I've seen that skit a million times and laugh each and every time, but now in the context of the convo, to me it just drives home the point of what's assigned to you (i.e. a non-Asian producer casting an Asian to play the Yellow Ranger, even if there's no ill intent) vs. what you call yourself for the sake of empowerment (Asian American women taking up the image of Trini because she was powerful). Also, the difference between imposing upon others vs. accepting what those others claim for themselves (like the Green Falcon's unfortunate problem above).
"Rise of a Ranger" was pretty good. I wouldn't have expected Prince Philip to return and become a Ranger. It was predictable that he'd have to perform a truly selfless act rather than trying to buy his way to worthiness, but it was handled pretty well. Though it seems he's only going to be an occasional presence. "Graphite Ranger" is kind of an odd name. I wonder why they didn't just call him the Gray Ranger. He's the first gray Power Ranger ever, so it's not like the name is taken. His Kyoryuger counterpart is called Kyoryu Gray, in fact. And calling him the Graphite Ranger just makes me think his special weapon should be the Power Pencil. Last week's Halloween episode, "Ghostest With the Mostest," was aired way out of sequence, featuring the Pachyzord that only made its debut this week. That one puzzled me, since I couldn't remember seeing that Zord before. As clip shows go, it wasn't bad. Doing it as a bottle show saved enough money that it didn't need too many clips, and the setup for the clips had some suspense to it. The mystery of which Ranger was the impostor was effective, even with the contrivance of the identical costumes. To be precise, this week was episode 15 and the Halloween episode was #21. But #22 is a Christmas special, so I suspect #20 is the season finale proper and the holiday specials are standalones. Which would've been fine if they'd actually waited for Halloween to show the Halloween special.
Hopefully, it's less and less of a thing with each generation. Obviously, racism is still a problem but it seems less a factor with the young. I'm not sure millennials would even associate yellow with Asian. It came up in a conversation and I was surprised that some blacks I know who are in their 40s weren't aware of the racist variant of "Eeny Meeny Miny Moe". Hopefully, as we continue to scrub this stuff out it won't matter over time. (Though that skit still cracks me up ) By chance is he the "lead" ranger?
I just rewatched the Dekaranger special, and now something just dawned upon me: Spoiler: 10 Years After It's kind of disappointing that most of the team really just stayed put. Only Ban and Jasmine moved on from Earth Branch. Tetsu got promoted true, but he stayed on Earth. Sen and Umeko didn't change at all. It seemed like Hoji was slacking off and growing distant, but the movie never explained the reason for the ruse in the first place, and he was still teamed with Sen and Umeko anyway. So it's not really much of a reunion since most of the team stayed together in some form. But even with Ban, we saw him join Fire Squad at the series end, so even he hasn't changed much since then. Only Jasmine seems different. Compare that to Hurricanger 10 Years After. While I admit that I liked Dekaranger more, the Hurricanger movie did a pretty thorough job of advancing the characters by 10 years, each one doing their own thing and truly reuniting for one last battle. Oh, believe me, Asian millennials are very much aware of the term "yellow," and American politicians' fear-mongering of China is just a continuation of decades of "Yellow Peril" like 80s Japan and 60s/70s Vietnam. But more discussion around the race and the term has fleshed out more in recent years (i.e., that article I linked to above in which an Asian author used Trini as a guide because of the dual meaning of "Yellow Ranger" as a positive image, rather than yellow as a traditional racial slur -- again, it depends on who's saying it). But if racism is to be less and less of a thing, it's through an ongoing discussion and understanding of its effects, which I feel has improved over time, but still needs some catching up after faltering in the 90s and its move to really ignore specific discrepancies and solutions in the name of a false equality. But talking about race enables perspective and analysis, especially of unintentional racism, including the Key & Peele sketch above (indeed, much of their material to begin with). But, like you said, improvement is gradual, and I imagine the next 10 years will show greater improvement, but because race analysis is being discussed more now than before. That we have more minorities in starring roles in TV is a testament to that (though still woefully underrepresented when compared to the population of the audience, so there's still work to do). To wit, I'm so sure that in 1993, the producers didn't intend any harm whatsoever in casting an Asian woman as the Yellow Ranger and a Black man as the Black Ranger -- indeed, the original actress was white. I'm positive their intent was to deliver a semi-decent show on the cheap with a diverse cast that could rake in millions. But greater race awareness goes a long way, and their decisions did kick off a decent amount of discussion regarding minority representation in media, which doesn't happen much in children's TV, when kids on the playground tell the black kid that he can't be the MMPR Red leader or the Green Sixth Ranger because of his skin color.
