You know how the Saiyans in DBZ are literal fucking monkeys and were slaves? That means they are "black coded" in most discussions and is one of the most famous examples until Steven Universe came out.
In fact that example predates most of the internet and the people on it, when DaBlackGoku.com was made back in fucking 1999 because black kids liked DBZ that much. That's probably the origin point of "drawing cartoon characters with bling, money and other gangbanger shit" as well because it was full of that.
Speaking of, there was a line in a more recent DB cartoon where a random cop or something shouted at his men "Don't shoot, he's not Black!", where the capitalisation was actually important this time because it was referring to the character named Black Goku. I do wonder if that was some intention trolling by the writers who knew the translation would unsettle some.
That was from DBS and quite a lot of years ago now. It predates the "capitalize black" discourse by a chunk of time so it is just a happy funny how it worked out.
I love to bring up Goku as an example for representation. He's, as you stated a monkey man from outer space. He's not even human per se and yet everyone can identify with him, be it black people, white people, Asians obviously, everyone. We don't need black people to represent, we need characters with great values like Goku who fights for what's right.
It seems like it's mostly political activists or women pushing for this. Actual men don't give a fuck, we can identify with anyone if the message is correct. Sorry for the tangent.
DBZ could probably do more for racial cohesion than any other discussion about race possible.
It has successfully brought together latino, black, white, and Asian boys (no idea about the Arabs) on a single thing they all love and can find common ground on. Like pure passion and friendship over watching Gogeta appear in a movie where a fucking skinny weeb and a hardened gang banger will be arm in arm.
Shit, static shock is still one of my favorite DC characters and not once as a kid did I ever wonder why his skin was different and why he didn’t look like me.
Despite what the rainbow death squad on X would tell you, I never once identified and related to a character because their skin color matched mine
You know how the Saiyans in DBZ are literal fucking monkeys and were slaves? That means they are "black coded" in most discussions and is one of the most famous examples until Steven Universe came out.
In fact that example predates most of the internet and the people on it, when DaBlackGoku.com was made back in fucking 1999 because black kids liked DBZ that much. That's probably the origin point of "drawing cartoon characters with bling, money and other gangbanger shit" as well because it was full of that.
Speaking of, there was a line in a more recent DB cartoon where a random cop or something shouted at his men "Don't shoot, he's not Black!", where the capitalisation was actually important this time because it was referring to the character named Black Goku. I do wonder if that was some intention trolling by the writers who knew the translation would unsettle some.
That was from DBS and quite a lot of years ago now. It predates the "capitalize black" discourse by a chunk of time so it is just a happy funny how it worked out.
I love to bring up Goku as an example for representation. He's, as you stated a monkey man from outer space. He's not even human per se and yet everyone can identify with him, be it black people, white people, Asians obviously, everyone. We don't need black people to represent, we need characters with great values like Goku who fights for what's right.
It seems like it's mostly political activists or women pushing for this. Actual men don't give a fuck, we can identify with anyone if the message is correct. Sorry for the tangent.
DBZ could probably do more for racial cohesion than any other discussion about race possible.
It has successfully brought together latino, black, white, and Asian boys (no idea about the Arabs) on a single thing they all love and can find common ground on. Like pure passion and friendship over watching Gogeta appear in a movie where a fucking skinny weeb and a hardened gang banger will be arm in arm.
And its about a bunch of alien monkeys.
Shit, static shock is still one of my favorite DC characters and not once as a kid did I ever wonder why his skin was different and why he didn’t look like me.
Despite what the rainbow death squad on X would tell you, I never once identified and related to a character because their skin color matched mine
Interesting. Thanks for the breakdown