HOME | DD

#animal #animaldrawing #biology #cartoon #cartooncharacter #cartoonstyle #cliche #cliches #generic #mammal #monkey #monkeys #mythoughts #popularculture #primate #primates #psa #rant #trope #zoology #popularmedia #primatology #myrant #genericification #commontrope
Published: 2018-09-27 01:19:58 +0000 UTC; Views: 5361; Favourites: 42; Downloads: 3
Redirect to original
Description
This is a common trope that can be seen throughout every form of media: movies, tv shows, books, videogames, etc and as a primate lover it really annoys me to see the same nondescriptive brown pink faced S-shaped prehensile tail monkeys in every jungle over and over and over again.Now, this is not a trope that affects just monkeys: Often in pooular media, frogs are green, use their tongue to catch flies, croak and jump around in swamps, songbirds are pudgy, red or blue and always twittering in that same branch sticking out of the tree in the park or the suburbs and fish live in the sea, are either grey or multi colored and are always in a sardine-type shape. All of these animal representations and more are very nondescriptive and generic variants of the type of the animal rather than an actual species of that type of animal.
However, other animals have it much better when it comes to generic species variants: When you think of a bear, you think of a brown bear. If it's a fox, then it's a red fox. If it's a wolf, you think of a grey wolf. If it's a deer, you think of a white tailed deer. When it comes to monkeys it the usual brown coated light skinned prehensile tailed button nosed one which is never specified. Hell just look up "cartoon monkey" on Google Images and see for yourselves!
However, while there are some actual monkeys that do share some of these genericness, same goes for frogs, songbirds, fish and other animals, none of them combine those traits in at least one species: Some macaques such as rhesus, barbaries and toques are brown haired and have light skin areas none of them have prehensile tails, woolly monkeys have overall dark brown coats and prehensile tails but rather dark skinned faces and some spider monkeys can have light skinned faces and brown coats, depending on the species, but most of them are more reddish/black/grey than brown, dark skinned and all of them even lack thumbs!
By the way, while some monkeys like the listed ones above are mostly brown, most monkey colors can range from blacks, whites and greys to yellows, reds and oranges and even blues and greens. Or have you forgotten about mandrills? As for the prehensile tail thing, only New World (North, Central and South America) monkeys have those and even then only a handful of them such as capuchins, spider, woolly and howler monkeys can afford to have such luxury. The rest such as tamarins, marmosets, uakaris, sakis, titis, squirrel and owl monkeys use them for balance, communication and alike but mostly not on a curled up S-position.
I should also mention that no monkey walks around with their knuckles: that's an ape thing and even then they don't use their fists but their knuckles (ironic cause apes are actually really big monkeys but we are not talking about those here). Monkeys are palm/hand walkers, meaning that they walk in the palm or the whole of their hands and while monkeys generally do prefer warm tropical climates and habitats some of them have adapted to live from deserts/semi arid zones and savannahs in Sub-Saharan Africa and Middle East like chacma and hamadryas baboons, vervets and patas monkeys to cold, snowy mountain ranges in China, Japan and the Barbary Mountains in Morocco and Argelia like snub-nosed monkeys, japanese and barbary macaques (hell, there's even a population of barbary macaques that currently lives in the Mediterranean island of Gibraltar making it the only non-human primate to live in frikkin EUROPE).
And lastly, while all monkeys can and will eat bananas their diet isn't and shouldn't be composed of JUST that. In fact, most monkey species have very omnivorous and varied diets leaning more towards herbivory, feeding from fruits, nuts, leaves, flowers and bark to invertebrates, lizards, frogs, fish, birds and their eggs, small mammals and even other monkeys!
So there goes my rant/PSA about the general portrayal of monkeys on media. I've been wanting to make this for such a loooong time and finally had the inspiration to do it. I would appreciate if more people did their research when making monkey characters and actually using more colorful and interesting species rather than just the stock brown one that you see everywhere. If you notice that the drawing looks scanned but doesn't have that good of a quality it's because my printer scanner couldn't fit the whole sentences and had to install Office Lens on my phone and take a picture through that just like good ol times. I do want to use my printer scanner more often but i'll use the Office Lens as an alternative if the drawing is too big for the printer scanner or if it's not available at the time. Anyway, thanks for reading it all the way through and have a good current time!
Related content
Comments: 28
KookyCoco [2021-09-09 04:59:37 +0000 UTC]
π: 1 β©: 1
BDawgRULES [2020-07-08 19:15:31 +0000 UTC]
π: 0 β©: 0
MoonbowDragon [2020-02-19 00:20:56 +0000 UTC]
Well, this is very insightful on generic monkeys.Β I designed a character of mine based on 2 different species of monkeys and while looking up monkeys, I was surprised how few monkeys that matches the generic monkey drawings everywhere.Β I don't see monkeys with no fur on their belly(maybe lighter fur, but it doesn't match the hands/feet/face) and like you said, monkeys with prehensile tails are only a small portion of monkeys(then again, prehensile tails are cool).
