History Main / CulturallySensitiveAdaptation

* This is possibly why in ''Anime/TheBushBaby'', Tembo is rewritten as [[WhiteMansBurden Arthur Rhodes]]' wildlife assistant -- in the original book, he was the [[MightyWhitey family]]'s [[UnfortunateImplications African servant]].

* ''Manga/{{Lady}}'': The writers were aware that TooBleakStoppedCaring was one of the reasons people dropped the manga, so they made many changes in the anime series. George's ParentalNeglect is downplayed and he is a more involved single dad in Lynn and Sarah's lives. [[spoiler: Additionally, the Duke's excessive cruelty towards Lynn is downplayed and he actually changes his ways at the end. Arthur also doesn't have feelings for Lynn because of their age gap, and is already smitten with Sarah]]. There are also plenty of original storylines about issues like child abuse and classism (handled from Lynn's POV) and a lot of characters get AdaptationalNiceGuy.

* This is possibly why in ''Anime/TheBushBaby'', Tembo is rewritten as [[WhiteMansBurden Arthur Rhodes]]' wildlife assistant - in the original book, he was the [[MightyWhitey family]]'s [[UnfortunateImplications African servant]].

** The film makes the Romani more sympathetic than in the book, omitting the reveal that [[spoiler:a group of them kidnapped Esmeralda as a baby from her French birth mother. This change is due to the Romani stereotype as kidnappers of children.]]

* Another Soviet example is the 1981 animated version of ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland''. In most versions, the Queen of Hearts favors red roses, and her gardeners mistakenly plant white ones, then paint them red so she won't [[OffWithHisHead have them beheaded]]. But since red is the Communist Party's signature color, in this version the Queen favors white roses and the gardeners accidentally plant red ones, then paint them white.

* ''Film/Aladdin2019'''s version of "Prince Ali" changes the line where Ali is said to have "slaves, servants, and flunkies" to just "servants and flunkies".
** Before that line, the line "Brush up your Sunday salaam" is changed to "Brush up your '''''Friday''''' salaam" since Friday is the day of worship in Islam.

*** The comic versions of the [[AmazonBrigade the Dora Milaje]] were picked from rival Wakandan tribes to be trained from puberty to serve as personal guards to the king, as well as potential queens to Wakanda. The latter function was done to maintain the peace in Wakanda by ensuring that every tribe has the opportunity to put forward one of their daughters for the crown. In the movie, the Dora still serve as T'Challa's bodyguards but them being groomed as potential wives is removed. This results in changes to Nakia's backstory; in the comics, she was a teenage Dora who was obsessed with winning T'Challa's love (though he was not attracted to her or any of the other teenage Dora) [[WomanScorned and became evil when he rejected her advances.]]

* ''Literature/TheScarletSails'': In the 1961 adaptation, Arthur Grey renounces his aristocratic lineage and helps some random revolutionary terrorists who tried to kill some random mayor. In the book, he does run away from home to become a captain but keeps in touch with his mother, and there are no terrorists. His parents also get hit with heavy AdaptationalVillainy, because in the Soviet world AristocratsAreEvil and only evil.

* ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'' ends with the Count in a relationship with his slave/adoptive daughter Haydée (to be fair, she's a slave InNameOnly, and she was the one doing all the work to get him to notice her). As this still smacks of WifeHusbandry to modern audiences, most adaptations will have him end up back with Mercedes instead of Mercedes joining a convent, and Haydée sometimes ends up with Franz d'Epinay, who otherwise disappears from the book long before the end.

** In the original comics, Tobias Whale had the codename "White Whale", was a FatBastard, and embodied as many terrible stereotypes about fat people and people with albinism as possible. In the TV series, he is still large but has a more muscular build, he is presented as a more intellectual villain with FauxAffablyEvil tendencies, and has a more complicated motive - he's a black albino man who hates other black people because they shunned him in his youth.
* ''Series/CloakAndDagger2018'': In the [[ComicBook/CloakAndDagger original comics]], Ty came from a poor black family, while Tandy came from a rich white one, a dynamic which carried a lot of implications even back in the 1980s. In the live-action series, the writers put them on a more equitable socio-economic footing, with Ty coming from a well-off black family while Tandy came from a formerly-comfortable white family that had fallen on hard times.

** Given how UsefulNotes/{{transgender}} people have become more prominent since [[ComicBook/YTheLastMan the comics']] run from 2002 to 2008, the producers have to make it clear that trans people with a Y chromosome also died in the plague while adding an [[CanonForeigner original trans man character]] to the show. It's also specifically noted that "the last man" only refers to cis men--many trans men are still around (including the aforementioned one, Sam).

