Race, Racism, And Representation Within The Anime

[Konja7]

I don't think that people think that Goh is black because of his English dub voice actor. Plenty of characters have voice actors that don't match their ethnicity, especially in anime, and I've never heard of people thinking that Goh was black either. Plus, associating people with primates in general can be problematic. In the U.S. at least, there is a clearer association with African Americans and primates due to racist imagery/insults, but that isn't really an exclusive problem for just the African American community.

With all that being said, the dream sequence was rather short and didn't really do much other than to Goh finding Grookey on his arm. Unless they actually are going to have Goh become a big brother, which would be kind of cute, then the dream sequence isn't really necessary and the dub could easily edit it out without causing much of a problem.

I'm not so sure associate people with primates is problematic in general.

I mean, if you have white characters associated with primates you won't have problems.

In the same way, I doubt a Japanese character associated with primates by Japanese writers in Japan would be a big issue.


The big problem is because Go has darker skin, so people on other countries will assume he is black. Then, the issue to associate him with primates will start.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I'm not so sure associate people with primates is problematic in general.

I mean, if you have white characters associated with primates you won't have problems.

In the same way, I doubt a Japanese character associated with primates by Japanese writers in Japan would be a big issue.

I think that's kind of missing the point. Japan obviously wouldn't see the problem, but other people potentially would or would want to avoid the issue all together.

The big problem is because Go has darker skin, so people on other countries will assume he is black. Then, the issue to associate him with primates will start.

I still haven't seen people assume that Goh is black. I'm not saying that it's impossible for people to make that assumption, especially if people thought of Brock as black too, but I've just never come across it. His skin tone could still make dreaming of his parents as Rillaboom potentially problematic regardless though.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I'm not sure if Goh not being black would really alleviate the unfortunate implications of showing his family as basically gorillas all that much though, since dark-skinned people were (and sadly still are) subjected to similar discrimination regardless of their actual ethnicity, so the scene would more than likely still rub plenty of people the wrong way. Thankfully it's very brief and nonsensical, so it can be very easily removed without harming the episode's plot.

 

[Adelon]

I'm not so sure associate people with primates is problematic in general.

I mean, if you have white characters associated with primates you won't have problems.

In the same way, I doubt a Japanese character associated with primates by Japanese writers in Japan would be a big issue.


The big problem is because Go has darker skin, so people on other countries will assume he is black. Then, the issue to associate him with primates will start.

But who thinks he's black? He looks more Mediterranean or possibly even South Asian!

Its funny people thought Takeshi was black, too. If anything he looks Hispanic. Or South East Asian.

 

[nickdt]

Wait! Did i miss something? GOH IS BLACK. He isn't though.

 

[prog rocker]

Or South East Asian.

That has always been my guess with Brock and Goh. Well, the equivalent to SEA anyway.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

But who thinks he's black? He looks more Mediterranean or possibly even South Asian!

Its funny people thought Takeshi was black, too. If anything he looks Hispanic. Or South East Asian.

Depending on which type of Asian you’re thinking about, the monkey analogies are still there... There’s been quite a history of comparing "inferior" people to monkeys irrespective of what part of the world they’re in.

 

[Vengeful Ghost]

Depending on which type of Asian you’re thinking about, the monkey analogies are still there... There’s been quite a history of comparing "inferior" people to monkeys irrespective of what part of the world they’re in.

Which really came out of scientific racism conceived in the 1800s. Before then, monkeys were tricksters in the literary canon from Sun Wukong (Son Goku) or the Buddhist mind monkey which is an allegory for unruliness. It's why so many Asian parents refer to their kids as monkeys. I think there's even a Hindu god who is depicted as a monkey. Because racist ideas from the 1800s could not stop tainting culture like a malignant tumor.

 

[Dogasu]

He looks more Mediterranean or possibly even South Asian!

Its funny people thought Takeshi was black, too. If anything he looks Hispanic. Or South East Asian.

That has always been my guess with Brock and Goh. Well, the equivalent to SEA anyway.

(I removed the users' names from these comments because the following reply isn't directed toward them, personally; it's directed toward the attitude present in those posts that so many people seem to share)

This is exactly what I was talking about before. A character has slightly darker skin than the other characters around them and people automatically assume they're not native to (the Pokémon World equivalent of) Japan!

