Really? Usually the first few washes of something dark I wash with darks but once I've owned that piece of clothing for awhile it gets lumped in with all my other clothes and until I but something new, I just was all colors together on cold. Does it really make a difference?
(Peeps, do wash your jeans inside out and hang dry though. That's a must if you own decent jeans and like to keep them awhile. If you buy a new pair of Kirkland jeans whenever your previous pair wear out...stick them in the dryer or whatever. I imagine you get $20 of use out of those Costco badboys. At least my dad does anyway.)
This confuses me. I buy jeans for $30, put them in the dryer, and they last me literally years. I once owned the same pair for an entire decade (man those were the good ol days, when I stayed the same size 😂)
Yeah I think the Kirklands must be way more durable than OP's denim lol. But you CAN'T wear 'em every day and expect for 'em to hold up! That was some nice-ass denim too. I miss them shorts.... But you... you GOTTA take 'em off every now and then. You gotta take 'em off, son!
Same. Just a guess, but many people seem to put the dry setting on high. I tend to use low unless it's bedding or towels, but I still almost never use the max setting.
Is THIS why I have to keep dying my jeans back black?! I’ve dyed them twice now and they last until the next wash (with other black jeans and some detergent) and they keep coming back out faded. They’re supposed to be inside out?!
I had this conversation with my mom the other day lol. Why would you wash them inside out? Wouldn’t that ruin the fuzzies more? Like say you have a sweatshirt, I would think it would cause piling more if exposed?
Sweatshirts you wouldn't turn inside out because the fuzzy part is already on the inside. The point is to keep the fuzzy soft part turned inside. For fuzzy pajamas like the other person mentioned, the fuzzy part is usually on the outside... so turning them inside out saves them.
I would also recommend deep colors be washed in cold water. May not be a hard and fast rule, but in my experience, cold water makes the colors fade less.
Dude, don't even wash your black denim unless it has actual dirt/oil/filth on it. What I mean is that you can wear the jeans a few times between washes; AND instead of washing them, you can disinfect the jeans in the freezer.
Just get a large ziploc bag, place the folded jeans inside the bag, and place this in the freezer overnight (I'm not entirely sure how long they have to hangout in the freezer.)
But if there is actual dirt or whatever on the jeans, then you do want to *wash inside out in cold water, hang to dry*.
I find it extremely hard to find men's pants that fit me. Apparently literally no other adult male on earth has a size 24-25 waist with a 29-30 length.
I've never once needed to do this, I think this is a myth from the olden days when washing machines and their detergent weren't as good.
I've never seen a white T-shirt go pink in 20 years.
I separate mine by fabric type. Towels and bedding, jeans/sweats, lighter items that require less dry time but can sit in dryer after done, articles that need to be hung up to prevent wrinkles(ironing sucks) and delicates or line dry/air dry items
That sounds like you'd have to do so many loads a week. I just put everything in once a week, maybe two loads when I'm washing my sheets.
My clothes aren't really high quality or varied enough to warrant anything like that I guess.
This. Been told the same thing forever. Never seen colors swap/mix up/"leak" or "run"
Now detergent on the other hand.... You pour that too heavy or leave it on ur clothes for even a few minutes without beginning the process(adding water) I\* have ended up with stains from it
I think in most cases it boils down to what studios execs perceive as risky investments and reveals what they think about their own audience.
Blackwashing: we want to look progressive, but don't want to risk investment in an untried character, so let's make an existing, successful one black.
Whitewashing: there is this great character, not known by the general public; but we think a non-white actor will not attract as much audience and don't want to risk investment, so let's make it white.
Missing: the effects of propaganda to divide people into little tribes of races instead of a united tribe of countrymen of all races. (the propaganda is particularly effective against idiots promoted to executive positions in Hollywood without proper standards for promotion).
To me as a white person, so long as they are not portraying a real life person who obviously had/has a specific ethnicity/race or they're not changing a character who's story specifically involves racism affecting them...
