These was originally submitted for my Sociology class. "You use Hazbin for a college assignment?" Yes, this is not my first time doing this. I know Hazbin like the back of my hand, so it is easy to use for assignments.
This is not just strictly about Hazbin. Some sections were edited and the original version had screenshots of the season two leaks. Screenshots of the leaks would not show here because I do not want to put my blog at risk, but some plot points will be mentioned.
There have been discussions about how Black (and other People of Color) are mistreated in fandom spaces. Black cosplayers have been harassed for cosplaying Anime characters "wrong" while their White peers get all the praise. Black artists on Twitter have been harassed for redrawing their favorite non-Black characters as Black. Black creatives created an art prompt event called Blacktober which was viewed as "Blackwashing" by outsiders. Even though the act of Race Lifting is a common practice in media.
Link to the videos: Blackwashing Doesn't Exist & Cosplaying While Black
The act of Race Lifting is controversial especially in recent years due to Disney race swapping some of their White characters into Black or Latina characters for their live action remakes.
(A paragraph about a different franchise was originally)
My first fandom was Sonic the Hedgehog at the age of eight. I made my first
DeviantArt account at age nine (I of course lied about my age), but I never
mentioned in my bio that I am a Black person. I made a lot of DeviantArt
accounts from age eleven to twenty years old (due to forgetting passwords,
wanting different username, etc.) and I never mentioned my race. When I entered
the Ghostbuster fandom, I did not put my race in my bio. I only mention my age
and that I do by any/all pronouns. I recently started putting my race in my bio
due to joining a certain infamous and hostile fandom, Hazbin Hotel.
Hazbin Hotel is my college show. I joined (college
name here) in January of this year and Hazbin was released in the same month. I
only signed up for Amazon Prime student to watch the show. I am a fan of its
sister show Helluva Boss, but Hazbin is my current special interest and
when getting the chance to talk about it in academic setting I take it. I am
going to use the term Hellaverse when talking about both shows because they
take place in the same universe. Both shows by outsiders have been labeled as
"Made by White Queer (Vivienne is a White Salvadoran American and is
Bisexual) for White Queers."
For some background, both shows were created by Vivienne Medrano who goes under the name Vivziepop. She has been a content creator since 2011 and has a long history of controversy. I never heard of her until the Hazbin pilot was released on YouTube in 2019 and the waves of drama that came with it. Recapping all the drama and controversy Viv has been in would take forever. Her online history would be a 16-week course.
I forgot all about her existence until a video about
Hazbin's sister show Helluva Boss (which is on YouTube for free unlike the main
show which is on Amazon) was in my YouTube recommendation in 2022, I was not in
the fandom, more as a causal fan. I did not join the fandom until this year,
and I like to joke it is one of the worst mistakes in my life.
What you need to know about the fandom:
- The
fandom takes any criticism against the shows personally.
- They
harass people who dare criticize their favorite shows.
- The
fandom cannot handle criticism like the shows' creator Vivienne.
- The
fandom has a male favoritism issue where the male characters get all the
attention while the female characters get table scraps and when fans do
talk about them, it is only by their sex appeal.
Hazbin and Helluva are shows I personally would not
recommend to people. These are shows that exist to have a fandom in mind and if
you are not into creating fan fiction, fan characters, shipping, and other
fandom culture stuff – you will not get enjoyment out of these shows. It does
not help the fact that these shows like to overuse swear words to the point
where it gets childish.
If this were a media analysis class, I would dissect Hazbin
piece by piece, but I am going to about the representation of People of Color
and LGBT characters. Helluva Boss is about the denizens of Hell while Hazbin is
about Charlie (the main character) Princess of Hell redeeming the souls Sinners
(people who used to be humans) to they can go to Heaven instead of being killed
in the annual extermination that is done by Heaven.
First, I going to talk about the face of the show and most
popular character (he gets the most official and fan merch than the main
character who is a woman) and the fan favorite (I personally do not like his
character), Alastor.
