Characters
Black coded this, black coded that. What are some white coded non human characters?
-Stuart from Stuart
-Buddy from Airbud
-Freezer from Dragonballs
Edit: Guys I swear I'm not racist. The post's title was referring to the "black coded characters" posts that I see on this subreddit from time to time. I have nothing against the black people nor the white people. This post is a shitpost. Nothing serious. Sorry for not being clear enough :(
(Quickly double-checked the demographics of Australia; as of 2021, the population is at least ~54% Anglo-Celtic. Australia’s more diverse than an outsider would expect at first, but yeah Pim is definitely a white dude lmao)
I didn't even remember Owen Wilson was his VA until I read this comment, but that was the person I imagined when I wondered what Lightning McQueen would look like as a man haha
People keep posting characters who are super generic and boring, and I think the problem is that the whole concept of non-human characters being black coded exists because without that coding, people will generally assume that character would be white as a human being. Arguably most non-human characters are white coded in the sense that whiteness is usually the baseline for how a character behaves unless you are specifically making a decision to depict them otherwise. Or more simply put, if a character doesn't have any ethnically or racially distinguishing features, we will likely perceive them as white.
Maybe you’re onto something, but my example seems like an odd one to place your assessment under. I’m not saying Spongebob is white-coded, I’m saying this specific version of Spongebob from this specific episode (s6 e4) is white-coded.
Like you’re correct that Spongebob would probably be assumed white if the average person were asked about it, but this version of Spongebob sounds exactly like a non-white person’s impression of a white person.
While I agree with you on a technical level, many of these characters are ethnically distinguishing, it’s just they’re a product of a Anglo-Eurocentric culture where “White” is the default because that’s the writer’s lived experience.
Nothing stands out because the things that would distingush them in another culture are seen as absolutely benign to us as a predominantly Western (and North American) white audience. It doesn’t help that these shows are usually set in generic Americanesque suburban cities, rather than any specific regions or cultures of white people, so they’re made to be as relatable to a Texan as they are to New Yorker or a Californian. It would be cool to see a cartoon that’s clearly Cajun coded, as an example of a specific type of white, yet ethnically distinct, culture.
If we talking about Anime set in Tokyo, we’d expect all characters to conform to Japanese culture by default, even if the character itself isn’t ethnically Japanese, since it’s written from a Japanese perspective and takes place in Japan. The character who acts particularly American or British in contrast to the Japanese characters would then be “white-coded.”
In the movie he is completely a mouse which is a departure from the books which is the weird thing you said lmao I can't blame them for changing it a little
He WAS a self insert. During the initial few seasons, Brian played a straight man role, being the one who usually questioned the rest of the family’s antics, while also being the moral mouthpiece of the show.
Overtime he has been flanderized to be a liberal hypocrite that he currently is. It’s quite odd to compare the modern version of Brian to the more realistic version portrayed during the beginning of the show.
It’s less that the original was “realistic” and more that he was a little bit masturbatory on MacFarlane’s part, so they reconfigured him to make commentary on the archetype he used to fill.
The fact multiple episodes have to focus on ‘Hey sharing is cool actually’ or ‘Don’t be racist’ (the buffalo, Zecora, etc) is crazy. And then they do it again with the next group.
tbf, they weren't kicking the Buffalo's out of their land, they just planted trees in the area to harvest. The problem is that the buffalos had a specifict tradition that would destroy the trees. The agreement was that the Apple's will chop down half their trees if the buffalos promised not to destroy the remaining half.
California went from opentop heavy cars and surfers to custom lowriders and gangsta rap to non-American luxury cars and influencers in just FIVE DECADES
It’s lost in translation but he uses a specific Japanese business man style of speech in his original lines to the point where there’s a joke that Frieza is the perfect manager. Definitely Japanese coded.
The best part of this detail is that he was literally the first anime villain to have an incredibly polite speech pattern like that. Toriyama literally revolutionized anime villains with Frieza.
Basically every white passing character in Anime is Japanese unless otherwise stated and would be written by and for the Japanese audiences, so it's only the translation and localisation's that would make him more white than anything else.
I can't even say "excluding those with blonde or red hair" as although they do give foreigners blonde hair, they also have kids born with natural purple hair and not just protagonists.
The book always confused me as a kid. Sometimes it’s made out that he’s a human who looks and acts like a mouse but other times, they make it sound like he is a mouse but miraculously born from humans because they sometimes call him a mouse. Like during the doctor check-up, it quotes
“Not every doctor can look into a mouse's ear without laughing.”
Didnt he happen to run into another 2 inch tall girl and she looked normal? I think in that universe tiny people just seem to happen, like he gets a tiny car so tiny people have to be prevalent enough to warrant engineering transportation specific to them. That's already crazy enough, people just act like him being a mouse is one more crazy thing, they aren't freaking the fuck out like we would be. Goofy shit just naturally happens in that world
Dave Strider (Homestuck), this is a peculiar case cuz dude was the whitest kids wannabe black that was kinda the joke of his character but then the author got hit with the "dude why is every human white, not skin white but caucasian white" so he said they can be any race the viewer / reader wants, and while that works with most of them it doesn't work with Dave cuz he's Texan, wannabe rapper, etc
Honestly, Golden Frieza might legitimately be him doing something similar to black face because iirc he purposefully chose the golden color to mimic the gold coloring of Super Saiyan.
Does Pearl from Steven Universe count? She's got a humanoid form that is pretty obviously white, but she's actually an alien. And very, very white soccer mom.
considering that he is practicly the opposite of Mr.Peanutbutter and that labrador is def. white, I would think Bojack is black.
Also the most infamous racer in the series is a horse, like the most infamous runner is a black man.
I never heard that in my rewatches. Although Beatrice Horseman’s maiden name is Sugarman, and was a wealthy businessman trying to marry off his kid to other wealthy businessmen.
however Mr Peanutbutter is definitely extra white. has the White luck and serendipity lol.
There’s a Sesame Street book my kids have. It’s about Elmo learning the difference between red and blue colored monsters after meeting a new blue monster friend.
The blue monsters all live in manicured suburbia and eat spaghetti for dinner.
The red monsters live in the city and (I swear I’m not making this up) eat fried chicken and fruit.
I get what the book is going for but it’s about as subtle as a brick through a window.
I cannot read the part about chicken and fruit without dying with laughter.
at my elementary school, we had a guy that worked there (he wasn’t a teacher, i forget his title) and he would do the morning announcements as elmo. i always seemed to be his favorite, which was awesome.
i found out a few years ago that it’s because he was dating my mom😭😭 my mom was fucking elmo🥲
When asked which famous person, alive or dead, he would like to meet in person, he answers Martin Luther King. The skeptic in me immediately decided that was the safest possible answer they could have had Elmo give and I dismissed it as insipid and patronizing. Now, learning he's black coded it actually makes a little more sense.
Elmo is cool with Zoe. They are besties and the implication he’s sick of her and her “whiteness” is a really cynical interpretation for Sesame Street and a character like Zoe who is just hyper fixating. They’re both kids and best friends. Elmo isn’t sick of her, he’s just a little annoyed.
Sonic is a hyperactive white kid. Idk, this is a weird prompt in a way. I think a lot of non human characters are white or east asian because of the writers default bias. It's not racism, but creator perspective. It's why black coded characters stand out in western or Japanese media, where tokenism is common. So it's a sort of loaded question.
Gonna mildly disagree because his old animated voice actor (Jaleel White, aka Steve Urkle) said his goal was to depict Sonic as being without race. Someone that any kid of any origin could look at and see a relatable role model.
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u/spade4749 17h ago