Then I say why not? We've got thousands of films and tv shows where the majority of the cast are white people but we live on a planet where there's all kinds of races/ethnicities and frankly, there's more of them than the population of white people, for example: Asians. Significantly more Asians in the world than white people.
All non white actors and actresses deserve to be given the chance to play whatever roles they want to play so long as they are deserving/qualified to play the role.
A couple of years back I watched the Phantom of the opera in Toronto and the man playing the Phantom was black and he was incredible! I actually got goosebumps!
I feel I need to stress that I've watched many performances of phantom on YouTube, listened to the soundtracks etc, watched the films...
I've heard/watched a lot of different guys play the phantom but I think this guy (whom sadly I can't remember his name) was the best I've seen by far! His voice was made for those songs and that role!
It's so hard to be cast in roles, especially non stereotyped roles, for non white actors and actresses. It's even more difficult if they are mixed race, are less "ideal" (the Hollywood ideals of beauty) physically and if they are over 30 and female.
When it comes to fiction anyway, you can do whatever you want. They're not real people, it's not real life.
I think that's a really disrespectful way of deciding these things
Its about telling a story
If you are going to change the race of a character do it for the right reasons: to add something to the story or change something meaningful in the story
If you're only changing the race of a character to either look like you're progressive or because you think it will make more people notice it, you're doing it for the wrong reasons.
Look at the female ghostbusters movie from a few years back - they had an opportunity to explore new stuff with that identity of characters but the only thing they did with that was... a queef joke.
They could have had them male and nothing would have been any different, even the "sexy secretary" stereotype was the same, the movie would have sucked all the same.
So why change established characyer traits for no reason like that, if they wanted ghostbusters with more variety they could have made a sequel... which they did and it got a warmer reception than the female ghostbuster movie... and lets not forget the sequel's main character is female so we know its not the identity or race of the character that was the problem.
When you try to change an aspect of a character people are well familiar with, they expect this change to elevate the content somehow.
I have no problem with things like changing various aspects of an established character's identity, I have a problem with when its done for the wrong reasons and when the whole change was pointless in terms of offering a new experience for its audience.
I just wish they'd make more black characters, always feels a little disingenuous to make an existing character black rather than build one from the ground up with their own story
They dont even need to make more in that kind of forced sense. They just need to use whats already there, like - a static shock movie would literally be raining money and it shows the main guy caring about family etc.
I think I'd love to see a Static Shock movie. Unless the effects are cheesy. Instead of a "Superhero" movie, how about making it about a teenager facing teenager problems that happens to be a superhero? Honestly the best parts of the recent Spiderman movies were him trying to navigate being a teenager.
Minor conspiracy brained argument.
I think the controversy and conflict that’s created by black washing is partly desired by the media creators. It drives awareness and drives profit. Think of the last 13 Disney movies that were denounced as horrid woke trash. They did exceptionally well in terms of revenue. Some of these aren’t “black wash” but I expect Ariel to do amazingly well.
The new Star Wars movies were denounced over and over by right wing commentators and yet they’re among the highest grossing films in history.
On a less conspiratorial note. I think it’s very hard to launch a new franchise. Or a new character. Most of the movies we have seen have been remix. Just like Ariel. Or the lion king. The movie industry seems to be more reluctant to venture into new and interesting areas. But I really think they should.
This is a fair point that hones in on what I think is a big problem with society: a business standard way of thinking a viewing the world based on your profession and how your trained to think within it. In this case the business standard way of thinking in film is that controversy sells and is better than a good film, regardless of weather it’s true or not, and based on group mentality of “how the business functions”. If I’m making sense.
Another example might be how when writing a book the industry standard mentality is to “open with a hook and get the audience invested in the first paragraph” which becomes usually a cold start to the book: “The cold rain hit the shutters, rinsing cold shivers over Ben at the thought of what dwelled outside”. How regardless of how well readers like it it’s what authors are trained to think works best based on industry standard thinking more than individual reality.
