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On the cop thing; cops are trained to escalate and shout things whenever they’re in a situation, their fault or not. It’s to alter how nearby witnesses view what’s going down (example: guy not resisting arrest is getting beaten by cop, cop shouts “stop resisting!” and witnesses who may not have seen the start of the attack will remember that and recall it in court) And it’s also to give themselves “plausible” deniability in court. Like the cop who said “taser, taser, taser!” with her gun in her hands that lied in court and said she thought it was her taser in her hands before shooting an unarmed civilian.
Or in short; they lie and shout lies to get away with committing crimes like assault and murder.
okay as the 30 yr old black man. watc hthis sieries for the first time. i never thought about darwin being black , but will from foster i had an idea he was black cuz the person how he was made by black man. But i was a kid back then so maybe kids idefiy with the charecters that they relate to more. maybe alot of black kids saw them self in darwin idk
i’m super Super late to this, but yeah, Darwin being black is cause all his VA’s were black. it happens a lot among kids and adults of any minority group – they’ll have had limited (or negative) representation of themselves in media and so gravitate towards characters who may not be black/jewish/trans etc. but have parts of their character that resonate with those experiences.
good examples are piccolo from DBZ or knuckles from Sonic being black, or a lot of teenage superheroes as queer
it’s also why, respectfully, it’s confusing to four white men cause white men aren’t underrepresented in media
Late to the discussion but I also wanted to add another tidbit to assigning non human characters a race thing, the show itself canonically does this with other characters! Y’all remember the the cloud girl masami Yoshida? And how in the episode with her mom is was an entire anime reference? From this alone you can probably parse together masami is supposed to be Japanese. Coding characters to represent certain races has kind of always been a thing (this can also be used negatively ie: racial stereotypes like the crows from Dumbo) but since they’re anthropomorphised creatures meant to represent people, this can also account for representing different races!
oh god that cop story to not only is that attempted murder you got unlawful discharge of a firearm, reckless endangerment, fucking hell theres honestly a list of of shit he did wrong there the fact that he wasnt just immediately suspended, investigated, and arrested is insanely wild, the immunity laws i can understand in some circumstances so they dont get like shafted for stuff they really couldnt help but when it protects things like that its unreasonable and need heavily revised
Well we don’t always have a lot of characters to relate to, not proportionally anyways. So it’s fun to look at characters that reflect our experiences. Darwin is black, the ninja turtles are blasian, PICCOLO is blacker than the boondocks. I personally just intuited that Darwin was black, probably because I am the adopted son in a white family the dynamic is very familiar to me. Marceline is black but tbh that’s kinda just canon to her human side. Panthro from thundercats. You get the idea. They usually reflect our own experiences or remind us of black people we know in our lives.
17:03 damn right! Jeffrey Dahmer went out of his way to get caught multiple times and kept being let go. Ted Bundy too. Every once in a while there will be a cop in those stories who actually is trying his best like Frederick Abberline in the Jack the Ripper case. But there’s only so much that you can do as one person when all your colleagues are incompetent.
So I can give my own perspective on “assigning characters race” as a mexican dude who grew up watching a lot of non-human centered toons. It’s not the same for everyone but when I was a kid I didn’t see a lot of brown human characters that wasn’t a side character or just boring, so seeing a cool character that wasn’t human that related to me (especially if it’s on a bit of a cultural level) was cool because in my head I just saw them as Mexican, it was like my own form of rep. Or sometimes I’d “assign” them other races, it was basically just what I thought they’d be like in my world. I think nowadays it’s gone a little wild because people expect everyone to have that same headcanon when it’s not always the case but that’s just my POV on why people do it. It’s just fun to relate to a character to your culture when you don’t have a lot to go off of.
Omg ya’ll had me cracking up with the Sussy episode, my sides hurt from laughing lmao, these are my some of fav episodes from this season. The music is such a bop.
Darwin being black is definitely canonical at this point, but adding onto that I’ve always also personally seen the show with Richard being white, Nicole being asian (I’m asian and her upbringing makes so much sense to me lol, and then Gumball and Anais being wasian. Not ever officially confirmed like Darwin but I like understanding it this way lol
Teri’s song in “The Singing” is a parody of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s “Pon Pon Pon” music video, and I strongly, strongly recommend y’all watch it to see just how weird it is. It’s on Youtube under Warner Music Japan’s channel. A reaction to the “Pon Pon Pon” music video would be awesome (I love to see people’s eyes blue screen when they watch it), but I just want you guys to see it (either on your own or a reaction) to give yourselves context on Teri’s parody (which ends up looking very tame in comparison to the actual music video lol).
