Misused: Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales

I feel like there a few problems with this trope, but I'll go ahead and stick with "misused" as the main one. This thread was spurred by an entry on the Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure YMMV page, which was also listed on the main page; I deleted it because it doesn't fit the trope.

• Even though pretty much of the Pretty Cure series is a Cult Classic in many international territories (other than seeing amazing fanmade dubs in different languages (especially with those in English for the fan community who are disappointed with the actual Dubs we got) of the titles), many Mexican (and by extension Hispanic and Latin American Anime and Manga) fans really love Elena Amamiya aka Cure Soleil. It helps that Toei Animation and the crew did their best on depicting Mexicans in a positive light.

Poor writing aside, Elena is a Japanese-Mexican character whose depiction is purely positive. She's a core member of the team, she isn't treated any differently for being mixed-race, and her character arc shows her embracing her unique heritage. Therefore, it's not a negative stereotype, and not an example.

Here's another example I removed for not fitting the trope.

• The Netflix adaptation of Japan Sinks has protagonists that are half Filipino, which was appreciated by a lot of Filipino fans.
  • KITE too was well received by transgender fans of the show and praised by LGBT critics everywhere as it was inspiring to see an LGBT character save the day. Estonians, on the other hand...

Neither of these bullets fit the trope, because they're intended to be positive, and are popular among their demographics for being good representation. As an aside, the Ethnic Scrappy example for Estonians is misused as well; the most evidence the entry links to, a Reddit thread, is a mere 16 comments that don't even have a consensus (most people simply comment on him being mistakenly called Nordic rather than Baltic, and one commenter notes that he's a step in the right direction). That's really not relevant, but regardless, it's not a great example in general.

Since both of these examples were problematic, I went ahead and ran a wick check of 50 examples to see how many were misused, and found that a good majority of them were. You can see the check here. 35 out of the 50 examples I checked did not fully adhere to the concept of the trope.

To be more specific, the trope involves a negative stereotype being embraced by the group being stereotyped; a previous Trope Talk thread discussed that it shouldn't be used for positive examples. It is often conflated with a regional-specific variant of Germans Love David Hasselhoff (people love a work more in a foreign country than its country of origin), and on occasion Opinion Override (people take offense to a depiction considered harmless by the people being depicted).

The name may be part of the problem; a good chunk of examples (such as Coco or Dora the Explorer) seem to think it specifically has to do with Mexicans, and another part may be unaware that Speedy Gonzales is considered a negative stereotype, instead thinking the trope means "a country loves when it's represented in foreign media, regardless of intent".

Perhaps a different name like Beloved Stereotype could alleviate the issue, but it would also make sense to be more clear with what the trope entails on the actual page, and buckle down on examples that don't fit.

Edited by NoUsername on Dec 6th 2020 at 12:40:22 PM

Opening this.

Agreeing that the snowclone name is likely the issue here. A change is probably in order.

I can go with the suggested rename.

While I agree the name is unclear, the proposed rename (Beloved Stereotype) seems to describe the misuse as well as the original definition, so I'm not sure if that's going to help much.

Unless we're also proposing to expand the page's definition to include neutral to positive stereotypes.

Edited by Adept on Jan 7th 2021 at 11:09:26 PM

There's an audience reaction I've wanted to launch that would cover some of this misuse. It would revolve around characters considered Trope Codifiers in representation of minority groups.

I find Beloved Stereotype to be unclear as well, since that title doesn’t make it clear that whatever is beloved is so by the group it depicts stereotypically.

Stereotype Beloved By Stereotyped Culture? Pretty wordy though. Maybe even Stereotype Beloved By Stereotyped.

What about Stereotype Beloved By The Stereotyped (with the word "the" added), or maybe Beloved By The Stereotyped (the use of past tense with "stereotyped" indicates that stereotyping occurred toward a group)? Beloved Stereotype sounds too much like a positive counterpart to Ethnic Scrappy.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 7th 2021 at 6:50:22 AM

Popular With Stereotyped Group?

New Name Crowner Time? :P

Bumping this. Seems like broad consensus to rename, so we could skip the single prop if nobody dissents. Other name suggestions or go with the ones we got?

Honestly, I'm not sure a rename is necessary. A broader trope for "work that depicts culture is popular among culture depicted" would probably catch most, if not all, of the misuse.

I agree with that. If we remove the constraint that it has to be a negative stereotype, then that covers the misuse.

"work that depicts culture is popular among culture depicted" sounds pretty chairsy however and even if it isn't it's definitively not the same thing as "negative stereotype of someone is appreciated by that someone".

Frankly I had no idea that Speedy was supposed to be a negative stereotype in the first place.

I'm not convinced that a rename would solve the issue here, and I don't really like the names suggested so far. Since it is (presumably) subjective whether a stereotype is negative, I'm inclined to broaden this to include positive stereotypes as well.

"Culture depicted likes the character" seems like Germans Love David Hasselhoff but the culture that likes it is portrayed in the work.

I'd actually be fine with merging with Germans Love David Hasselhoff (and expanding Germans Love David Hasselhoff if necessary) due to what came up since I last posted.

Sure, but a culture really liking a work depicting itself strikes me as fundamentally different from a culture liking a work depicting another culture.

Edited by Spark9 on Feb 9th 2021 at 11:02:25 AM

I personally think the page should stay, but yeah it should probably be fixed a little to make the definition a little bit more strict. I do also get low-key sus that some of these entries were written by people in non-marginalized groups (side note: should we even count professions and subcultures anyway?) to justify why their fave is "totes not problematic, and everyone else is just overreacting when they say it's a stereotype". Then again though everything is pretty much on the honor system on the Internet anyway.

Like I recently added Abed from Community on there because I'm #Actually Autistic for example, that at least mostly qualifies since we recognize that he's not perfect representation, but most of the autistic community (no pun intended) regards him as one of the better depictions in media.

That's misuse under the current definition, since while his depiction is not perfect, Abed was not intended to be a negative stereotype of neuroatypical people. (I think?)

So far the options in the thread are:

• Rename
• Expand the trope to include marginalized groups liking positive/neutral depictions of them
• Merge into Germans Love David Hasselhoff

In the "making up for lost LGBT tropes" thread Sandbox.Gushing About Repreentation You Like [sic] was being kicked around as an idea. Couldn't "marginalized group liking this positive/neutral portrayal" examples go there?

Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 13th 2021 at 12:38:27 PM