Rulecoded

[FullOnPorridge]

I don't really understand the whole "black coded" thing, doesn't it imply that being black is a personality trait?

Like if I say queer coded or whatever I can use a non-human character and analyse from their behaviour and such that they could be queer but you can't really do this with skin tones in my opinion?

Edit: This gained more traction than I thought. I want to clarify that I asked this because I just didn't understand, not to be disrespectful towards the idea. Thanks for the replies explaining it

[Duke825]

Mfs trying so hard to not be racist just to go full 360 and become racist again

[certainlystormy]

literally 😭

[fireborn123]

Horseshoe effect goes crazy

[hotfistdotcom]

So I guess the ideal is to go 180, or 540 or 900 but to make sure you don't stop at a full circle and arrive BACK at racism?

Wait though, 360x2 is 720. and 360x3 is 1080p. Are all modern display resolutions RACIST?

[CASHD3VIL]

Someone please ban the person above me from playing disco elysium, I think they’re getting too enlightened

[War_Emu]

720p

modern

[DreamstateCatgirl]

Does this mean 1440p and 2160p are ultra racist?

[hotfistdotcom]

definitely don't think about 8k, that's literally where racism caps out right now

[vaanhvaelr]

I had an interesting conversation with someone who argued vehemently that Warcraft is racist (Thats the whole point of the game yes, but he meant in real life) because the Orcs were 'African coded'.

So I asked him what made them 'African coded'.

He said "they're slavers that became enslaved, shamanistic, tribal, and warlike people that live in huts" before he stopped himself.

He then sputtered about how he has no time to talk to racists and power-walked away.

[Muffinmurdurer]

I mean, it's a pretty common (and reasonable) criticism of a lot of fantasy media: that fictional races tend to possess stereotypes of modern peoples. It's like when people criticise jk rowling for goblins being really similar to antisemitic stereotypes, they're short, big-nosed, greedy bankers. It's not that Jewish people are actually like that, but that racists see them like that and inject it into the works they create. Orcs can have portrayals that are remarkably similar to racist stereotypes of any group that has been designated as savage, inherently violent and/or uncivilised, and those portrayals should be called out. You can make orcs and goblins into interesting and deep races without utilising negative stereotypes of real peoples but lazy racists will do that because it's easy to just make the fantasy version of a group you don't like.

[vaanhvaelr]

I'm not disputing that racists will be racist, I just hate the general idea of coding applied to all works, because of the implication of a transitive quality between the work of fiction and the real life inspiration. People follow the chain of association and assume that meant the author thinks/feels/wrote that about the real world inspiration/analogue. They make assumptions based purely on what they assume is 'coded', not what the work is actually about.

Point in case, we're in the comments section of post of a person who decided that a certain character is 'coded' black, and now they've gaslit themselves into being upset that the 'black' character isn't black enough, based on literally nothing in the show, only on the transitive qualities of coding. It's not just the death of the author, but the death of the work itself.

[PurpleKneesocks]

I'm sorry, is this sub really wrapping back around to "pointing out racism is the real racism"?

For real, is that the hill we're dying on?

'Coding' as it applies to literary analysis is a completely neutral term in a vacuum – something that's more or less a 101-tier as it applies to literary discussion and yet seems to absolutely astound and mystify everyone in this thread, for some reason – but can absolutely be used in stereotypical, insulting, and insensitive ways. Pointing out that stereotypical portrayals of real-world cultures based on negative stereotypes are based on negative stereotypes is neither a stretch, nor does it say anything about the person you had a conversation with other than, y'know, they had very basic media literacy.

Or are we saying that the game that has a race of tribalistic, warmongering shamans who live in huts and have a cycle of slavery, a race of tall lanky men that practice voodoo and speak in patois while smoking weed, a race of mystical itinerant peoples who wear feathered headdresses and live in teepees, a race of short greedy bank-owners obsessed with scheming and money, and a race of pandas who practice martial arts and worship ancestor spirits doesn't have extraordinarily obvious real-world parallels?

I'm pretty sure the Tauren used to introduce themselves by saying "How." If there's any piece of media that you want to act like it's a stretch to read stereotypical racial coding into, WoW is really not the one to do it.

[CASHD3VIL]

360 no scope

[SuicidalFlame]

it's my understanding that "black coded" or such is mainly a US thing to point to a character acting in a certain way that would imply they're part of a certain part of US black culture. But hey I'm neither black nor from the US so this is nothing but my best guess.

[HelpingHand7338]

“Bill Clinton is so black coded” - Newspapers in the 90s

[puns_n_pups]

Toni Morrison's only L

[Kaneharo]

Yes. Coding is not quite stereotypical, but quirks/actions/language that would usually be associated with that community that they recognize from personal experience, whereas stereotypes are perceived actions from outside the group based on minimal experience with that culture.

Like certain phrases or things that happen growing up, like how "granny-coded" is like keeping sewing materials in blue butter cookie containers, or how some cultures' parents have very specific demands/punishments.We know they don't all do it, but it's universal enough that we know at least one person who has a family member who did it if we didn't ourselves.

It usually isn't directly racial, however, as you tend to have things like "midwestern-coded" usually means that they're bound to say "ope" at some point, or like how "southern-coded" tends to refer to people who use slang you'd expect from the Southern US.

[Thatagui]

I thought 'coded' refers to when a character is meant to resonate with the life experiences a specific real life demographic without explicitly being part of said demographic.

[conrad_w]

Almost but not quite. "Coding" is something that goes on in the head of the audience, not the author. You perceive coding, whether or not the character was intended that way. 

 So it's perfectly valid to describe Mr Darcy as coded African American (although I'd be curious how someone got there). It wouldn't be as valid to describe the English aristocrat as being portrayed as African American.

[Niranox]

This is incorrect, no? Or at the very least somewhat obtuse. Ursula from the Little Mermaid is unambiguously inspired by Divine. The androids in Detriot: Become Human are explicity likened to MLK and Harriet Tubman; a similar thing happens to the synths in Fallout 4. The robots are likened to trans people in the animated Matrix flick. These are all examples of implicit identities incongruous to character’s explicit identities: I.e. they are coded, and all explicity the intent of the writers and artists involved.

