It matters because the superhero genre is primarily dominated by white dudes.
Go ahead and list the two or three black characters you know ot even link me a laundry list of black characters, it isn't gonna touch just how many white dudes there are.
That's not an issue in itself, the writers of these stories are usually white dudes and it would be weird to ask those people to try writing a character race, religion, or gender they aren't familiar with. They can do it and do it well, but they're white dudes writing about white guys so whatever.
Hell, the issue here isn't even that this artist depicted T'Challa as a white person. Gender and race swapping is always gonna be a fun experiment for an artist.
But when you suggest there's no reason T'Challa has to be black, I gotta disagree. I'm not bothered whenever a primarily white character is made black or a man made a woman because in those instances you're adding diversity by making what we've all agreed is a minor change.
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· 5 years ago
It generates brownie points with minorities while weeding out racists or sexists. But when you start changing black characters to white characters, you can't help but question the decision making process.
Like look the world we live in has contexts to acknowledge. Racism is still a thing and while making T'Challa white in some cool art isn't racist, suggesting that making him white for the sake of it shouldn't be controversial is at least ignorant on your part.
I think there is an underlying misunderstanding with minority and majority groups about what the issue truly is. A minority says “hey you guys have your special club which is racist” so the majority people say “ok, we will make you a member of the club” and the minority doesn’t understand the resection because what they want isn’t membership, its the elimination of the club.
Yes, that’s an oversimplification but it’s just supposed to demonstrate two different ways of looking at the same thing.
Not to guest_ it up but there’s another example. White people took #BlackLivesMatter as a message telling them something they already knew and didn’t need to be pointed out. In fact BLM wasn’t really meant to communicate with them. It was to remind other Black people that they matter.
By doing what exactly, chanting "death to cops"? Because that's what their fucking protests looked like. Not to mention that they were protesting because a criminal got rightfully shot for assaulting the police with a weapon, or that they were demanding free money and control over the prison system, or that they simply called everyone racist instead of maybe trying to figure out why there are so many criminals in their community.
Given that their riots were essentially marches of people chanting "What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want them? Now.", and they were beating people up just for being white, they are fucking black supremacists and are on the same level as Antifa.
As and African American, I can honestly say I've never felt closer to a character just because they where black, or white, or male, or anything close to what I am, I feel close to a character if I like them, if I'm watching or reading something and go, hey that's a cool character, and get invested in them it's never because of skin color, or gender, or whatever, I personally believe people who feel the need to like a character just because they share a skin color, the same gender, or even the same sexuality, is pretty single minded, now that's just my opinion on it, tho I've been able to adore characters I share nothing in common with and feel close and invested in them, I'd say throughout the entire MCU I only truly felt invested in Tchalla in civil war, but the main person I connected to was Tony Stark, and Clint and Nat, now Tchalla has been in fewer films so as time goes on then maybe, if he's written well, and I feel like they can do that
That could also be said about most if not all characters, they even stated Heimdall in Norse mythology he's sometimes even stated as the whitest of gods due to his fair skin, they even did the same with Valkyrie and in Norse mythology Valkyries are women with fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes, the actress who plays Valkyrie has none of these traits, now I love the actor and actress that potray them, but what the guy in the photo is trying to say is state is that this happens to characters who are white without little to no backlash whatsoever while if it's done to a character who are originally black well as the joker said, "everyone loses their minds." He's stating the double standard between the two if it's ok to do it to white characters then why not be able to do it to characters of other races? As long as the story is good and stays true to the original characters ideals and traits, and if it's actors or actresses if they're good at what they do, then why not?
It's not "it can be said" about T'Challa though. His blackness is integral to his character. Heimdalls race is not. I get what the picture is trying to say, but it's doing it in bad faith and intentionally misrepresenting the issue.
