Unfortunate Implications/Western Animation: Difference between revisions

** The "Pastoral Symphony" segment included a centaurette servant named Sunflower (pictured), who is part African human, part donkey, performing menial duties for the Aryan centaurettes, and two attendants to Bacchus who are part African Amazons, part zebra. Sunflower has been [[Orwellian Retcon]]ned out of all prints in circulation since 1969, while the zebra centaurettes have always remained in the film; possibly because the zebra-girls are simply exotic, while Sunflower is the sort of big-lipped, pigtailed caricature that modern audiences find embarrassingly outdated at best and highly offensive at worst.

** Additionally, [[Token Minority Couple|each centaur pairs up with a centaurette of exactly the same color]]: white with white, tan with tan, yellow with yellow. The one left over after the others have found their soul mates is a lonely blue centaur, who mopes until the little Cupids find him a blue centaurette. Because sexual implications are fine, as long as there is no centaur miscegenation?

* ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'':

** A woman who has spent only two minutes with a handsome man in her entire life will desperately want him just because of his appearance, to the point that she'll even sacrifice everything that really matters in life (home, family and friends, her voice). What softens the blow is that Disney did Ariel obsessed with human culture with a desire to be a part of it before seeing Eric. Even then, the only reason she went through with the deal was because she was sweet-talked by Ursula while she was emotionally vulnerable and not feeling very fond of her father (who had just violently destroyed all of her favorite possessions for the "sin" of saving someone's life). However, it's still easy to see how this could rub some people the wrong way.

== {{smallcaps|Non-Disney}} ==

* ''[[Total Drama]]''

** The Trent/Gwen/Duncan/Courtney love rhombus could also be read as unintentionally saying that if your partner has a best friend of the opposite sex they'll end up cheating on you.

* ''[[Capitol Critters]]'':

** All the characters were different [[Talking Animal]]s. The major characters we were asked to identify with, including the hero who'd just left the family farm and moved to the big city, were rats and mice. All the rodents lived on certain floors of the White House and were portrayed as mischievous at worst. Other floors were the exclusive domain of the cockroaches. The cute, furry rodents didn't get along with them, especially if they happened to enter rodent territory. [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|Weirdly]], several episodes seemed to suggest that the roaches ''should'' stay in their designated territory. Additionally, the mice were complained about vocally by the humans, but the roaches were met with immediate attempts to kill them. Standard [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?]] situation, right? Well, yes, but consider the one thing that makes the show so irredeemably warped: The cockroaches all had '''blatant''' stereotypical minority personalities. They spoke with black slang and wore ethnocentric clothing. And their territory looked like a ghetto. ''Wow.''

** Black stereotypes are not the only ones thrown around; the demimonde cockroach couple trying to move in at the beginning, who get targeted by a regular little "Save the Neighborhood" posse, seemed decidedly Jewish.

** The coding of roaches as people of color is intentional and meant to be satirical, which would be simplistic and stereotyping, but only that, if the first five minutes of the linked ep were all they went on. Once upward mobility of minorities is established as a good thing, the roaches lay thousands of eggs that fill up the rats' living space (the EXACT fear of people who try to keep neighborhoods all-white) and the episode is one gem after another. "Let's step on 'em." "I think I remember why my parents hated [roaches] so much." "It's like Hong Kong up there." A conversation about how people always talk about living together but "we're not people, what kind of people have 500,000 kids?" In the end the roaches are liked due to having saved the very Caucasian rat from a cat (who he tormented needlessly while he was in a body cast) but move out anyway, and it's generally established as a mistake that people of different ethnic groups try to live together. There are ''no words.''

* ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'':

** It's [[Multinational Team]]: [[Word of God]] says Numbuh 5 is [[But Not Too Foreign|half-French]]. The good news is she doesn't follow any French stereotype. The bad news is since she's also black, she follows [[Jive Turkey|an entirely different stereotype]]. Uptight British Numbuh 1 and fat American Numbuh 2 come off the as the least stereotyped compared to the others: the dumb-and-tough Aussie (Numbuh 4), the excited and ditzy Japanese (Numbuh 3), and the already mentioned Numbuh 5.

* ''[[Transformers Animated]]'':

** It has taken a Unicron-sized step back when it comes to the role of women. The major female bots roles ''all'' revolve around [[Damsel in Distress]] status. It's worse when you compare them to ''previous'' incarnations of said characters. It was thought we were supposed to become ''more'' progressive as time went on, but [[The Powers That Be]] clearly disagree:

** Exhibit B: Blackarachnia. The [[Dark Action Girl]] from ''[[Beast Wars]]'' is back! [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|How awesome is that?]] The answer: Not as awesome as you'd hoped. This Blackarachnia is driven by her hatred of her beast-bot status, which she tries to cure. ''All'' of her episodes revolve around this, with her never getting in on other Decepticon plots that might've brought out any ''[[Beast Wars]]'' Blackarachnia-esque moments. Self-hatred drives everything she does. Also, she invariably becomes a [[Damsel in Distress]], needing to be rescued by Optimus from her every attempt at villainy due to betrayal or plans backfiring. Even the one time this appeared to be averted, it was [[retcon]]ned into such: After being flung off of the Ark in one episode, she turns up later, and it turns out that the Dinobots rescued her and brought her to shore. This means that her brief appearance in the premiere is the ''only'' instance of her appearing and not having to be rescued by a male. They even managed to throw a moment into her final appearance, with Optimus pulling her out of the way when a supercharged Waspinator tried to blast her - having her remain on her feet and jump aside is too much to ask, apparently. She also relies heavily on seduction - cool in a female villain that is ''also'' otherwise effective, but since she's ''not,'' it all adds up to someone who ''wants'' to be tough but winds up tied to a railroad track every time she tries to do more than smile at men.<ref>In ''[[Beast Wars]],'' it was another story. A "hot, poisonous, and deadly" [[Dark Action Girl]], she was certainly as competent as all the other 'cons. She definitely didn't need to rely on the heroes' charity to escape a losing battle. Her strength held up under the kind of thing that tends to break [[The Chick]], such as [[Mind Rape]], and a [[Romance Arc]] - and no, the two had nothing to do with each other. In ''[[Beast Machines]],'' the lengths she went to to bring Silverbolt back and the amount of screentime spent on it is seen as her character now revolving around her romance, but she was still tough, and hey... ''she saved her boyfriend,'' not the other way around!</ref>