Dark skinned Japanese people exist, y'all. Just like how there are white people with pale skin and white people with (naturally) tan skin, or black people with lighter skin and black people with darker skin, there are Japanese people with pale skin and Japanese people with darker skin. And all sorts of shades in between! There is just as much variety among Japanese people's skin tones as there are among those of any other race and Pocket Monsters actually does a pretty good job of reflecting that.

Both Takeshi and Gou are very clearly coded as being Japanese boys. Them having darker skin isn't the show trying to tell us that they're "Hispanic" or "Southeast Asian"; it's the show reflecting the reality that not every single Japanese person in Japan has the exact same skin color.

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

His name is definitely japanese.

 

[prog rocker]

(I removed the users' names from these comments because the following reply isn't directed toward them, personally; it's directed toward the attitude present in those posts that so many people seem to share)

This is exactly what I was talking about before. A character has slightly darker skin than the other characters around them and people automatically assume they're not native to (the Pokémon World equivalent of) Japan!

Dark skinned Japanese people exist, y'all. Just like how there are white people with pale skin and white people with (naturally) tan skin, or black people with lighter skin and black people with darker skin, there are Japanese people with pale skin and Japanese people with darker skin. And all sorts of shades in between! There is just as much variety among Japanese people's skin tones as there are among those of any other race and Pocket Monsters actually does a pretty good job of reflecting that.

Both Takeshi and Gou are very clearly coded as being Japanese boys. Them having darker skin isn't the show trying to tell us that they're "Hispanic" or "Southeast Asian"; it's the show reflecting the reality that not every single Japanese person in Japan has the exact same skin color.

I give you thart point. However, I guess I had that perception due to Brock being the only one like that in the original games.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Which really came out of scientific racism conceived in the 1800s. Before then, monkeys were tricksters in the literary canon from Sun Wukong (Son Goku) or the Buddhist mind monkey which is an allegory for unruliness. It's why so many Asian parents refer to their kids as monkeys. I think there's even a Hindu god who is depicted as a monkey. Because racist ideas from the 1800s could not stop tainting culture like a malignant tumor.

Well, I know about Hanuman, the Hindu god, being Hindu myself. However, the animalistic and monkey like analogies for Indians (specially the dark skinned ones) were mostly a part of colonialism in my opinion. My countrymen as a whole were reduced to animalistic savages not worthy of rights. (See: Bengal Famine). You’ll find speeches by Winston Churchill reducing Indians to mere beasts.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

You’ll find speeches by Winston Churchill reducing Indians to mere beasts.

Funny how some great people in history tend to have their bad sides talked about less than they should be.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Funny how some great people in history tend to have their bad sides talked about less than they should be.

Hardly a great person. It disgusts me how revered some of these figures are in history, for its more than just a "bad side". You’d hardly say Hitler just had a "bad side". There are so, so, so many tortures that are removed from the face of history just to make some people and countries look good. Just look at stuff like the Jallianwala bagh massacre and how easily a lot of the western world forgot such atrocities.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Don’t get me wrong, the Goh hate gets overblown in my opinion (I wasn’t really around any forums during BW so idk about Iris), but I think the vast majority of the dislike of his character has nothing to do with his race and especially nothing to do with a headcanon that he is neurodivergent.

I think a lot of people are unfair to him and a lot of the labels thrown his way are certainly exaggerated (Gary-Stu, psycho, writer’s-pet, greedy, poacher, bad friend, abusive...the list goes on). But I’d argue in good faith that the vast majority of this comes from a genuine place of distaste; not anything discriminatory. I don’t actually think that anyone on the BG forums is part of the small faction of the fandom that actually dislikes Goh for bigoted reasons. Those individuals are probably elsewhere like Twitter and Reddit.