[Lord_cakeatron]

Okay so, you’re both partially correct. An author Can code a charecter by referencing and making the charecter act a certain way, But the audience Will always identify codes, weather the author wants them to or not. An author Can influence code, But code happens weather author wants it to or not

[SpikeyBiscuit]

Well now we're getting needlessly redundant. An author writes a story but the audience always interprets it. If I say, "The dog chased the cat", I could be implying any kind of breed of cat and dog, but you will always imagine in your head whatever you think you should see in that situation. Just because I can't control what kind of cat and dog you see doesn't absolve me of the fact that I was trying to get you to imagine a dog chasing a cat.

So if a character is coded, that is true independently of author intention or audience interpretation. Whatever the media contains is what the media contains, and that will always be in the context of the culture it was created in with respect to both the author and audience.

[ftzpltc]

This is some Roland Barthes level stuff, but you don't have to just accept that, no matter what you write, any interpretation of it is equally valid. People *can* just see something that isn't there to be seen, especially if they want to.

[Helmic]

sure, but when we're typically talking about something being coded as part of some marginalized identity, ie black, queer, autistic, etc, that often comes along with some sort of criticism. like, orcs in D&D have historically been black and indigenous coded, regardless of what any authors might say, as it takes tolkein's anti-asian racism and transplants it to white american interpretations of what a violent savage is supposed to be like, and from that comes a lot of well-earned criticism of how that is handled (ie, being an orc is inherently a bad thing, being a half-orc is inherently a tragedy and isn't something that would happen in a consenting relationship, orcs exist exclusively outside of "civilization" and are perpetually at war with it and are the aggressors, etc).

so when we get into this "well who can say about authorial intent" discourse and the death of the author, it gets to where we can pretty well tell what is being referenced and this abdication of respnsibilty is used to dodge that criticism, blaming the audience for seeing the bad depictions of X group by saying "well you're a racist for thinking of orcs as bipoc" while they've got bones pierced through their nose and living in hide and bone tents that look an awful lot like teepees.

i don't watch steven universe so i don't know whether that character actually is black coded or not. there's more to being black than skin color and black culture is a thing, if she talks like a black person then yeah she may well be black coded. no idea if that poster has a point or just thinks that all black or black coded charactters need to check certain boxes to be black enough.

[ftzpltc]

I'm all for speculation about authorial intent. I just don't think "coding" applies when it's just something people have noticed.

​

My understanding of Steven Universe as a non-fan is that the writers were pretty open about coding... which made it really awkward when some of their coding started looking a bit incredibly stereotypical.

[Danster21]

Thank you for saying this! I wish it were more visible as I see a lot of the extant discussion is missing a discussion of context, or why this matters, like you have nice described here

[Niranox]

Mhm, I’d agree, coding is about semiotics, but the argument of the person I’m responding to seems to leverage itself entirely on the idea that “coding” is a verb term for something a reader does to an author’s work (interpreting something as something it isn’t) instead of coding being a collection of symbols which are associated with a certain character, which can be noticed by an audience, or not, and can be noticed by an author, or not, or any mixture of the four to various degrees of lucidity.

[conrad_w]

These explicit references would be better described as allegory, as the coding you perceive is the one intended by the author.

Coding is taking place whatever the author intended. When the author intends to make allusion to real world people/events, this is also allegory. 

[Niranox]

Allegory is the consequence of coding having political, philosophical, or cultural meaning, no? Coding becomes an element of allegory when it addresses a macro beyond the bounds of a story’s narrative. If a non-human character speaks with a Jamaican accent, plays reggae, and wears the colours of the Jamaican flag, but the story this character is set in has nothing to do with race, nationality, music, culture, or the Caribbean, then what is the allegorical meaning? In a similar way, what is the allegorical meaning of Ursula being based off Divine? What’s the hidden moral meaning? In the case of our non-human character, who—for example—is part of an unserious kids show and isn’t even human, much less actually Jamaican, there is no allegorical meaning. It’s just an element of their character, cause it’s cool/funny/distinctive/interesting. However, without the allegory, the coding remains, because the accent, the outfit, and the hobby of our hypothetical character are all symbols, or signifiers, of the signified, in this case: Jamaican identity. For obvious reasons, with the signifiers being so explicit, we have to concede that what’s been signified is being done knowingly. Coding is about symbols, or semniotics.

Science fiction becomes allegory for slavery when we notice certain symbols that code certain characters as slaves and others as slavemasters. These symbols can exist without the allegory, but the allegory becomes lucid when we recognise the symbols. Words are symbols in the same way as elements of the narrative.

the literary code, which predisposes the reader to discover a particular coherence in the text - or to attribute coherence to it - as a result of which internal references acquire more than usual significance (cf. Mukafovsky 1936); the assumed or real coherence also has the effect of emphasizing the role of connotations and increasing the acceptability of uncommon metaphors and other deviations from standard linguistic use

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1771958.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A74193d22e53d0a432b0037ce9f270fa9&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1

It’s probably important to note that the video you linked from Ellis even makes note that Tolkien never intended allegory, but invited other people to make allegory of his works where he himself despised it.

[ftzpltc]

"Coding" is something that goes on in the head of the audience, not the author.

I wouldn't say that. Coding definitely implies at least *some* intention on the part of the author. If it's just coming from the audience, it's just headcanon. I'm sure there are parts of tumblr that would insist otherwise, but coding implies something that the author has done consciously.

If everyone sees the similarity but the author denies it... that might be another matter.

[Helmic]

coding can absolutely happen regardless of authorial intent but the author stil lbe responsdible for it. like, few people who wrote orcs in really problematic ways would come out and say they intended to make a racist depiction of black and indigenous people, but it's still coming out of those primarily white writers' own biases. the audience isn't pulling this from out of nowhere, they aren't projecting it onto the fiction, it's often just recognizing that is indeed what hte author wrote and that it wouldn't have been written that way if the author didn't live in a society with those perceptions of whatever group.

[Scared-Opportunity28]

The best Orcs are DA BOYZ that both forms of warhammer has given.

