Episode Review: Troq

 DISCLAIMER: This is not meant to deny the lesson taught in the episode. I'm all in favor of fighting against racism, but I feel this episode just doesn't do the topic as well as people think. No one has ever called me racist here or anywhere, I'm saying these things on my own volition.

I might've been very late when it came to Black History Month and a themed review, but hey, I got something for it with my brief discussion on The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, a film that discussed the Civil War and how African Americans were treated, through the perspective of a woman who lived through it all and through to passage of the Civil Rights Act, and the conclusion still moves me to tears.

Let's be real, there is no sense in treating someone lowly based on the color of their skin. A wise man once said, don't judge anyone based on the color of their skin, but the content of their character. Unfortunately, we're facing some borderline irony these days, as equality is no longer enough for most people, and it's bleeding everywhere we go.

Steven Universe these days can be called puppets on a string.

For every good show or movie that discusses racism, there're bad ones too, more preachy ones told by people who have little to no experience with historical moments in racial history, they assume throwing in a minority would be enough to claim they're with it. Either that or the story just doesn't do the topic justice. So for that, tell me, why is this episode heralded so much?

One of the best ways to discuss racism is show don't tell, at least in my opinion. We can see the impact of racism on minorities, and how bad it could be when normalized. We don't even need a complex history of the racists in question, they're just going by a regretfully enforced belief, they're still complete bigoted assholes for believing it, don't get me wrong.

All I'm say is that either side should know when to draw the line. If there was a piece of media advocating for African Americans to murder white Americans in cold blood, would that fly? Hell, even racists can atone for their racist deeds, Robert Byrd atoned, George Wallace atoned, and I'll go no further to avoid potentially saying something nice about the confederacy, unless I get approval.

I'm not mad with this episode, just disappointed, or perhaps I just saw better episodes handling the topic, but people treat this as one of the greatest discussions on the topic, including a Minor-Attracted-Person with which I responded to a blog of theirs defending pedophilia. I'm serious about that.

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As mentioned in my WIDL on Teen Titans, I feel the show didn't have the best writing, having obvious routes they never bothered to take or missing a lot of good opportunities to make the plot and characters more interesting. So when it comes to the forbidden word, and the aforementioned reception, I gotta hold it to a high standard. I'm not picking apart this episode because I'm against discussing the topic, I'm picking apart this episode because it's a letdown.

For some perspective, I did watch this episode as a kid. Around this time I learned of the Civil War and slavery in school, I read a book on Martin Luther King Jr., I learned of segregation, and it was around this time I watched The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, and got the point behind it. In that same period the topic of the third wave of nazism flew right over my head, but I was able to get the idea of black history with the former film.

Point is, I wasn't naive to racism, and when I watched this episode... the racist point flew right over my head, to the point I just assumed the silver guy was a jerk who viewed Starfire as inferior.

Watching the episode later on, knowing what it was supposed to represent... the impact just didn't hit the right way. So let's get into it.

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The episode centers on the Titans getting recruited by a man I'd like to dub Chrome Thurmond, both due to historical humor and because I forgot his name, which itself isn't imperative to the plot so... fuck it.

Chrome Thurmond is adamant on Starfire playing as little a part as possible in the mission in question, as he views her as inferior, or nothing, to go by this episode's forbidden word.

You'd expect this episode to be based around Cyborg as racism was the most prevalent with African Americans (not that it didn't or doesn't exist with other races, as the struggles of African Americans yielded the biggest reaction in history), but instead, we focus on an extra-terrestrial (and I put it like that because I don't get a kick out of brandishing the other word, you know the one.)

This is a foolish decision on the writer's part and a faint backhand to the topic of racism because it reduces it to a speciesist context. I mean both Starfire and Chrome Thurmond are both aliens in this regard (well there goes that word promise), and as they're alien species indigenous to this show, it would be fair we get context to the interactions between those species.

Are they at war with one another? Did one take over the other's planet? Is it just classic elitism? Tamaranians aren't the most evolved aliens out there, Starfire has yet to fully grasp Earth's customs, and based on their eating habits, we can see they're hardly evolved. Hell, they let a plank of wood take over their planet one time.

African Americans were used as slaves due to their better resistance to illness at the time, and have been viewed as inferior and a means for labor through to the Lincoln administration, and still lowly enough that whites wanted African Americans to be separated. The impact is best shown with African Americans because the root of slavery and discrimination stems from white Americans seeing them as a means to an end.