Gonna reply to this in this thread because I think it's more fitting here. Also putting this under spoilers both because it's freaking long and because what I'm about to discuss does contain actual spoilers from a number of shows, so thread carefully:

Spoiler

While it is true that almost nobody is intentionally hating on Goh explicitly to be bigoted, I do think that there's an argument to be made that there may be some subconscious double standards. See, the thing about Goh is that he's far from the only fictional non-white character that gets disproportionate hate compared to white or white passing/coded characters: take shows like The Owl House or Book 3 of Infinity Train, both of which have non-white protagonists. In the former, Luz Noceda (canonically Afro-Latina) gets noticeably less attention from the fandom than characters who are coded white, most notably her love interest Amity Blight (Luz and Amity make an adorable couple, no questioning that, but I did notice that Luz only started getting substantial attention after Amity was confirmed to have a crush on her, whereas Amity herself was gushed over pretty much from the word go). In the latter, Grace (a black woman) has been subjected to bashing from people who hold her responsible for the death of her best friend Simon (a white man), who is seen as a tragic innocent victim despite the fact that Simon spent the whole book refusing to change his toxic beliefs even when explicitly told he was wrong, doubling down on truly despicable behavior -including murdering a little girl's adoptive mother in cold blood- and that his death happened as a result of him trying to kill Grace.

On the other side of that coin we have My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which I admit is a bit of an iffy example to cite because the characters are technicolor horses, but bear with me. In season 5, there was a new addition to the main cast in Starlight Glimmer, who started out as a major antagonist before being reformed, but the way her story was handled was... less than ideal to say the least: Starlight was a cruel and manipulative cult leader who later essentially tried to destroy the world... all because a friend of hers had to move away when she was young. That's literally it, that's her whole motivation. And it's not like she couldn't have visited him or written letters either, since correspondence and public transport do exist in the show's setting and we see characters doing both on a regular basis. Starlight then goes on to experience zero repercussions for her prior nasty behavior, instantly getting rewarded by one of the show's freaking rulers taking her on as her personal apprentice, and spends the rest of the series constantly relapsing into horrible behavior and never improving even after her arc was supposedly over and done with. Now, again, it's hard to say whether Starlight is meant to be white-coded or not, but her voice actress is white at least, and one episode of the show reveals that she grew up in a high-class suburb with a doting father that catered to her every need, so she does have a very privileged background in-universe. So here we have a potentially white-coded character with extremely flimsy motivations doing horrible deeds and having terrible development... and yet the MLP fandom had no shortage of people defending Starlight's every atrocity, arguing that it was fine for her to get away with her awful behavior, and claiming that it would be "too cruel" for her to face consequences for her actions.

These are just three examples, but they come from some of the most popular cartoons of the 2010s-2020s, so the fact that there's already a noticeable pattern might be concerning. I do agree that it's highly unlikely that anybody is being consciously and knowingly racist, but there does seem to be some troubling double standards regarding the reception of white, white passing, and white-coded characters compared to their non-white and non-white coded counterparts in that the latter are often at best ignored and at worst demonized for doing things that the former can get away with to praise and standing ovations. It's actually kinda similar to the whole issue of the Mary Sue in that female characters are/were significantly more likely to be thrown that label the instant they were presented as mildly competent while male characters could get away with being as unfairly overpowered and gifted as they wanted and with few exceptions nobody would bat an eyelash.

Sorry if this is coming across as too preachy or loaded, btw. I'm just a rambler like that.

 

[Antiyonder]

Gonna reply to this in this thread because I think it's more fitting here. Also putting this under spoilers both because it's freaking long and because what I'm about to discuss does contain actual spoilers from a number of shows, so thread carefully:

Spoiler

While it is true that almost nobody is intentionally hating on Goh explicitly to be bigoted, I do think that there's an argument to be made that there may be some subconscious double standards. See, the thing about Goh is that he's far from the only fictional non-white character that gets disproportionate hate compared to white or white passing/coded characters: take shows like The Owl House or Book 3 of Infinity Train, both of which have non-white protagonists. In the former, Luz Noceda (canonically Afro-Latina) gets noticeably less attention from the fandom than characters who are coded white, most notably her love interest Amity Blight (Luz and Amity make an adorable couple, no questioning that, but I did notice that Luz only started getting substantial attention after Amity was confirmed to have a crush on her, whereas Amity herself was gushed over pretty much from the word go).

Spoiler

Lumity shipper here, but I am a fan of Luz's character overall. Just her cute demeanor and optimistic attitude (like fittingly enough Akko Kagari from Little Witch Academia). Plus even if opposite gender and being way too old I find her geek in essence probably more relatable than I should (like her bit "Don't insult shipping in my presence) , but I feel the same about Aang from ATLA too like how he didn't concern himself with masculinity stereotypes.