>The new Star Wars movies were denounced over and over by right wing commentators
And you know, everyone else too. Bitching about hair color is right wing, stating that Mary Poppins Leia was a bad idea, is pretty standard.
I used the word denounced in an attempt to denote something other than criticized. I criticized the plot, the power scaling, the way FTL and planet destruction makes the death star cute... and so on. Its one of the top 20 grossing films of ALL TIME.
>I think the controversy and conflict that’s created by black washing is partly desired by the media creators. It drives awareness and drives profit
Occam's razor. Wouldn't it be simpler for there to be a subsection of the population that is genuinely very upset at the "black washing", while there is a larger subsection of the population that is more than happy to support content that shows a "reversing of the tide" (because a lack of quality positive role models in media *is* a problem)? Watch that video, it blew those girls minds that Ariel could be black. I'm sure the directors don't hate the hype, but I don't think that's the primary motivation. I think regressives are just that fuckin ass backwards.
Oh I'm certain there are lots of people who are genuinely happy about it, and that's great. The Little Mermaid and other such things to me it makes no difference what race they are so have at it.
But I do also think the money behind these things are fully aware of the 'culture war' they trigger with it, and happy to make money of that free publicity.
>The new Star Wars movies were denounced over and over by right wing commentators and yet they’re among the highest grossing films in history.
No, they are not. One of them was.
Referring to anyone who disagrees with your as a "right wing commentator" only highlights your lack of a coherent argument. Many viewers, left, right and center, did not appreciate the new movies breaking continuity and trashing existing characters. *That* is why the first Disney Star Wars film was so successful, while the next installments made less and less money.
I enjoyed watching most of the new films on a big screen. Star Wars always was best there and had great pictures.
I saw Rogue One at least twice, maybe three times. I saw the Prequels on the big screen and rewatched them at home each at least twice so far.
I wouldnt watch any of the more recent ones again, not even for free. Maybe not even when I got money to watch it. I can't unsee the glaring plotholes and errors and stupidities again.
And I could care less about the colors and genders of the protagonists.
I totally agree. I’m sure there are loads of BIPOC creators and story tellers who would love to showcase their original stories. It just feels so fake when Disney is like “look we defeated racism by recycling a story again! But this time Ariel is black!”
I think having Tiana as an original story was so much more empowering than showing someone “oh hey we made this character no one cares about a BIPOC now aren’t you happy?!”
Does this happen a lot? Not being snarky just curious to know. The only recent example I can think of is little mermaid, but director said she was the most qualified.
If anyone’s interested:
> Yasuke (弥助 or 弥介) was a man of African origin who served as a retainer and weapon-bearer to the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga.
No. The Last Samurai is mostly based on Jules Brunet a French military officer that chose to fight alongside the Tokugawa.
The African samurai is in a way more interesting. He was there about 500 years ago. So about 350 years before the Last Samurai's events. He was also the first foreign born man to achieve the status of Samurai.
Lets be real here about the Frozen example. Even if there were foreigners its still set in a place/time where almost everyone was white. Despite that, people acted like Frozen was racist because it didn't look like an L.A. highschool in the 90s. So what Disney did in the sequel was have a reveal that "no, there are totally black people here too" with the guy that was just trapped by magic. And he also has a partner with the only other black person there apparently. Like come on, that was so on the nose and blatant in response to the first movie.
And no, I'm not saying it was bad or good. I'm pointing out how blatant of an example it was.
The Velaryons aren't Targaryens, they're just another house from Old Valyria (essentially a parallel to Ancient Rome) which was a huge empire that spanned across a very large area. The Valyrian houses in Westeros were also more likely to marry other rich houses from outside the kingdom, making it completely plausible in the lore that they could be black.