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'': In the 2023 remake for the Switch, several characters are given less potentially offensive names than they had in the 1996 original, including changing "Shyster" (which is sometimes seen as an antisemitic term) to "Shymore," "Frogfucious" (a parody of Confucius) to just "Frog Sage" and the two oveweight Koopa enemies, Tub-o-Troopa and Heavy Troopa to "Grand Troopas" and "Big Troopas" respectively. Other jokes that make fun of characters' weight have been removed, as have a few jokes relating to women being passive. In the original, for instance, a young girl Toad at one point asks if she can marry Mario; in the remake she simply asks if she can be part of his team.

** In prior editions of the game, the Operation Babe Hunt side quest had a scene where, after a few unsuccessful attempts at hitting on girls, they come across a lone woman who tries to flirt with them. After Akihiko notices some stubble on her chin, the woman turns away in shame and remarks that she "missed a spot", with the game's text window putting a question mark at the end of her name (Beautiful Lady in P3 and Pretty Lady in [=P3P=]) for all her subsequent lines. Junpei reacts in horror to this revelation and the boys subsequently run away, much to her disappointment. As this scene could be considered transphobic by many, ''Persona 3 Reload'' naturally completely rewrites it so that the woman is now a conspiracy theorist who believes the sun was replaced with an artificial one in the 1980s and offers the boys [[SnakeOilSalesman "special sunscreen"]] to protect them in exchange for 300,000 yen. The boys then run away after noticing this unusual behavior and suspecting she may be scamming them.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin1991 The Adventures of Tintin]]'': For one scene in the original comic, Tintin wears {{blackface}} to disguise himself on a ship. In the episode adapting this comic ("Broken Ear"), Tintin disguises himself with glasses, a wig, and a fake mustache (the same disguise he would wear again in "The Calculus Affair")

*** Gandra Dee is no longer a shallow DumbBlonde love interest for Fenton, but a freelance scientist. She and Fenton do hit it off on a date, though with the undertones that it may have been for Gandra to get intel on Gizmo Duck, given she was working with Mark Beaks. We haven't seen the last of her, given that [[spoiler: we learn she works for F.O.W.L.]]

** Samurai was a Japanese man with [[EthnicMagician mystical abilities]] who related everything to "bushido". Asami is something of a zig-zagged example; she speaks in Japanese because she was abducted from Japan but her KiManipulation abilities could be considered stereotypical in some ways. She also gets the least development of the reinvented characters.

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

* ''Theatre/{{Annie}}'' completely changes the political stance from the ''ComicStrip/LittleOrphanAnnie'' comics. While the comic strip, created by and written under Harold Gray from 1924-1968, absolutely ''hated'' FDR and the New Deal at the time he was in office (having Warbucks flat-out die from despair over FDR's 1944 re-election), the musical, written 40 years after the New Deal's success, has Annie convince Warbucks to agree to help FDR with the New Deal.

* ''Film/TheInquestOfPilotPirx'': The Russian dub removes Brown's admission he believes in God and the discussion of whether robots can do it. Instead, Pirx and Brown discuss whether humans and robots have conscience.

* Another Soviet example is the 1981 animated version of ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland''. In most versions, the Queen of Hearts favors red roses, and her gardeners mistakenly plant white ones, then paint them red so she won't [[OffWithHisHead have them beheaded]]. But since red is the Communist Party's signature color, in this version the Queen favors white roses and the gardeners accidentally plant red ones, then paint them white. Probably for the same reason of not wanting red associated with royalty, the sequel adaptation of ''Through the Looking-Glass'' changes the chess set from red and white to black and white, and the Red Queen becomes the Black Queen.

* In RealLife, Matvey Kuzmin, a FakeDefector who lured Nazi troops into a trap under the guise of helping them with a surprise attack, wasn’t a member of a kolkhoz and was in fact suspected by his neighbours of having counterrevolutionary views. In Boris Polevoy’s fictionalised account of his HeroicSacrifice, ''The Last Day of Matvey Kuzmin'', Kuzmin is made a devoted member of a kolkhoz, as befits a proper Soviet hero.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'':
** In the 2023 remake for the Switch, several characters are given less potentially offensive names than they had in the 1996 original, including changing "Shyster" (which is sometimes seen as an antisemitic term) to "Shymore," "Frogfucious" (a parody of Confucius) to just "Frog Sage" and the two oveweight Koopa enemies, Tub-o-Troopa and Heavy Troopa to "Grand Troopas" and "Big Troopas" respectively. Other jokes that make fun of characters' weight have been removed, as have a few jokes relating to women being passive. In the original, for instance, a young girl Toad at one point asks if she can marry Mario; in the remake she simply asks if she can be part of his team.