The character designer in me really dislikes his design, it is so bad and unappealing. I would make it whole PowerPoint about the issues with Vivienne's characters designs. The main thing that irks me is that he is mixed Black. Yes, this character with a straight hair texture and grayish ashy skin is a mixed Black character and his voice actor Amir Talai is of Iranian descent. (The discussion of voice actors should match their race or ethnicity of the animated characters they are playing is too big of a topic to get into.) Early this month, material for the second season of Hazbin was leaked online. With this leak, Alastor's human form character sheet was a part of this. Revealing he had a normal skin tone and curly hair.
(Leak character sheet was originally here)
His skin tone as a demon is called "Desert sand" while his human form's skin tone is called "Brown Sugar". The implication of him becoming whitewashed after death is not a good look.
His character has been criticized multiple times for
the use of Vodou imagery since 2019. Instead of removing these elements of his
character because Vivienne is a white-passing woman and Vodou is a closed
practice, people theorize that she made him Mixed Creole as a free pass to kept using Vodou imagery. Vivienne created him back in middle school and his past designs still has
the straight hair and grayish skin tone.
This show takes place in a Christan inspired Hell and Vodou
has been seen as "evil" and satanic" for centuries. Vodou veve have been used in the show and veve
represent Lwa. Lwa are
spirits in Vodou and the veve are beacons for the spirits during rituals. In
the show veve are broken apart and only appear when Alastor is being
sinister.
Back to the leaks, it was also revealed that the character
Rosie owns Alastor’s soul. A character who has been criticize for having
antisemitic elements to her character. Rosie is a cannibal who is the leader of
a place called Cannibal Town. The antisemitism comes in because in her
character sheet that was used in casting calls say she has the energy of a
Jewish mother. Having a character who is ambiguous Jewish being a cannibal is
questionable, and some have said it reminds them of the Blood Libel myth.
In a leak song which is a duet between Rosie and Alastor, Rosie calls Alastor "her pet", says he is a part of her zoo, and has him on a leash. The racist implications are off the chart with having a White character say this to a mixed Black character who was lived in the 1930s who family member were probably slaves is a choice to say the least especially the zoo part because Human Zoos were a real thing.
Back to his character, Alastor is an Aromantic Asexual. Yes, the serial killer is asexual, it is not like one of most common misconceptions of asexuality and aromanticism is that aces and aros selfish or even worst heartless for not having the ability to love the "right" way. I am asexual and Ace rep is already rare especially of Black ace rep but having the whitewashed serial killer who only loves himself be a part of asexual rep is not it.
For a show that has sexual elements, there are a lot of people who are on the ace spectrum in the fandom and a lot of ace/aro fans like Alastor which is fine, I am not going to take that away from them. Alastor gets shipped a lot with other characters and some fans have issue with this because he is aro ace. I do not have a problem with aro and/or ace shippers who use Alastor is explore their asexuality or/and aromanticism or whatever they fall of those spectrums. I do have issue with allosexual removing or ignoring that fact is he is aroace when it comes to their ships.
There is another Black character (who is British but is played by an American actor Lilli Cooper) named Velvette who has skin tone is more on the ashy side, her skin tone is called "Rose taupe" and her hair texture is wavy. In the episode she appears in, her outfit and hair style chances and in episode eight, she is seen with 3B-ish hair, it looks like a failed afro.
The most controversial element of Hazbin is the character of Angel Dust who is a gay porn star/sex worker/drag queen spider whose soul is owned by Valentino, a pansexual stereotypical pimp moth and in episode four is seen doing nonconsensual acts against Angel Dust during the music section of the episode. Angel Dust is White (he is Italian) and Valentino is Hispanic. There has been recent controversy of the character of Valentino, how his fans are defensive of his character (some straight up defending his actions), and how male on male sexual abuse is portrayed in Hazbin.
I want to stick with Anger Dust. He has stereotypical
gay man traits. He is feminine appearance and can be mistaken for a woman due
to his boob window on his outfit, his color scheme is pink and white, he does
drugs and is named after one, he is flirty and flirts with every male
character. There is nothing wrong with feminine gay male characters, but Angel
is the only gay aka men loving men in the cast currently.
There is currently one Lesbian character in Hazbin, and her
name is Vaggie, yes, her named after genitals. In universe, her name was given
by Adam, the first man Adam. She is also Charlie's girlfriend (which is her
whole personality) and is a Latina (It is unknown if she was a human or was
born in Heaven, the lore is confusing). Vaggie is not a Sinner/Demon but an
angel who was exorcist (the group of female angels who take in a part of the
annual Exterminations. Adam was the leader, but he died at the end of episode
eight).