Heimdalls race is though the guy even states it in the post, the Scandinavian people who created the Norse Mythology wouldn't have just randomly made one of their dieties black, after describing him as a fair skinned god, also the fact that when the religion came about Scandinavia was filled with Caucasians, and any depictions of he Norse dieties are depicted as white, the thing is he's a lesser known character within the marvel comics, and a lesser known god of the Norse pantheon. I get that Black Panther is a big deal to African American people for being an African super hero, and I applaud them with going at the issue of blackwashing previously white characters with something as big as this, because by turning a character such as Black Panther white seems absurd, but everything they point out is what most people say about characters that where previously white that where turned Back, and by doing it with something of this stature shows it more than a lesser known character
People want to compare things “apples to apples” and you can’t. A common argument- like the one here about black panther- is that “equality” or whatever means that if Heimdall can be black- black panther can be white. In strict comparison that would be true- but in reality there are extenuating factors. As of 2017 80.2% of films were led by “white” actors despite the fact that over 40% of the population is non white- it has fallen from a 2011 high of 89% white leads in film. Broadcast TV was 94.9% white leads in 2011 and dropped to 78.5 in 2017. These figures are from the UCLA social sciences study the 2019 Hollywood diversity report.
So it doesn’t work both ways because things aren’t equal. We are trying to make things closer to equitable in the country and as those figures show- progress is being made in if not at least brining representation in media to reflect the reality of demographics- at least bringing the numbers down from an astonishing 90+% white led casts and characters.
So when you propose changing a black character to a white one- a major difference there is that there are so few black characters already and a major part of the idea of casting people of color on traditionally white cast roles is to bring more diversity and realistic representation to an industry and culture that traditionally outright banned or subversively blocked minority characters and casting. During the “golden age” of things like comics, there wasn’t even a possibility that Superman or Spider-Man would be people of color. In fact- when Superman came out a black man would have had enough trouble being a journalist in real life let alone being a black comic book lead- and those minority characters who did exist generally didn’t become popular or even marketable until decades later or just recently- with many never having heard of them as they were “edgy” “counterculture” and shunned by mainstream audiences and business.
Of course many cry out in 2019- “why do they have to make a known character black though? They should start their own franchise!” All other logic asides for a moment- Black Panther is just that- an originally black superhero who was created because of people who said “black people should just get their own superhero...” and to show the hypocrisy here- when POC do go out and create their “own” franchises instead of color swapping an existing character- some ignorant troll will co op that character for a poorly conceived point about how in an entertainment industry that is still over 80% white casting- that it’s only “fair” to turn a black character white.
It’s projected that by 2050 “minorities” will actually be the “majority” of the US population, a little over 50%. If that happens and 94% of characters in entertainment are black- and you want to swap black panther to being a white guy- maybe I’ll listen then. But in 2019 when a disproportionate number of characters are white- it isn’t equality to remove one of those characters and tip the balance even further out of whack. This “white identity movement” crap is ignorant. You can see plain as day by the numbers that there is a huge bias already towards whites in many regards. People aren’t trying to subjugate you- they’re trying to get out of subjugation. If there was $100 to divide evenly between us and I took $90 and gave you $10- it wouldn’t be stealing for you to ask for at least a little more would it? And “fair” might be for you to ask for it to be split proportionally no? And yes- I’d end up with less than I have now- but not less than I should have proportionally and fairly.
So basically hypocrisy is fine as long as it's committed by a minority?
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Your 100$ example falls decently flat because, at the end of the day, it is stealing. If someone is given 90$ and one person only 10$ and the person given 10$ says "this isn't fair," rather than help the person that earned 10$ earn more in the future, or give them more opportunities, the solution is to TAKE money back from the person that earned 90$ to appease the person who only earned 10$.
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If you're honestly going to sit there and tell me a major company such as marvel or Disney (for example) can't write black characters in this day and age, so their only solution is to actively change the skin color of existing characters I'm going to call bullshit. That's sheer laziness on their part. No different than making James Bond a woman. You have the entire universe there, a fanbase ready and waiting. Marvel had every opportunity to create new characters when their franchise was peaking. There have been options.
This doesn't even exclusively apply to black people. As I mentioned on another thread, it happens anytime a white character plays any character that people feel should be another race.
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And for anyone to imply that this isn't racism, I once again direct them to the "Moana" issue, where little girls are told NOT to dress up as Moana for Halloween if they fall under the unfortunate category of having white skin. It's fine for Asian girls to dress up as Tiana, or black girls to dress up as Elsa, but when a white girl dresses up as Moana it's "cultural appropriation."
