miscellaneous
(Meta Trope) "Wait, you're supposed to be a bad representation!" "Yeah but you accidentally made me cool as fuck"
Injue Joe (Looney Tunes)- in this episode how America came to be, 90% of the country belonged to this mf. He broke trees with his chest, scared off bears with his roar, sended bear traps running and crying with his bite, passed rivers like a hippo, shot tree sized arrows casually and eated bullet to form canon balls that he shooted out of his mouth.
Snowflame (DC comics): Snowflame is a villain that gains more power the more he takes cocaine. He can control white flames, have super strenght, super resistance, ability to makes others feel drugged aswell and endless stamina. He should be a PTA about drugs being bad, but the writers forgot the most important things when making a anti-drug characters, THEY FORGOT TO GIVE HIM CONSEQUENCES FOR USING HIS POWER. Mf is able to duke it out with a entire hero team at the price of nothing.
Tequila gundam, honestly most of the mechs from G-gundam. They all play off national stereotypes (canada is a lumberjack, france looks like napoleon, the african/zulu gundam is zebra themed, etc) but they're all beloved by fans especially in their respective regions. Tequila gundam is one of the most requested gunpla kits that bandai refuses to make lol
Thats the best part: he doesn't. They don't want to actually participate but are required to, so their gundam disguises itself as a windmill in a field of windmills, and basically runs out the clock by hiding. Flawless rate of all their fights being draws.
Plot twist: all the windmills are gundams, and they technically have the largest army of mobile suits lmao
don't forget, motherfucker got past the first half of the gundam fight, so the suit they sent for token participation got the latter half of the tourney without lifting a mechanized finger.
I love how half of g -gundam is " hey loon at this cool stereotype " and in the same episode " hey look at him die thanks to a techno organic virus created by a psychopath who is the protagonist brother "
"This giant robot is a cultural stereotype. Now here's 20 minutes of the pilots complex inner struggle as a character and their position in this tournament"
Gundam: War is hell. There are heroes and villains on both sides. Anyone is capable of committing atrocities. The innocent are the ones who suffer most.
People are starting to forget the stereotypes that were so prevalent in the old days (of the 90s), and I think that's beautiful.
Speedy Gonzalez was intended to be a funny joke for white people because he was a Mexican that went very fast. This was a subversion of the established assumption that Mexicans were all slow-moving and lazy, arguably stemming from a widespread misunderstanding/misrepresentation of siesta culture.
Anyway, yes, he was meant to be a stereotype in every way but one, with that one being the joke.
They do! The only reason you are able to see and interact with them is because they slow down when one of us non-speedsters is around in order to not A-train us
The earliest version of him (appearing in "Cat-Tails for Two") also had huge buck teeth and a gold tooth. He was redesigned into his current version.
And let's not forget the long history of racism in animation. Like the Censored Eleven—eleven Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies that were so racist, they were pulled from broadcast in the late 60s.
Speedy is meant to be a comical exception to a racist stereotype. In the cartoons, all the other Mexicans are stereotypically sleepy, slow, and lazy. Speedy is, well, speedy. "Haha, imagine a Mexican who's fast and gets things done!"
I love the absurdity of making a slow mouse only to give him a gun. Like no, this cocky ass should be underdog doesn’t outwit his enemies in any of the traditional narrative tropes, he just shoots them. (And also mind controls them!?)
A big part of Speedy's popularity in Mexico came down to the dub. In the original, he had a pretty bad Spanish accent. Being dubbed into Spanish obviously removed that problem.
Worked in a factory with just about every version of Mexican Latin Spanish Hispanic Creole Dominican, you name it they were there. What little I knew of all their languages turned into an absolute grab bag of culture.
One day "Manny" was walking too slowly in front of me in a narrow space during a clutch moment during start-up, and I thought I goofed it big time when it just came out of me; "Rapido! Epa! Epa! Andale! Arriba! Arriba!"
EVERYBODY turned to me with smiles and laughter and excitement, Manny whips around glowing "SPEEDY!!" Almost the whole floor spent an hour talking about cartoons after that.
I kind of remember Fluffy's take on bad representation being better than no representation and no representation being better than racism. Granted he went down hill quick, but he did have a point. I am autistic and can admit the 'high functioning' from Big Bang Theory is better than nothing and nothing would have been better than the 'high functioning' that Law & Order showed.
Considering that Snowflame, The Cocaine Powered Supervillain is canonically a drug lord; whom are typically known for having a lot of drugs, including but not limited to cocaine, it is safe to say that Snowflame, The Cocaine Powered Supervillain would have very reasonable access to cocaine; which, to reiterate is the power source for Snowflame, The Cocaine Powered Supervillain.