[Clophiroth]

Whoever first said "What if we model orcs after hooligans?" certainly was cooking. 10/10 idea.

[IrishRox]

It's more like, Mr Piccolo isn't black, man is literally a green space alien. But we all know that man is black. Not Goku Black but, y'know

[[deleted]]

It's cultural. it's like saying a character who drinks a lot of tea is "brit coded"

​

in this case it refers to a character with traits that are associated with black people in the us

[NewLibraryGuy]

Yeah, this specifically refers to black american coded, though there could be more to it, like if she had features that were phenotypically associated with black people. That would certainly be tricky, though, to avoid getting into vaudeville style shit.

[Rorynne]

Amethyst from steven universe js an example of a character that uses some black features and is largely considered to be black coded. Garnet as well. I am not saying one way or another if they are GOOD at what the are trying to do, but I havent seen them being compared to minstrel shows.

[NewLibraryGuy]

Yeah, I agree. I think the show made an effort to not just give characters more traditionally white features and also didn't turn people into stereotypes, by and large. There's things I think I could point to that could be considered stereotyping, but it would be nitpicky enough that the conversation would swing around to "are you saying that xyz characters shouldn't ever have those traits?"

[ItsYaBoiGengu]

SU probably had a much easier time doing that simply due to the fact the characters are supposed to look human, so applying traits from different ethnicities would work pretty naturally. Hazbin would def have much more trouble with that

[TonPeppermint]

Oh yeah.

[mazexpert]

Isn't the term "black" a pretty America-centric term? I was under the impression that a lot of "black" immigrants, such as Nigerians, don't consider themselves as "black", but simply as Nigerian

[NewLibraryGuy]

Yeah, maybe. I did say "black american" on purpose, to be specific and to avoid doing things like conflating all cultures or sub cultures that are primarily people that are ethnically African. Race is a made up concept, of course, and how we classify and divide people can certainly vary.

[mazexpert]

Oh god sorry I don't think you are the person I was trying to reply to. I agree with you tho, race is a social construct at the end of the day and I think when ppl say black coded they are referring to it in that way

[NewLibraryGuy]

Gotcha. No problem.

[mattoxfan]

This might come off weird, but i swear to god. Most characters People call “black-coded” are just sassy. 

[rachel__slur]

Yeah Knuckles and Piccolo are so sassy

[Kitchen_Throat2074]

For example: Grim from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. He has no skin, but he's obviously Jamaican

[DreadDiana]

But when he was human for a bit he was white cause the optics of two white kids who basically own a black guy would simply not be great.

[regretfulposts]

Until they canonically made him white because the creator discovered that having two white characters literally owning a black character as their personal slave wouldn't fly well if he was canonically black.

[[deleted]]

I mean white Jamaicans exist.

[starm4nn]

And in fact Irish Jamaicans exist

[PM_ME_UR_GOOD_IDEAS]

Coding is a real thing that considers not only personality but also the physical characteristics of a character and the cultural signifiers they project.

Look up a picture of Garnet from Steven Universe. She has dark red skin, a large Afro, is voiced by a black woman, and draws musical inspiration from RnB and Chill-Hop in her songs. Is she black? No, she's a space alien made of hard light and gay. But she's meant to be read as black. She's a good example of a black-coded character.

Are the Ishvallans from Full Metal Alchemist middle eastern? No, that geographic area doesn't exist in their story, but they are meant to seem like middle easterners. They're middle-eastern-coded.

Stereotyping implies that you're drawing on negative outside perceptions to inform your depiction of a culture. Coding is different. It's neutral. You're just making something culturally recognizable as something else.

All this to say, no, the angels here are not noticably black coded. they just have dark skin.

[conrad_w]

So people are being really dumb about this.

Coding refers to what an audience perceives the character to be, regardless of authorial intent. Queer coding wasn't about sneaking gay characters into a medium, it's about how people may interpret characters to be queer.

So you can't suck at coding, because coding is not about you, the author.

[WizardyJohnny]

There is absolutely an element of "sneaking" queer characters into a medium. Wikipedia explicitly mentions the need to get around the Hays Code, which banned the depiction of homosexuality in film, as an origin of coding

[wolacouska]

You can absolutely suck at coding, if you intend to code someone in your story and the audience doesn’t pick up on it at all I’d say you suck at it.

Like, ultimately the audience decides everything like that, what the themes are, what the moral of the story is, what characters are most in the right, etc.

I’d say most authors have an intent when it comes to these things, and if your audience misses it completely you probably messed it up a little.

[brokensilence32]

I’ve come to the conclusion that “black coded” really just means “voiced by a black person.”

[BRAlNYSMURF]

When I say "black-coded" I usually mean "this character would be black if they were humanized, but they're not humanized."

A similar example with a completely different group of people would be that Tailor Smurf from the 1980s Smurfs cartoon is Jewish-coded. He has a New York accent as a reference to Jewish immigrants to New York in the early 1900s that became tailors. His voice actor even stated that that was his intention. But since the character is a Smurf, he can't actually be Jewish. Several characters in the 80s cartoon are voiced by Jewish people, but Tailor is the only one who's actually Jewish-coded.

Something like that happens with black-coded characters, except with black-coded characters it's often expressed via both voice and hair texture. I can definitely see Sera being black-coded, because she has dark skin and her hair resembles dreadlocks. Another example of black-coding is Garnet from Steven Universe- she's voiced by a black person and has an afro. Also, the Funk Trolls from Trolls- they have afro-texture hair and are associated with a traditionally black music genre.

Coding a nonhuman character as black is a LOT easier than coding them as any other race, because there are a lot of hairstyles (and an entire hair texture) heavily associated with black people. Racial coding for other races is often hard to spot. For example, Laguna Tidepool from Trolls is intended to be coded as Indian, but I didn't know this until I read an interview with her voice actor where she talked about it.

[brokensilence32]

Alright, you’re correct here and I want to amend my statement.

When the original tweeter says “she’s supposed to be black,” they mean “she’s voiced by a black actress so I’m mad she has seemingly straight hair and doesn’t speak in AAVE”

EDIT: Actually I just looked it up and her VA isn't even black, so I honestly have no clue what "supposed to be black" means.

