MovieChat Forums > Doug (1991) Discussion > What do you think about the multicolored...

What do you think about the multicolored skin?

posted 12 years ago by la_cinematheque
6 replies | jump to latest

As a kid, it always bothered me that the Funnie family were white but most of the people in Bluffington were multicolored. I felt like if the show was supposed to be a fantasy about rainbow colored people, it should've been only that and had no characters with actual human skin colors.

As an adult looking back, I definitely think the skin thing was a cop-out to give the appearence of diversity without actually having to address the issue. Despite the single, eponymous protagonist, Doug is really an emsemble show about a whole town. But it was made well after the days of the Flintstones and Jetsons where you could have an entire universe of only white middle class characters. The solution? Rather than depicting a range of real ethnicities and having to know something about the subtle differences they might have (food they eat, family traditions, whatever) or risking that it might alienate white viewers, they just throw green and purple into the mix and proceed to write everyone as though they're white. It's the same kind of thinking that leads to so many talking animals (and sponges!) in children's media—it's non-specific and supposedly inclusive for everyone because it doesn't really represent anyone.

I'm not knocking Doug and this approach was in some ways better than the tokenism Rugrats and some other shows got into. I think Hey Arnold was the only nick show that handled diversity realistically and effortlessly. Actually, Rocket Power was great about that too. I'm really curious what other people think about this!

[–] jptf2 12 years ago

How do you know they were written as though they were "white?" Or are you implying that black people and white people are different, and because there weren't ghetto characters who talked in Ebonics, they must have all been white? Or maybe they should have shown some of them eating fried chicken and watermelon?

By the way, Doug's mom doesn't have a Caucasian skin color.

Personally, I find it kind of irritating when shows throw in diversity because I always get the feeling they're doing it just to say, "hey, look at us, we're promoting diversity! Equality, baby," as opposed to just letting it happen naturally. When it stars black people, I always think, "they're the stars BECAUSE they're black, and the show wants to look like it's all about diversity."

In Hey Arnold, Gerald is "the best friend," and my thinking on that was always, "they made him black just to go, 'look how diverse we are, the star's best friend is black!"

It's one thing if it's a live show and a given actor really fits the role, but in a cartoon? Why bother creating stereotypes when you don't have to?

[–] la_cinematheque 12 years ago

I'm not sure why you immediately jumped to stereotypes, I obviously wasn't advocating that. By saying all the characters were written as white, I meant they displayed typical Anglo-Saxon characteristics (anglo names, christian holidays, americana aesthetic, etc.) and any other types of cultural or ethnic markers were absent. And by cultural or ethnic markers, I don't mean the kind of shucking and jiving you described, I mean things like having a character who celebrates the chinese new year or has a quinceañera or who brings souvlaki to school for lunch. These kinds of things showed up in most other nicktoons and weren't egregious, it's not hard.

The mom's skintone is ambiguous, so I'm not going to quibble over that.

It's a shame you find diversity irritating though, because the reality of this world is there are many types of people living in it. A quick google search about race demographics on tv led me to this: "Whites account for about 74 percent of all characters, compared to only about 69 percent of the U.S. population." That's a little messed up. In real life, someone like Hey Arnold who lived in a major city probably would know a lot more than just one black kid and would be quite likely to have Gerald for a best friend. Just like how all the latino and pacific islander characters in california-based Rocket Power were realistic. I already acknowledged that Nick has had problems with tokenism (like Kimmie from Rugrats or almost any secondary character from a Butch Hartman show), but even that rings much more true to life than Doug's land of WASPs.

Also, your example about shows starring black people simply because they're black is pretty disturbing. Are you saying only the stories of white people are worth telling and anything featuring others has to be part of a political agenda? Has it really never occured to you that black characters may have been written by black writers, were based on real people who were black, or simply are reflecting what 12% of the U.S. population looks like? Come on.

[–] jptf2 12 years ago

"I'm not sure why you immediately jumped to stereotypes, I obviously wasn't advocating that. By saying all the characters were written as white, I meant they displayed typical Anglo-Saxon characteristics (anglo names, christian holidays, americana aesthetic, etc.) and any other types of cultural or ethnic markers were absent."

