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[Dubbed] SM Passimian Episode Dub Banned.

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People need to remember that I said it isn't confirmed yet. It is still possible it has just shifted. However, this is the only reason that I can think of.

I just don't know why it would shift in airing as it never happens unless something happens IRL or is a special like the Mewtwo episode in Unova. I just wanted to post this because I knew people would ask and think it was banned, plus some media are already assuming it is banned.

The only possible reason for shifting the episodes for this, that I can think of, is that they want to wait until football season. (Although it is more like Rugby)

I think you have a point. They might air it out of order like that episode of XY/XYZ with all the Cosplay Pikachu in it, and of course Ash's face in the Passimian costume will have to get edited to avoid racist connotations towards black people.

As Masterge said, I don't think TPCi is the one behind all the censorship in SM, but rather Disney XD. And that's likely due to their parent company Disney (duh) wanting to keep a family-friendly image so they tone down stuff that they deem offensive towards say, a certain demographic.
 
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I think you have a point. They might air it out of order like that episode of XY/XYZ with all the Cosplay Pikachu in it, and of course Ash's face in the Passimian costume will have to get edited to avoid racist connotations towards black people.

As Masterge said, I don't think TPCi is the one behind all the censorship in SM, but rather Disney XD. And that's likely due to their parent company Disney (duh) wanting to keep a family-friendly image so they tone down stuff that they deem offensive towards say, a certain demographic.

Which is ironic, as some of the certain demographics they're catering to right now clearly aren't the types to be a family-friendly image booster in the first place.

Well, either way, they generally don't officially announce a ban unless it's particularly bad like with the Porygon episode, they certainly don't with the Dubbed episodes (and believe me, I didn't get any memo about a Dratini episode being banned when I was watching it under syndication).
 
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I think you have a point. They might air it out of order like that episode of XY/XYZ with all the Cosplay Pikachu in it, and of course Ash's face in the Passimian costume will have to get edited to avoid racist connotations towards black people.

As Masterge said, I don't think TPCi is the one behind all the censorship in SM, but rather Disney XD. And that's likely due to their parent company Disney (duh) wanting to keep a family-friendly image so they tone down stuff that they deem offensive towards say, a certain demographic.

TV stations are harder to air things on these days. I know a few people who are airing their own show on TV currently worldwide. Out of respect I won't mention who they are or the show. However I hear of the difficulties they are having with TV stations in many parts of the world.

The TV station can refuse to air your episode if they deem it inappropriate or for political reasons or if they don't agree with the story or content and classify it as going against the views of the station.
This wouldn't be such a big deal if in the last few years certain stations hadn't started refusing to air episodes that had content that was deemed okay 5 to 10 years ago.

This is the issue the ones I know are being faced with. So they have to be very careful on what they give the station to air and even then they still have trouble since they've had stuff that was once considered okay, suddenly not considered okay on second airing or 3rd airing.

Problem is if the station refuses an episode, your left with the choice of editing it or airing it somewhere else (usually online,or straight to dvd) or cancelling it outright.

Too many episodes that don't meet the stations standards will likely result in the show being kicked off the air completely.

Unfortunately Pokemon is an advertisement. So TPCI would probably want it on TV so editing starts to happen. A adult show can get away with more than a kids show.
When a ban happens if the TV station has a good enough reason (past complaints on shows with similar content) then this could result in the company in charge of the show deciding to ban an episode entirely from even a DVD release to avoid reputation damage.

Kind of sucks but that's how the world works.

It doesn't help the anime boom died years ago and western cartoons are the in thing. It means it's hard for kid's anime to stay on Western TV to begin with.