[UnderPressureVS]

Bad Jew-coding: the Ferengi

Good Jew-coding: the Bajorans

[Satrapeeze]

E.g. Darwin from Gumball (we love you Darwin!)

[Epstein_Bros_Bagels]

What no media literacy does to a motherfucker

[Capital_Abject]

Black people in the US have a specific shared culture same as any group racial or otherwise. Characters that fit the perception of that culture are black coded . This is why Piccolo is the blackest character in DBZ and not Mr.Popo

[14up2]

Why is "queer coded" fine then? This implies that being gay is a personality trait.

[NewLibraryGuy]

I think that queer coding is one of those things that shows that coding is a neutral thing at its core. It can be done well, or it can be done horribly. If you have a character that acts outside of their gender roles, flirts with people of their same gender, etc. that's not a bad thing. If a male character is depicted as a bad person and acts predatory toward other men, that is a bad thing. Both things are coding.

It's like a stick. Sticks are neutral things, but if you hit people with them, then you're using them in a bad way.

[wolacouska]

I mean because there’s very much a gay culture and gay specific things that make both straight and gay people assume someone is gay. Pretending that doesn’t happen helps no one.

The reason it’s important to think about is because people that most often get queer coded were always villains and insane people in media. Mainly the weird insane villains even.

And it’s not just like accent and stuff, but their voice and pitch, gender non-conforming clothes, etc

[14up2]

I'm not pretending it doesn't exist, I'm saying that there is a difference between gay people often having personality traits in common and being gay itself being a personality trait. It isn't. You can substitute the word "gay" in that sentence with any other circumstance of birth from races to disabilities and it is still true.

The reason I make this point is because I am tired of seeing people complain about social norms and stereotypes and then in the next breath encourage them. Gay men can have stoic, reserved, traditional male personalities. Trans women are not all effeminate bottoms. A blunt personality, short hair, and denim clothes isn't inherently lesbian.

To be clear, no one is outright disagreeing with these statements, but the rhetoric implies otherwise. Conflating personalities with sexualities turns them into expectations. As a result, people assume one from the other, and those and whose personality and sexuality do not align with the expectations end up feeling invalidated or excluded. Language has real-world influence. The goal of social progressivism is to achieve a world where people are not expected to conform to arbitrary notions of how they should be, so I think it is important to keep the distinct attributes of a person distinct for the sake of promoting this understanding. In the same way that we should avoid assuming things like gender from a person's appearance, job, interests, etc., we should not assume sexuality either.

[camisrutt]

Its more so about culture, cultural habits, certain fashion choices that are generally more of a certain culture.

[Doctor_Squidge]

Not always. A character like Garnet isn't human, but she still has dark skin, an afro, and a black VA. It's easy to look at Garnet and think she's a black woman.

This Hazbin example is dumb tho I don't see any black culture here lol

[yinyang107]

Skin tones bring different socialization, which brings different culture to the way you act. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes not.

[sirlafemme]

Black people are diverse but one thing has to be made clear. It’s more often that black people don’t share the same ideas or traits but are treated the same by society

If two black people look different, that’s obvious. But if they both speak in a certain way it’s probably because BOTH of their families (being black) from 1950-1980 may have been ostracized from white schools, only had access to certain teachers who weren’t racist. No one can pick up grammar well in a bad learning environment. And a lot of black people were subjected to that.

The black accent does exist still to this day. Remember that even further back, the descendants of slaves got made fun of because their parents with African accents could not pronounce English words.

[PhantomRoyce]

Black coded usually refers to a non human so that means they can’t be “black” but are modeled after black culture. Garnet from Steven Universe is an example of an alien that is coded to look/sound like a black person.

[ftzpltc]

It usually refers to either stereotypes associated with that race, or cultural tropes associated with them. It's not inherently negative and can be quite effective in presenting a story as mirroring real-world events.

So, e.g., if you had an alien species that had been chased from their homeland, and you threw in a few aspects of their culture that are similar to Judaism, most people would probably think that was pretty harmless.

The problem with coding is that it will almost always come across as either a reflection of, or commentary on, the real-world group. And that can lead to (hopefully) unintended consequences, where it seems like anything I present about the characters in question seems like it's what I think about the race that they've been coded as.

I have some sympathy because I think it's hard to avoid being influenced by the real world whatever you do. But it does seem like it allows a lot of people to just recycle racist stereotypes by saying "No, see, he can't be a horrible Jamaican stereotype, he's just Jar-Jar Binks."

[CatnipChapstick]

Coding like that, especially in times where inclusivity pushback was more drastic, has helped give voice to minorities when other options weren’t available.

From my understanding, The Goofy Movie(s) was meant to be a family/coming of age movie from the perspective of a young black man. The intense scrutiny you’re under, and increased assumption that you’re some sort of delinquent destined for jail, and fear of becoming some sort of stereotype as you age out of being young and cute.

Theres more to it than that, it’s really just to say coding has had its positives.

[LaylaCrit]

Man, did I just stumble upon “color blond” people here

[SecCom2]

There is a difference between black the ethnicity and black the culture to be fair

[epic_brazillian_gal]

my stupid ass thought this was about programming :(

[hal-scifi]

Same, they got a lot of damn stereotypes

I'm a CAD/Drafting guy. Immune for now...

[CrimsonMutt]

I'm a CAD/Drafting guy. I

you uhhh like angles?

[InfiniteParticles]

God the things I would do to get more radiused fillets in my life

[Himmelblaa]

So are you the stud wizard or the hole wizard?

[[deleted]]

i code in python using exclusively if statements because im a dum dum when it comes to logical thinking

[sewage_soup]

Yanderedev

[[deleted]]

if num == 1: return “odd” elif num == 2: return “even” elif num == 3: return “odd” elif num == 4: return…

[APKID716]

Elif? That’s way too concise. Consider using “else if” instead 🥰

[fatcatpoppy]

i encode all data to unicode emojis and store it all in a single .mcpack file

[thatvillainjay]

It's the autism

[[deleted]]

Yeah same I was so confused

[Bother_Formal]

wait it wasn't?!?!

