#both vaguely lesbophobic and also. a bad choice in general

[caswlw]

can you elaborate on the ppg situation? im a casual fan i really rarely engage with fandom and im not following the reboot's production that closely. also feel free to go off, whatever you say I'm going to read the whole thing.

so essentially they casted a black actress to play buttercup and an asian actress to play blossom (and a white actress for bubbles)

now this sounds surface level as normal hollywood diversity, you’ve got the lightskin black woman, a half white/half asian person, and you’ve got the blonde- but bc buttercup is the angrier more violent sister, the choice to cast the black person as buttercup is feeding into racist stereotypes for black people and black women specifically. blossom, the smart sister, is of course the one they casted with the asian actress. some have been defending the casting of yana as buttercup by saying it’s bc she has black hair, but chloe bennett doesn’t naturally have red hair and she’s playing blossom so that falls apart instantly 💀

but what’s even More confusing is the fact that there’s been common race hcs for the powerpuff girls for YEARS !! the most common art or fancast i’ve seen for the girls (outside of them all just being. white.) has bubbles as the black girl and buttercup is asian. blossom varies more from what i’ve seen, but if all are different races, usually those two are kept that way- and they don’t feed into those two specific stereotypes. of course, there’s a lot to say about not falling into making a black bubbles the softer and nurturing one with the characterization of black women as everyone’s caretaker, as well as making sure buttercup isn’t just the cutthroat asian character (usually w that streak of purple hair too) who has no feelings and is somehow skilled at all martial arts. but it goes enough to say that black woman angry and asian woman smart isn’t on the same level as that weird more recent asian stereotype in media (as opposed to the other two which apply more to people in general)

and it would be incredibly simply to also just. take the current actresses and flip them. bc they’ve shown that age and looks don’t matter for this reboot (bc chloe is 4 years older than dove (who’s bubbles) and yana), they don’t Need to have them set up like this but they Chose for it to be this way !! and it’s bonkers that no one stopped them before getting here !! they also could’ve made all three sisters one race but for some reason the racially diverse cast they made just so happens to be the worst of the possible choices 😔 what sucks too is that with a black bubbles and asian buttercup there’s a lot of fun choices that fans have made with art or fan works in general that are nice! like bubbles’ hair, i’ve seen blonde afro puffs instead of pigtails, or having blonde braids too !! with buttercup i’ve seen some where the creator is deliberately avoiding the strange purple streak characterization by giving her the emotional response that comes with being so closed off all the time, and how her anger and rebelliousness has to do with how different her sisters are and how their choices/values/etc are super different. blossom (my favorite) i’ve seen depicted as numerous races but they also usually play into how the whole “every sister is like this” boxes they fit into didnt age well and how the pressure to be the smart one didn’t help her- and it helps even More that w those spec fan choices help to not only stray away from stereotypes but also teach that others are bad AND how the girls aren’t the ones people think they are when they first show up !! antagonists thinking buttercup is the smart one or bubbles is the angry one bc of their looks and learning they’re all powerful differently is so good!!

the main issue is that even if the show chooses to break apart the stereotypes in this show, they still somehow thought it was okay to make the choice to cast yana as buttercup and chloe as blossom 😔 and dove as bubbles i guess but that matters less. goes a lot in saying how blind they were to the impact of those two choices. those defending it have just been showing even Further a lack of understanding of what stereotypes are, as well as how it’s harmful even if the show decides to show they’re aware of how buttercup’s casting sucks- like self aware doesn’t mean good writing it just means they know they fucked up. as a long time fan of all things ppg i just don’t know how u could mess up with something so simple?? if it were me i likely would’ve gone w the two choices above and a latina blossom, or they would’ve all been black. i also am deathly afraid of the sexuality choices they’re going to make so i’m holding my breath there but on the overall- it’s upsetting and clearly has bad written all over the entire show

#sorry this took a few days i just remembered it was in my inbox #tbf indian blossom is also common but chloe is also clearly not indian lol #sadly google was shit at providing some proper evidence of asian buttercup but !! black bubbles w afro puffs is pretty easy to find #someone ask me abt the sexuality hcs ✋😔 i’m so stressed abt them doing lesbian buttercup skdjdj pls CW don’t do it please it will be #both vaguely lesbophobic and also. a bad choice in general #anon #powerpuff girls #ppg