It’s not on the same level as depictions of minority groups but as an Australian; the episode Bart vs Australia is a pretty ridiculous caricature of the country and the people that live here, making it seem like the whole place is just a collection of backwater hicks. When it aired there was some minor grumbling about it. However for my generation who were children watching it, I thought it was hilarious, and Australia almost never got a mention in American media when I was growing up. Flash forward and this episode is a cultural touchstone, you would not believe the amount of casual use “dollarydoos” gets in this country on the back of this episode.
I go to the US a lot and use dollarydoos and ‘bootable offence’ a lot and also shazwazzas.
The funniest part to me as an Australian though is the end when Bart lets out his frog and it becomes some dangerous invasive species and it cuts to the koala on the helicopter. For those not from Australia they probably wouldn’t realise that invasive species are an extreme and omnipresent problem here because of all our defenceless little critters and our ecosystem that evolved separated from the rest of the world. It felt like a joke with Australians being the intended audience.
They really did amazing research on that episode to take the piss out of us so well, I think we love it a lot more than anyone else tbh.
When I was a kid I knew two things about Australia, that all animals that live there are extremely dangerous yet somehow also vulnerable to all other animals.
I remember the first time I listened to The Weekly Planet, a nerd podcast produced by two Australians, and hearing them say "dollarydoos." It was quite the whiplash moment.
“I am Snowflame! Every cell of my being burns with white-hot ecstasy. Cocaine is my God, and I am the human instrument of its will!!!” Snowflame said calmly
"Drugs, but they're great, with no downside. And he's so cool." Solid JJ did an excellent parody of Snowflame, where he's actually OD'ing on the euphoria of electricity surging through every molecule of his body.
It really didn't help that we were supposed to be rooting for a bunch of horned up stereotypes with aides that had zero redeemable qualities and zero charisma
Senator Armstrong - Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
He's meant to be a caricature of warmongering US politicians but they accidentally made him cool as fuck through his hammy speeches, countless quotable lines ("Nanomachines, son."), a kickass theme for an equally kickass boss fight, and him actually having respect for the main character's resolve.
Metal Gear Solid as a whole is this trope. It's anti-war... and yet Kojima fills it with cool, badass characters and mechs. People have actually enlisted as a result of playing the games, completely missing the point.
There's a decent % of men who absolutely want the toughest challenge with the greatest prestige. IIRC, Napoleon renamed a particular position with near-total casualties the "bastion of those who have no fear" and ended up needing to turn away a bunch of surplus volunteers. "La batterie des hommes sans peur"
It's wild that in this 2013 game you have a corrupt warmongering right wing politician that throws out a "make america great again". Like they fucking warned us bro
I read somewhere that it was actually Thatcher that used it first (which kinda makes sense. "Make Britain Great Again" is begrudgingly just a little bit clever), then Reagan killed the actual wordplay behind the slogan to make it about America.
I can't find the source of that tidbit anymore, though, so maybe it's not actually true. But, regardless, the current US President was far from the first cartoonishly-evil politician to use a "Make (Country) Great Again" slogan.
Japan did something similar ripping off "Cool Britannia," which, again, you have to begrudgingly admit is at least a tiny bit clever play on "Rule Britannia" - with Japan creating their rival "Cool Japan" campaign.
You beat him and instead of screaming how he’s the strongest and shouldn’t have lost he instead says he’s wrong simply because raiden beat him and therefore was stronger
The whole freedom patriotism is fucking bullshit and he knows it.
He fundamentally just believes in individual strength and if it weren’t for all those politicians and media people could base everything on skill and strength.
Its shown in their boss fight theme that they’re a lot closer together ideologically than they care to admit. Its just they have fundamentally different views on what strength means. Armstrong views the weak as the billionaires and politicians that use manipulation to control the masses, while Raiden views has a traditional view of weakness anf views the weak as people that needed to be protected from the strong.
This is why Raiden says “you’re not evil you’re just fucking insane” before suplexing him.
But even then that argument completely falls apart because his individual strength comes in the form of billion-dollar nanomachines and superweapon spam. He also thinks that going through a state university and playing football qualifies as growing up rough, and says this to the literal child soldier.
I always saw him as a dark mirror to Raiden. He had the right basic idea (war economy needs to end, etc.) but it was tainted by his privilege into his weird Darwinist nonsense.
Raiden acts as a filter for this, due to his upbringing, taking the good and leaving the bad. Thus, the post-credits scene.
