Forum - View topicREVIEW: Terra Formars GN 1
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
|
|||||
The lips certainly looked emphasized in the pic I linked, though I will grant that they aren't as large as most of the caricature versions. The emphasis is probably due to the way his mouth is so massively opened in such an exaggerated manner. You've conveniently ignored that similarity. That similarity is also tied to the teeth. You can see that in some of the examples I linked. One of the consistent aspects in the black caricatures is that they have their mouths opened in a big, wide manner. Often this is either emphasizing the lips, or the teeth, or both. I don't know the exact reasoning behind why they made the caricatures like that, but perhaps it has something to do with making the caricature appear entertaining in some fashion. Like I said, the articles I linked above talk about how Japanese society has certain preconceptions about black people being extra entertaining, wild, or somehow beyond normal human. All of that clearly ties quite well into these TerraFormars characters.
I just explained the similarities, and they are patently obvious. As for your argument about what TerraFormars are "based off of," that seems to go more to the intent of the author behind making them appear in the way they do. I don't think any of us can know for certain what that intent was, but we can speculate. I am simply saying that the way they appear is highly, and offensively similar to the caricatures, and that I think it could be due to ignorance of the author and his publishers. Last edited by ChibiKangaroo on Wed Aug 20, 2014 1:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||
|
||||||
|
3rdImpakt
Posts: 118 |
|
|||||
|
I'm honestly surprised this caricature argument has been humoured as long as it has. The biggest joke about it is that they are using a SINGLE panel of the home-erectus cockroach pulling a "psycho anime smile" and claiming EVERY representaction is a black face caricature.
If the last picture of home-erectus posted had a psycho anime smile on its face then yes.....it would look much more like the roaches then any of these caricatures posted. Does a psychotically smiling home-erectus look a little like black face? Yes.....is that racist? No! |
||||||
|
||||||
|
ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
|
|||||
You just made my point. Have you ever seen a homo-erectus represented with such a massive smile, huge bulging eyes and teeth, and emphasized lips/mouth and other features? No. You haven't, because it would be considered as some kind of joke or ridiculous caricature. Thank you for proving my point for me. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
3rdImpakt
Posts: 118 |
|
|||||
|
So you are honestly writing off the Roaches as "Black Face Caricatures" because of a single frame in which one is smiling. I have never seen a psychotically smiling homo-erectus before because I have never seen an anime/manga that had them worked into the plot in such a way. I wouldn't say the REASON I haven't seen it before is BECAUSE it's a caricature.....that's just ridiculous reasoning.
I think it is pretty apperent from every single other panel of the manga that they have a more docile expression on their face (nothing like black face caricatures and much like most of what we've seen of homo-erectus). That one panel smile is simply meant to juxtapose what we've seen thus far and make them appear menacing. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
|
|||||
Like I said, if you can come up with some examples of homo-erectus that look as exaggerated and ridiculous as these cockroach creatures, then I might say that it is more of an open question as to whether the resemblance to the caricatures has any meaning. However, as long as I continue to see examples of homo-erectus that don't look like caricatures, then I am going to say that these cockroach guys are more in line with the caricatures. |
||||||
|
||||||
Divineking
 Posts: 1293 |
|
|||||
Since you asked: 
I think it's also worth noting that the actual black characters in the series (few as they are) don't have any physical features that resemble that of 19th century black caricatures. As for the characters themselves I wouldn't say they have a particularly good portrail but nothing that screams out as racist (though something slightly sexist in the case of one of them but that's also probably a racial ignorance thing by the context of it, though it's not really excusable) |
||||||
|
||||||
|
ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
|
|||||
That example of homo erectus that you linked doesn't look exaggerated and ridiculous. For example, I don't see a massive mouth open wide, with super shiny lips and giant white teeth contrasting against the dark skin. The eyes are open, but they don't look bizarrely huge and with pupils practically as big as the eyes themselves (notice how the homo-erectus example has pupils that are fully shown, and the cockroach man has pupils that are only halfway shown.) There are also numerous other features of it that are distinctly different from the cockroach creature, such as the position of the nose and hair. The fact that you included a picture of President Obama in your display also seems like quite a ridiculous addition. I'm not sure what you were trying to say there. So again, the homo-erectus is a non-exaggerated image, and the cockroach man is exaggerated. The cockroach man's exaggerated features are similar in exaggeration to features of offensive black caricatures. We can keep going round and around on that. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1034 |
|
|||||
In the few chapters of the manga I read, there were numerous images of the roaches just like that, and a Google image search turns up many more, along with roaches in chains, loin cloths, and walking around like something out of a 1930s Tarzan movie. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
|
|||||
|
Yep guys it's just a basic visual reference to homo erectus there's nothing else to see here
|
||||||
|
||||||
Themaster20000
 Posts: 863 |
|
|||||
|
Surprised it took this long for someone post that image.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
ChibiKangaroo
Posts: 2941 |
|
|||||
Rofl, yea homo-erectus always was jackin cars and chillin about in their ride like gang bangers showin off their prison bodies. That's how homo-erectus rolls. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Lord Geo
Posts: 2545 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
|
|||||
Honestly, that image is just way too ridiculous to take as a sign of hateful racism from the authors. I mean, seriously, it's either that or Yū Sasuga & Kenichi Tachibana are so blatantly hateful that they simply don't care. I completely see how absolutely stereotypical a portrayal it is, but it's just so utterly silly that I can't take it seriously as a sign of racist undertones.
Can we all agree to start using this line whenever we see ridiculously absurd & "Japanese" portrayals like this from now on? It's too perfect to simply get swallowed up by the annals of the Internet. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Divineking
Posts: 1293 |
|
|||||
That also doesn't scream "clearly a threatening black person!" to me but I'm not gonna spend too more time going over what's racial imagery or not. I don't think those things resemble me or any other black people I know, and they don't resemble any of the black caricatures that have been linked in this thread unless you're really grasping at straws (which to be honest, I find a hell of a lot more offensive than the roaches themselves and that Obama pic is just to reinforce the point). Again I know that just because I don't find it offensive doesn't mean other people don't and I'm not arguing they shouldn't because people obviously all have their own ideas of what to get angry about. That said I'm not cool with the idea of "no it's absolutely this you idiot" that's been going here either just because not everyone makes the association between the two. Like a few others here have said the idea that they were supposed to depicting black people at all never occurred to me the first time I read it and I'm black myself. Of course I can only assume what the author's actual intent was until he actually comes out and says otherwise, but for the moment I have more reason to believe that the intent was more to mirror homo erectus than black people as ridiculous as the Terraformars are. And with that this is probably my last post in this thread. Have a nice day 
|
||||||
|
||||||
ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
|
|||||
|
I like to think the internet is essentially one big episode of Pee Wee's playhouse where the secret word is "Racist". Wherever anyone says it a bunch of children start screaming.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2231 Location: San Antonio, USA |
|
|||||
People also need to realize that much of the racist stereotypes of black people... are also based off homo-erectus/prehistoric sub-humans. i.e. that's the whole point of the stereotype. So even accepting that it was merely the intent of the author to reference homo-erectus, you are tacitly accepting that other people might view the images as stereotypes of black people. Here's an offensive example of what I'm trying to say: What if I decided that I would give a nickname to people who lived in the country of Niger.... I could call them, "Nigers".... See what I mean? Even if the reference is not to the racial slur (in this case it's the name of the actual country), if the reference is to the same base root as the racial slur (both Niger and ni**er have the same latin origin), it's at best ignorant and can easily be construed as racist by people. |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group