Yep. We all have unconscious biases as a result of living in this culture, and the people who can best overcome racism are not the ones who instantly get defensive and go "How dare you accuse me of being racist?", but the ones who actually listen and say "Wow, if my words come off as offensive to others, I should examine my own behavior and attitudes through others' eyes and see if I have a problem that I need to address." After all, it's not about one's own ego, it's about how one treats other people. Getting angry and defensive is just a way to shut down the discussion. The most ethical people are the ones who make sure to question themselves -- just like the best-running computers are the ones subjected to regular error-checking and self-repair. Insisting you're incapable of doing wrong doesn't actually make it so. Heck, my ancestry is a white supremacist's dream -- my father's family practically came over on the Mayflower, and my mother's family has lived in Virginia since the 1790s and had members who fought for the Confederacy. I grew up in a white neighborhood and didn't interact much with people of other ethnicities in my childhood. I was never actually taught to hold any racist attitudes -- my family's pretty progressive as a rule, at least since my grandfather's generation -- but as a child I did initially see black or Asian people as unfamiliar and odd, merely from lack of interaction. I had to learn to overcome those prejudices and become more inclusive in my thinking (and the influence of shows like Star Trek and Fat Albert was invaluable in that process). Sometimes cultural assumptions about race still crop up in the back of my mind and I have to be alert to them and question them. Of course, the best cure for such attitudes is to interact more widely with people outside your own ethnic/racial/religious/community group. The more you get to know other people as individuals, the harder it is to hold onto the myth of them as something alien. That's how it was for me, as I made more friends of other ethnicities and belief systems in high school and college. And that's why the changing demographics of the US are working in favor of greater inclusion. Indeed. I still find it ironic that, even though Big Hero 6 purported to show an alternate-history San Francisco that had a stronger Japanese presence and influence on its culture, the cast of the movie still had somewhat less Asian representation than the actual population of San Francisco, and none of the Chinese presence that's a major part of San Francisco's demographics and culture in reality. And there are still plenty of movies that are set in nonwhite-majority cities like San Francisco or New York and yet have almost exclusively white casts (e.g. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Limitless). TV is better at this, but feature films are still way behind the times in inclusion. Honestly, that's giving them too much credit -- both the "semi-decent" part and the "rake in millions" part. At the time, Saban Entertainment was more a distributor and repackager than a production company per se -- mostly they just imported dubbed anime to the US and exported DIC's shows internationally. They didn't handle anything really big -- mostly obscure anime like Macron 1 and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Samurai Pizza Cats. They weren't exactly known for quality. MMPR was just a cheap, cheesy attempt at repackaging a live-action Japanese show instead of an animated one, and nobody had any clue that it would become as hugely popular as it did. I don't think it was even promoted all that heavily before it came out, since I'm not sure anyone really knew what to make of it.
Collider has some new info on the Power Rangers feature film: http://collider.com/power-rangers-movie-title-budget-character-names/ It will be called Saban's Power Rangers, and apparently it will feature new characters taking on the mantle of the Mighty Morphin Rangers. If it's in-continuity, as an earlier rumor suggested, that would presumably mean that the Dino Zords and maybe the original Power Coins would be resurrected somehow and given to a new team. The character names will be as follows, with actor names in parentheses: Red Ranger/Tyrannosaurus: Callum Oliver (Dacre Montgomery) Pink Ranger/Pterodactyl: Priya Patel (Naomi Scott) Blue Ranger/Triceratops: Brian Olsen (RJ Cyler) Black Ranger/Mastodon: Oscar Fernandez (Ludi Lin) Yellow Ranger/Sabertooth Tiger: Teyana Jones (not yet cast) I wonder, could Callum Oliver be Tommy Oliver's son? And could we possibly see some of the original cast members appearing in the film to pass on the mantle?
I'm calling BS on that Collider article, particularly since we just had both RJ Cyler and Ludi Lin confirm on Twitter within the past few days that they were in fact playing Billy and Zack, respectively.
I seem to recall Simon Pegg and Alice Eve stating outright that John Harrison was not Khan... Besides, the article suggests that the script has been rewritten. I get the impression that it was originally going to be a remake with the same characters, but that it's now been rewritten to be about a new team. Maybe those actors haven't gotten the script updates yet.
Whatever this team may be, I really hope that Red isn't the son of Tommy. That would just inflate JDF's ego that much more! Still, I'll wait and see. I also can't wait to see the suits, moreso than the zords -- I've usually been much more interested in the ground action and choreography than giant robots.
Well, the CGI Megazord in a 2017 movie would surely be better than the CGI version of the Ninja Megazord in the original MMPR movie. That one was so damn shiny and reflective that I could hardly see it.
That's because Zord vs Monster fights suck in Power Rangers, but for the film we'll probably get something closer to Pacific Rim. That will not suck.
Collider's 'scoops' about character names, costumes, and budget for the movie and about the TV series moving to Netflix are fake. The site's 'source' is a former poster on Rangerboard who has absolutely zero credibility.
On the other hand, not one of the actors looks anything like his or her corresponding character from MMPR. We've got a blue-eyed blond Red Ranger, a Mexican-American Yellow Ranger, a Chinese-Canadian Black Ranger, an Anglo-Indian Pink Ranger, and an African-American Blue Ranger. Certainly there's precedent for recastings changing characters' ethnicity or hair color, but in all five cases? The casting does seem to suggest that these are new characters -- as does the lack of mention of a Green Ranger, because there's no way they'd leave Tommy out if it were a remake. Even if the Collider rumor is unreliable, it might have a kernel of truth to it.
Oh, so they ARE gonna tape her chest down then and use Zyuranger footage. As for Tommy, why not leave it for a sequel? JDF certainly acted the role well, but the whole Tommy arc is worth its own movie as well as giving the "main" cast some setup before letting a new Tommy make most of them into guest characters on their own show. Mark
Nothing that Collider's 'source' has told them is true. They've been hoodwinked by a charlatan, and it's unfortunate that so many other normally credible news sites have taken their reports as truth.