Connie in Steven Universe. Her hair goes from a fairly straight style to a shorter, noticeably wavier cut by Future. Such a small design change, but it really helps her look like she’s grown into herself.
Grace from Infinity Train, here you can see her sitting next to her younger self with straight hair. I think this was a more underrated POC character who gets more textured hair, especially for the symbolism. Grace had straight hair as a kid when she grew up in a wealthy but neglectful household with influential parents who cared about what other people think of them. Her hairstyle feels more herself after she's already on the train and is finally away from her parents.
I also think there could be some additional context with Grace being a ballerina. Ballet is notorious for being very controlling of appearance, especially towards black girls. I totally could see her straight hair in the flashback as a sign of the pressure Grace felt to ‘fit in’ with the other girls. (also great comment, Infinity Train is super underrated)
you can just say non white people or racial minorities. poc is gaining more popularity here too, but we dont tend to talk much about poc as a whole, theres more discussion about individual struggles for each group.
i'm not saying it's invalid, apologies! i was genuinely curious. i think it's an interesting perspective, but i can't quite wrap my head around a term that would refer to racial minorities without defining them by a separation from whiteness, and was hoping i'd "get it" a bit more if i could hear one.
Saying "person of color" is the same as say "colored person", just with an extra word, yet that's the one that's supposedly is offensive. I just avoid the new terminology bs and just say "black", or if they moved to the US from a country in Africa, I'll say"African American."
Depends where you're at. "Colored Person" would often times refer to black people, but it'd sometimes be used against Asians, Hispanics, Natives, or weirdly enough, Irish. It's close enough to be the same thing.
White people only make up about 17% of the human population. The term minority only depends on where you are geographically. If a white person went to Taiwan, they’d be a minority there, and if I left the US and went to Belize, I would no longer be classified as a minority because most of the people living there would look like me. Using the term “minority” to refer to all POC is honestly so stupid and part of the reason why whiteness is seen as the default. yall are not the damn majority. just say “people of color”. it’s not that hard.
The Jimmy Neutron one makes more sense for a technical reason than the first one which I presume was a creator's revising of the characters. 3D animation was still in a very juvenile stage and had higher production costs, especially on a television show budget. Lots of detail had to be cut for budgetary reasons. It doesn't seem like much from a 2020's POV, but that level of detail with Libby's braids would have cost a lot in rendering time and ballooned the budget.
Thankfully, as the technology quickly got better and more affordable they could better approach the original vision.
I also seem to recall Jimmy Neutron being the redheaded step child of Nickelodeon's studio. Like where artists went when they passed someone off or whatever.
Jonah from the Tomb Raider trilogy has the hair progression from left to right in chronological order. The middle one with the afro looks so different, I almost didn't recognize him till Lara says his name.
... No? He looks badass on the left, like he's ready to kick some ass. Right makes him feel like a rugged survivalist type. Never got to that game so I can't see it in motion.
Middle looks like some guys I've worked with at the factory. Like yeah sure they were big guys, but they don't have the sheer aura he had in the other two.
Sometimes an afro can look cool, he just can't pull it off IMO.
Afros and textured hair have often been shown as “messy hair” on white characters, even in modern cartoons (e.g. Raquelle in Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse). Few people have 100% straight hair (as in not wavy), and having healthy textured hair representation is very important for children
In the original Italian and CineLumière/Rainbow versions, a character's hair is magically transformed into a large afro-style or jelly-like puff, causing her distress and leading to negative reactions, while the 4Kids English dub altered the scene so the character panics over her voice changing instead.
absolutely BRUTAL. The crying spunded so legit and lasted until after she was offscreen I swear. This made me feel REAL weird everytime winx came on after than. Pushed me to W.I.T.C.H
No a lot of people have 100 percent straight hair actually I think a plurality do but yes almost no black people have straight hair so blaxk characters shouldn't most of the time
To be fair, Libby was pretty big into fashion. It stands to reason that she would go through phases where she straightened her hair, or just braided it
And in this instance, she changed her hair as a direct result of learning she had Egyptian ancestry in that episode. Which started a self discovery arc for her character.
And Jimmy is the one who suggested it to begin with.
The reason it worked in this particular situation is because it was done to literally place Libby in a position of power that saved the group and she ended up liking the look so much that she kept it for the rest of the series.
For Libby, I remember reading that the artists for the show weren’t good enough with the technology for the characters when the show first started, then changed her hair when they felt they could do it justice
I like how they made an entire episode to explain the change.
She disguised herself as Cleopatra to control mumies and save her friends, and she kinda liked the new look.
I dont know why, but I remenber a LOT of plots from this show from 20 years ago. I think its the unique animation style that burned itself into my brain.
In Luz’s case she literally just grew her hair out. I’m Latina, have a similar hair texture to her. It is “straight” and unruly as a pixie but starts to get wavier the longer it grows.
I don’t think that’s completely true. Look at her mom’s hair in both scenes. Her mom also has the exact same “pointed” hair as Luz does in s1, but in the later scene her hair is also curlier with rounded curls.
I do think it’s partially art style, partially choice by the writers.
Since a large part of the story is about accepting themself, I would guess that Camilla was straightening her hair before, and now she doesn't because she accept more herself too
Look at the points of her hair in the first image, and the points of her hair in the second. The first are pointy, and the second have a curl to them, the exact same way Luz’s do.
I stand corrected. It’s been years since I watched the show but I double checked there are moments in S1 where Camila has her hair down and it is straight.
Luz’s family is Latino and Latino people can have straight hair. Actually, is very common. Our ancestors had heavy straight hair. It was the Spaniards who brought the waves with them.
Yeah but it seems like they have naturally curly hair, since, when we start to see them with curly hair, we can also see a hair straightener in the trash in Camila's room.
Most character design choices are done with intention in order to convey something to the audience. When characters get an afro when their hair is burnt or in an explosion is a character design choice. When a woman has her hair straightened as part of a beauty makeover that usually included just taking off her glasses and slapping on some lip color.
Likewise, redesigning a character to look more ethnic after receiving feedback is a design decision.
Most people who want POC characters to show their natural hair want it because Straightened is a beauty standard which is forced upon many POC people, and the natural hair is often seen as "Wild", "chaotic" and "unkempt". People want to normalise natural hair and go away from that specific beauty standard.
It's never about forcing actual real humans to do things.
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u/rapid-form_ 7h ago
Connie in Steven Universe. Her hair goes from a fairly straight style to a shorter, noticeably wavier cut by Future. Such a small design change, but it really helps her look like she’s grown into herself.