Animorphs and Discrimination

[blue_rampion]

Before 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?

Comments

late to the party!

[almighty-patsy.livejournal.com]

Sort of related to the 'singular he' discussion above - are most female teachers referred to as 'Ms.' in America? Is this a normal thing? I always liked the detail that most women had the honorific 'Ms.' in the books (if any was used), but maybe it actually is very commonly used there and wasn't a conscious choice.
(Actually, in particular I think there are a few times when the kids give each other snarky nicknames on the spot - like "Mr. Punctuality" - and the female versions always seemed to use Ms.)

Re: late to the party!

[ghaweyriao.livejournal.com]

We mostly call our teachers 'Miz,' even when they call themselves 'Mrs.' It's just easier that way - you don't have to think about which word to use and 'Ms' is quicker to say than 'Missus'. This may be a side effect of Southern accents, I dunno.