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I honestly don't care overly much if people want to do race-swapping. I don't think T'Challa isn't a good place to start at all. He's not a great example for this. As I cited in the other thread, better example: If everyone is fine with black ariel, hopefully they can remember that reaction when there's a white or Asian Tiana.
Racism exists, yes. But I fail to see how the solution to help eliminate racism is to apply more racism and then call anyone who disagrees a... racist
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Equality via hypocrisy doesn't seem like it's the way to accomplish anything worthwhile
^ sidenote I'm gonna go ahead and do a pre-emptive apology if this sounds snippy or such. Don't currently have a lot of time so it may have come across as more brusque than I intended.
You're all lovely people have a great day!
@xvarnah- You’re initial post overlooks a key detail when claiming my $100 example invalid. The person was not given $90. There was $100 to split and they TOOK $90 and decided $10 was a fair split for your share. If your guardian(s) left $100 for you and another relative to get by on while they were off somewhere and your relative took $90 as “their share,” and left you $10- you wouldn’t go to them and say “hey... there was $100 and this split doesn’t seem very reasonable to me, maybe we can re asses this?”
Now- let’s say that it wasn’t even a case where that $100 was left to you. What if you and another person worked together on a job and earned that $100. They forced you to do shit work and wouldn’t give you any money at all. You argued and took them to court for decades and they said “ok... we will give you $10.” Would you also maybe feel like that was unfair?
And then- let us say that their reply to you saying “hey- maybe you could give me some of those dollars you have we worked for?” And what if they replied to you: “yeeeah... you know... these dollars and me are established. I’ve got money tied up on things and a history... what if you just go make your own?”
How would that sit with you? I agree- on the surface- that we could look at it as hypocrisy if we don’t really understand or examine the mechanisms and scenarios. I also agree that it’s easy to get confused and conflate the often differing and extreme voices of many opinions and simply say “these people...” like “these people won’t let white kids dress up as Moana!” Well... some people won’t. There’s certainly others of color who don’t have an issue with white kids dressing as Moana- and then there are others who would be fine with the character of Moana but are not ok with kids wearing the tattoo suit because those tattoos carry cultural significance and have requirements for being able to wear them independent of race.
Classically in white cultures there have been some things like this. The French may get very upset at you for calling your sparkling wine as Champagne- that’s a part of French culture and pride that they do not want others using to cash in on or to be confused with their French product. There are other examples of cultures holding a certain thing as “belonging” to them and they may well get upset. Here in the West it is considered a VERY serious offense for. Person who has not earned the right to wear the uniform and medals of a military member as though they had. We take for granted that’s a given, but that’s cultural. Some countries do not care as deeply as we do if you want to wear a uniform and hang medals on your chest you didn’t earn.
The point isn’t that any one person should be able to “ban” others from participation in a thing. But we should listen to people. Native American Tribes and individuals are an excellent example of a “group” considered as one but with a vast difference in opinions about how their cultures should be treated by others, what the relationships should be, what is or isn’t offensive, etc.
But @xvarnah- where your argument for hypocrisy falls apart is also addressed in my original comment string. Race swapping or gender swapping are generally fine and most people generally do not care- so long as race isn’t a fundamental aspect of the character in some way. It would be hard to re shoot “roots” with an all white cast, and casting a black guy as hitler May also not go so well if not done as a style thing.... but because there is a disproportionately small number of leads and characters of color- that means that all these characters of color have their race central to importance because as another person in this same comment section but a different post thread says- to a person of color just actually having a positive and major character to represent you at ALL can be powerful and meaningful.
Because when you live somewhere that is even 14% minority population but you look for movies and tv shows and NOT EVEN 14% show you people like you being even included leaving out that there’s a better chance if you are that you’ll be a joke or a villain- let alone as a major role- it’s not just “nice” or “cool” when a major positive role is someone you can associate with- it’s fundamentally powerful. And no one is trying to take that away from white kids. No one is trying to say little Cole can’t have a white X-man to look up to- but it might be nice if the melanin rich amongst us had an X-men cast member besides storm they could associate with no? On a team of what- 20+ on screen heroes- there were... how many people of color on the main cast of heroes? Count it for me. I already counted storm. So who else?
When a little child of color is looking for the one that looks like them- who besides storm is there for them to see someone like themselves as an equal member of the team, being appreciated, respected, strong and brave and powerful and intelligent?