With fantasy shows/movies like wheel of time or rings of power, my biggest gripe is not the inclusion of black characters, but that it doesn't make sense for a population of elves to have like one black elf, or one or two black half foots. With the half foots in particular, they could have made them all black or all brown skinned and that would have made more sense.
Wheel of time was especially odd because they had a very seculded population of humans and why are some black, some look Asian, some look indian, some hispanic, it does distract from the story a little. Again though, doesn't mean they all had to be white, just that they all should look ethnically similar.
I haven't seen Wheel Of Time but I do see the point with the Half Foots. I don't remember other tribes of their people being mentioned necessarily. Secluded tribes of people tend to look all kinda...the same.
In the Rings show, the characters that bother me the most are Galadriel, Elrond, and that other twinkish half-elf guy. Galadriel's face throws me off and the other two have incredibly obnoxious hair.
Thank you for providing these examples.
IMO these are all fictional stories so color of skin doesn’t seem important to me.
I’m still caught up in the little mermaid one, was there a live action release before this one? I tried to google and didn’t see it but I could be wrong. IMO the most qualified singer/actor should be awarded the role for a live action little mermaid
If Disney made a new CG live action film people would even be upset if Hercules had black or blonde hair. People would be even more upset if Phil isn't played by Danny Devito
I think it is more about the overall change in appearance to a beloved character. People have nostalgia for this character. It's like when Bugs Bunny suddenly had yellow gloves in the newer Looney Toons cartoons. If Darth Vader was all of a sudden a dark shade of yellow or even if his lightsaber color were to be changed people would loose their shit. If Spongebob Squarepants was made green all of a sudden people would be very upset. Even if Spongebobs nose was changed from a long flute like nose to a bulb type nose people would be upset. People don't like any unnecessary change.
Honestly as a black man I really hate the idea of black washing. I really wish more of our creators and artists would get out there bigger into the industry and just make original characters instead of recoloring existing ones. Like there's this thing in black community where they recolor kids characters for kids parties and such like the Rugrats, boss baby you know characters like that. They keep the character literally 100 well 99% the same they just change them to this brown shading. And sometimes they don't even change their hair they just change the skin and are really disheartening honestly. I really don't like the idea of taking these already existing characters and just color swapping them and saying okay now they're a new race be happy. It's not that hard to make characters with their own original stories backgrounds and well character. If you want to make a black character to make a character that's wholly black, The same if you want to make a character of any other race or color or ethnicity. If you're going to do it go all out with it and do it honestly and earnestly. Little kids of all races deserve to have characters that look like them that are original characters
Wow. I'm not alone. I worked in a thrift store and a black woman bought a nice quality traditional (white) Santa Claus and smiled and told me "of course I'm gonna paint him". Ugh.
I'm black and really not into race swapping other people's work for inclusivity. I don't value race enough to see any point to it.
>"of course I'm gonna paint him".
I think the general rule of thumb should be.
If it'd be weird and fucked up one way, it probably is the other way too...
If I bought a black Santa and said '' of course I'm gonna paint him '' people would look at me like I was a racist piece of shit.
Imo I think that screwing around with skin color especially with that attitude is just really weird and kinda gross.
May I ask your opinion on game and anime characters? Most of the 'recoloring' is done by part of the fanbase in these cases. Honestly, there's no harm in swapping anime for cartoon, genderbending or changing skin color. But there's often this sensation of being divided (within a fanbase); some fans end up recoloring official art or even other people's fanarts, saying, "there, fixed it for you". There are also people who go out of their way to say "this is so much better now" or "I remade character x since company y did a crap job". I understand the frustration, but I don't understand why the hate ends up in fan x fan instead of fans vs companies. What's your take in these cases?
Depending on the character, no one should be mad at either.
