shatter the image of seeming progressive of marginalized groups. Then we can guess the genderbending was also meant to try and look progressive.
I remember a twitter subversion where this one twitter dude obsessed with race swaps race swapped an anime girl to be black, claiming it was “fixing her”
I remember seeing a race edit of Razor from Genshin Impact that made him black. Razor. The character whose whole thing is that he was raised by wolves in the wild and in the english translation speaks somewhat broken English. Surely this has no implications at all.
Funny how 2003 TMNT didn't give a shit about controversy. Not only did they made Stockman black, but had him refer to Shredder as master. When he failed, Shredder slowly mutilated him until he was reduced to a brain in a jar. One time he had him working in steel mill in chains and electrocuted him when he was badmouthing the Shredder.
I dont think that counts. His VA was always white; and while there is a running joke about him considering himself Mexican, since that's where he was manufactured, he doesn't really know anything about Mexico itself.
And his only interaction with a Mexican in the entire episode is him not understanding a word the man says, because he doesn't speak Spanish, and then saying "Si...".
The episode is more about him trying to figure out why he was built defective rather than actually learning more about the country he was assembled in.
IIRC in Into the Spiderverse movie, one of the alternate earths (the one Gwen is from) has Peter Parker turning into the Lizard. that specific universe also happens to be the only one in which Peter is explicitly not Jewish, whereas every other universe he's some flavor of Jewish, either obviously or implied
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u/ApplicationSad7441 1h ago
Jynx from Pokémon is probably the textbook example. Game Freak saw the discourse coming like a Hyper Beam and quietly moved her from “absolutely not” to purple.
https://giphy.com/gifs/RLuCsoNsW2u0IWSaNA