Racism In TV Shows: Power Rangers

The television show I chose to talk about is The Might Morphin Power Rangers. This was one of my all time favorite shows as a kid but unfortunately it is ripe with racial stereotyping. As a child, I was rather naive and did not realize there were things like that in the world. I just though they were all friends because I grew up thinking everyone was equal. That changed when I grew up.

This show does though have a pretty good range of racial diversity having people from a few different racial backgrounds. I feel that the show was meant to show that there is a broad range of people in the world and many of them interact and are friends. It showed that everyone can get along and even save the world no matter your ethnic background or color. A hero is still a hero no matter the color of skin or where you are from.

Does this show have racial stereotypes? Not in the way we think about them but specific actors were assigned to specific colors of the rangers. Walter Jones, an African American actor is cast as the black ranger, Thuy Trang, an Asian actor was cast as the yellow ranger, and in later episodes Jason David Frank is cast as the white ranger who then becomes the leader of the group. There is speculation that the red ranger played by Austin St. John was was of Native American Background. So many obvious racial overtones. This also playing into people over thinking things in the media. It could have been an accident, but probably not. As a child I only saw The Power Rangers, but as an adult I look back and am astonished that they were able to get away with this for a children's television show.

Few funny videos you might enjoy, but also shows how absolutely true this really is.

VH1 I love the 90s: Power Rangers.

College Humor: Zordon is a Racist