On the original Power Rangers TV show why was the Black Ranger cast as a black character?

why was the yellow one asian, and the red one indian? coincidence? I think not

@applesaucemanny Also very good questions.

And, the purple one was a dinosaur.

I didn’t know that. That’s freakin’ funny.

lol, I never noticed. There was a lot of stuff like that going on back then.

Yeah, the first generation of Power Rangers was pretty blatantly racist/stereotypical. The pink ranger was a blonde girl, too.

@ChazMaz What?

I always wondered the same thing.

Yea, didn’t you know. Barny was a Power Ranger back in the day.
Then he got too big and became a solo artist.

“I love you. you love me” was an international hit! So he balied.
Him and Lord Zedd never talked again.

@ChazMaz wow..what an interesting connection.

What about the rainbow Power Ranger?

@AstroChuck gay?

the red one wasn’t indian was he? I thought he was white for some reason. knew about the yellow and black though.

PS, the white ranger, he was kind of a douche :P

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 No way, green/white ranger was badass.

Power Rangers

@J0E you’re crazy, Billy is where it’s at. The guy was a genius, and he kicked some ass. Tommy comes in to the picture and he’s all like “yo I’m you’re leader now so back the fuck up” who does that?!?!?!

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 Before the green and white rangers came on the scene my favorite was the black ranger, he had that sweet battle axe, I always pretended to be him when we would play. Billy was cool too though.

haha that axe was awesome. I remember the FIRST PR movie… I was so excited to see it, and you got that cool trading card if you went opening day too… man I miss being a kid…

I was never into it big time but I had a friend who was and he got all the toys and stuff so I played Power Rangers quite a bit. You’re right, being a kid was awesome.

its a kids show, i doubt they had any racists things in mine. a black guy being the black ranger oh no how horrible. grow up

@noctowl bud, they definitely did…. it’s hard not to see it. For instance look at the crows from dumbo. they’re lazy, speak all jivey, and love water melon… come on now…

I mean are you saying it’s a coincidence that the black rangers black, the yellow rangers asian, and the red rangers native american?

i’m not saying its a coincidence, i just dont see how its racist. they obviously wouldn’t have played the roles if they were racist and were offended by it. lets try using our heads eh?

lol they certainly wouldn’t be the first no name actors to take a part they didn’t want because they needed the cash… think, name one other thing any of those actors have done aside from that series?

“let’s try using our heads eh?”

let’s try being civilized eh?

you call them actors? did you see the show? sure it was great as a kid but try watching now, far from acting. the black guy dressed in black, omg, what a horrible racist world! seriously, its a kids show. people are looking way too much into this.

@noctowl It was great as a kid because that’s what it was meant to be. It isn’t supposed to be some sweet show for all ages, it’s for kids. No one said it was racist besides you, I merely asked if it was a conscious decision. Step off.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 Tommy might be a douche but he always had the coolest uniforms.

Heh, never really noticed that before.

Wow, I was discussing this very issue with a couple of friends just yesterday.

The green power ranger was secretly a martian. J/k

The red ranger was a white dude…

I definitely noticed and made jokes about the whole black ranger being a Black person thing, but I had never noticed the Asian = yellow one!

The simplest reason is that the American version of Power Rangers (which is, any scene where you see the American actors’ faces) was written for as little money as they could possibly put into it, and thus the quality of the writers was low enough such that things like this wouldn’t have been caught. That or one of the writers was intentionally racist, that could have very well been it. Another easy explanation is that the colors suited the actors best – just imagine the black actor in the pink suit.

Since that all of the suited up action sequences were filmed a long long time ago in Japan, it could very well have been possible for the writers to not create that color and race association. But they didn’t have a lot of leeway. Consider the colors: yellow and pink, blue black and red. Yellow and pink are girly colors nowadays, so those go with the girls. Red is the leader’s color as it’s one of humanity’s strongest and most powerful colors (that’s what you get when it’s the same color as our blood). So you have two characters, a nerdy guy and a generic black guy, and two colors, blue and black. The color blue has had the connotations of peace/science/medical (police officers often wear blue), but beyond that, it would simply look out of place having the black person in a blue suit and a white guy in the black suit, when the other option looks much more visually appealing.

The one thing I love most about the old Power Rangers (other than Rita) is how much it reminds me of the politically correct 90s, the cast of characters is over-the-top diverse, diverse for diversity’s sake only. Just like the characters in Captain Planet.

I have officially thought way too much about this :)

It was a show for children, why then make anything more complicated than necessary.

@Noel_S_Leitmotiv; because even though it was for kids, adults were the ones that made it, and you know that even kids shows receive criticism.

True, but whats to criticize?

People always find something to complain about. I remember when Sesame Street was criticized for not having a diverse enough cast.

@WhiteRanger: Lols, truth

Why aren’t more male roles cast with women?