So now we're using a "sins of the father" argument to defend racism? 'You're using vague generalized examples here. What exactly did these people in your example do to earn, not money, but the position of lead actor/actress in a movie that had already been cast? Because if your argument is that a black person was designated in the 1940s to fetch coffee and build sets and given a miserable wage because of it, so now that person should be cast as Don Vito Corleone, because they "worked for it," Regardless of merit or whether they even FIT with that role, that is not a logical argument to make. 'Your 100$ argument still doesn't apply because it's ignoring the key factor that, racist or not, most people write movies they want to see. They write characters they want to see. They write characters they IDENTIFY with. Studios produce movies that they hope will sell well. Most writers and casting directors have been (and are) white men. And that doesn't make them racist....
I know there’s a knee jerk reaction especially to change- but, and I do not mean this to sound harsh either @xvarnah- you say it’s hypocrisy when an almost equal share of the population has a 100 year high of representation in acting and that share is under 20%? And that feeling you get- that it’s unfair and upsetting that these characters be made over to include more people? That’s how entire races have felt for many decades of watching film and television where they didn’t get a voice or a presence even. You feel like this when there’s been a 10% shift towards other races. Imagine how they felt to see it at basically 100% at the dawn of film and tv and then from there to 2019 reach a point where finally there was at least 10% representation. Then to have the same group that’s more or less monopolized motion entertainment by force turn around and “fight back” against you and say it’s hypocritical and wrong of you to ask that maybe....
....(unless Stan Lee is a racist now). It makes them human. Because everyone does this a good portion of the time. Even RATS do it.
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This is also part of why women were not as big a thing in video games. Video games weren't being written by women for all their female friends. They were being written by men, for men. And there is nothing wrong with writing the story you want to tell, REGARDLESS of whether it has at least one black, one Asian, one Latino, two gays, four goats, six transgender, and at least 7 women as the president.
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So are we saying that, because black people haven't been written, we should now take someone else's work and rewrite it so they can feel included? That doesn't even solve the problem because at the end of the day that role wasn't written with that person in mind. They had to be shoe-horned in, possibly against the original creator's will.
And then we have authors like JK Rowling who do an even bigger disservice by claiming off screen that everyone was secretly black, but doing nothing to actually include black people in her show. Which is one of the weaker forms of pandering and benefits no one. It simply makes people who would LOVE to see that feel excited for half a moment, and then angry when there's no followthrough.
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And saying that black people don't have an in in Hollywood is a poor excuse for saying "well they can't get their own characters on the screen, so we have no choice BUT to make existing characters black, and then also freak the hell out if anyone so much as casts an actor whose the wrong SHADE of black in a movie." <- fyi that has happened. Black actors have been cast in roles and people have lost their minds because the actor was not "black enough." The person was the wrong Shade of black.
Oprah Winfrey (as well as several others) makes it her core mission to make certain black shows have an in.
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Marvel most certainly has the ABILITY to write more black characters. As does Disney, and many others. The real question is: why aren't they? Why are these multi-billion dollar companies recycling old work instead of making new characters?
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There are hundreds of princess stories disney could pull from that originate IN Africa. They have African roots and heritage. Why haven't they tried that? Hell, they don't even have to have that kind of heavy cultural connection. Just write a story. They HAVE a black princess already, why is she being snubbed?
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Marvel literally has been introducing characters every movie that a lot of people have never heard of. It would have been ridiculously easy to sidle a new superhero in the background of a movie to get peoples' attention, and then give that character an epic origin story later on.
And, again, this isn't even exclusively a black-white issue. As I'd brought up in a different thread: people lose their minds ANYTIME a white actor/actress replaces someone of a "different race." Ghost in the shell the main character was cast as Scarlet johannson, who is white. People lost. Their. Minds. For YEARS. Prior to release and after they freaked out because Scarlet was not Asian. It was literally labelled a "whitewashing controversy." It was cited as the reason the movie didn't do well in theatres.
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And the ironic thing is someone, (can't remember who right now) pointed out to me that the character Scarlet plays is, actually, white in the source material.
If that's the case then a white woman was cast to play a white character and people were upset because they FELT she should be Asian. If it's NOT we're still left with the whole "it's okay to replace this character because they're white, but you're evil incarnate if you even THINK about doing the same to any character of another race."