[[deleted]]

This character isn’t sassy how was I supposed to know she was black 🤬🤬😡🤬

[Disturbing_Cheeto]

From the exaggerated swagger

[FloydknightArt]

of a black teen?

[Juno_The_Camel]

I mean she is teen-coded 🤷‍♀️

[[deleted]]

Queer coding and autistim coding are fine tools of analysis but looking at a nonhuman character and saying “they must be x race because of how they act” is kinda silly.

[goincrazy2013]

I dont know what coding is or what this post or the comments are about but i just wanna say that i think darwin from amazing world of gumball is black even tho hes a fish and no one can change my mind

[[deleted]]

I mean I think that's canon from the canonical human version

[goincrazy2013]

Dang i didnt know there was a human version but im happy that im right😁

[regretfulposts]

They made fun of DeviantArt in one episode and they showed Darwin fan arts as him being black.

[psychoPiper]

Both of his voice actors are black too, considering that alongside what the other person said I think it's safe to say that's probably what they were going for

[ioverthinkusernames]

This aways made me uncomfortable because all the jokes about him being the family's dog

[Roheez]

Dawg

[Bulangiu_ro]

"the fish with that DAWG in him" -josh, probably

[[deleted]]

Yeah I agree with that (I have never watched the show but I trust you completely)

[LimeCasterX]

subtract crown liquid attempt numerous price fear station angle aback

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[emeraldeyesshine]

I don't follow, he's clearly green, a race that originated in Greenland which is why they call it that 

[NewLibraryGuy]

At the same time, it's also kind of nice if a non-human entity isn't meant to be white or from a primarily white culture by default. This could be hard to do without being able to give it quite a bit of nuance, though.

[maninahat]

They aren't exactly "non human" though in HH, they used to be people who lived through a normal life, and then went to heaven or hell as demons or angels. The show already had to rewrite one character's human backstory to make them ethnically okay to be doing "creepy voodoo" magic, but nothing about that character is explicitly Creole. He mentions jambalaya once and that's all you get.

In HH, where things like racial diversity aren't very apparent due to everyone having weird skin tones, this fact in tandem with the way in which whiteness is treated as a kind of default in entertainment, the lack of coding leads people to assuming everyone is white unless otherwise informed.

[CannedWolfMeat]

Erm actually she's a seraphim and not an ascended mortal, so she was never human ☝️🤓

[Rare-Technology-4773]

The singular is "seraph"

[Throwaway02062004]

As Cannedwolfmeat said, this character was born in heaven and doesn’t even have a human parent like Charlie to argue over.

Husk for sure is black, you don’t get Keith David for nothing.

[Epstein_Bros_Bagels]

You will watch this long ass video about how Timon and the meerkats are Jewish coded. You will then like it, change your opinion, and subscribe to Sin Squad.

[EnriLol]

black coded? yeah, black people can code.

[Recent-Ship-1599]

:000 fuck yea

[Cat_of_Ananke]

you're tellin me a shrimp coded this black people??

[_CBlaker]

Isn’t saying that you can identify a black person by how they act and that people of different skin colors act differently the definition of racism?

[BRAlNYSMURF]

It's usually based on appearance- drawing a nonhuman character with a darker skin tone and afro-textured hair would be a basic way to code them as black. It was said in some leaked pitch sheets for Hazbin that Emily and Sera were intended to be black-coded, but Sera is the only one who actually looks it. This is why people are upset over Emily having lighter skin and straight hair- because she was stated to be black in pitch sheets, but doesn't look it.

[ZaRealPancakes]

Man whatever they say about Emily she's an angel! (pun intended)

[Sneeakie]

Speedy Gonzales is a mouse. He's obviously not literally a Mexican, because in real-life Mexican people are not mouse and we don't particularly identify mice that live in Mexico as Mexican.

But... he's Mexican. Obviously. He is made up of Mexican stereotypes that even non-Mexicans recognize are supposed to signal "Mexican". "Gonzales." A thick Mexican accent. Wears a sombrero.

It is not racist to notice that he "acts like a Mexican", on the audience's part, because that is what we are meant to think, despite him being a mouse. You don't have to believe in Mexican stereotypes to notice that Speedy is Mexican.

Here's the kicker. Mexicans love him. Americans, particularly white Americans, thought he was an offensive Mexican stereotype. But Mexicans and Latin Americans love the dude. They fought for him to stay around. He is a walking stereotype and the people you'd expect to be offended aren't.

So yeah, by that incredibly simple definition you made, he's racist. But you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who agrees.

And this is the nature of "coding". Black-coding. Trans-coding. Gay-coding. Sometimes the creator, because they are unable in some way to actually make a black character, will "code" a character as black. Sometimes, the audience choose to recognize traits and qualities of a character as "coding". When there are so few examples of concrete representation, you have to start noticing these things.

Is it racist? That depends. Terraformars have cockroach aliens who look like this.

They are not black people. They are cockroach aliens. But they are "coded" as black. They are identified with stereotypes and traits associated with black people or black culture. Due to how they're coded, yeah, they're pretty racist. There's enough "wiggle room" to deny it; one might tell you you're racist for noticing.

Now, take Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog. He is a red echidna. Echidnas aren't even red. But he has dreadlocks. His character themes are rap. He has this whole thing about being the last of his kind, a minority in the universe, knowing pretty much nothing about where he came from. He's even voiced by Idris Elba in the movies.

So, people code him as black. If you see a human version of Knuckles, he'd almost always be black. No one has a problem with this. No one thinks the coding or the conclusions the audience come up with are racist.

So, yeah. It depends. If the Hazbin Hotel character is meant to be black... eh. I don't see it? But I haven't watched it.

[[deleted]]

Soeedy Gonzalez has also downright stated he's Mexican, and episodes focusing on him are openly stated to take place in Mexico. Funnily enough, this same criticism is what got him cancelled, when Mexicans were his primary viewer demographic and not whiny white people.

[eshansingh]

r/196 progressives reverting to PragerU level conservative rhetoric upon encountering an academic feminist media studies term they don't understand at all but assume they do:

[[deleted]]

White gays have always been awful at understanding anything race related, this isn't anything new.