 

[swiftgallade46]

Gonna reply to this in this thread because I think it's more fitting here. Also putting this under spoilers both because it's freaking long and because what I'm about to discuss does contain actual spoilers from a number of shows, so thread carefully:

Spoiler

While it is true that almost nobody is intentionally hating on Goh explicitly to be bigoted, I do think that there's an argument to be made that there may be some subconscious double standards. See, the thing about Goh is that he's far from the only fictional non-white character that gets disproportionate hate compared to white or white passing/coded characters: take shows like The Owl House or Book 3 of Infinity Train, both of which have non-white protagonists. In the former, Luz Noceda (canonically Afro-Latina) gets noticeably less attention from the fandom than characters who are coded white, most notably her love interest Amity Blight (Luz and Amity make an adorable couple, no questioning that, but I did notice that Luz only started getting substantial attention after Amity was confirmed to have a crush on her, whereas Amity herself was gushed over pretty much from the word go). In the latter, Grace (a black woman) has been subjected to bashing from people who hold her responsible for the death of her best friend Simon (a white man), who is seen as a tragic innocent victim despite the fact that Simon spent the whole book refusing to change his toxic beliefs even when explicitly told he was wrong, doubling down on truly despicable behavior -including murdering a little girl's adoptive mother in cold blood- and that his death happened as a result of him trying to kill Grace.

On the other side of that coin we have My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which I admit is a bit of an iffy example to cite because the characters are technicolor horses, but bear with me. In season 5, there was a new addition to the main cast in Starlight Glimmer, who started out as a major antagonist before being reformed, but the way her story was handled was... less than ideal to say the least: Starlight was a cruel and manipulative cult leader who later essentially tried to destroy the world... all because a friend of hers had to move away when she was young. That's literally it, that's her whole motivation. And it's not like she couldn't have visited him or written letters either, since correspondence and public transport do exist in the show's setting and we see characters doing both on a regular basis. Starlight then goes on to experience zero repercussions for her prior nasty behavior, instantly getting rewarded by one of the show's freaking rulers taking her on as her personal apprentice, and spends the rest of the series constantly relapsing into horrible behavior and never improving even after her arc was supposedly over and done with. Now, again, it's hard to say whether Starlight is meant to be white-coded or not, but her voice actress is white at least, and one episode of the show reveals that she grew up in a high-class suburb with a doting father that catered to her every need, so she does have a very privileged background in-universe. So here we have a potentially white-coded character with extremely flimsy motivations doing horrible deeds and having terrible development... and yet the MLP fandom had no shortage of people defending Starlight's every atrocity, arguing that it was fine for her to get away with her awful behavior, and claiming that it would be "too cruel" for her to face consequences for her actions.

These are just three examples, but they come from some of the most popular cartoons of the 2010s-2020s, so the fact that there's already a noticeable pattern might be concerning. I do agree that it's highly unlikely that anybody is being consciously and knowingly racist, but there does seem to be some troubling double standards regarding the reception of white, white passing, and white-coded characters compared to their non-white and non-white coded counterparts in that the latter are often at best ignored and at worst demonized for doing things that the former can get away with to praise and standing ovations. It's actually kinda similar to the whole issue of the Mary Sue in that female characters are/were significantly more likely to be thrown that label the instant they were presented as mildly competent while male characters could get away with being as unfairly overpowered and gifted as they wanted and with few exceptions nobody would bat an eyelash.

Sorry if this is coming across as too preachy or loaded, btw. I'm just a rambler like that.

Spoiler: long

Systemic/subconscious racism is at play in the vast majority of media. What I was saying, though, is that I disagree with those who dislike Goh in good faith while assuming that bigotry has little to no bearing on their opinion because there’s absolutely no way to know for sure either way. Arguing by saying “you dislike Goh because you’re subconsciously racist” is...probably not going to have any kind of positive effect or change. And you also can’t possibly know if you’re correct in that particular instance. (Not that anyone was necessarily doing this; I’m simply being preemptive toward those who would interpret the things said so far in that way).

Absolutely we can and should always use our platforms (however large or small) to draw attention to issues of underlying racism and bigotry; that was never my issue. My point was simply to provide context and perspective. Is it happening in the fandom at large? Yes. Is it likely the underlying cause for the criticisms on this forum specifically? Probably only in a very small minority that would be very difficult to isolate.