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Your statement did not actually negate my points on hypocrisy at all. Standards set for one person and not applied to another is by definition hypocritical. And racist. Being a minority does not mean being exempt from the rules, and when we start saying "no, it's okay, there's LESS of them, so we have to excuse this behaviour," it's not only ridiculous, it undermines them as people as a whole in my opinion.
Obviously having a character you see some of yourself in has value - I acknowledged that earlier. But if that character is that way from the start, it means so much more than having someone just do a courtesy "here, look how diverse we are :D" and throwing a person of a different race into a role that character never was from the start.
Next time around we give a person of color a pass. Hollywood has a long history of racial ambiguity in casting. Filipinos routinely play Latinos or even Chinese or Indians. Don’t get me started on “Indians” “American” or otherwise and who gets cast as what. One of the most famous native Americans in film was a white guy. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc- Hollywood figures it’s all close enough to play each other. Charlie Sheen is of Latin heritage but like Martin Sheen he’s made a career of mostly playing white characters. But we could never violate a book could we? A black Aragorn? But... Johnny Rico was Filipino in the book Starship Troopers- the film cast... Casper Vandeen who is mostly French and Swiss? Huh...
But that’s not a sacred franchise like James Bond. You don’t need to speak to Fleming or his estate- or even read one to know the films diverge greatly from the books and original character- changed over time to suit the tastes of a public and whims of whoever is at the helm. We can of course have Bond stop slapping women around and basically stop being a rapist and a major chauvinist- but we can’t change his race or gender- just whatever else matches the sensibilities of the age no? For a Scottish/Swiss born British spy people sure don’t seem to mind that bond has been played by some actors who’s ethnicity is quite different from his own.
And above all- Bond is defined by his Britishness. As of 2019 I liked to think women and people of color could also be British- but I was perhaps mistaken. The other traits that define bond? Let’s see... Strong, Aloof, Sexy, powerful, dangerous, troubled (in some versions), clever, intelligent, worldly, classy, a massive libido.... ok... so... what parts of this can’t be played by a person of color or a woman? Last I checked there were people of color named James, and while James is traditionally not unisex- it has been used and shows increasing use for women. Should James Bond be a woman? I don’t know. And we might not be ready yet. But I can’t say Bond couldn’t or shouldn’t be a woman- and maybe someday will be.
And this idea of inviolable characters is somewhat laughable. Characters in mythologies and stories throughout history have undergone changes both subtle and dramatic through retelling sand changes in politics and culture. Newer stories have drawn inspirations from older stories often without regard to minute detail but instead a focus on elements and composition with details being changed by the new teller to suit the demographic. Scripts and stories envisioned as a certain lead have changed after being completed with mostly only pronouns or adjectives changed. So I reject the idea that we can’t (or that such change would somehow) violate the fundamental essence of a fiction.
@xvarnah- not “sins of the father.” Do you think people just die at 20? Racism in America isn’t some ancient thing that happens before any living human was born. And it is not just a black white issue. Those numbers I quoted like that 10%? That’s ALL groups identified as “non white.” Over 90% of leading roles were played by white actors until about less than a decade ago. How is a decade ago “sins of the father...”?
It’s simple math. In the year 2019- 80% of theatrical releases have a white lead actor. That means black, any type of Asian, Hispanic, Latino, middle eastern, etc etc etc- every single group outside of “white” shares 20% representation as a film lead. If we cut the politicking and straw men and attempts at logical gymnastics- does it strike you are in any way a fair or remotely even let alone equal representation of the demographics of the US population that every single group that isn’t white SHARES a 20% chance of seeing someone like them as a main film character?
Ghost in the shell- all the roles you talk about where minorities get upset when roles written for them get played by white actors? Think. Really. Think. Empathize in a way you can relate to. Less than 20% of theatrical films star minorities. If there were ANY film where a minority might think they would be represented it would be a film in which a minority is written specifically as the lead. Hollywood options a story likely from their culture, starring one of them- and then, casts another white person to keep the average or skew it ever further towards a disproportionate number of white leads.