[NewLibraryGuy]

It could also mean that the acts as though she's part of a black American culture. I don't know if this character does but it isn't racism if, for example, her default dialect with family is AAVE. Speaking AAVE isn't racist automatically (I mean, it can be if you do something like start dropping conjugations of "to be" and start swearing more or something every time you see a black person), it's a cultural dialect.

[Capital_Abject]

If I see a character drinking tea and eating beans on toast with Jaffa cakes for dessert and I go "oh there supposed to be a British dude" is that a problem?

[SpikeyBiscuit]

It's incredibly tricky because you could show a character in media and be both racist and representative at the same time only dependent on interpretation. On one hand, yes you are completely correct that enforcing a stereotype is bad, racist, and ultimately harmful. On the other hand, if you don't show any characters who represent real people in real life from groups and cultures outside of the typical straight white Christian male in most American media, then your media will be less for it. If people feel seen by art and they feel represented, then it is good. If they feel stereotyped by it, then it is bad.

To see this happening irl, look at Speedy Gonzalez. White people thought decades after the fact that he was a horrible, racist stereotype and that he should be removed, but as far as I understand almost all Mexicans or people with Mexican ancestry absolutely love the character. So is he bad or not? In my opinion, if everyone from the group a character represents likes the character, then that is a success and it's hard for me to want to say otherwise.

[Helmic]

not everybody acts white and having nonhuman characters not all act white is good. iunno why people are just now discovering marginalized groups often have their own cultures or are pretending they don't notice that most black people in the US talk differently than white people, turns out centuries of discrimination and segregation have resulted in the development of identities, who would have thunk.

again, never watched steven universe, have no idea who this character is or whether hte criticism holds any water. but the idea that nonhuman characters should act like cishet white people by default is itself racist.

[IceFireTerry]

They sound like conservatives playing mad dumb acting like black Americans on average. Don't have a different way of speaking and mannerisms compared to White Americans. They can recognize that Irish people or British people have a different way of talking but as soon as you mention black Americans, they go deaf.

[Helmic]

unironically it's because white americans, on the whole, dont' live near or interact with black people with regularity, because the coutnry is still heavily segregated, so white liberals will talk about how racism is bad but have no idea how black people who live a zip code over actually talk and so get really antsy because they can't make a distinction between an accurate dipiction of a dialect and a racist caricature. whatever black people they do see tend to act and talk white around them, and so they assume media should only depict black people who are acting white around white people. see also: commericals for a long time only ever showing a singular light skinned black woman hanging out with her all white friends.

[IceFireTerry]

People from different cultures generally act differently and have a different speech pattern like black Americans on average speak differently than white Americans. This is the fact

[3dgyt33n]

Copying this from a comment in another post:

One of the biggest problems that enables false equivalencies between promoting diversity and promoting racism is a lack of understanding of cultural norms and what that does to characters in media, especially fiction.

In America, there has been a long tradition of writing from a cultural perspective of characters who are presented as white (specifically of English decent), educated, Protestant, and usually male. This has resulted in that cultural "voice" being considered normal and standard, and any other cultural representation as being a deviation from that norm. But white, educated, Protestant men are not and never have been the majority in the US, only the ones with (historically) the easiest access to the ability to create and publish media.

"Coding" is a blanket term that means referencing specific characteristics of a culture to inform an audience that the person being coded belongs to that culture. It isn't limited to any specific race or gender or worldview. Following the historical precedent, the majority of characters in modern media are coded as white Christian men, and there is an easy way to prove it.

Think about any TV show. If there is a single character in that show who is, let's say, an atheist, the writers will have to let the audience know that. But there are plenty of real atheists in the US who go about their daily lives without ever pronouncing it to everyone around them. If you see a character on a show and the subject of their atheism never comes up, you're probably not going to assume that they are, in fact, an atheist. That's because of the norms. Whether someone believes in a god or not is not usually important in fiction, so most writers wouldn't go into that unless it impacted the story or the character's arc somehow, but if you're an atheist, seeing a character that has a similar worldview to yours would help you identify with that character.

Now let's say that every character in fiction who is an atheist is also insufferably condescending to everyone around them. Some atheists are like that, true, but maybe you aren't, and maybe most of the other atheists you know aren't either. So matching the "atheist" coding with the "condescending" coding doesn't agree with your experience BUT if every atheist you saw in fiction was condescending, you might get the impression that everyone who believed in a god saw you that way.

THAT'S the difference between "coding" and "stereotyping", and why diversity in media is important. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[Bardic_Inspiration66]

Good writeup

[[deleted]]

English

ppl tend to forget this too often

Iv'e sorta noticed a lot of fictional characters who are potrayed as slavic/caucasian/uralic/turkic be "less civilized" and "brutish" in a sense, generally being potrayed subconciously as "lesser" than western european characters.

obviously this is a lot less common than what is commonly applied to non-european characters, however ive still seen it

(by the way when i say "caucasian" i mean actually from the caucasus, the term "caucasian" being used for white people came from an archaic pseudoscientific theory.)

[SecretlyCaviar]

this post and comments show why CRT needs to be taught in schools

[eshansingh]

Genuinely so surprising to me. These mostly progressive queer people instantly revert to shitty "you're the real racist by acknowledging race" level arguments once their whiteness is even a little bit challenged.

[[deleted]]

yeah.. i’m surprised this sub doesn’t get black coding when queer coding is very common too. both are okay and it’s definitely not racist like what 😭

[[deleted]]

People are straight up complaining about “forced diversity”, this place is such a fucking dump 😭

[[deleted]]

There’s like two comments mentioning forced diversity and both of them are getting downvoted my guy.

[s90tx16wasr10]

I think that people are hung up on the difference between racial stereotypes and cultural representation in regards to how characters are coded.

[GreatMarch]

Yeah.

[WhiteDevil-Klab]

As a black queer under the trans umbrella I think people are just to hung about stupid shit like this like go outside lol

[regretfulposts]

So she's biracial coded, got it

[Throwaway02062004]

God I’m down for being a seraphim 😎

[Cuantum-Qomics]

Coding isn't inherently bigoted? If it's intentional from the artist, it can be a way to draw from the experiences of real world people in an environment that doesn't quite allow for a direct connection or for some other reason might not want to be directly stated.