Assigning races to characters that are non human is mostly from lack of representation for POC and black children like me. Darwin being black and everyone acknowledging that solidifies that black people are in cartoon media even in nonhuman form. And it’s just nice to diversify. 😀
Re the race thing: until recently, you were pretty much shit out of luck looking for relevant Black characters in Cartoon Network. so people assigning race to non-humans based on character traits, relatability, or external factors like voice actors seems reasonable. I didn’t realize it growing up, but having characters to look up to who look like you is pretty responsible- and this applies to pretty much any minority, not just Black ppl
It’s been a running joke for a long time that Darwin is the black child that they adopted, one example is the episode where the family did the commercial and they were the classic 90’s white sitcom family members and then Darwin came in at the end he was rapping and wearing clothes that were associated with black characters in the 90’s. Their are a bunch more in the show and it’s supposed to be picked up on, like a scene with Mr. Robinson where he does a micro aggression toward darwin. That aside, Darwin has always been voiced by a black kid and all the other characters in the graphic were too. But the trend mostly comes from the lack of black representaion in animated shows and the black community headcanoning characters voiced by black characters as black. Also theres a lot of hate towards black cosplayers, simply because they are cosplaying characters that aren’t black (not really relevant but adjacent). Also finally, there was a whole war on twitter about Marceline being black— Even though she is!. Technically she is grey but her mother is black, and people were upset because Marshall Lee was black in Fionna & Cake, even though he’s voiced by a black actor and so is Marceline and they are canonly black characters. Anyway that’s my spiel, thanks for another great reaction!
I mean I get why some characters are assigned races mainly because people think about the voice actor behind that character. Like all the characters in that graphic for Black History Month are all voiced by black people. So it makes sense and because I am also black, I always did that with non human characters too. Like for a while before his puppeteer was switched, Elmo was voiced by a black man, so I always joked about Elmo himself being black. Darwin’s voice actor has been voiced by a different black kid every few years. Same with Wilt, Numbah Five, and Garnet— all black people ☺️
The thing about assigning races to characters who aren’t human has been a thing a lotta black kids growing up like myself did a lot to relate to them more like for example as you’ll see online a lotta people say call piccolo black even though he’s obviously a green alien
On the cop thing; cops are trained to escalate and shout things whenever they’re in a situation, their fault or not. It’s to alter how nearby witnesses view what’s going down (example: guy not resisting arrest is getting beaten by cop, cop shouts “stop resisting!” and witnesses who may not have seen the start of the attack will remember that and recall it in court) And it’s also to give themselves “plausible” deniability in court. Like the cop who said “taser, taser, taser!” with her gun in her hands that lied in court and said she thought it was her taser in her hands before shooting an unarmed civilian.
Or in short; they lie and shout lies to get away with committing crimes like assault and murder.
THERE WAS AN EPISODE WHERE DARWIN AND GUMBALL WERE HUMANS AND DARWIN WAS BLACK I THOUGHT U CAUGHT THAT
okay as the 30 yr old black man. watc hthis sieries for the first time. i never thought about darwin being black , but will from foster i had an idea he was black cuz the person how he was made by black man. But i was a kid back then so maybe kids idefiy with the charecters that they relate to more. maybe alot of black kids saw them self in darwin idk
The voice actor for Darwin is black so that’s a reason why he was in the black history month poster
Can’t wait for the edited version of this episode!
I assumed it was because Darwin’s Voice actors are all black.
i’m super Super late to this, but yeah, Darwin being black is cause all his VA’s were black. it happens a lot among kids and adults of any minority group – they’ll have had limited (or negative) representation of themselves in media and so gravitate towards characters who may not be black/jewish/trans etc. but have parts of their character that resonate with those experiences.
good examples are piccolo from DBZ or knuckles from Sonic being black, or a lot of teenage superheroes as queer
it’s also why, respectfully, it’s confusing to four white men cause white men aren’t underrepresented in media
Obviously these characters were black, wym? LOL. Lowkey this might just be a black and POC thing LMAO
Leslie is a dude. I think it’s a reference to “Flower Boy.”
Late to the discussion but I also wanted to add another tidbit to assigning non human characters a race thing, the show itself canonically does this with other characters! Y’all remember the the cloud girl masami Yoshida? And how in the episode with her mom is was an entire anime reference? From this alone you can probably parse together masami is supposed to be Japanese. Coding characters to represent certain races has kind of always been a thing (this can also be used negatively ie: racial stereotypes like the crows from Dumbo) but since they’re anthropomorphised creatures meant to represent people, this can also account for representing different races!
oh god that cop story to not only is that attempted murder you got unlawful discharge of a firearm, reckless endangerment, fucking hell theres honestly a list of of shit he did wrong there the fact that he wasnt just immediately suspended, investigated, and arrested is insanely wild, the immunity laws i can understand in some circumstances so they dont get like shafted for stuff they really couldnt help but when it protects things like that its unreasonable and need heavily revised
Well we don’t always have a lot of characters to relate to, not proportionally anyways. So it’s fun to look at characters that reflect our experiences. Darwin is black, the ninja turtles are blasian, PICCOLO is blacker than the boondocks. I personally just intuited that Darwin was black, probably because I am the adopted son in a white family the dynamic is very familiar to me. Marceline is black but tbh that’s kinda just canon to her human side. Panthro from thundercats. You get the idea. They usually reflect our own experiences or remind us of black people we know in our lives.
