See, this is why I hate the way the Simpsons draws black people.
Homer Simpson doesn’t have white (peach) skin. He has yellow skin. Homer is obviously white in terms of culture, and you can make an argument that he has a white looking face shape too, even if he is a cartoon man. But he doesn’t have white skin.
So Apu and Carl should not have realistic dark skin. If the Simpsons artstyle is yellow skin, these characters should have yellow skin too. Make this a world where skin colour is not a racialised trait. Apu should still be Indian, with an Indian accent, Hindu religion, Indian facial features if you wanna go there… But no brown skin. This is a world of yellow people, and yellow skin is not a racial trait.
If the Simpsons had just made everyone yellow, then people wouldn’t be going around assuming that yellow emojis represent white people. Cartoon yellow skin would be seen as raceless.
Keep the plots around ethnicity, still have it be a world where racism exists. Hell, have the characters use the words “black” and “white” even though these characters are neither black nor white. Real people aren’t black or white either! Don’t acknowledge it and don’t change anything else. This is just a world where everyone is yellow.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 10 hours ago
The simpsons is almost 40 years old. You’re picturing some world of inclusivity.
It was a show with a lot of stereotypes. It was never made to make everyone the same. It made fun of things. It ruffled some feathers. It’s also why everyone LOVED the first 8 or so seasons. After that they started to get more vanilla.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 8 hours ago
It’s a cartoon where people are yellow. But they didn’t make black people yellow. They broke their own design language rules. I think it would be better art if they were consistent.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
i’m not sure they thought in design language. they just drew characters. at least with my experience with animators (i know a few) and the journey season one art took to get consistent. the first three season commentaries especially are really good insights into the difficulties of working with outsourced studios.
of course, if You have the time to take a season of entertainment to review it. it’s worth the time if you’re into that sort of thing.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 6 hours ago
Their design rules? That’s funny, because their design rules from season one and the last 30+ years is that white people are yellow, and black and Indian people are brown.
That’s their “rules”.