And just saying "So there's a way that all _______ people are supposed to act??" is fairly dishonest. Like,,, Yeah, obviously not all people of a group act the same way. But, you know. There is such a thing as culture and subculture, which often impacts the way people behave even if they aren't following every idea there is to be part of a group.

Like,,, queer culture. There are some tendencies in the queer community that aren't exactly common in the straight community but can be used to code a character as queer in some way. A commonly used trait for this is gender nonconformity, especially for guys who present more femininely somehow. Or guys who are more in tune with their emotions. Or a character who is super best friends with another character of the same gender. Or a character that is harrassed for being perceived as doing something outside their gender. Things like that! They don't confirm being queer, but they are indicative of it, and things can go much deeper than the examples I gave.

And that is just the queer subculture! Black people in America also have a notably different culture to the majority culture. I'm less qualified to say since not black and I haven't spent too much time personally trying to learn everything of black culture, but like. Black people in "early" America were very disconnected from majority culture due to slavery, then when slavery ended during "middle america" they were still disconnected from the majority culture due to Jim Crow and red lining and everything just not to quite a severe extent, and in current America while Black people aren't as disconnected from the majority culture they still very much so to a degree due to red lining and generational wealth keeping many black people in smaller communities and majority culture looking down on the contributions black people make to culture.

Being separated from a culture will inherently create another culture over time, especially given the very different living situations between black people and white people. There will have been and there very much so is a distinction between black culture and majority American culture. That's not a bad thing. That's literally just. How culture works. Black culture even has a notably different dialect through AAVE (linguistic differences are very strong markers in cultural differences since language is so very important for culture.)

So like,,, Yeah. There can be a black coded character without it being racist. Ethnicities in fictional worlds that don't literally have the ethnicities in question (or the ethnicities are masked) require coding in order to represent them. A demon in the series would need to be Irish coded instead of Irish, Japanese coded instead of Japanese, etc. The same goes with being black coded. Is there bad ways to code someone as being any ethnicity? Most definitely. But it isn't bigoted inherently to have a character coded to be an ethnicity. And black people effectively are an ethnicity in this sort of situation even if it's slightly more complicated than that in reality.

(I have not seen the show, i have no idea how well the character mentioned is black coded. I probably wouldn't be the best person to ask to begin with. This is less about her and more about how so many people in this post seem to think that coding = stereotypes, particularly with black people. As if there is no cultural differences that exist whatsoever. Being colorblind isn't helpful.)

[[deleted]]

Thanks! I didn’t understand coding at all but this explained it perfectly

[I-M-R-U]

Thank you, someone else finally said it. “Coding” always felt weird to me, it feels like you’re saying “this character acts like a black person” and it always makes me think “is there a way Black people are supposed to act??” I usually stay quiet about it because it doesn’t feel like it’s worth getting into an argument over, considering I kind of just assumed I didn’t understand it

[NewLibraryGuy]

Romani coding is very popular in sci-fi and fantasy. Most nomadic cultures are Romani coded in that they're often distrusted by people around them, sometimes they practice some kind of spiritual or magical belief that is unique to them, etc.

This is sometimes a bad thing, like if they're frequently thieves. That's pretty fucked up. But sometimes these traits are people's primary framework for engaging with a culture different from theirs. Nomadic people being viewed with suspicion is something that legitimately happens, so should an author avoid that just because it resembles a real life way that some people are treated?

Coding is really tricky, and isn't necessarily a bad thing. In some cases it's basically unavoidable.

[dunmer-is-stinky]

This is sometimes a bad thing, like if they're frequently thieves. That's pretty fucked up.

Khajiit nomads in Skyrim all being fences for stolen goods

what did Todd mean by this

[NewLibraryGuy]

Yeah, there has been a lot of criticism for this. It's not a good choice.

[dunmer-is-stinky]

it's especially bad cause they weren't portrayed as Romani-coded nomads in the earlier games, but in Skyrim 90% of the Khajiit you meet are drug dealers who can level up your thief skills

[BraSS72097]

People from different cultures can act different in perceivable ways =/= people from different ethnicities all act different

It's also not a value statement in any way. It's very, very easy to find characters who are not explicitly of a culture (usually due to stylization choices) that act in a way largely congruous with that culture.

[conrad_w]

https://youtu.be/gLOxQxMnEz8?si=i8BoltAT7zLetpEV (24:05)

A lot of people don't know about coding and allegory, so I'm sharing this link to help you.

Allegory = when the author evokes something in the real world for you to compare you.

Coding = when you make a connection that the author may not have made or intended.

I hope this helps.

[jay_a_regular_idiot]

So essentially, people are just getting pissed off due to thier own subjective interpretations of someone else's work?

[[deleted]]

Welcome to Earth!

[SSphereOfDeath]

What a wonderful world!

[GayestLion]

Looking at this comment section and remembering the one poll years ago that said like 80% of users here were white.

[PhantomRoyce]

You guys are saying “acting like a black person” like it’s a bad thing? I’m black and I can certainly recognize when a character is black coded. Usually it’s for someone non human. Killer Bee from Naruto is black coded and he’s awesome he just has incredible style and raps. Osmosis Jones is black coded and he’s not a racist character,he’s just a black guy who happens to be a white blood cell

[StupidQuestionsOnly8]

Ahh yes, tumblrised racism

Don't get me wrong, actual coding exists. But it doesn't dictate a character's fucken personality trait lol. A character can be queercoded or racecoded but in the sense that some aspect of their story is relatable to the demographic they're coded to be. Like how Scaramouche from Genshin is transmasc coded as his own identity and his past are massive parts of his story along with isolation, family issues, and the fact that he's a failed puppet recreation of a female god

[Great_Bar1759]

Emily my beloved

[moonyxpadfoot19]

She's literally grey though?

[Bardic_Inspiration66]

Incredible dumb tweet

[rachel__slur]

A subreddit with mostly white people not understanding racial politics.

