#like of all the potentially damaging coping mechanisms out there ppl mock the one that hurts literally no one | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thefreshchannel · 7 years ago

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I originally typed these for this post i saw in the tag but they got long so i pasted them as their own separate post

1. Race wise? Definitely courtney and alejandro. Mostly biased because when i was little courtney meant a whole deal to me. I never really saw many characters that i could point out and go like "hey she kinda looks like me!" So seeing courtney was a big moment in my childhood. Alejandro because well? I'm peruvian too and i'm 100% sure that he is as well. In south america soccer is a huge deal, besides places in peru that serve guinea pig as food and i remember he mentiones having eaten guinea pig. Altho i feel like fresh does try to have characters that look different from each other and try to emulate real teenagers. Theyre all diverse. I'm glad at least they dont make ALL their characters look like wet wonderbread and make an effort to put diversity and be inclusive of other races.

2. Despite all this, td can also be pretty racist. I think it had chris in like yellow face in tdwt. Ofc it could be that fresh wasnt too informed on the subject. They dont seem to be informed on a lot, its as if a different company worked on 6teen. Also when it comes to neurodivergence or lgbt representation, in my own personal opinion, i feel fresh does a shit job at it. So i'm gonna say neither of these have been represented accordingly.

Fresh mentioned they wouldnt have gay characters because "gay ppl are controversial" or something like that back in 2015 when they were in shock to hear so many ppl hc'd noah as gay. Basically all moments of noah cuddling up to cody and justin were practically jokes like "haha what a gay cuddling up to boys"

There's also the infamous duncan transphobic line in tda.

Regarding mental illness, trent mike and dave exist. While i would also like to count izzy, sometimes i consider her like a scene kid thats just on their "xD RANDOM!!!" phase. However izzy is described very negatively by her teammates throwing out words like "ps*cho" and "crazy" in a negative way when talking about her. So theres that.

Trent was shown to have signs of OCD in tda. Which unfortunately ended up being played up as a joke and unfortunately the whole fanbase has flanderized him to the number 9 and constantly making jokes about it despite it being a coping mechanism for him. A lot of how he coped w his own anxiety was used for laughs and his teammates thinking he's weird. Like it was stereotypically overdone for the sake of a joke and it's so sad bc thats the only development he ever got.

We all know about the mike issue. There's a lot that people have learned since mike fiasco 2013, but let me address some things that are still damaging or potentially damaging. Again i could be wrong since while i am nd i dont have DID myself. A lot of it mostly roots from tdas having mike have an "eeEEeeeviL!!" personality, kind of like how Split the movie did. Also a huge issue being the whole reset button to "rid of his mental illness to have a normal life w his gf and a happy ending uwu" like. People w mental illness cant be happy unless they rid of their mental illnesses ? It kinda sends a really. Negative message from fresh on their views of mental illness. Altho idk if i'm making too much sense. A lot of mike arguments are outdated and a lot of nd people have spoken in favor of mike and heped others understand more, however i do believe the button is the one thing everyone can agree on. It was bad.

With dave i cant really say much bc i barely remember tdpi but i know he had germophobia and had an anxiety attack on set when he was covered in filth. I think thats the only time i can say fresh handled neurodivergency in a realistic matter, however i dont think more is explored on that? We know he hates getting filthy but the most u see his character do is just talk about sky and constantly bugging her to date him despite her not wanting to. I havent watched tdpi in so long that i dont really remember anything else besides the one panic attack he had so from my poor memory to me it's like they just. Threw it away in favor of turning him into brony friendzony yfeel? Most of the time he spent crying over sky.

So yeah i don't really think fresh and td handle neurodivergent and lgbt representation very well. Every hint that a character could be gay was made for laughs as fresh confirmed they wouldnt actually show a gay character on the show bc they think the gays are controversial, and every nd character they've had is mocked and talked negatively on for their mental illness or had it completely erradicated in order to be given a happy ending.

This got long and i hope my answers don't sound rude or anything like, i dont wanna start 5 year old discourse lol. Like yeah i'm glad their characters at least arent all white kids but. There's so much more that could be done better or could've been done better yfeel?

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