Cops are just another gang funded by taxpayers.
The Best is my fav ep of all time in this show OMG i’m so happy!
What the actual fuck first Boom now Erick? Lol
The cop talks actually reminded me you should consider police academy for a movie reaction
17:03 damn right! Jeffrey Dahmer went out of his way to get caught multiple times and kept being let go. Ted Bundy too. Every once in a while there will be a cop in those stories who actually is trying his best like Frederick Abberline in the Jack the Ripper case. But there’s only so much that you can do as one person when all your colleagues are incompetent.
Tbf when I called you ableist, I was joking
So I can give my own perspective on “assigning characters race” as a mexican dude who grew up watching a lot of non-human centered toons. It’s not the same for everyone but when I was a kid I didn’t see a lot of brown human characters that wasn’t a side character or just boring, so seeing a cool character that wasn’t human that related to me (especially if it’s on a bit of a cultural level) was cool because in my head I just saw them as Mexican, it was like my own form of rep. Or sometimes I’d “assign” them other races, it was basically just what I thought they’d be like in my world. I think nowadays it’s gone a little wild because people expect everyone to have that same headcanon when it’s not always the case but that’s just my POV on why people do it. It’s just fun to relate to a character to your culture when you don’t have a lot to go off of.
The social justice warrior scene is iconic
Omg ya’ll had me cracking up with the Sussy episode, my sides hurt from laughing lmao, these are my some of fav episodes from this season. The music is such a bop.
The cop talks actually reminded me you should consider police academy for a movie reaction
Darwin being black is definitely canonical at this point, but adding onto that I’ve always also personally seen the show with Richard being white, Nicole being asian (I’m asian and her upbringing makes so much sense to me lol, and then Gumball and Anais being wasian. Not ever officially confirmed like Darwin but I like understanding it this way lol
Also I live for yall trashing on the cops – please never stop doing it 🩵
Teri’s song in “The Singing” is a parody of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s “Pon Pon Pon” music video, and I strongly, strongly recommend y’all watch it to see just how weird it is. It’s on Youtube under Warner Music Japan’s channel. A reaction to the “Pon Pon Pon” music video would be awesome (I love to see people’s eyes blue screen when they watch it), but I just want you guys to see it (either on your own or a reaction) to give yourselves context on Teri’s parody (which ends up looking very tame in comparison to the actual music video lol).
Sussie’s “I Am Free” song is also likely a reference to Joanna Newsom’s “Peach, Plum, Pear”. The list of references just keeps on growing 😆
Assigning races to characters that are non human is mostly from lack of representation for POC and black children like me. Darwin being black and everyone acknowledging that solidifies that black people are in cartoon media even in nonhuman form. And it’s just nice to diversify. 😀
Agreed
Re the race thing: until recently, you were pretty much shit out of luck looking for relevant Black characters in Cartoon Network. so people assigning race to non-humans based on character traits, relatability, or external factors like voice actors seems reasonable. I didn’t realize it growing up, but having characters to look up to who look like you is pretty responsible- and this applies to pretty much any minority, not just Black ppl
It’s been a running joke for a long time that Darwin is the black child that they adopted, one example is the episode where the family did the commercial and they were the classic 90’s white sitcom family members and then Darwin came in at the end he was rapping and wearing clothes that were associated with black characters in the 90’s. Their are a bunch more in the show and it’s supposed to be picked up on, like a scene with Mr. Robinson where he does a micro aggression toward darwin. That aside, Darwin has always been voiced by a black kid and all the other characters in the graphic were too. But the trend mostly comes from the lack of black representaion in animated shows and the black community headcanoning characters voiced by black characters as black. Also theres a lot of hate towards black cosplayers, simply because they are cosplaying characters that aren’t black (not really relevant but adjacent). Also finally, there was a whole war on twitter about Marceline being black— Even though she is!. Technically she is grey but her mother is black, and people were upset because Marshall Lee was black in Fionna & Cake, even though he’s voiced by a black actor and so is Marceline and they are canonly black characters. Anyway that’s my spiel, thanks for another great reaction!
Couldn’t have said it better
I mean I get why some characters are assigned races mainly because people think about the voice actor behind that character. Like all the characters in that graphic for Black History Month are all voiced by black people. So it makes sense and because I am also black, I always did that with non human characters too. Like for a while before his puppeteer was switched, Elmo was voiced by a black man, so I always joked about Elmo himself being black. Darwin’s voice actor has been voiced by a different black kid every few years. Same with Wilt, Numbah Five, and Garnet— all black people ☺️
H Man being the only one to hear Booms comments and laughing is so hilarious to me
All of Darwin’s voice actors are black. Like they deliberately casted black boys so I feel like he was always intended to be black
I feel like the black history month post was both a homage to Darwin as a character and al the kids that voiced him
The thing about assigning races to characters who aren’t human has been a thing a lotta black kids growing up like myself did a lot to relate to them more like for example as you’ll see online a lotta people say call piccolo black even though he’s obviously a green alien