#6: “How can you think a character named Ghetto Blaster could possibly be racist?”
This was originally going to be answering an ask, but I realized that the subject was a lot more complicated that I didn’t want to just limit it to a short answer, so I decided to make this a whole post. Now that I think about it, I really should work on a masterpost someday…
In my post about Kung Food, I pointed out how unintentionally offensive the titular Akuma’s design looked with several Japanese influences in this supposedly Chinese Akuma, which Astruc quickly brushed off by explaining away the aspects of the design nobody was actually upset about.
As usual, he missed the point completely and tried to seem like he’s the bigger person in this situation. The sad thing is that this isn’t the only example of innocent bigotry in Miraculous Ladybug. There are a lot of moments involving certain characters that are… questionable at best. Kagami, a Japanese girl, has a mother who is incredibly strict and uses a bokken (a wooden sword used for practicing swordsmanship) as a cane. Marinette’s Chinese mother, Sabine, is always seen wearing a cheongsam (a Chinese dress) and never any other kind of clothing. Aeon, a character introduced in the New York City special, is an android resembling a black girl created by a white scientist programmed to “help people”. And Jess, a character introduced in the same special, is a Native American girl who later becomes a superhero using the Eagle Miraculous, the “Miraculous of Freedom”. Anyone who paid attention in history class will quickly see the problem with that last example.
But the moment that many consider to be the most racist comes from an issue of the Miraculous Ladybug comic (specifically Issue #3) that was quickly abandoned like every other side project at ZAG because everyone there has the attention span of Professor Calamitous.
This issue was actually a follow-up to the previous one, so I’ll have to explain the context for the second issue. There, Marinette and her friends were at the beach to watch Adrien as he had a photoshoot on a yacht that day, but while Marinette was changing into her swimsuit, Chloe stole her clothes and phone to keep her from seeing Adrien. But when an Akuma attacks, Marinette is forced to transform and fight the Akuma. After defeating said Akuma, Ladybug and Cat Noir are taken to New York City by an American superhero who needs their help to defeat a giant kraken made out of trash (seriously). Since Ladybug and Cat Noir already used their respective superpowers during their battle with the Akuma, they’re about to detransform, so the American heroes give them space to recharge their Kwamis, the magical entities that inhabit their Miraculous that allow them to transform.
Unfortunately for Marinette, and by extension the readers, she transforms back to her civilian self before falling into a dumpster with no clothes on.
Yes. Someone was paid to draw this. This isn’t some strange fanart, this is from the officially licensed Miraculous Ladybug comic. I could talk about whose idea it was to draw an underage girl running around New York City completely naked, but even the setup for this gag doesn’t work. In the previous issue, Marinette was shown wearing some clothes when her bag was stolen, just not something you’d wear out in public.
But wait, it gets better! The first person she encounters while trying to find food for her Kwami is this man.
And even better, she immediately assumes they’re looting a nearby building (and other things judging from her face when this guy touches her shoulder) while the kraken attacks the city, and literally asks them to not kill her.
In reality, they’re actually helping the hospital evacuate their patients because of how understaffed they are. Their names are, I kid you not, Public Enemy, Metal Face D, Ghetto Blaster, Shaolin Soul, Breaker, and Killabee.
Ignoring the fact that all of these names sound like they belong to characters from Black Dynamite, it’s easy to understand the message the comic is trying to convey, that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. The problem is the way it’s portrayed.
Let’s just say that because of… current events I won’t go into detail about, the fact that the first thing Marinette assumes when she sees this group that mostly consists of black people dressed in gangster clothes is that they’re looting a hospital is a very uncomfortable subject to talk about. As much as I hated the New York special, it’s nowhere near as bad as this.
Like with “Kung Food”, I highly doubt that Astruc or anyone else who worked on this comic intended any harm to come from the way these characters came across (or any of the other aforementioned characterizations I mentioned at the beginning of this post). The problem is how Astruc addressed these accusations.
Way to show your professionalism by calling someone who criticized you an “SJW”, Astruc. That’s real mature. You could have said something like “I understand how this might be problematic, but once you read the whole comic, you’ll understand the context behind this scene.” Instead, he came up with a response that made him come across as incredibly arrogant in the process.
Is anyone surprised that this part of the comic wasn’t adapted into the New York City special?
