Thank you. It's funny that we're all into mixing ethnicities, globalization and all, but culture, nooooo. That can't be shared. Eating sushi with sticks is okay, but wearing a sombrero is cultural appropriation. Excuse my language but it's bullshit.
Saying wearing a poncho or a sombrero is racist is like saying that mexicans are only defined by ponchos and sombreros. Plus, IMHO, why are we talking about cultural appropriation ? Nobody is stealing culture. You can't go in a store and steal culture... Culture is not like money, if you share it with someone you still have "the same amount" of culture with you. Because in this case Mario is racist because he's italian but since he was created by a japanese guy it's cultural appropriation unless you make a samurai Mario (that would actually be awesome), with no mustache and small eyes.
you're absolutely missing the point.
wearing a poncho or a sombrero isn't racist from the get go obviously.
but it clearly becomes such when you're like TODAY I'M GONNA APPRECIATE MEXICAN CULTURE IN MY VIDEOGAME, GONNA THROW IN A SOMBRERO AND PONCHO AND SOME REFERENCE TO SIESTA ESSE! Clearly not intended and not even ill intended racism. but still kinda racism
If a game wants to include or reference mexico as an ethnicity, doing that by throwing in a few sombreros and ponchos, thats where its messed up. because you reduce a rich culture to a small handful of flashy accessories. and if you're doing that, chances are high the next thing they will have included is the lazy mexican stereotype we've all rightfully left behind in the cartoons of the late 80's.
of course you can appreciate culture, especially if you have a good reason like actual interest, family members, ethnic roots, a huge friend-circle from that culture. but if you actually appreciate a culture, you'd know that there's more to it that a few key items and supposed mannerisms.
as for mario, again, he isn't racist just because he's italian (or rather, italo-american I guess) and created by a non italo/american.
at his conception, the ethnicity was only an excuse to make a non-asian/anime character for a game after all.
he does come dangerously close to being kinda racist again, when his entire italian essence boils down to him shouting mama mia and scusi every once in a while, and kinda being obsessed with mustaches here and there. because thats just very superficial and of course, completely misrepresenting the culture and people of such heritage.
however, the american cartoon mario that was all about da pizza and da spaghetti with-a meatballs, that one kinda was clearly the result of some kinda racist cartoonists with very superficial views of italian culture. again, they weren't racist because they wanted to be racist. but they were because they didn't know better and also didn't care to know better.
as for your stealing culture argument. a dying culture like that of the various native american tribes that has been misrepresented among the leading culture of the land (which also happened to be the culture that murdered it to the brink of existence), do you think that culture still has the same amount of it?
and once it's all gone and generations upon generations of american children will still only learn about them being the guys with the featherhats and bows that killed their cowboy ancestors and supposedly had the first thanksgiving? ignoring the many many tribes with their many many different cultural identities and, rituals, style of clothing, thinking, beliefs and whatnot. hasn't that culture been stolen away from the real natives, twisted and fucked up and reduced to a few key elements in the head of most every other american by the new leading culture? which then also got exported into the rest of the world?
anyway, tl;dr: racism and stereotypes and cultural appropriation are complex issues with layers and shades and clearly, varying viewpoints. trying to break them down to 'well if sombrero mario was racist, then sombreros have to be racist! but thats bullshit, sombreros can't be racist so there can't be racism period' is overly simplistic and really not helping either side
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nowadays anything you do someone can call it racist, srs there is always one person that finds it offensive, heck if mario wasnt as iconic as it, if it was created today he would have been forbidden due to being racist to italians lol.
not really to either of those.
he wouldn't be forbidden, poncho mario isn't forbidden either. criticized, however, yes, sure. just like most anything can be rightfully criticized for some reason, like you for your overly simplistic point of view and theory.
or someone cleaning their home but being extremely ineffective by cleaning bottom to top and ending up having to do the bottom again.
or me for writing these long texts as they come to me instead of doing them more organized. or this entire thread for being just full of too many people unwilling to hear each other out or learn more about what racism and appropriation actually are, since they can also rely on 'like a thing they once heard and one example that once happened somewhere to someone and some thread on reddit with that guy who just freaked out over nothing lol' so clearly all of that stuff, it must be bullshit.
