The villains wear black and/or are dark and/or are ugly because children have to know who the bad guy is. That is what she said to me in the midst of a conversation I remember very little about—it was in a restaurant, she was seated to my right, the table was full, there was some sort of discussion about Disney movies and this was her contribution. I'm not certain what I said in response; I'm not certain that I gave a response. Most likely I stared at her with wide eyes, biting my tongue to hold in profanities, and allegations of mental disability. When the shock had passed, I realized I had missed an opportunity to bring to light one of the many roots of modern racism.
A simple observation of society's behavior or a cursory glance at comments beneath almost anything on line will tell you that not only is racism alive and well, but that most racism stems from prejudices that are built on stereotypes. What they don't understand, is that from an early age we are conditioned to believe that Black (or darker) is bad and White is good through something as seemingly harmless as cartoons. Often those who subscribe to believing in these stereotypes attempt to validate their instincts by pointing to those who fit the stereotype as evidence of truth, not realizing that the bias to favor the negative stereotype as the "norm" and categorize any other behavior as "the exception" was ingrained into them at a very young age.
Think about your favorite cartoons as children (may be even as adults). Imagine the hero(ine) and their allies. Now picture the villain and their minions. Maybe you though of Looney Tunes' lovable Bugs Bunny—light gray, always eating a carrot, out smarting the other characters, and constantly saying "What's up Doc?" Contrast that with the obnoxiously daft (hence his name), irrational, and downright stupid Daffy Duck, who is jet black. Well, there was Yogi bear, he was a brown character that got to star in a show, right? Yogi was lovable—I liked him, at least—of course Yogi was also a scheming trouble-maker whose schemes often got him into trouble with the ranger (who was White). Or maybe, you were a Disney buff: look at Scar and the hyenas, versus Mufasa and Simba. Even Pumbaa, the brown warthog, is portrayed as idiot. He even gets the pleasure of being correct about the stars being made of gas, only to be shot down by the "wiser" Simba and Timon. What about the "Chinese" cat in the Aristocats? The Siamese Cats in Lady and the Tramp? You can try to cover it up and claim its just a cartoon or that the characters are just animals, but the subliminal message is still there.
The worse example of this occurring in people, in my opinion, is Rio. It's a cute movie—the focus is more on the animals than the humans per se, but let's talk about the humans. The main human (the owner of Blue, the main character) is a White woman from the United States. Her ally, and eventual love interest is Tulio, who is from Brazil and has White features. The villains? Well they gave us a white bird as the animal villian (he's "ugly" and disfigured, however), but the humans are distinguishably Latino with two appearing to be Black Latino—one even has dreadlocks.
 |
| Villains of the movie Rio (image copyrighted by 20th Century Fox) |
 |
| Heroes of the movie Rio (image copyrighted by 20th Century Fox) |
This trend continues into adolescence, where many popular shows have White leads and minority sidekicks . Let's look at an example for a slightly older audience:
Girl Meets World. I decided to give
Girl Meets World a try because I was a huge fan of its predecessor,
Boy Meets World, and while I like the show I couldn't help notice that even in 2015, the minority characters still got the short end of the stick. The show follows four White friends—which I have no problem with, it is not unrealistic that their circle is all White, and following the plot of
Boy Meets World, Cory and Topanga (both White) were bound to have a White child so it makes sense that main character is White. The characters are the happy-go-lucky, naive, do-gooder Riley (main character); troubled, mischievous, "bad-influence" Maya; the "moral-compass," boy next door, attractive guy Lucas; and quirky, unpopular, nerd Farkle. The focus of the show rarely strays from the core four, but when it does the side character introduced is usually the antagonist of the episode and these are the only roles left for minorities to fill... One Asian character has appeared. What was she like? She proves to be smarter than Farkle, head of their rival school's quiz-bowl team, and a stereotypical nerd. Yep, the Asian character who showed up was cast as a nerd, even though the actress playing the character could easily have been cast as a popular girl, or an athlete, or a student needing to be tutored... The first Black student to appear was both a jock and bully—but that's neither stereotypical nor predictable right? He also magically appeared in their class and disappeared from their class, because he only appeared in one episode. The second Black student to appear was an instigator, a trouble-maker, and given the back story of having gotten Lucas kicked out of his old school. They have one "positive" reoccurring Black character, they call her Crazy Hat and she's eccentric, but at least she's a rich business owner. There are have been no Indian characters and no Hispanic/Latino characters, even though the characters attend a public school in New York City...
Often people will comment we (minorities) are being sensitive and nit-picky—
somebody has to be the bad guy and there are movies where a White person is the villain. Perhaps, but a White person is also the hero. If there were movies where the Black/Latino/Hispanic/Asian person was the star and the hero, and once in a while the Black/Latino/Hispanic/Asian person was the villain (or nerd in the case of Asians) maybe it wouldn't be a big deal, but think of the percentage of movies that even have non-white actors/actresses with important roles and then think of how many of those portray these actors/actresses in a positive, non-stereotypical light. It is quite easy to see the link between our perceptions of people from different races and the conditioning to this thinking from early ages. If you've ever seen
the doll test, where Black children are asked to pick the good and bad or pretty and ugly dolls, you know that this conditioning has worked even in minority communities! The children clearly show that they associate good/pretty with White, and bad/ugly is associated with Black. Why do kids who have parents that look just like them, love them, and take care of them, associate the Black doll with ugly/bad? Why? Because the shows they watch on TV are "informing" them on who the villain is via color suggestion! Sounds about the same as the white cat from the rich neighborhood having to "rough-it" with the swinging alley cats...
Bad people come in all colors, shapes, sizes, genders, and ages. There is no need to brainwash children into thinking black/dark=evil and white/light=good. They're human children, not goldfish. A sinister laugh, harsh tone or simply being mean will tell them the character is evil (think
Angelica in
Rugrats). Thankfully, there is some movement towards better representation,
Doc McStuffins being one example of breaking this formula, but as long as people insist kids need black=bad, white=good formulaic movies, we will always be raising a generation of kids that think Black=bad and White=good.
