It's Morphin' Time: Cultural Changes Over 20 Years of Power Rangers

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

Saban's adaptation discarded and modified many of the Japanese story elements, opting for an incontestably Western and more marketable flavour. Because the original action scenes showed the superheroes donning costumes that rendered them anonymous, Saban, Levy, and their crew effectively had a clean slate on which to write their version. The ancient Zyuranger warriors were replaced with five specially-selected "teens with attitude" from the fictional city of Angel Grove, California, who sipped sodas at student hangouts and dealt with typical teenage problems when they weren't battling evil.

While the peppy adolescent group was multicultural and appeared socially diverse, the ideologies depicted were arguably blatant Western stereotypes of race and class. An affable, all-American jock named Jason was the Red Ranger; he was the team's fearless leader, an accomplished athlete, and the centre-framed star of every group shot. Black Ranger Zack was an equally sporty African-American who loved to dance and invented "hip hop kido", his own style of urban dancing martial arts. The Yellow Ranger was a studious, kung fu-trained girl named Trini, portrayed by Vietnamese actress Thuy Trang. Blue Ranger Billy was a bespectacled geek who generally remained out of the spotlight until his intelligence was required for the team's rescue. Finally, the sparkly role of the Pink Ranger was bestowed upon Kimberly, a quintessential blond Valley Girl with a knack for gymnastics. (New cool kid on the block Tommy and his ponytail later join as the legendary Green-then-White Ranger, but that's also another story.)

The fact that the Black and Yellow Rangers were black and Asian did not go unnoticed by the public. Walter Jones, who played Zack, noted on an episode of VH1's "I Love the '90s" that viewers would sometimes question the racist undertones of his and Trang's casting, and the NAACP briefly and fruitlessly petitioned for the show's cancellation. The truth was that the "colour coordination" was an unfortunate accident―the Super Sentai footage always paired off the Red and Black Rangers, and the producers of Power Rangers wanted Jason's best friend to be black.

The character Trini was originally Mexican, but they recast the role with an Asian actress as a nod to the show's Japanese origins. By the time the producers realized the racist implications, it was too late. Ultimately, the criticism was rendered moot when Jones, Trang, and Jason's Austin St. John were written off the show after "contract disputes". The next Black and Yellow Rangers were Asian- and African-American, respectively.

(Other questionable decisions on the original show included things like a gong sound effect during a karate gag. This type of culturally-cringeworthy choice, along with the entire general structure of the show, likely stemmed from Saban's close attention to the pan-Asian/American hybrid style pioneered by the nunchuk-wielding, sensei-heeding Ninja Turtles.)

Nowadays, the cultural stereotyping is a little less on-the-nose. 2011's Power Rangers: Samurai―season 18, but who's counting?―features amongst its six teens a slacker gamer, a Japanese girl who can't cook, and a fish seller named Antonio as the Gold Ranger. The show has addressed people with disabilities and from varying socioeconomic backgrounds. As for racial diversity, no Asian actors have been featured as the Yellow Ranger since the accusations of subliminal racism in the first series, and the show did not cast anyone of African descent as the Black Ranger until Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive 13 years later.

But the stretchy costumes, their colours as varied as the palette of a Damien Hirst spot painting, have otherwise been donned by actors of all ethnic backgrounds every season, making the Power Rangers one of the most diverse casts on television since Star Trek. (While it's worth noting that the Red Ranger, usually the de facto leader of the team, is most often played by a white male, a handful of non-white actors and two women have worn the vermilion suit over the last 20 years.) The Pink Ranger, however, has never been a dude―but that must be part of the program's tried-and-true formula.