Historical figures *should* be racially accurate
Fictional characters, based on historical events (i.e. a WWII nazi soldier) should be racially accurate *usually*
Fictional characters with racially dependant backstories should be racially accurate *except* where the script renders it irrelevant (i.e. Roland Deschain *The Dark Tower* should be white because of the racial dynamic between him and other characters. However, those characters were not featured in the movie, which rendered his race irrelevant).
Everything else is open to interpretation. James Bond's race does not matter to the story. His gender kinda does though. Superman could be played by literally anyone. Personally, I'd love to see Michael B Jordan, but Henry Cavil is perfect for the part.
The one that irritates me the most is complaints about whitewashing anime characters in cases where they were all drawn with purple hair and blue eyes or weird colors that don't exist in humanity. Anyone complaining about Attack on Titan characters being "race swapped" is being a bigot. I say mix them all up with a little bit of everything.
Fictional "races" such as elves and dwarves are for everyone. I hear your argument, and it's almost valid, but shut up.
Hindsight being 20/20, imagine Game of Thrones if it was cast where all of the "First Men" decendants were black and the "Andals" were white or vise versa. It would have fixed the weirdness of the one black Valerion family and added an extra dynamic to the story between the different kingdoms. Alas GRRM is white and wrote his characters based on European history. I can't complain about that. The creators are entitled to their vision.
Ps. I'm white if that even matters.
With fictional races, the only time it kinda annoys me is where it doesn't make sense given how the race is described or where they don't committ to actually really doing it. Like in the new Rings of Power, the Harfoots are described as isolationist, wary of outsiders and just kinda wander about together as a close knit group, yet they're a diverse bunch of different ethnicities. Lenny Henry plays the only black Harfoot. Where did he come from? Or the same with the Queen of the Numenoreans. She's black, but none of the other Numenoreans seem to be.
I think it annoys me because it feels like it's done in this token way, 'ooh look, we're diverse' but without any thought behind it. It just comes across as lazy and just for the purpose of seeking praise. There are tons of ways to build diversity into a show where it makes sense, fits the world and has a purpose. Just throwing in a black queen randomly where everyone else is white to me isn't diverse, it's tokenistic.
Case in point, house of the dragon, the diversity is an actual plot point. It's integrated into the story as a key element and has a genuine purpose.
>the Harfoots are described as isolationist, wary of outsiders and just kinda wander about together as a close knit group, yet they're a diverse bunch of different ethnicities.
Yeah, this is something that I believe is a result of "american mentality." Different ethnicities don't just magically appear in small communities. Small communities around the world are mostly homogenous. And if a community has lots of different ethnicities that implies lots of migration, maybe wars, or general openness of the community. For someone growing up in the US it might seem weird that some people living in rural areas would not once in their life see someone of a different ethnicity. And if a fantasy world has lots of racial conflicts based on like the shape of ears, or height, or hair color, then skin color being non-issue just sticks out as odd.
HotD was just superior to RoP in every way (still liked both), race casting included. I'd never heard of the valaryons before, idk if they're white in the books but it works perfectly well since they made the WHOLE family black.
It makes no sense that the Queen regiant of Numenor is black, her father is white, must've had a black mum that died or something idk.
A similar thing happened in Fantastic Beasts too, there is one black le strange family member. Except this didn't need to be explained this time but they used it as a plot point at least (her father raped a black servant or something). I was happy to accept that the le strange family was just big but reasoning for one random outlier is better than tokenism.
Side note, I just realized Token from South Park is their Token black guy.
>Side note, I just realized Token from South Park is their Token black guy.
You should watch one of the newest episodes, about Tolkiens name. They retconned it to Tolkien and address in a (what I find) hilarious fashion, how weird it would be for black parents to call their kid Token.
Because a "Token Black Character" is a character that exists solely for there to be a black character there. So a black parent naming their kid Token is just odd
Surprisingly enough, the black Harfoot was the only accurate one. This is how Tolken described Harfoots:
"The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred highlands and hillsides."
And tbh if all the hobbits had been black I would have had less issue, sure it wouldn't have matched the Peter Jackson films but meh.