I'm annoyed at this myself. Though I understand the reasoning. I just hope it's released in some shape or form and isn't a complete ban.=(
 
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Well, I decided to take a look at the so-called "blackface" thing that got it banned or at least skipped, and I saw the screencap for it on Bulbapedia:

Ash_Passimian_disguise.png


All I can say on this is... you're kidding, right? THAT'S looking like blackface?! He at most looks like he's wearing one of MSF's balaclavas or even the black face paint in Snake Eater. Jynx and Mr. Popo, heck, Meowzie's former trainer even, came far closer to actually LOOKING like blackface than this does, since we don't even see big lips on Ash's disguise (usually, performers in blackface make sure to leave the mouths free of the soot in such a way that it gives the illusion that they have very big lips). And personally, I always get irritated when people complain about blackface when banning something. By that logic, people who wear ski masks that have the eyes and mouth exposed are engaging in blackface vaudeville entertainment even when they are doing something like skiing or robbing banks. Seriously... sometimes I wonder just what is up with people these days...

Seriously, I can now officially say this is even WORSE than when Weatherford got Jynx banned. At least back then, while we might not agree with it, we could at least SEE why Jynx might be assumed to be a racist caricature due to both the black skin and especially the big red lips. Here, it's denounced as a racist caricature despite literally no evidence pointing towards it (maybe if Ash's passimian disguise included big peach lips, I'd see why they'd complain, but it lacks that, the only big peach elements being his eyes if anything. He looks as much like a racist caricature as a spec ops soldier wearing a balaclava does.). Honestly, not even 4Kids ever did THIS kind of insanity regarding banning episodes.
 
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Well, I decided to take a look at the so-called "blackface" thing that got it banned or at least skipped, and I saw the screencap for it on Bulbapedia:

Ash_Passimian_disguise.png


All I can say on this is... you're kidding, right? THAT'S looking like blackface?! He at most looks like he's wearing one of MSF's balaclavas or even the black face paint in Snake Eater. Jynx and Mr. Popo, heck, Meowzie's former trainer even, came far closer to actually LOOKING like blackface than this does, since we don't even see big lips on Ash's disguise (usually, performers in blackface make sure to leave the mouths free of the soot in such a way that it gives the illusion that they have very big lips). And personally, I always get irritated when people complain about blackface when banning something. By that logic, people who wear ski masks that have the eyes and mouth exposed are engaging in blackface vaudeville entertainment even when they are doing something like skiing or robbing banks. Seriously... sometimes I wonder just what is up with people these days...

Seriously, I can now officially say this is even WORSE than when Weatherford got Jynx banned. At least back then, while we might not agree with it, we could at least SEE why Jynx might be assumed to be a racist caricature due to both the black skin and especially the big red lips. Here, it's denounced as a racist caricature despite literally no evidence pointing towards it (maybe if Ash's passimian disguise included big peach lips, I'd see why they'd complain, but it lacks that, the only big peach elements being his eyes if anything. He looks as much like a racist caricature as a spec ops soldier wearing a balaclava does.). Honestly, not even 4Kids ever did THIS kind of insanity regarding banning episodes.

While Ash's costume doesn't look like a blatant derogatory sign towards black people, remember that Passimian is a monkey-like Pokemon and that the word "monkey" is used as a racial slur towards the black-skinned people. I think it was due to the "monkey is offensive towards blacks" reason that the episode got banned outside of Japan.

My bet is that Disney XD execs (since they're more likely behind all the SM series censorship than TPCi are) saw the recent controversy with Roseanne Barr comparing a former Obama staffer to an ape (which resulted in the revived Roseanne TV series getting cancelled despite impressive ratings), and noticing Passimian being a monkey-based Pokemon with a black face, I guess they wanted to ban it because of the recent "monkey" controversy.
 
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CodeHelmet

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While Ash's costume doesn't look like a blatant derogatory sign towards black people, remember that Passimian is a monkey-like Pokemon and that the word "monkey" is used as a racial slur towards the black-skinned people. I think it was due to the "monkey is offensive towards blacks" reason that the episode got banned outside of Japan.