Tamaranians, as I see on the show, are the kind of species Aaron MacGrudder would poke fun at. He made The Boondocks, which pokes fun at the worst stereotypes of African Americans, namely the self-entitled ones that reinforce negative connotations. Take those kinds of African Americans and apply it to Tamaran, and you can see why this episode poses a big problem for me.

So, after leaving Star out of more significant aspects to the mission, Chrome Thurmond drops a hard T on Star (this episode's N word). Now I know people can't use that word on television, no matter the context, but you know what they can do? Show, don't tell. This is a sign the writers have faith in the viewers to piece together what's going on.

 Chrome Thurmond is a dick, but Starfire comes close to being one too. She tells Cyborg what troq means, but phrases it so cryptically just for the sake of a cliched outburst. Instead of keeping this hidden from your friends, have the courage to speak out, any offensive remark made to anyone is never okay. Speak now, or forever hold your pain.

Troq means nothing, and it's not a defense of the word, it's basically saying someone is absolutely nothing. While calling someone nothing is a hard blow, it's certainly incomparable to being a naturally ignorant grotesque good for nothing empty headed retard.

We do get a moment where Cyborg implies his exposure to racism, and it doesn't automatically apply to him being entirely made of robot parts to be fair. Why wasn't he the focus again? Since he is more machine than man wouldn't that be the right basis to your discussion on racism? This isn't cutting edge.

After completing the mission, with Star rising above to do it and prove herself, all ends vanilla, and the impact is just as so.

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A good episode would make do with show don't tell. Rather than just have Chrome Thurmond utter the word right away, we'd focus entirely on him continuing to not acknowledge Star as a useful hero, him uttering the word and voicing his hatred of Tamaranians would come at the climax, and before then we'd just assume he viewed her as an unskilled fighter.

Or hell, back on trying to discuss his relation to Tamaranians, perhaps they destroyed his planet or his people some time ago, and he holds a grudge against them which extends to Star. The episode would be Star proving not all Tamaranians are bad. These are basic ideas, ignoring them isn't cutting edge.

And to those saying being called nothing is the worst, are you saying there's a worse term to be called than the N word?

The biggest problem I have with any episode is having the wrong character give the moral.

This episode reminds me of the Hey Arnold! episode Rhonda's Glasses, an episode meant to allegorize Rosa Parks, but along with skimping on a full on discussion on racism, which you'd think Hey Arnold! would have no issue with, they have Rhonda be the one to give the message, even after she endorsed the geeks in the back policy (possibly even started it), complained the entire way until then and slowly regressed to her old ways. She is the worst character in the entire series.

Let's look at some good discussions on racism.

Static Shock didn't pull any stops when it came to racism in Sons of the Father. They didn't have to drop the n word to show the impact, and I can buy Ritchie's father in this, he is a blue collar worker who was from a different period. He isn't over the top racist, and he actually does care for his son. Sure Virgil's father lectured him, but it came when it had to, not through a forced confrontation.

Also to note, Dwayne McDuffie was an advocate for promoting black nuclear families, the death of Virgil's mom wasn't his decision, though it did give Virgil some extra layers. Static Shock was such a good portrayal of African American superheroes.

Wanna know what else is a good discussion on racism? CatDog. It's all so clear, people discriminating against a weird creature like CatDog, old greaser gangs that'd attack people who're different, people who would dismiss, in their own terms, freaks, a corrupt politician who would try to limit the freedoms of the different, the list goes on. That show indirectly mastered the concept of show don't tell.

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, I know I bring that up a lot of times, but it's just that damn powerful. Not a word is uttered, but even if you haven't seen the entire movie, where she's heading and what's around her weave a tale of a woman who has lived through slavery and segregation, and has lived to see it come to an end. Just that drink of water from what was once a white's only fountain in the presence of officers that would not approve would mark a signifiant closure to a rough chapter in life.

This episode doesn't do the concept of racism justice. It is marginalized down to one scene and muddled with a lack of context to the relation between Chrome Thrumond and the Tamaranians. It's insulting that they acknowledge racism to African Americans, meaning they could've done the entire episode on him, but they just go the safe route.

Overall

Believe me, I'm well against racism, but there're better ways to discuss it, and Teen Titans didn't have the best discussion on it. Come to think of it, I'm getting more and more reasons to believe Teen Titans wasn't as well written as I thought it was.

To sum up, show, don't tell.