That’s what I’m telling you. You are looking at this @xvarnah and you are saying- “see? They get mad when white people play leafs in their stories!” No. White people play the lead in almost all stories. ALL stories. 80%, down from 90% less than a decade back. Asides Keanu Reeves- who is only very slightly Asian in heritage- what other big name Asian stars can you think of in mainstream American film who play leading roles and aren’t in martial arts movies or pet projects specifically made by Asians speaking to the lack of Asians in Hollywood such as better luck tomorrow or crazy rich Asians?
What non historic period, non martial arts, non Asian pet film made and recieving wide release in America can you bake in the last few years or even the last decade with an Asian lead who isn’t Keanu? Go back as far as you like and name me any such film where an Asian is t playing second string like “teacher” “guide” “hero” “comic relief” or “tech person” who we can unequivocally is the hero, the lead, and serves a primary purpose to the plot other than to fill side plots and or provide the non Asian hero with the tools, motivation, guidance etc to fulfill their character journey.
Name me a big budget mainstream US film that isn’t a martial arts or comedy film, romantic comedy we will allow, pure comedy no- where the Asian male lead gets the girl- who is white or even non Asian? Go look up popular asian actors and see what their IMBD looks like. The types of roles they most often play- and again- name me an Asian movie STAR who is a major lead, who isn’t Keanu Reeves and isn’t famous from martial arts of foreign films. So yes- when a role FINALLY comes up where an Asian actor is the seemingly natural choice- a story perhaps written in Asia and written with an Asian protagonist, and an Asian actor doesn’t get that role- and there is no “oh well... we’re sorry. We have this other huge summer film we can put you in...” just “we need a kung fu gang member or maybe a dorky sidekick for this other movie...” A lot of Asians may get upset.
And sweet lord if you want this conversation to end real fast- and for me to lose a great deal of respect for you- say something about talent in your reply that implies 80-90% average over 2 decades of casting leads is simply because white actors just happen to be that much better than any and every other minority. Try to hand wave it away as “the best person just got the job...” so you can keep ignoring the very basic and self explanatory historical and present statistics on who gets cast for what roles in Hollywood.
Literally a main reason why minorities didn't break into Hollywood to begin with had to do with racism of older generations. Nowadays there is racism, yes, but to a far lesser scale than back then, and the fact of the matter is: Disney, Marvel, and ALL these companies care about one thing above all else: the bottom line.
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And your argument is literally ignoring what I just said: content creators will go with the character they can relate to the most. The majority of content creators that are already established are (wait for it) WHITE.
So somehow, because these creators write black characters the solution isn't to try and get more black content creators out in the open, it's simply to take white characters and, for all intents and purposes, "slap a filter on them" so minorities can feel... what? Accepted? That's not acceptance, that is an illusion and a disservice to everyone involved. But if that's what it takes to make people feel accepted: sure, go for it. Your work still isn't being represented, but at least someone looks a bit more like you, right? At the end of the day THAT'S the important thing
As for the statistic you're spouting: it strikes me as perfectly logical because, as I JUST said, the people writing the roles are often white. That's not their fault. And DEMANDING that they write characters they don't want to write is a ridiculous solution as well. Then again, the only real solution I've repeated over and over but you continue to ignore it in the face of how unfair it all is that people of other races aren't represented. Fun fact: they often don't represent white people in their productions either.
Did you even listen to what I just said? The character, Motoko, was possibly meant to be white in the SOURCE material. As in the manga. I spoke about one role from GitS, and if she was meant to be white then guess what? The role was written for a white person. The little mermaid was written by a Danish man and, in the Disney film, had Greek roots. But none of that matters because "statistics say that shouldn't apply here." 'As a side note - Asians are very strongly represented in many, many, many, many, many, many films, particularly ones produced in Asian countries. But now you're telling me it's still white peoples' faults that they feel underrepresented in films made by American white people? And that the solution is to apply rules in a one-sided manner that only benefits them? '
And let's not lose sight of the fact that anytime a color character is created, people of color often (for some insane reason) feel the need to PUNISH white people who dare to express their love for that character. Case in point, once again, the little girls who happened to be white and dared to do something so crass as like the character Moana. And they were attacked for it, and shamed, as were their parents. Because it's fine for a black or Asian girl to dress up as Elsa or Ariel, but if a white girl dress as Moana that's "cultural-appropriation."