Araki really toed the line by making Battle Tendency take place *one year* before the holocaust and include a hyper-nationalist Nazi. Like, he hasn't technically committed any atrocities *yet* but he absolutely would a year later.
Stroheim did commited some war crimes as seen in his introduction arc where he casually ordered execution of entire Mexican village and spare just one boy because he want to using their blood to experimenting Pillar Man.
Araki purposely written him to be a villain/antagonist right from get go.
I swear Jonathan needed to be as infallible as he is in order to remind people that Jojos are to a degree heroic regardless how out of pocket they can act.
During Nazi rule. People not familiar with with the story of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure might not be aware that part 2 takes place in 1939. Stroheim was very much a willing and enthusiastic soldier in the same army that invaded Poland. He canonically died in the 1943, in the Battle of Stalingrad.
Goldlewis Dickinson from Guilty Gear -Strive-. Sure he's a stereotypical, obese American, but he swings around a coffin that contains an ALIEN. He also has other weapons like a mini gun, drones, and a satellite cannon. Did I mention his government position is called the "Secretary of Absolute Defense"? What a badass.
The closest I can think of is Bob in tekken, though iirc there is still a little comic relief hiding in his treatment, the character does play it more straight than a lot of others. Especially as he didnt get the magic "I am am a slow heavyweight character" gene that makes all your attacks slow and heavyweight as soon as your BMI dares to push the envelope.
Phillip and Brandon in Rope aren’t exactly the most positive of representation.
(Being cold-blooded MURDERERS)
But, nonetheless, the film has a massive queer fanbase.
And, to be fair, you could at least argue that they’re villains who simply HAPPEN to be gay, as opposed to any real correlation being implied between the two.
(The screenwriter, Arthur Laurents, was gay. Which certainly helps)
I remember when Barbenheimer was a thing and a couple of Japanese guys were pissed off about it. So naturally, they made some 9/11 memes that went insanely hard and were instantly and unanimously beloved by all of American twitter.
I remember getting into an argument with (who I assume was) an Italian about the mafia aesthetic shit and they said something along the lines of "You wouldn't joke about school shootings or 9/11, would you?" to which I had to explain that we have been joking about this shit for years.
America re-inventing nuclear weapons to nuke USSR in the 1990s, chainsaw man.
The nuke devil was eaten and nuclear weapons were all erased from humanity’s memory, but America simply reinvented them and nuked the soviets. The supporting science that results in a nuclear explosion still existed, only needed to be rediscovered which is easy for a country as prosperous as America with the military industrial complex.
Punch-Out does use a lot of stereotypes to build their fighters personalities but it doesn't feel offensive since the characters are either cool, funny, charming or all of the above. It also helps that Nintendo made fun of every nationality that was in these games including the japanese despite nintendo being japanese so it never feels mean-spirited.
It probably helps that censorship changed Vodka Drunkinski- the Russian character- into Soda Popinski- he now isnt an alcoholic, he gets powers from soft drinks- so now its absurd rather than offensive.
Not much to contribute, but as an Indigenous person myself (specifically Inuit), it was hilarious seeing this Injun Joe episode make rounds on Twitter the other day. Everyone was saying the same thing how he's legit OP and how besides the ending where Injun Joe is 'defeated' via tickling, it made the 'white colonists' look bad.
Ex. Injun Joe walks through a river with ease while Porky and his horse drain it. An example of colonizers destroying the environment lmao
Even the very ending when Injun Joe sucks all the trees, vegetation, etc. into a hole in the ground, it's symbolic to what settlers did to the land when they arrived baha
tacking on my own contribution, Injun Joe also isnt the aggressor, like at all. he scares off a bear about to attack him, frees himself from a trap, and returns fire after being shot at while hobby-horsing
They are, objectively speaking, super fucking horrible space Fascists going out of their way to tick all of the bad guy boxes. They wear dark armour, glowing eyes, full-face masks, full on Nuremburg Rallies complete with flag waving and gun rattling...
And yet they're one of the most compelling villain factions ever written for an FPS game, and people WILL write entire essays defending the horrible shit the Helghast do/did.
I don't think Injun Joe was really intended to be a bad representation. Just throwing that out there. He was super strong, impossibly tough, and just didn't give a single fuck what you thought. He was what he was and if you had a problem with it well that's a you problem, isn't it? He was pretty clearly meant to be seen as awesome as all hell.
The entire joke was that he was the absolute peak of super tough plains people that had the absurd weakness of being super ticklish. Making him look cool as hell was ultimately a setup for that last gag.