My bet is that Disney XD execs (since they're more likely behind all the SM series censorship than TPCi are) saw the recent controversy with Roseanne Barr comparing a former Obama staffer to an ape (which resulted in the revived Roseanne TV series getting cancelled despite impressive ratings), and noticing Passimian being a monkey-based Pokemon with a black face, I guess they wanted to ban it because of the recent "monkey" controversy.

Hmm makes sense and I forgot about that controversy(largely because it didn't involve me so I could give a flying f^&*). I already made my opinion known so I might as well move on from this subject. Not worth it to revive and beat a dead horse.
 
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While Ash's costume doesn't look like a blatant derogatory sign towards black people, remember that Passimian is a monkey-like Pokemon and that the word "monkey" is used as a racial slur towards the black-skinned people. I think it was due to the "monkey is offensive towards blacks" reason that the episode got banned outside of Japan.

My bet is that Disney XD execs (since they're more likely behind all the SM series censorship than TPCi are) saw the recent controversy with Roseanne Barr comparing a former Obama staffer to an ape (which resulted in the revived Roseanne TV series getting cancelled despite impressive ratings), and noticing Passimian being a monkey-based Pokemon with a black face, I guess they wanted to ban it because of the recent "monkey" controversy.

Okay, I heard about that controversy (and it makes sense regarding Disney, since they also owned ABC, the channel that the revived Roseanne TV series was initially on before that whole controversy happened), but if that's the reason (and I'd say it's manufactured personally because I've seen a few left-wingers literally get away with comparing certain people with monkeys. Case in point, Bill Maher actually compared Donald Trump to an Orangutan recently, even having a side bar saying "Legitimate Ape" with comparison photos of Trump and an Orangutan. I mean, I don't know about you, but if it's racist and bad to compare Valerie Jarret to a character from Planet of the Apes, bad enough to get you fired and your show cancelled, it's also equally racist and bad to compare Trump to an Orangutan, enough that Bill Maher's show would need to be cancelled. Besides, I've seen a few instances of the left getting away with showing or saying far WORSE things, like Whoopie Goldberg proudly displaying a T-shirt that has the Make America Great Again logo and President Trump blowing his brains out [which last I checked comes close to inciting assassination of a sitting president, if not IS that.].), all I can say is that it still doesn't work, since I don't think anyone would think "racist" regarding Pok?mon that were based on lemurs. The whole Roseanne Barr thing was predicated more on her comparing Valerie Jarrett (you know, Obama's Chief of Staff) to Dr. Zaius' female assistant (who isn't a monkey, but rather an ape [there's a massive difference between the two simians: Monkeys have tails, apes do not], hence why her originating film was "The Planet of the Apes"), which at least has some resemblance to a human in that case. Besides, technically, the Frieza Saga of Dragon Ball Z, maybe even certain episodes of Dragon Ball would need to be banned wholesale precisely because a lot of the characters (particularly, Frieza and his gang) refer to the Saiyans as monkeys in an obviously racist manner if we're to use that argument.
 

kuzronk

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Okay, I heard about that controversy (and it makes sense regarding Disney, since they also owned ABC, the channel that the revived Roseanne TV series was initially on before that whole controversy happened), but if that's the reason (and I'd say it's manufactured personally because I've seen a few left-wingers literally get away with comparing certain people with monkeys. Case in point, Bill Maher actually compared Donald Trump to an Orangutan recently, even having a side bar saying "Legitimate Ape" with comparison photos of Trump and an Orangutan. I mean, I don't know about you, but if it's racist and bad to compare Valerie Jarret to a character from Planet of the Apes, bad enough to get you fired and your show cancelled, it's also equally racist and bad to compare Trump to an Orangutan, enough that Bill Maher's show would need to be cancelled.
She called Obama the leader of Muslim Brotherhood at the same time though and Trump wasn't born orange it's just him using tan. Bill Maher is also far from a left-winger being more into libertarian hence him being friends with Milo Yiannopoulos.
 