You can lose respect for me all you want, the last comment you made applied to nothing I said at any point. That's an interesting way to start a comment, though.
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I never spoke about anyones talent. I spoke about their contribution. If a person who is an amazing actor does nothing but fetch coffee or build a set, and people think that's unfair, that doesn't mean you PAY them as if they were the lead in the movie. They didn't star in it, so why in hell would they make the same as the person who DID star in it?
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I'm not ignoring anything. You're ignoring the very definition of racism and hypocrisy in the name of making sure everyone doesn't have equal opportunity, but does have forced and shoe-horned representation so they can feel better about themselves at night. Except white people, of course.
@xvarnah- I’m going to start with your last comment and work up. I do not actually think you’re reading what I am saying- and if you are I dont think you’re understanding. If you re read the part you are talking about in which I start interestingly- I said that IF you were to reply in such a way, that I would lose respect for you- in other words that I figured you’d have a more intelligent response than the argument that the most talented people get jobs and that skewed statistics are based on that factor alone. I never said that you HAD said that- I said IF you were to reply in that vein.
Now- on to the rest. I am aware in the Case of many Japanese works of fiction the main character isn’t necessarily Japanese. We’d need several long posts to cover Japanese culture and how Japanese history, it’s isolationism and imperialism, it’s “modernization” and its exposure to western powers and technology through the Meiji period, WW2 etc. influenced their unique perspectives on race and culture. But representation isn’t really an issue in Japan given that it’s largely a mono culture and it doesn’t have a history nor really much effort past or present at integrating different cultures- instead favoring assimilation.
It’s also of note that very point contradicts your own point- the point that a given type of person will write stories with protagonists “like them” since as stated- the Japanese who compared to Americans don’t have any significant minority demographics somehow manage to write stories with non Japanese protagonists but a country that’s almost half minority is at 80% representation? Do the math.
Onwards- if we assume your point were valid and we agree people do write stories for a character who is like them- that just expands the scope of the discussion. Until now we were discussing only casting of characters. But if 80-90% of main characters are white, and writers write characters like them- then we can assume a majority of writers are also white. Which further highlights the fact that minorities are under represented in film and entertainment at all levels- because of writers write like characters, but producers and casting directors can and- as we have established DO cast actors who differ from the source...
.... the majority of producers and casting directors and executives would then most likely by your logic also be... white. And when white writers working for white producers who hire white casting directors under primarily white studio executives... who then overwhelmingly hire white actors to play parts- do you seriously argue there is no argument there for bias?
Because plenty of terrible movies and shows are made. Almost universally considered terrible- but those are included in our 80% too- so we can’t just argue they want the most talented people, because the majority of bad movies star white actors too- so for the talent argument to be true that would mean 90%+ of minority actors were worse than a given white actor from a terrible film.
So unless the argument is simply that minorities are worse at making and acting in films, the only other non discriminatory argument would be that minorities simply don’t seek careers in entertainment- which if one reviews the plethora of interviews and accounts of minority actors speaking on the challenges facing them- one can see there are plenty of minority actors- the best of whom must be at least as good as the worst white actors who star in the type of films that go straight to DVD- but even IF minority actors were ALL TERRIBLE, terrible white actors are still more likely to get a role.
Go ahead and list the two or three black characters you know ot even link me a laundry list of black characters, it isn't gonna touch just how many white dudes there are.
That's not an issue in itself, the writers of these stories are usually white dudes and it would be weird to ask those people to try writing a character race, religion, or gender they aren't familiar with. They can do it and do it well, but they're white dudes writing about white guys so whatever.
Hell, the issue here isn't even that this artist depicted T'Challa as a white person. Gender and race swapping is always gonna be a fun experiment for an artist.
But when you suggest there's no reason T'Challa has to be black, I gotta disagree. I'm not bothered whenever a primarily white character is made black or a man made a woman because in those instances you're adding diversity by making what we've all agreed is a minor change.
Like look the world we live in has contexts to acknowledge. Racism is still a thing and while making T'Challa white in some cool art isn't racist, suggesting that making him white for the sake of it shouldn't be controversial is at least ignorant on your part.
Yes, that’s an oversimplification but it’s just supposed to demonstrate two different ways of looking at the same thing.
