No No Power Rangers

Believe it or not, it's been a whopping twenty three years since the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers first graced our TV screens. Twenty three years! Can you believe it?

Producer Haim Saban, who reworked the series and brought it to our shores, is currently working on a big-budget film version of the series. Details are sketchy, but don't be surprised if it turns out to be a grim, gritty and grounded take on the property. In other words, no damn fun.

Casting is currently underway, and so far these are three of the actors chosen to play the new Rangers.

Sigh... so it looks like the movie is deliberately bucking the show's trend of "color-coded" casting. You know, how in the show the Black Ranger was black, the Yellow Ranger was 
Asian, and the Pink Ranger was a girl.

I know there've been internet memes and comedy sketches about the Power Ranger's "racist casting," but did anyone out there really feel that way about the show?

I saw it as a kind of visual shorthand. The kids playing the Rangers had their faces hidden under helmets for much of each episode, so I just figured it was a quick way to tell who was who. "Ah, the black kid is the Black Ranger, got it."

I can't imagine that anyone ever thought, "Thank god they made the girl the lame Pink Ranger, so she knows her place!"

But there you go. Thank the Maker that we finally have colorblind, non-racist Power Ranger casting, so no one in our society will have icky bad feelings.

This hyper-sensitive, politically correct Hellscape is our world now.