Animorphs and Discrimination
Oct. 2nd, 2010 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blue_rampion posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
animorphsljBefore we get into the minor character discussions, there is a topic I've been wanting to bring up here - discrimination and how they are dealt with and portrayed in the books. We see examples of racism, speciesism, sexism, and discrimination against the disabled, but they're all examined to different degrees and in different ways.
With racism, we see that most prominently with Cassie ("I can turn white" indeed). Marco gets all of one line about being followed by mall security, but they're both characters that would have both dealt with racism in their lives. But overall, while it's brought up on occasion we don't really go too heavily into this issue.
Now, speciesism - that we see a ton of, and I'd argue that a lot of the issues that usually come up in a discussion of racism are in fact explored through speciesism. All of the various aliens have opinions and stereotypes of the other aliens - the Andalites are 'arrogant', the humans are just meat to the Yeerks, the Yeerks are all 'evil', and Hork-Bajir and all nice and sweet and stupid. They've all got preconceived notions of each other, some of them good but a lot of them not good.
Sexism isn't gone into too much, but the series touches on it every now and then - Rachel's got some strong feminist leanings, and we have the Axis of Awesome assuming that the Governor is a man.
And as for discrimination against the disabled...well, we definitely go into that, and this is definitely one of the major failings of Andalite culture.
There's probably also other forms of discrimination in the books that I can't think of, but my questions to you are: Do you think the series do a good job of depicting these issues? Could it (and should it) have gone into more detail on any of them?
With racism, we see that most prominently with Cassie ("I can turn white" indeed). Marco gets all of one line about being followed by mall security, but they're both characters that would have both dealt with racism in their lives. But overall, while it's brought up on occasion we don't really go too heavily into this issue.
Now, speciesism - that we see a ton of, and I'd argue that a lot of the issues that usually come up in a discussion of racism are in fact explored through speciesism. All of the various aliens have opinions and stereotypes of the other aliens - the Andalites are 'arrogant', the humans are just meat to the Yeerks, the Yeerks are all 'evil', and Hork-Bajir and all nice and sweet and stupid. They've all got preconceived notions of each other, some of them good but a lot of them not good.
Sexism isn't gone into too much, but the series touches on it every now and then - Rachel's got some strong feminist leanings, and we have the Axis of Awesome assuming that the Governor is a man.
And as for discrimination against the disabled...well, we definitely go into that, and this is definitely one of the major failings of Andalite culture.
There's probably also other forms of discrimination in the books that I can't think of, but my questions to you are: Do you think the series do a good job of depicting these issues? Could it (and should it) have gone into more detail on any of them?
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Date: 2010-10-02 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 03:25 am (UTC)I mean, we've only had interracial couples on TV and in movies for a relatively very short time in human history or even film history. It makes sense that major, large-publication books - particularly childrens' books - would have the same hangups.
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Date: 2010-10-02 03:34 am (UTC)and that pronunciation is why I capitalised Issues actually :Pno subject
Date: 2010-10-02 03:36 am (UTC):> The finest 'Iss-yew' I've ever heard came from Tulio in The Road to El Dorado. Hence my icon here, despite not being shocked.
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Date: 2010-10-02 03:37 am (UTC)MIGUEL AND TULIOOOOOOOOO! /does not have a Road To El Dorado icon sadly, so HAVE THIS ONE INSTEAD
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Date: 2010-10-02 03:39 am (UTC)The Road to El Dorado is something that I fantard over ALMOST as hard as Animorphs. It's very close.
I wish tRtED had 50+ books and a TV show to its name. :(
... Wait, no I don't, every animated show based on a movie that I've ever seen has been horrible. (With the exception of Mozenrath in the Aladdin series.)
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Date: 2010-10-02 03:42 am (UTC)Yeah, they do tend to be crap ;_; and books based on movies tend to just be...novelisations of the script and really crap.
I still hope that Animorphs could somehow get a cartoon though /sobno subject
Date: 2010-10-02 03:45 am (UTC)... And a while ago I made Sims of them. Very accurate Sims.
Woohoo was had.
And OH HELL YES an Animorphs cartoon would be AWESOME - a GOOD ONE, like made by the people who made Wolverine and the X-Men (EXCEPT THIS WOULDN'T BE UTTERLY SCREWED BY THE NETWORK AND BE CANCELLED BEFORE THEY COULD BRING IN DEEAAAADDDPOOOOOLLL - excuse me, that's another rant.)
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Date: 2010-10-02 03:47 am (UTC)idk that cartoon so I will take your word that it is awesome :P But god, I want a cartoon so much. Why did they have to make a freaking live-action? IT MAKES NO SENSE.
also I would make icons of it Like a Bossno subject
Date: 2010-10-02 03:49 am (UTC)And OH HELL YEAH, animated show with icons would be AMAZINGS. YES.
(And yeah, WatXM was freaking amazing. So naturally it was screwed with and canceled. BAH.)
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Date: 2010-10-02 03:53 am (UTC)It would certainly save me the trouble of trying to find PBs for rping. (DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND MALE HISPANIC SMIRKING TEENAGERS?!?! THAT HAVE AN ACTUAL RANGE OF EXPRESSIONS?!?!?) And fanart's no help, since most Animorphs fanart is of the aliens (and good luck finding consistency in how they're drawn.)
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Date: 2010-10-02 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 04:12 am (UTC)it's Rex, main character of
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Date: 2010-10-02 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 04:13 am (UTC)Also middle-aged Hispanic women who aren't Salma Hayek. LKASDGJFLKJGKSDJF. I nearly blew my brains out looking for an Eva.
If anyone knows any good PB sites for actors of color, I'll need it in the future too...WHERE ARE ALL THE SMIRKING BLACK KIDS.
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Date: 2010-10-02 04:22 am (UTC)Hollow Art tends to have too many models, and don't like using models as PBs because THEY ONLY EVER HAVE ONE EXPRESSIONno subject
Date: 2010-10-02 03:52 am (UTC)which pretty much neuters 2Face's development, so maybe there is some truth to that.no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 04:00 am (UTC)In Remnants, 2Face gets an inner monologue about how because she's disfigured, she needs to make another person the outcast so it doesn't happen to her. She considers going by race and fingering the Indian guy whose name I can't remember, but then remembers that both Tate and Tamara are black and unlikely to respond well to racist accusations. Then she considers going anti-Semetic but remembers that while D-Caf Melman (<3) is a loser, team leader Wylson is also Jewish. I think she considers going after Tate for being gay, too, but that got cut as well. It was a really great scene that really highlighted the sticky situation 2Face was in and showed how sickened she felt with herself for sinking to base discrimination to survive. But naturally, it got axed and 2Face just came across looking like a psycho.
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Date: 2010-10-02 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 10:09 pm (UTC)And yeah, that stuff about 2Face looking for a scapegoat was intense and just as topical today (if not more so) than it was in 2000. That series could have been great if it wasn't intended to be for elementary school kids. But I think Michael Grant took a lot of that and put it into his Gone books, so at least the ideas are somewhat salvaged.
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Date: 2010-10-02 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-02 10:13 pm (UTC)