I would talk about her relationship with Charlie, but it
barely gets any screentime. Charlie (who is bisexual) and Vaggie are the only
Sapphic couple in the Hellaverse. Vaggie does not have a personality outside of
being Charlie's girlfriend and does everything for her. Vaggie has no hobbies
or other friends, Charlie is her entire world.
I am going to talk about the main antagonists of season one,
Adam and Lute.
Adam is misogyny personify. He is a manchild fratbro that takes enjoy in killing Sinners who are his descendants. When he was created, Lilith (who is Charlie's mother and Queen of Hell) was his wife, but Adam was a control freak, and she left him for Lucifer. Lilith and Eve are currently a huge mystery. I like villains who are just assholes, so I like Adam. His voice actor Alex Brightman just killed the role. Fun fact about Adam and Lilith, both are portrayed with white skin with straight hair. There was backlash when Adam's face was revealed in episode eight before he kicks the bucket.
Adam, Lilith, and Eve have been portrayed with white skin since the beginning of time. It is unknown what Eve looks like, but it would have been neat with Adam and Lilith had a tan skin tone instead of being pale. I do not understand why people think Adam had brown or dark skin. That would been problematic to have the main antagonist who looks down on woman, is an overweight man child, and sadistic have dark skin and be voiced by White Jewish man. One side character that did get whitewash treatment is St. Peter. This blonde-haired blue-greenish eyes is supposed to be St. Peter.
Anyway, I want to talk about Adam's right hand woman Lute.
She is like Vaggie in a way, she does everything for Adam and most of her screen
time is shared with Adam. The difference is that Lute has a crush on Adam. Yes,
she has a crush on the fratbro. Back to season two leaks, a whole episode with
unfinished animation was leaked. Lute calls herself the new leader of the
exorcists, but Abel (Adam's son) is made the new leader. Lute is mentally
unwell and starts to hallucinate Adam and sings a duet with her hallucination.
There is a pattern with Hazbin. The male characters are
given the interesting and quirky personality traits and more screentime while
the female characters are given less screentime or sometimes viewed as not
interesting.
The main character Charlie has been described as
"bland" even though she is the main character. I like Charlie and she
does get overshadowed in her own show. Her father, Lucifer, who only appeared
in two episodes and was not in the 2019 pilot, is more popular than her. Yes,
that is her father not her twin brother.
I only collect fan made merch (I do not want to support Vivienne by giving her money) and my Charlie collection is minor compared to my Lucifer and Adam stuff. It is hard to find fan merch of Charlie by herself, she gets paired with Alastor a lot. Charlie x Vaggie merch is a thing, but it is still rare. MLM/Gay ships are more popular than WLW/Sapphic ones. One female character who gets a lot of hate is Mimzy because she had the nerve to stop a song that was being singed by Alastor and Lucifer even though the song was over.
It does not help that she is plus size, and the fandom has a fatphobia issue.
I keep saying male and female character there is currently no canon transgender or nonbinary characters in Hazbin. There is one trans woman (who was not designed by Vivienne but an ex-employee) named Sallie May in the sister show Helluva Boss but she is minor character. She is voiced by Morgana Ignis who is trans herself. Sallie May is also the only Lesbian but is not in a relationship.
There are trans men in Helluva, but they are not main or side characters and, in the background, due to be designed by background artists. Hellaverse is praise for its LGBT rep even though trans and nonbinary characters are nonexistent. Vivienne has a (alleged) history of being transphobic against trans masculine and nonbinary people to people she used to be friends with. This is the main theory of why there is a lack of trans masculine/men and nonbinary characters in the Hellaverse.
There is one event I want to end this exceptionally long
journal. Back in June, a fan cosplayed as Alastor which is fine and all, but
they did something racist, they did Blackface. There were claims that there
were at least two other cosplays at the same con who was in Blackface and was
not remove by con staff.
I do not have a real collusion. I have been making critical posts on Tumblr about Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss since March because it is fun to do and keeps my brain active. (Class info was originally here) I knew I had to talk about Hazbin because the topic of race, ethnicity, and gender has come up a lot in my posts and posts made by other users.
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