Given that their riots were essentially marches of people chanting "What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want them? Now.", and they were beating people up just for being white, they are fucking black supremacists and are on the same level as Antifa.
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Your 100$ example falls decently flat because, at the end of the day, it is stealing. If someone is given 90$ and one person only 10$ and the person given 10$ says "this isn't fair," rather than help the person that earned 10$ earn more in the future, or give them more opportunities, the solution is to TAKE money back from the person that earned 90$ to appease the person who only earned 10$.
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If you're honestly going to sit there and tell me a major company such as marvel or Disney (for example) can't write black characters in this day and age, so their only solution is to actively change the skin color of existing characters I'm going to call bullshit. That's sheer laziness on their part. No different than making James Bond a woman. You have the entire universe there, a fanbase ready and waiting. Marvel had every opportunity to create new characters when their franchise was peaking. There have been options.
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And for anyone to imply that this isn't racism, I once again direct them to the "Moana" issue, where little girls are told NOT to dress up as Moana for Halloween if they fall under the unfortunate category of having white skin. It's fine for Asian girls to dress up as Tiana, or black girls to dress up as Elsa, but when a white girl dresses up as Moana it's "cultural appropriation."
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I honestly don't care overly much if people want to do race-swapping. I don't think T'Challa isn't a good place to start at all. He's not a great example for this. As I cited in the other thread, better example: If everyone is fine with black ariel, hopefully they can remember that reaction when there's a white or Asian Tiana.
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Equality via hypocrisy doesn't seem like it's the way to accomplish anything worthwhile
You're all lovely people have a great day!
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This is also part of why women were not as big a thing in video games. Video games weren't being written by women for all their female friends. They were being written by men, for men. And there is nothing wrong with writing the story you want to tell, REGARDLESS of whether it has at least one black, one Asian, one Latino, two gays, four goats, six transgender, and at least 7 women as the president.
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So are we saying that, because black people haven't been written, we should now take someone else's work and rewrite it so they can feel included? That doesn't even solve the problem because at the end of the day that role wasn't written with that person in mind. They had to be shoe-horned in, possibly against the original creator's will.
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And saying that black people don't have an in in Hollywood is a poor excuse for saying "well they can't get their own characters on the screen, so we have no choice BUT to make existing characters black, and then also freak the hell out if anyone so much as casts an actor whose the wrong SHADE of black in a movie." <- fyi that has happened. Black actors have been cast in roles and people have lost their minds because the actor was not "black enough." The person was the wrong Shade of black.
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Marvel most certainly has the ABILITY to write more black characters. As does Disney, and many others. The real question is: why aren't they? Why are these multi-billion dollar companies recycling old work instead of making new characters?
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There are hundreds of princess stories disney could pull from that originate IN Africa. They have African roots and heritage. Why haven't they tried that? Hell, they don't even have to have that kind of heavy cultural connection. Just write a story. They HAVE a black princess already, why is she being snubbed?
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Marvel literally has been introducing characters every movie that a lot of people have never heard of. It would have been ridiculously easy to sidle a new superhero in the background of a movie to get peoples' attention, and then give that character an epic origin story later on.
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And the ironic thing is someone, (can't remember who right now) pointed out to me that the character Scarlet plays is, actually, white in the source material.
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Your statement did not actually negate my points on hypocrisy at all. Standards set for one person and not applied to another is by definition hypocritical. And racist. Being a minority does not mean being exempt from the rules, and when we start saying "no, it's okay, there's LESS of them, so we have to excuse this behaviour," it's not only ridiculous, it undermines them as people as a whole in my opinion.
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And your argument is literally ignoring what I just said: content creators will go with the character they can relate to the most. The majority of content creators that are already established are (wait for it) WHITE.
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I never spoke about anyones talent. I spoke about their contribution. If a person who is an amazing actor does nothing but fetch coffee or build a set, and people think that's unfair, that doesn't mean you PAY them as if they were the lead in the movie. They didn't star in it, so why in hell would they make the same as the person who DID star in it?
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I'm not ignoring anything. You're ignoring the very definition of racism and hypocrisy in the name of making sure everyone doesn't have equal opportunity, but does have forced and shoe-horned representation so they can feel better about themselves at night. Except white people, of course.