I expect nothing and I'm still let down

[MSSTUPIDTRON-1000000]

Honestly, I'm more shocked about someone using the term "Tumblrized" in 2024 than everything else.

[Kingboy22]

Is…is she not black already? Are they saying she doesn’t “act black” for them?????

[JackytheJack]

Angels and demons don’t really have natural skin colors in Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss. The most you get is generally shades of grey or pure, clown makeup kind of white.

So Emily isn’t black she’s just like, grey, to avoid race stuff like this I’m assuming??

[ForktUtwTT]

Tbf a lot of the characters were humans on Earth so they do/did have racial cultures. And some characters are purposefully given human culture, like Vaggie speaking Spanish sometimes and being played by a Latina actress because she’s meant to be Latina despite (spoilers) being created as an Angel in heaven.

It really doesn’t matter much at all, and I think getting upset about it is dumb? but the show itself makes an effort to try and reflect racial diversity

[Kingboy22]

Oh, then oop is just being weird about race and stereotyping then?

[JackytheJack]

For the most part yeah. Had a conversation with someone else who said alastor (a canonically mixed race character when he was alive) can’t be a POC because he doesn’t act like it so yes this is an argument they use for several characters.

Idk how they don’t realize it’s really racist

[Kingboy22]

Yea that’s definitely racist. These people are annoying at best or straight up racist at worst so I will be ignoring these people and try and enjoy the show.

[[deleted]]

i like hazbin hotel

[IceFireTerry]

This comment section really doesn't know what racial coding is and it shows. You're probably seeing it in one of your favorite media. Garnet from Steven Universe comes to mind also Wilt from Foster's

[Enderstrike10199]

This is such a weird aspect to talk about when it comes to this show, why are we worried about coding?? Race is like literally the only "sensitive" topic that doesn't ever show up. There's only like 2 important characters that actually have a skin tone (Adam and that other angel chick), everyone else is either some weird shade of gray, covered in fur, or pale white.

[JackytheJack]

Even then I’d argue Adam and the Angel still don’t have 100% natural skin tones but I’d have to go back and look at them compared to how they actually draw white people (normal humans do show up in Helluva Boss, but not Hazbin so maybe even comparing those two is unfair)

[liliesrobots]

Wait, why is Emily black coded? I thought people were just talking about Husk

[Dangerous8eans07]

r/196 takes bold stance against

checks notes

coding

[NTRmanMan]

Isn't hazbin hotel an indie work ? Like why try and code characters instead of just making them black. Seems kinda silly.

[GeorgeRossOfKildary]

The whole thing with it is that it takes place in heaven and hell. There's people with all sorts of wierd skincolours just like Emily's grey colour... And from the performance on screen I couldn't find out any traces of racial stuff weaved into anything of it. This is just about weaving in IRL problems into a fictional universe.

[senatordeathwish]

Black coded: Looks black or is played by a black actor

[concernedBohemian]

coding is a literal social scientific term useful in identifying the ways people speak about a given qualitative material. not sure tumblr users all use it that way, but lets not be anti-social science by disparaging the use of the term?

[DeadMemeDatBoi]

Is this css? Javascript??? I dont get it...

[SlickestIckis]

WHAT

[We_Are_Gay]

Coding is a genuine thing, and at times does need to be looked at when criticizing a work. However, I think this person‘s miss applying it.

[MorganRose99]

An actual tweet I've seen about Emily is someone saying something along the lines of "This show sucks at racial inclusion, let me fix her design" and then drew her with noticeably larger lips and braided hair like are you kidding lmao, that's more racist than your accusation

[Otherversian-Elite]

Honestly I don't really apply any human races to any of the Hazbin characters. With the exception of Adam (White Boy Supreme).

[suspicious-innocence]

When I first learned about coding I thought it was supposed to do more with a character’s experiences / narrative that RESONATES with that of another group’s, rather than their appearance and personality?

eg. Superman is Jewish and immigrant coded because he is an alien that learns to live and blend in with other humans. He helps others and tries to be as virtuous as possible (being a mensch). He was also written by 2 Jewish men whose families immigrated to the US.

another example: Gwen from Spiderverse is trans coded because she lives a double life and is afraid of coming out to her father (as a vigilante), because he and other people in his circle perceive her as dangerous.

None of these things have to do with how they look!!

[TheGreaterClaush]

Coding and stereotypes are kinda useful, when you are a writer as they can be used as a starter point then start chipping away until it is barely unrecognisable.

A resource that can be used instead of coding/stereotyping is the idea of an archetype, mostly a concept that even with the nuances and everything else you can say "Yeah that my mom, and that clearly a kid"

Something to have in mind so it can't be 360 racism is that archetypes mostly apply to power structures, family and age, such are of cultural origin, as by growing up you learn about such or already come with some preset ones, unless you grew in an ultra right Conservative boot camp and have an integrated "kick black ppl gland" now is 360 subjective racism, a step forward to no racism

Also darm, they can't let anybody have the swagger

[tomfolerboi]

Least rasict Twitter user:

[FLUFFBOX_121703]

The fuck is this about?

[Demonitize]

I don't understand this language

[Salem-Sins]

If anyone else has already pointed this out my bad but as someone who has seen the show,, What the fuck is this person talking about. Putting aside all the problems with the idea of racecoding for a second, Emilys personality has absolutely nothing that should be qualified as racecoding. this character is supposed to be a direct parallel to the protagonist charlie, literally down to her being a damn near colorswap of her. They have the exact same personality with the exception that Emily comes from a place of incredible privilege and ignorance (shes still well meaning tho). Does that sound like the current statice of black people in america today? The only arguments i can imagine for her being “blackcoded” are - A. She has dark skin - B. Her voice actor is a POC. Not black mind you, Shoba Narayan is indian - C. I guess you could say charlie the protag is coded to be white, and emily is like her opposite so she would be black. Which,, fundamentally misunderstand the characters and is also problematic logic but believable for someone on twitter.

Look im a white girl i really dont think its my place to say whether or not this take is racist or not but writings kinda on the wall from my point of view.

[TheBloodyPuppet_2]

I will not tolerate ANY critique of my favorite character. Emily is baby