Anglo names...like what? Funnie? Mayonnaise? Klotz? The majority of the last names in Doug were fictional names, and the first names had some other meaning behind them, such as "Doug" being Jim Jinkins's idea of an "every man" name, and Mosquito/Skeeter being a southern name.

Jinkins is from the South, and that's what he based Bluffington on.

"And by cultural or ethnic markers, I don't mean the kind of shucking and jiving you described, I mean things like having a character who celebrates the chinese new year or has a quinceañera or who brings souvlaki to school for lunch. These kinds of things showed up in most other nicktoons and weren't egregious, it's not hard."

Or maybe the point is that it doesn't matter. Did TV really need another Hanukkah episode, or any other fringe holiday special?

There's more to life than this obsession with "culture" and diversity that you seem to have.

Doug ate at a sushi restaurant with his motorcycle-riding grandmother. His favorite athlete was Sky Davis, who was clearly intended to be black based on his resemblance to Magic Johnson, with a shoe based on Michael Jordan, and a voice (probably done by Billy West) that anyone with ears would agree was obviously a "black" voice.

They weren't avoiding it, Jinkins just decided that if it's a cartoon world, he could make the characters whatever color he wanted and the message in that would be, "race doesn't matter."

"It's a shame you find diversity irritating though, because the reality of this world is there are many types of people living in it."

No, the reality of the United States is there are "pockets" of different ethnicities. It's not evenly distributed. Hey Arnold! takes place in some urban area. Doug takes place in a suburb in the south. Not every town in the United States is a cultural melting pot. There are urban areas that are almost exclusively black, and there are towns that are almost exclusively white.

"A quick google search about race demographics on tv led me to this: "Whites account for about 74 percent of all characters, compared to only about 69 percent of the U.S. population." That's a little messed up."

Wow, a whole 5% difference. People like you always talk like it's still 1965. This isn't a major issue anymore in the US.

"In real life, someone like Hey Arnold who lived in a major city probably would know a lot more than just one black kid and would be quite likely to have Gerald for a best friend. Just like how all the latino and pacific islander characters in california-based Rocket Power were realistic. I already acknowledged that Nick has had problems with tokenism (like Kimmie from Rugrats or almost any secondary character from a Butch Hartman show), but even that rings much more true to life than Doug's land of WASPs."

Actually, in real life people tend to self-segregate. TV seems to make a point of trying to not do that, giving Alex Mack Ray as a best friend, or Arnold Gerald. That's why it comes across as forced to me.

"Also, your example about shows starring black people simply because they're black is pretty disturbing. Are you saying only the stories of white people are worth telling and anything featuring others has to be part of a political agenda? Has it really never occured to you that black characters may have been written by black writers, were based on real people who were black, or simply are reflecting what 12% of the U.S. population looks like? Come on."

Look at the terrible shows that have emerged because of that TV affirmative action. My Brother and Me and Cousin Skeeter ring any bells?

[–] jptf2 11 years ago

Here's another reason to avoid "diversity" in a television series - the PC Thought Police restrict what you can do with certain races.

If you have a black character, you can not make him a villain unless you have another black player who is a good guy to balance it out. Otherwise, you will be attacked by the NAACP and others for making him a stereotype. "Why's the black guy gotta be the bad guy? What kind of message does this send, that black people are bad?"

You also can't "whitewash" him, or you'll receive complaints.

So basically, you have to avoid creating a stereotype, but you also have to avoid making it appear as though you have something against the culture and are trying to make them "safe for white viewers."

If you have an Asian character, you can't make him a nerd. Another stereotype.

But you also probably can't get away with making him a villain, because he's a minority.

Making any minority a bad person mandates another character of the same race on the other end of the spectrum to achieve equilibrium. Essentially, you're stepping into the realm of people pleasing. You're basing who your characters are on what our politically correct society views as "appropriate" for a given race.

This is why I applaud Jim Jinkins's choice to avoid race altogether. His message, as he has stated, is simple - race doesn't matter. And it shouldn't matter.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] HellboundHero 11 years ago

It reminds me of the old cliche where someone's talking about racial equality(maybe on a tv show or an after school special) and starts listing off skin colors which include green, blue, purple, etc.