π: 1 β©: 0
H3nAnD [2020-02-13 11:12:03 +0000 UTC]
Honestly , I came back to this because in the comments of a Reddit post, someone said monkeys and apes were just a colloquialism
π: 0 β©: 1
H3nAnD In reply to zebG [2020-02-16 19:58:21 +0000 UTC]
A colloquialism, like dogs and puppies. But some ignorantly spread it as so and called anyone who tried to correct them as just "trying shove their knowledge in people's faces
π: 0 β©: 1
zebG In reply to H3nAnD [2020-02-16 21:45:58 +0000 UTC]
I mean i know what a colloquialism is, but where did this came from?
π: 0 β©: 1
H3nAnD In reply to zebG [2020-02-21 01:33:26 +0000 UTC]
It came from Reddit post in the comments on r/wtf.
The post I think was called just a day with two normal pets
π: 0 β©: 0
PendingToDelete [2018-12-23 21:41:16 +0000 UTC]
Whoa! This some wild info drop! Sadly, it's been some time since I've actually got to see a primate, let alone a decent one in the media I watch. But it does go to show that I did indeed recall a lot of the stereotypes you gave in things I've seen before.
This is some good stuff, right here! Love the details and background info. It's really inspiring to see people stay attentive to these small knacks and research thoroughly. Makes me pumped up to do more of that in my own stuff! Keep up the good work!
π: 0 β©: 1
zebG In reply to PendingToDelete [2018-12-24 18:55:58 +0000 UTC]
Thanks a lot! Yeah, i am tired of seeing the same primate tropes over and over and over again and hopefully that gets to change in the future.
π: 0 β©: 0
internetfreak14 [2018-09-28 04:01:00 +0000 UTC]
It's seriously a relief to know that we're on the same page about this generic monkey thing. It's such a pet peeve of mine. There are SO many diverse species of monkeys, as well as apes, to draw out and depict.
π: 1 β©: 1
zebG In reply to internetfreak14 [2018-09-28 06:09:30 +0000 UTC]
Yeah. In fact it was our chat the other day about monkey genericness that inspired me to do this.
π: 0 β©: 1
internetfreak14 In reply to zebG [2018-09-28 10:36:15 +0000 UTC]
Really? Thatβs really cool, actually. xP
π: 0 β©: 0
CamtheZoologist [2018-09-27 04:27:02 +0000 UTC]
Weird fact: some zoos cut out bananas from their primate's diets because the high sugar content messed with their teeth.
π: 0 β©: 1
CamtheZoologist In reply to CamtheZoologist [2018-09-27 04:29:23 +0000 UTC]
... same thing with rabbits and carrots
π: 0 β©: 1
ZinaDinosaur In reply to CamtheZoologist [2018-09-27 17:31:39 +0000 UTC]
Or ducks and bread, but that's a different story because Ducks don't have teeth, but it still makes the duck sick which isn't good.
π: 0 β©: 0
ZinaDinosaur [2018-09-27 03:06:01 +0000 UTC]
Yep, getting tired of the same thing being used in multiple kinds of media.... I too prefer actual species of monkeys, like howler monkeys and spider Monkeys, owl monkeys and marmosets, baboons, macaques, even Proboscis Monkey!
Believe me, Gorillas were given an even CRAZIER treatment. What's with the actively dangerous gorillas and banana-eating gorillas? What's even crazier is that there's even a thing where there are stuff with giant gorilla characters! At least there's some big gorilla films like Mighty Joe Young (the original and the 1998 remake) that show a Gorilla who is truly gentle in nature, and doesn't like to be disturbed.
π: 0 β©: 0
RickWhitetiger [2018-09-27 01:49:51 +0000 UTC]
Bueh, queria comentar que lo note a esto y que tambien me molestaba, y al final me diste una leccion de Biologia de los monos.
Igual, todo lo que dijiste en el dibujo es verdad.
π: 0 β©: 1
zebG In reply to RickWhitetiger [2018-09-27 01:52:59 +0000 UTC]
Pos ya has aprendido sobre los monkis rickito
π: 0 β©: 0
candelediva [2018-09-27 01:42:46 +0000 UTC]
Generic monkeys make generic men very generic
π: 0 β©: 0
Zerixander [2018-09-27 01:27:46 +0000 UTC]
Interesting! I donβt suppose you have any tips for reptilian scales?
π: 0 β©: 1
zebG In reply to Zerixander [2018-09-27 01:45:17 +0000 UTC]
Not really, this was just a parody on how same-y monkeys tend to look in media. Also I'm not even that good on scales either.
π: 0 β©: 0
LuVi-Verse [2018-09-27 01:21:33 +0000 UTC]
I actually hate this...
I do try to make my monkeys varied.Β
π: 0 β©: 1
zebG In reply to LuVi-Verse [2018-09-27 01:45:52 +0000 UTC]
Me too and if they do look kinda generic I at least give them an actual species
π: 0 β©: 0