He was definitely a caricature, but he was also representative of the massive threat that native war parties posed during westward expansion. They didn't send the army out there for shits and giggles.
Yup. Meanwhile every cartoon character is probably an exaggerated caricature of something. He was pretty specifically said to be a genuine threat you had to worry about if you wanted to cross the plains. Overall though if you actually watch that short you'll see that it caricatures white settlers too. Sloppy Moe isn't exactly a flattering portrayal of hillbillies. Overall though the humor is based on exaggeration of recognizable things, slapstick, and absurdism. Injun Joe is so superhuman that it becomes a great gag in and of itself.
I genuinely love that demon/shark aircraft carrier. Absolutely sick aesthetic. I wonder if the blue glow is supposed to be Cherenkov radiation from the nuke?
Colours are gorgeous too. Teenage me would have put this poster on his wall
A couple of years ago pro wrestler Chad gable was in a feud with various luchadores in the WWE. He hated them so much that he went down to Mexico to learn how to defeat luchadores. Couple of months later we get the debut of El Grande Americano, a masked luchadore that interfered in the other luchadore matches to cost them victories.
Now just from looking at him you could tell it was Chad gable but the show tried to portray them as to totally different people. Overall the gimmick was supposed to be for comedy but ran into a bit of trouble at first because he was billed from….The Gulf of America.
Eventually the Gable version of El grande Americano got injured. But don’t you worry because the story of el grande Americano does not end.
Enter Ludwig Kaiser who now appeared on the show as a leaner taller version of El Grande Americano to fulfill the same role. Yes a German man was acting like an American acting like a luchadore.
That said something happened. See under Gable the gimmick was supposed to be a comedy gimmick we boo at, for a time this was Kaisers role too…but then he took it seriously.
Turns out Kaiser really enjoys Mexican culture. So much that he can speak the language very fluently and shows great respect to it. Hell he even defended his Latina girlfriend when some asshole threatened to call ICE on her.
Under the WWE owned AAA promotion, Mexican audiences respected Kaiser dedication to the role and their culture basically made him a fan favorite. So much that when gable returned from injury they had a pro longed feud that ended in a mask vs mask match that is still in contention for match of the year. He also is their current champion. Ludwig Kaiser can now never not be El Grande Americano
Speedy Gonzalez. While some of the supporting cast came off as lazy Mexican stereotypes, Speedy himself was always portrayed as the hero who made fools of the cats and helped out his people.
Joey on Friends was supposed to be this sleazy womanizer but he had such a big brother energy that he ended up being the most loved character on the show. Still a womanizer, but everybody loved him
I think one aspect of that was he was shown to be a minor celebrity and had charisma, so for some part women chose to sleep with him.
Unlike Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, who was shown to be very manipulative and overall creepy to deceive women who otherwise wouldn't choose to sleep with him.
As much as Injun Joe is a caricature of Natives, I can't help but enjoy the Wagon Heels shorts. Dude is so hench, so powerful that he just walks through rock and trees like its nothing. Usually the other racist caricatures in old Looney Tunes cartoons are REALLY bad and super unflattering, not so much Injun Joe. My boy Injun Joe jumped from a cliff and hit the ground so hard it caused the earth to react.
Doris from shrek was meant to make fun of cross dressers and trans women, thank God that the fans embraced her and later on the films made her part of the good guys team
People often seem to forget that many, many cis women look like what people stereotypically think trans women look like lol, many also hide it well because of social friction
Blanka - The character was the stereotype of Brazil being just a huge jungle (the character is said to have been raised by wolves, the only wolf species in Brazil is the maned wolf that is a solitary animal), but the character became a favorite in Brazil, he even had a certain retcon in his story with the character being confirmed born in Brazil.
I think the idea with him was Stan Lee wanting to make a hero was a deeply evil person who became better although I heard that online and barely remember it so take it with an entire truck of salt.
I suppose you are talking about Solid JJ video and yes, he is real. Solid JJ exagerate but everything that he makes fun of actually happens in the comics.
At least President Comacho seems to genuinely want what's best for the country, rather than now where it looks like the president is actively malicious against his own people.
With her romance in the hammer movie “the vampire lovers” being played actually pretty seriously. Which is wild because it’s a British movie from the 70’s.
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u/jinxskunk366 4d ago
Tequila gundam, honestly most of the mechs from G-gundam. They all play off national stereotypes (canada is a lumberjack, france looks like napoleon, the african/zulu gundam is zebra themed, etc) but they're all beloved by fans especially in their respective regions. Tequila gundam is one of the most requested gunpla kits that bandai refuses to make lol