** Exhibit C: Elita 1. While ''Animated'' Blackarachnia used to ''be'' Elita One, she still counts as separate because ''that'' form has its own name and history too. Unfortunately, she doesn't live up to it any better than she went on to live up to Blackarachnia's. Like the horror movie victim who trips or hurts her ankle for no good reason on flat ground, Elita's [[Powers as Programs|power-stealing]] ability cuts out ''much'' faster than it'll be shown to at other times, causing her to fall back into the clutches of the alien spiders. (Her attempt to use her absorbing power on the organic spider creatures results in her becoming Blackarachnia.) This makes being ''Optimus''' tragic backstory failure her major role, as Arcee is for Ratchet.<ref>Elita has only been in one episode before this, waaay back in G1's first season, but she really made use of her screen time. G1 Elita's martial arts was enough to bring down airborne Decepticons with her bare hands, and for an encore, she saved Optimus Prime's aft from being melted down with her [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique]]. She fit more [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] material into one episode than some male characters fit in a whole season.</ref>

** Speaking of things like that, you get ''[[The Cleveland Show]]'' episode where Cleveland says that no women are lesbians after college. Cue to a scene where after a bunch of women graduate from college, they immediately break up with their girlfriends. There's ton of unfortunate implications to this, not the least of which is that all women in lesbian relationships need to grow up and get in a "real" relationship. (As in, one with a man.)

** There's also "Blue Harvest", where R2-D2 (Cleveland) opens up a "window" of the Millennium falcon, takes out a gun and shoots at a TIE fighter and destroying it, and after shooting it down shouts "YEAH! That's how we do it in ''my'' neighborhood, bitch!" The implications in that scene were that R2-D2's neighborhood was full of drive-by shootings, something that should not be glamorized. The fact that R2-D2 was played by a black character for this special makes the already unfortunate implication even worse.

** Viewers have noted that female characters have a greater chance of being abused or killed off. Combine that with the frequently misgynostic humor (where the above is usually [[Played for Laughs]]) and it's clear a few of the writers have '''serious''' issues with women.

** "Seahorse Seashell Party" has am ''extremely'' disturbing implication: "Victims of abuse should stay in their abusive relationships/households for the good of other people, ''especially'' their abusers".

** The episode "The Monkey Suit" in which Lisa fights against Ned Flanders in the evolutionism/creationism debate can be seen to fall into this category. Not only does it present a very [[Hollywood Science]] view of the evolution debate, but it portrays every Christian character as being arrogant, [[Straw Hypocrite|close-minded fanatics with no capacity to even acknowledge other people's views]]. Also when [[Hollywood Atheist|Lisa]] holds the secret evolution lessons, the people there are her, Martin and Database ([[My Friends and Zoidberg|Milhouse is there too, but he doesn't count]]) - in other words, the "smart" people, implying that one cannot be clever if one believes in creationism.

** One episode had Marge at home alone with Maggie, who she purposely wakes up so she can comfort her and feel needed. Some creepy, [[wikipedia:Münchausen syndrome by proxy|Münchausen syndrome by proxy]]-esque implications there.

* In an episode of ''[[Wakfu]]'' Sadlygrove gets kidnapped by a quartet of princesses who were cursed; for being bitchy and shallow, they were turned various varieties of ugly, and would remain so until they inspired a man to give one of them a genuine kiss. Any man that kissed them under duress would be turned into a frog, and also the curse wouldn't be broken. Their tower is ''full of frogs''. The [[Beauty Equals Goodness|least deformed]] of the four eventually has an attack of conscience and lets Grovy go before the other three can force him to kiss them like they did the others, and, moved by the honor he sees in her heart, he blows her a kiss, which is totally good enough for the curse. Then they go right back to the behavior that got them cursed in the first place. So...once a shallow bitch, always a shallow bitch?

* ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' had a similar episode involving Mad Mod turning Jump City British. Of course, it was dissuaded a bit by Cyborg saying [[Lampshade Hanging|"Man, I bet REAL British people hate that guy!"]] and the fact that the episode was one big [[Shout-Out]] to [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]] and ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]''.

* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' has occasionally used species as an allegory for race, which is problematic enough when the message they're trying to send is "don't be racist" or "can't we all just get along?" But the episode "Dragon Quest" has the [[Aesop]] "What you are doesn't define who you are", and in order to not [[Broken Aesop|break]] this Aesop, they take some pains to establish that dragons as a species are complete dicks and don't have much of a cultural identity beyond that.

** The Season 1 episode, "Feelin' Pinkie Keen" had the aesop "sometimes you just have to choose to believe, even if you have no proof". This lead many fans to be annoyed at what sounded creepily close to a lesson on ignoring scientific facts in favour of beliefs. So much so, [[Word of God|Lauren Faust]] had to point out that that was not what was intended at all.

* The TV special adaptation of ''[[How the Grinch Stole Christmas]]'' had the titular character at one point giving a slasher smile before stealing a Who child's candy cane. Modern audiences would easily mistake it for something even worse (which explains why that brief scene is often edited out in syndication).

 

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