Teen Titans, Season 4, Episode 6: Troq
The episode is another filler one, but one that attempted to be more serious similar in vein of 'the Quest'. And, a relative rarity for the show, it's a more serious episode that stars Starfire, dealing with the issues of racism in the only way that a cartoon with such high energy as Teen Titans can. So the Titans are recruited by this super-awesome alien hero dude, Val'yor, to go help beat up a bunch of evil alien robots. We've got some generic space fighting, nothing too special, but what's special is the portrayal of Val'yor.
You see, Val'yor is the most generic 'likable indestructible hero' there is. He's got a very heroic, wide-shouldered heroic build more akin to the character models of the TAS-verse as opposed to the generally leaner builds of Teen Titans. He's muscular and has a simple, Captain Atom-esque look to him. He gets awesome action scenes both in his ship and in person, beats up the good guys, encourages Robin and the others, is super-supportive of the younger heroes and is very very nice. Except when dealing with Starfire, which he keeps calling 'Troq', and he basically kind of tells Starfire to not fuck things up and stay back. Considering Starfire is easily the most powerful of the Titans, Raven's demonic magic powers notwithstanding, it's a strange setup...
Until Cyborg, throughout the episode in full 'yay yay we gon superheroing in space' accidentally calls Starfire a Troq, thinking it's a term of endearment, only to realize that it's the Tamaranean equivalent of the N-word. When Starfire said that "it means nothing", she was being literal. Troq is an insult that literally meant that Starfire amounted to nothing. The show kind of copped out a little by Cyborg relating to Starfire and saying that "I'm half machine" instead of addressing Cyborg's race, but I guess in the world of Teen Titans cyborgs are more discriminated against compared to blacks?
The thing is, though, other than his disapproval and backhanded insult-slash-compliment to Starfire, Starfire continues to be heroic and rescues Val'yor at one point. And, well, the show actually ended in a pretty harsh truth... racists are out there, they are very, very nice people otherwise... and even when they recognize someone they're prejudiced against like Starfire as being good, their acknowledgement is a strained and forced "you're a credit to your race", and it will take a whole lot to actually change his opinions on Tamaraneans in general.
That's relatively deep for a show meant to appeal to like six-year-old kids, so it's a shame that the rest of the episode is honestly pretty generic.
Honestly, I can buy the idea that Cyborg has faced more prejudice for being mostly machine than for being black.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Especially with the alarming rate that robots blow up superhero cities?
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