10 ms·

I always figured it was a play on King Kong. Right down to the trope of the giant gorilla absconding with the girl.

by sumtechguy 3y ago

AlecSchueler 3y ago
King Kong never played bongos or ate watermelons for health though.
- nmz 3y ago
  I don't remember this in Donkey Kong. most of this was introduced in DK64, with that said. Yes DK does play the bongos and Diddy plays rap and Dixie plays the electric guitar and Lanky plays the trombone, and Chunky plays the triangle. Also Feynman played the bongos, It's a famous gift for children because its cheap. blacks don't own bongos, nobody owns any instrument.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    Bongos are Afro-cuban instruments. Anyone can play them but they have a real world history that shouldn't be denied. If Donkey Kong played bongos then that might in and of itself be fine, but when coupled with multiple other nods to black cultures then it becomes clear that at some point the franchise directors moved towards portraying him and his family using black stereotypes. It's not unreasonable to draw attention to this or to call it what it is.
    - nmz 3y ago
      Is Bart Simpson black then? Urban culture is culture.
      - sumtechguy 3y ago
        I always associated bongos with that 50/60s salsa music and Desi Arnaz https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000789/?ref_=tt_cl_t_2 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000789/?ref_=tt_cl_t_2.
      - AlecSchueler 3y ago
        No, Bart Simpson is not black. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with that? The Simpsons have leaned so heavily into racial stereotyping that they've had to entirely remove certain problematic characters such as Apu. Many other characters and character behaviours have been questioned or come under criticism since the show's conception. Bart's appropriation of the tropes of black culture may or may not be problematic, but that's not the discussion here. Why bring it up? I think that if you're comparing a Bart and DK then the distinction between a 10 year old boy experimenting with his identity and a literal gorilla who came to fame by kidnapping blonde white women should be quite clear. Of all the main Nintendo characters there is only one who expresses himself using tropes from black culture and that is the woman stealing gorilla. Peach never raps, Toad never walks around with a boombox. For some people that's interesting, for some it's weird, and for some it's problematic because they live in a world where stereotyping of black people harms their experience of life day to day. For others it's totally not noteworthy, and maybe it's not noteworthy for the people of Hacker News, but isn't it intellectually engaging to consider these things? When children grow up with these representations of a The Other or of The Self then it affects their perceptions. That shouldn't be contentious for anyone who has undergone the process of socialisation. For many children the Donkey Kong franchise might be one of their their primary means of the exposure to black culture. Black culture is culture, as you say, but no culture is free from politics; that's just an inherent part of any culture existing within a wider global geopolitik. Again, I'm not sure what you were implying, so please clarify if you need to. You say: Black culture is culture... So what? Is any representation of that culture in, the hands of anyone, free from criticism, by basis of being culture? I think that when we're speaking on a forum like this, with the knowledge that certain demographics are underrepresented among us, we have a moral duty to ask ourselves what doors are being closed and in what ways we might be closing them through our choices.

I always figured it was a play on King Kong. Right down to the trope of the giant gorilla absconding with the girl.

AlecSchueler 3y ago

King Kong never played bongos or ate watermelons for health though.

nmz 3y ago
I don't remember this in Donkey Kong. most of this was introduced in DK64, with that said. Yes DK does play the bongos and Diddy plays rap and Dixie plays the electric guitar and Lanky plays the trombone, and Chunky plays the triangle. Also Feynman played the bongos, It's a famous gift for children because its cheap. blacks don't own bongos, nobody owns any instrument.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  Bongos are Afro-cuban instruments. Anyone can play them but they have a real world history that shouldn't be denied. If Donkey Kong played bongos then that might in and of itself be fine, but when coupled with multiple other nods to black cultures then it becomes clear that at some point the franchise directors moved towards portraying him and his family using black stereotypes. It's not unreasonable to draw attention to this or to call it what it is.
  - nmz 3y ago
    Is Bart Simpson black then? Urban culture is culture.
    - sumtechguy 3y ago
      I always associated bongos with that 50/60s salsa music and Desi Arnaz https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000789/?ref_=tt_cl_t_2 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000789/?ref_=tt_cl_t_2.
    - AlecSchueler 3y ago
      No, Bart Simpson is not black. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with that? The Simpsons have leaned so heavily into racial stereotyping that they've had to entirely remove certain problematic characters such as Apu. Many other characters and character behaviours have been questioned or come under criticism since the show's conception. Bart's appropriation of the tropes of black culture may or may not be problematic, but that's not the discussion here. Why bring it up? I think that if you're comparing a Bart and DK then the distinction between a 10 year old boy experimenting with his identity and a literal gorilla who came to fame by kidnapping blonde white women should be quite clear. Of all the main Nintendo characters there is only one who expresses himself using tropes from black culture and that is the woman stealing gorilla. Peach never raps, Toad never walks around with a boombox. For some people that's interesting, for some it's weird, and for some it's problematic because they live in a world where stereotyping of black people harms their experience of life day to day. For others it's totally not noteworthy, and maybe it's not noteworthy for the people of Hacker News, but isn't it intellectually engaging to consider these things? When children grow up with these representations of a The Other or of The Self then it affects their perceptions. That shouldn't be contentious for anyone who has undergone the process of socialisation. For many children the Donkey Kong franchise might be one of their their primary means of the exposure to black culture. Black culture is culture, as you say, but no culture is free from politics; that's just an inherent part of any culture existing within a wider global geopolitik. Again, I'm not sure what you were implying, so please clarify if you need to. You say: Black culture is culture... So what? Is any representation of that culture in, the hands of anyone, free from criticism, by basis of being culture? I think that when we're speaking on a forum like this, with the knowledge that certain demographics are underrepresented among us, we have a moral duty to ask ourselves what doors are being closed and in what ways we might be closing them through our choices.