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She called Obama the leader of Muslim Brotherhood at the same time though and Trump wasn't born orange it's just him using tan. Bill Maher is also far from a left-winger being more into libertarian hence him being friends with Milo Yiannopoulos.

Eh, I don't know, Maher did advocate for people to cause the recession to happen just to get Trump out of office, and he has largely sided with the left on several issues. And just because he's friends with Yiannopoulos doesn't mean he's any less of a leftist. Let's not forget that Rush Limbaugh and Seth MacFarland are friends in real life as well, and MacFarland's pretty far to the left.

And I don't recall ever indicating that Trump was born orange (in fact, I didn't really notice any orange on him other than in caricatures. If anything, he looked pale-skinned to me).

In any case, my point was that if they really were all that concerned about Roseanne Barr comparing Valerie Jarret to one of the Planet of the Apes characters and decrying it as racist, they should do the same regarding Maher's comparing Trump to an Orangutan. After all, it's the same thing overall, and if it's bad in one instance, it's bad in all instances.

Either way, it still doesn't change how stupid it is to ban the episode (especially when the Pansimmians are based on Lemurs, which are far from being a racist stereotype. What, should we ban Ash catching Primeape, then? Or Ash catching Aipom, for that matter?).
 

kuzronk

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Eh, I don't know, Maher did advocate for people to cause the recession to happen just to get Trump out of office, and he has largely sided with the left on several issues. And just because he's friends with Yiannopoulos doesn't mean he's any less of a leftist. Let's not forget that Rush Limbaugh and Seth MacFarland are friends in real life as well, and MacFarland's pretty far to the left.

And I don't recall ever indicating that Trump was born orange (in fact, I didn't really notice any orange on him other than in caricatures. If anything, he looked pale-skinned to me).

In any case, my point was that if they really were all that concerned about Roseanne Barr comparing Valerie Jarret to one of the Planet of the Apes characters and decrying it as racist, they should do the same regarding Maher's comparing Trump to an Orangutan. After all, it's the same thing overall, and if it's bad in one instance, it's bad in all instances.
His pale-skin tan is why he's being compared to a Orangutan and not the skin he was born with, a huge difference. She also called Obama a Muslim just because of his skin color as well.

Also research what libertarian means, I'm not implying that he didn't want Clinton to win.
 
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His pale-skin tan is why he's being compared to a Orangutan and not the skin he was born with, a huge difference. She also called Obama a Muslim just because of his skin color as well.

Also research what libertarian means, I'm not implying that he didn't want Clinton to win.

Yeah, sorry, not buying that explanation at all. If I were to call a fellow white man, a lily white man for the record, a monkey, technically, I'd be just as racist as if I were to call a black person that if I were to adhere to that term, as I see zero difference between them (same deal if they, say, compared Bush to a monkey).

Also, I know what a libertarian is. In fact, one of my Middle School teachers IS a libertarian, even had a magazine cover that essentially said the good lose is one of the two presidential candidates, Bush and Kerry, will lose, before saying that the bad news is one will win, so I actually have first hand experience of knowing libertarians. I don't think a libertarian would go as far as to demand for his audience to cause an economic recession/depression just to force a sitting president out (my middle school teacher most certainly didn't, and he wasn't fond of either Bush or Kerry [heck, he even had a photocopied image of Bush's face superimposed with that of a baby chimpanzee, if that's anything to go by.], and also wasn't a big fan of Abe Lincoln [I believe his exact words about Lincoln were that he was "a bunch of crap, son."].), which is exactly what Maher did. Besides, I'm pretty sure Obama would have been considered, if not a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, then certainly one of its biggest allies due to him essentially being the reason why it grew as big as it did via the whole "Arab Spring."

