Shiitake Mooshrooms

I noticed something recently: I can never seem to find characters that look like me. the reason I bring this up is that I think that I have some pretty standard features. I have brown eyes, short brown hair, and glasses. And I bet you’re thinking “I can name a dozen characters that fits that description”, I ask you to think specifically about cartoons, and look specifically for white girls. There were two catalysts for this realization:

In middle school, there was a “who’s my doppelgänger?” page in the yearbook. The only character that fit me (despite Velma being the obvious choice) was Dora, who is very much not white.

The “did I accidentally draw you?” trend.

As I said, I think I have pretty average features, yet in the maybe 2 years that this trend has been going, I don’t think I’ve seen any drawing that hit all 4 points (glasses, brown hair, short hair, brown eyes). And on the rare occasions that artists draw girls with all four features? The girl isn’t white. Now, I’m not saying this is a bad thing, by all means draw more people of color! But it got me thinking. Part of it might be that people see the brown hair-brown eyes combo as bland. This could very much be true for the lack of characters in animation. In recent years, the closest I’ve gotten to feeling represented was Mirabel from Encanto. The movie is incredible, but it feels Wrong to say that I feel represented by Mirabel. Because I’m not Latina. I’m of Spanish heritage, but not in any way that’s apparent. The only character that I have felt ever represents me properly is Velma. She’s a nerdy white girl who’s smart and modest, she has brown hair, a bob, and glasses. And while her eyes don’t have color, the black is basically brown. She was my perfect representation. And then the Velma show. I know that people have tons of problems with that show, and I know there are people who are against the race swap for racist reasons. I’d be fine with her race being changed if she wasn’t the only character Like Me. I’ve seen people talk about “redhead-erasure”, where the characters that get race swapped are the redheads, and I agree. It’s fine to diversify a cast, but when you only diversify through the people who aren’t seen in media, it gets upsetting. That’s a reason I really enjoy how Rick Riordan went about casting the tv series. He changed the race of some characters, but he chose good actors and changed the characters who were over represented. (I will say on that point, I am a little upset that he changed one of the most popular examples of a smart blonde girl, but I also love Leah’s performance.) I think we need to look at the way we portray women. We have gotten so scared of being “unwoke” that we have forgotten about the basic people. Look at the apple emojis. I have stuck to the yellow people emojis because none of the skin tone ones represent me.

👩🏻‍💼- This could probably work, but I don’t have black hair.

👩🏼‍💼- I think this skin tone is most accurate, but I don’t have blonde hair.

👩🏽‍💼- This is the closest brown to my hair, but the skin is too dark. There was a time when I used this, but it always felt weird.