I guess I just assume good faith because that’s what I’d want others to do for me. I enjoy Goh’s character, and while I do always love and appreciate minority representation in media, I wouldn’t want anyone to assume his race has anything to do with makes his character appealing to me beyond that appreciation.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Spoiler: long

Systemic/subconscious racism is at play in the vast majority of media. What I was saying, though, is that I disagree with those who dislike Goh in good faith while assuming that bigotry has little to no bearing on their opinion because there’s absolutely no way to know for sure either way. Arguing by saying “you dislike Goh because you’re subconsciously racist” is...probably not going to have any kind of positive effect or change. And you also can’t possibly know if you’re correct in that particular instance. (Not that anyone was necessarily doing this; I’m simply being preemptive toward those who would interpret the things said so far in that way).

Absolutely we can and should always use our platforms (however large or small) to draw attention to issues of underlying racism and bigotry; that was never my issue. My point was simply to provide context and perspective. Is it happening in the fandom at large? Yes. Is it likely the underlying cause for the criticisms on this forum specifically? Probably only in a very small minority that would be very difficult to isolate.

I guess I just assume good faith because that’s what I’d want others to do for me. I enjoy Goh’s character, and while I do always love and appreciate minority representation in media, I wouldn’t want anyone to assume his race has anything to do with makes his character appealing to me beyond that appreciation.

It's true that assuming good faith is always the best and first route anyone should take when making these discussions. It's also true that accusing people who dislike Goh of being racist is far more likely to make them double down on that dislike on top of not listening to counter-arguments and not something anyone should do. However, pointing out the possibility of subconscious bias and double standards could at the same time be a much needed wake-up call for some, so long it's not being directed at any specific people, which I don't think anybody did.

For the record, I personally really doubt that there's anyone in this forum specifically that dislikes Goh or Iris based on their skin color even unintentionally, since pretty much everyone who has talked about their problems tends to make well thought-out reasonings for their position.

 

[Adelon]

Can we all stop with the psychopath accusations, please? It's getting a bit silly.

If anything Goh is showing signs of being on the autism spectrum and people with autism usually have their hearts in the right place. from my experience, they just don't pick up on cues or facial expressions nearly as well as neurotypicals.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Gonna reply to this in this thread because I think it's more fitting here. Also putting this under spoilers both because it's freaking long and because what I'm about to discuss does contain actual spoilers from a number of shows, so thread carefully:

Spoiler

While it is true that almost nobody is intentionally hating on Goh explicitly to be bigoted, I do think that there's an argument to be made that there may be some subconscious double standards. See, the thing about Goh is that he's far from the only fictional non-white character that gets disproportionate hate compared to white or white passing/coded characters: take shows like The Owl House or Book 3 of Infinity Train, both of which have non-white protagonists. In the former, Luz Noceda (canonically Afro-Latina) gets noticeably less attention from the fandom than characters who are coded white, most notably her love interest Amity Blight (Luz and Amity make an adorable couple, no questioning that, but I did notice that Luz only started getting substantial attention after Amity was confirmed to have a crush on her, whereas Amity herself was gushed over pretty much from the word go). In the latter, Grace (a black woman) has been subjected to bashing from people who hold her responsible for the death of her best friend Simon (a white man), who is seen as a tragic innocent victim despite the fact that Simon spent the whole book refusing to change his toxic beliefs even when explicitly told he was wrong, doubling down on truly despicable behavior -including murdering a little girl's adoptive mother in cold blood- and that his death happened as a result of him trying to kill Grace.

Spoiler

This is off-topic, but it boggles my mind that anyone would consider Simon an innocent victim, let alone blame Grace for what happened to him. He is a tragic figure in the sense that he had multiple chances to learn, but adamantly refused to at every turn, which ultimately led to his death, but putting the blame on Grace just actively ignores so much of his story and really does give some pretty terrible implications to say the least. I'm not really surprised for a few reasons, but just baffled at how people could read the season like that.

Can we all stop with the psychopath accusations, please? It's getting a bit silly.

If anything Goh is showing signs of being on the autism spectrum and people with autism usually have their hearts in the right place. from my experience, they just don't pick up on cues or facial expressions nearly as well as neurotypicals.

Generally speaking, everyone on the spectrum have different challenges. I have problems picking up on social cues and facial expressions, but that wouldn't necessarily apply to everyone who is autistic.[/QUOTE]