In any case, the topic dealt with the banned episode, so let's keep it to that. For the record, like I said, passimian is pretty obviously based on lemurs, heck, technically they have white fur as well, so it's obvious they aren't black stereotypes at all (and quite frankly, if they're so upset at the mere presence of monkeys or apes due to thinking it's racist for whatever reason, technically, the Aipom capture and focus episodes ought to be banned for the same reason as well, not to mention Ash capturing and later using Primeape. It's just stupid, as is it being banned for "black face" when, BTW, it doesn't even REMOTELY look like blackface at all.). The ban was stupid, probably far worse than whatever edits or episode bans 4Kids may have been responsible for (even Ice Cave and any episodes where Jynx ended up banned at least had Jynx actually HAVING dark skin and big lips as a sufficient excuse for banning it, even if it was a stupid reason to begin with, while this clearly didn't).
 
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Either way, it still doesn't change how stupid it is to ban the episode (especially when the Pansimmians are based on Lemurs, which are far from being a racist stereotype. What, should we ban Ash catching Primeape, then? Or Ash catching Aipom, for that matter?).

It was because Passimian looks more monkey-like, and the black face had unfortunate implications. None of the other monkey-like Pokemon had black faces.
 
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It was because Passimian looks more monkey-like, and the black face had unfortunate implications. None of the other monkey-like Pokemon had black faces.

Still doesn't make sense with the black faces, since they're not even the right type of black face that people get riled up over (there's no obvious massive lip-like markings, something which Jynx at least was seen to possess in addition to the dark skin.). Ash looks far more like some Spec Ops soldier than some blackface vaudeville entertainer.
 

The Mega Champion

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Do we still not have an official statement from TPCI on this matter yet?

I'm guessing no because if there was it would have been all over this thread.
 
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Do we still not have an official statement from TPCI on this matter yet?

I'm guessing no because if there was it would have been all over this thread.

One of the administrators on Bulbapedia did contact TPCi over the issue, and they have confirmed the episode will be skipped entirely in the dub. The TPCi representative in question even said it was intended to be left out of the dub to begin with, which further implies that they saw the Passimian costume as something that would upset black people and cause huge controversy, so they felt playing safe and removing the episode from the dub schedule would ensure blacks are not triggered. Guess maybe they knew about the Jynx issue and how badly blacks got offended.

Either the black stereotyping issue, or that editing the black paint off Ash's face would defeat the costume's purpose.
 
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Frozocrone

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TPCi got put in a difficult position and decided to play it safe.

Not sure why they should be vilified for thinking of other communities?
 
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TPCi got put in a difficult position and decided to play it safe.

Not sure why they should be vilified for thinking of other communities?

Which communities? The ones who race-bait like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton do by making literally everything seem like racism?

Had I been black and saw that image of Ash in a Passimian Suit, I wouldn't have even THOUGHT he was doing blackface at all, because he really didn't with that suit. You want blackface? THIS is blackface (the one on the right):

Spoiler:


If it lacks the lips, it isn't blackface, period. I also disagreed with the Jynx and Mr. Popo edits, but at least with those I could see where Weatherford was coming from, while with Ash's Passimian outfit, I literally cannot see how that's even slightly similar to blackface (and quite frankly, I really don't see how its that big of a deal, to be honest, especially when no one complained when Everett and his crew actually DID end up in blackface while infiltrating a KKK rally in O Brother Where Art Thou).
 
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The Mega Champion

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One of the administrators on Bulbapedia did contact TPCi over the issue, and they have confirmed the episode will be skipped entirely in the dub. The TPCi representative in question even said it was intended to be left out of the dub to begin with, which further implies that they saw the Passimian costume as something that would upset black people and cause huge controversy, so they felt playing safe and removing the episode from the dub schedule would ensure blacks are not triggered. Guess maybe they knew about the Jynx issue and how badly blacks got offended.

Either the black stereotyping issue, or that editing the black paint off Ash's face would defeat the costume's purpose.

I see. That doesn't exactly make the situation any better, or any less ridiculous, but at least we have confirmation now.
 
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