* ''VideoGame/Persona3Reload'', a VideoGameRemake of ''VideoGame/Persona3'' made some changes to elements of the original game that fell under ValuesDissonance.

** In prior editions of the game, the Operation Babe Hunt side quest had a scene where, after a few unsuccessful attempts at hitting on girls, they come across a lone woman who tries to flirt with them. After Akihiko notices some stubble on her chin, the woman turns away in shame and remarks that she "missed a spot", with the game's text window putting a question mark at the end of her name (Beautiful Lady in P3 and Pretty Lady in [=P3P=]) for all her subsequent lines. Junpei reacts in horror to this revelation and the boys subsequently run away, much to her disappointment. As this scene could be considered transphobic by many, ''Persona 3 Reload'' naturally [[https://kotaku.com/persona-3-reload-trans-scene-beautiful-lady-beach-1851206294 completely rewrites it]] so that the woman is now a conspiracy theorist who believes the sun was replaced with an artificial one in the 1980s and offers the boys [[SnakeOilSalesman "special sunscreen"]] to protect them in exchange for 300,000 yen. The boys then run away after noticing this unusual behavior and suspecting she may be scamming them.

** In prior editions of the game, the Operation Babe Hunt side quest had a scene where, after a few unsuccessful attempts at hitting on girls, they come across a lone woman who tries to flirt with them. After Akihiko notices some stubble on her chin, the woman turns away in shame and remarks that she "missed a spot", with the game's text window putting a question mark at the end of her name (Beautiful Lady in P3 and Pretty Lady in [=P3P=]) for all her subsequent lines. Junpei reacts in horror to this revelation and the boys subsequently run away, much to her disappointment. As this scene could be considered transphobic by many, P3's VideoGameRemake, ''VideoGame/Persona3Reload'', naturally [[https://kotaku.com/persona-3-reload-trans-scene-beautiful-lady-beach-1851206294 completely rewrites it]] so that the woman is now a conspiracy theorist who believes the sun was replaced with an artificial one in the 1980s and offers the boys [[SnakeOilSalesman "special sunscreen"]] to protect them in exchange for 300,000 yen. The boys then run away after noticing this unusual behavior and suspecting she may be scamming them.

* In both ''VideoGame/Persona3'' and its UpdatedReRelease, ''Persona 3 Portable'', the Operation Babe Hunt side quest had a scene where, after a few unsuccessful attempts at hitting on girls, they come across a lone woman who tries to flirt with them. After Akihiko notices some stubble on her chin, the woman turns away in shame and remarks that she "missed a spot", with the game's text window putting a question mark at the end of her name (Beautiful Lady in P3 and Pretty Lady in [=P3P=]) for all her subsequent lines. Junpei reacts in horror to this revelation and the boys subsequently run away, much to her disappointment. As this scene could be considered transphobic by many, P3's VideoGameRemake, ''VideoGame/Persona3Reload'', naturally [[https://kotaku.com/persona-3-reload-trans-scene-beautiful-lady-beach-1851206294 completely rewrites it]] so that the woman is now a conspiracy theorist who believes the sun was replaced with an artificial one in the 1980s and offers the boys [[SnakeOilSalesman "special sunscreen"]] to protect them in exchange for 300,000 yen. The boys then run away after noticing this unusual behavior and suspecting she may be scamming them.

* In both ''VideoGame/Persona3'' and its UpdatedReRelease, ''Persona 3 Portable'', the Operation Babe Hunt side quest had a scene where, after a few unsuccessful attempts at hitting on girls, they come across a lone woman who tries to flirt with them. After Akihiko notices some stubble on her chin, the woman turns away in shame and remarks that she "missed a spot", with the game's text window putting a question mark at the end of her name (Beautiful Lady in P3 and Pretty Lady in [=P3P=]) for all her subsequent lines. Junpei reacts in horror to this revelation and the boys subsequently run away, much to her disappointment. As this scene could be considered transphobic by many, P3's VideoGameRemake, ''Persona 3 Reload'', naturally [[https://kotaku.com/persona-3-reload-trans-scene-beautiful-lady-beach-1851206294 completely rewrites it]] so that the woman is now a conspiracy theorist who believes the sun was replaced with an artificial one in the 1980s and offers the boys [[SnakeOilSalesman "special sunscreen"]] to protect them in exchange for 300,000 yen. The boys then run away after noticing this unusual behavior and suspecting she may be scamming them.

