If you were a kid or teen in 2007, you probably have fond memories of the beloved Canadian cartoon “Total Drama Island,” an animated series concerning a fictional “Survivor”-type reality show where quirky contestants—i.e. teenagers spending an unfortunate summer at Camp Wawanakwa—risk life and limb only to have the grand prize money eaten by a shark at the end.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the beloved favorite is being revived, while keeping the show’s original animation style intact for what one assumes are nostalgia reasons.
But fans of the original show are noticing something incredibly not okay about the revival’s animation style for some of the new characters.
why do y’all love making asians yellow in these new cartoons oh my god https://t.co/G3lvsycOof
— Tesneem 🇵🇸 Free✌️Palestine (@shiginope) October 17, 2022
In the past— unfortunately, the very recent past- it wasn’t uncommon for kids shows (as well as adult animated content) to lean into racist tropes when it came to illustrating characters of color. And clearly, in the case of “Total Drama Island,” we’re still dealing with those racist interpretations.
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Ohhhhh no that is BAD. They’re literally indistinguishable.
It’s a shame, they’re ruining an otherwise adorable design I mean goddamn the draping hair under the beanie? Her teal leggings n’ shoes??
Everything in this show is puppeted, I hope they see the backlash and fix it. 😫 pic.twitter.com/FOgjwLzoV6
— Pasty 🥧✨ (@PastysBakery) October 18, 2022
Fans of the original show are pointing out that this was a problem in the show’s spinoff “The Ridonculous Race” as well: sisters Kitty and Emma were also illustrated with distinctly yellow skin tones.
history repeats itself… pic.twitter.com/gbGPwBr9dp
— My Personal Diary (@BilingualBisexy) October 18, 2022
This is really bad. Like, extremely sh*tty. How, in the year of our lord 2022, do people still think this is ok?
But if there’s one thing the Internet is good at, it’s clapping the hell back at offensive crap like this. No sooner did someone tweet out the new images for the reboot than Asian artists started sharing their own work on the thread. And needless to say, all of it blows the new “Total Drama Island” character design out of the water.
hi im SEAsian and here’s a few characters i draw who are Asian 😛 idk how and why people still draw Asian people yellow 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/cnhJSduxO1
— Ray (@Rachoogian) October 18, 2022
10000% would watch a show about these dudes:
Hi I’m SEAsian and these are my two Asian lads. Ariff is Malay, Ray is Chinese-Korean pic.twitter.com/9NwHzV2Pdv
— fatin ☪️ (@the_skysurge) October 18, 2022
Hii I’m Harvey I’m a mixed Filipino-Chinese artist who likes making art inspired by my culture & animation pic.twitter.com/5qYPYHvVJG
— harveyween 🎃🗡 (@murkbrew) October 18, 2022
hiii im rev !! im filipino and i like drawing and designing characterspic.twitter.com/wpN0XS85Sq
— 𝐌𝐲𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚 (@Myrcilla) October 18, 2022
Umm I’m asian (Mongolian) and I mostly draw anime/manga characters I enjoy? Soo support me if you want😅 yeah I tend to procrastinate a lot but I sometimes like drawing some characters in my native clothing (4th pic) pic.twitter.com/xZzVTJiFdP
— Dehydrated sock (@WWhenever123) October 18, 2022
Let’s hope the folks behind the “Total Drama Island” reboot take these notes and do something about it.