chocosun4evr

Depictions of Black or Black-coded people

It's the donut lips, Its usually juxtapose darker skin color but not always.

Donut lips aren't inherently bad, I've seen them draw on ducks and non-Black people. the problem arises when its used on a Black or Black-coded characters because its based on offensive depictions I.e Black minstrelsy. While Chief Puddle, Guru Ant and Instructor Moosesha aren't human, Their song uses genres heavily associated with African American culture which is why I think they are all Black coded.

...Although blackface minstrelsy gradually disappeared from the professional theaters and became purely a vehicle for amateurs, its influence endured in later entertainment genres and media, including vaudeville theater, radio and television programs, and the world-music and motion-picture industries of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Source: Britannica

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Also Chief Puddle is the only one in the firefighter group to have these lips. How come they didn't add those lips to the background firefighters?

Depictions of East Asians (exuding any Japanese depictions)

^ One depicting what Parappa thinks Ms.Ma looks like, the other is a background character who's a delivery man for a Chinese restaurant

Dash for eyes (Except for Ms.Ma)

Yellow or Yellow like hue for their Skin

While there isn't much characters that have more than 5 minutes of screen time, the ones that are spotted are designed in a racist sense.

The dash for eyes is a mocking depiction of monolids/epicanthic fold because its a joke "Asian eyes" and yellow is more based on the racial moniker. It's a major reason I avoid coloring Ms.Ma yellow because it's too reminiscent of racist depictions of East Asians in U.S media. USamericans & Europeans has color monikur for East Asians which is yellow.

"The supposed danger posed to Western interests by the increasing population of Asian peoples, especially as depicted in print media in the late 1800s and early 1900s."

Meaning of Yellow Peril by Wordnik

While shes not the epitome of Yellow peril, I suspect her design was influenced by Yellow peril propaganda.

Ms.Ma's color changes drastically depending if shes in the game or not. She's orangish-yellow within the game but outside the games she colored bright yellow.

Another thing I noticed, Master Onion is obviously Japanese-coded but when you compare him to Ms.Ma the handling is different.

They're both East Asians however Master Onion is Japanese and Ms.Ma is Chinese

Chop chop Master Onion can speak English, has called himself "Tamanegi Sensei" which i think is just Japanese for "Onion teacher" however Ms.Ma does not speak English or Chinese. They gave her a fictitious language which is understood through subtitles

all in all it just differentiates her from the other characters, at least in my opinion.

West Asians (There only instance)

"Arab Army with too many weapons"

Despite it being just being concept art it does show how they were gonna depict West Asians in their game.

When you compare the "Arab" army to the british, You can see the difference in intent. The Arab one has too many weapons where as the british and american ones are "neat/proper and or goofy," like they have absurd weapons but the Arab army has genuine guns as well as swords.

The U.S military has used propaganda which villainizes anyone who isn't white/Goes against U.S interests so I dont feel like its a stretch. Its a way to justify military intervention if you see the enemy as dangerous and deserving. Its a good thing they scrapped it for whatever reason.

Option 2 "British army" design fighting against the antagonist's army of robotic dummies.

Conclusion/Final thoughts