* ''Anime/TheSecretGarden'': In the original [[Literature/TheSecretGarden novel]] by Creator/FrancisHodgsonBurnett, there was a scene where Martha stated that "There are a lot of blacks [in India] instead of respectable white people"[[note]]She thought people from India were "Blacks"[[/note]], She also accidentally offended Mary by assuming that she was one of them. The anime removes this entirely, and also makes Martha and her family AmbiguouslyBrown.

* ''VideoGame/KirbysReturnToDreamLand'': Wing Kirby no longer bears the TribalFacePaint on his cheeks seen in previous appearances, and the trailer for ''Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe'' shows that the ability hat is [[https://twitter.com/Kimi15221/status/1570530993207115779 further redesigned]] to bear less of a resemblance to a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_bonnet warbonnet]]. Both alterations are owed to increased scrutiny of cultural appropriation of Native American imagery, which became particularly prominent in the decade since the Wii version's release. This is especially true in regard to the warbonnet, which in Native American cultures can only be worn by tribespeople who have earned the right to do so.

* ''Theatre/LegallyBlonde'': In the [[Film/LegallyBlonde 2001 film]], Elle figures out that Brooke Windham's pool boy, claiming to have been having an affair with her and thus giving her a motive for matricide, is gay (and thus lying about the affair) from [[CampGay his knowledge about her shoes]]. Not only did this rely on stereotypes about gay men, but also fell under NoBisexuals since the idea he could be attracted to men ''and'' women is never brought up. In the 2007 musical, Elle figures out the pool boy is gay because he had no reaction to her Bend and Snap, a move which Elle claims is 99.99% effective on anyone who is attracted to women (evidenced by straight Warner's and lesbian Enid's reactions), which would rule out bisexuality. In addition, a whole musical number is spent pointing out that they can't assume sexuality based on appearance due to differing cultural norms (though Elle ends up being correct in the end, since his boyfriend says he never "swings the other way").

* ''Film/MortalKombat2021'': Scorpion and Sub-Zero are of Japanese and Chinese descent respectively and Raiden is based on a Japanese deity named Raijin. Despite this, they were portrayed by white actors in the original games and [[Film/MortalKombat most]] [[Film/MortalKombatAnnihilation of the previous]] [[Series/MortalKombatConquest live-action adaptations]]. This film has all three characters played by Asian actors and even manages to avoid InterchangeableAsianCultures by having them match the nationalities and ethnicities of their respective characters. This applies to all other Asian characters in the movie as well. In addition, the female characters have [[AdaptationalModesty much more modest outfits than in most of the games]].

** In ''Film/DoctorStrange2016'', Wong is revised from being the [[EthnicMenialLabor Chinese houseservant]] that he was initially depicted as in the comics to a [[AdaptationalBadass more competent and efficient warrior and Master of the Mystic Arts]].

*** In the comics, [[AmazonBrigade the Dora Milaje]] were picked from rival Wakandan tribes to be trained from puberty to serve as personal guards to the king, as well as potential queens to Wakanda. The latter function was done to maintain the peace in Wakanda by ensuring that every tribe has the opportunity to put forward one of their daughters for the crown. In the movie, the Dora still serve as T'Challa's bodyguards but their status as wives-in-training is removed. This results in changes to Nakia's backstory; in the comics, she was a teenage Dora who was obsessed with winning T'Challa's love (though he was not attracted to her or any of the other teenage Dora) and became evil when he rejected her advances.

* ''Theatre/LegallyBlonde'': In the [[Film/LegallyBlonde 2001 film]], Elle figures out that Brooke Windham's pool boy, claiming to have been having an affair with her and thus giving her a motive for matricide, is gay (and thus lying about the affair) from [[CampGay his knowledge about her shoes]]. Not only did this rely on stereotypes about gay men, but also fell under NoBisexuals since the idea he could be attracted to men ''and'' women is never brought up. In the 2007 musical, Elle figures out the pool boy is gay because he had no reaction to her Bend and Snap, a move which Elle claims is 99.99% effective on anyone who is attracted to women (evidenced by straight Warner's and lesbian Enid's reactions), which would rule out bisexuality. In addition, a whole musical number is spent pointing out that they can't assume sexuality based on appearance due to differing cultural norms (though Elle ends up being correct in the end).