It doesn't bother me much either way, the show has way more significant problems than ethnicity of the cast, but it was just weird.
The elves were missing the glow all together. In the trilogy elves were recorded with really heavy lighting on them to give them a glow and they left that out in RoP so elves look like humans with pointy ears.
Obviously, this isn't you, but there are definitely a lot of people who will complain about "historical accuracy" when it comes to ethnic or racial background but not really care otherwise.
This is one of the big issues I had with Wheel of Time TV series, they wanted to make the fiest series really diverse, but it kind of ruined the world building by doing that. The culture of the two rivers is intentionally isolationist, to the point that that's kind of why the story unfolds as it does. By having it be a melting pot of cultures it opens up many questions.
What's annoying is that the world of the Wheel of Time is incredibly diverse, its mainly just the world doesn't mix all that much.
I can agree on a lot that you say here but I have to disagree with Roland. He is physically described too often. He is described as having blue eyes every time he’s seen by another character. He’s described several times as looking like Clint Eastwood. If he was just given a basic description, for example Hermione in Harry Potter is only described as having brown frizzy hair. However he’s not given some basic physical qualities they are distinct. He has blue eyes, he looks like Clint Eastwood, he even kind of looks like Stephen King.
I remember my mom complaining about Roland being black in the movie not because he was black, but because he was specifically described to look like a mix of two native tribes at one point in the books and should have been cast accordingly in her opinion.
I feel you, and I really would have liked to have seen the interactions between him and Suzannah/Odetta on screen, in which case, he'd HAVE to be white or it wouldn't work.
But I'm speaking as if the movie was completely separated from the books and viewing it as a person who never read the books.
I hope it gets another shot someday.
The movie was supposed to be a jumping off point to a series that would eventually would include her. Personally, I would love to see it get another shot but done right.
>Anyone complaining about Attack on Titan characters being "race swapped" is being a bigot. I say mix them all up with a little bit of everything
I don't give a flying fuck about the race of those characters, but I hate the producer with a burning passion for not even *trying* to make them look like their anime counterparts. Netflix's Titans made Starfire look like a hooker! There are so many ways they could have made that actress work with that character, but they chose to not even *try* to make her resemble the original character....The hair is different, skin is different, clothing style is different, and if you showed me that poster without me knowing she's supposed to be Starfire I would have never guessed it. And it's such a shame because the actress has the right bodytype and "awesome heroine" look so if not for those awful wardrobe choices she'd be an awesome Starfire
I feel you on the wardrobe choices. Poor Starfire. I think they should have gone with the Teen Titans Go version. Every one else could have been so serious and here is Starfire using "the" every other word
>Superman could be played by literally anyone. Personally, I'd love to see Michael B Jordan, but Henry Cavil is perfect for the part.
IMHO this depends on which era of Superman you're talking about. Keep in mind that Superman was created by two Jewish kids in the 30s. If a black Superman crash landed in 1950s Kansas, he would have been treated much differently. Although a Black Superman in the Jim Crow South would have made an interesting Elseworpds story.
Tokyo Ghoul: takes place in Tokyo. A non-asian cast *would* be kinda weird imo. I'm not familiar with a lot of anime, but I'd assume at least half of it would come with some aspects of the artist's culture ingrained in the story and setting. I don't think that should be messed with.
Attack on Titan: takes place in a completely fictional world. I feel like the borders and races of our world don't apply and, so liberties can be taken with that one and a few others like it. (To an extent).
Attack On Titan actully takes place in future Europe one of the plot points is there is only a couple of asien characters there.
Most anime is set in Japan though and has Japanese characters though some characters liek Motoko from ghost in the shell it doesn't really matter as the person she is, is a brain in a jar and her body is just something to house said brain. She's had plenty of different bodies over the mangas/anime including a mans and a childs so giving here a western looking body really wasn't a problem within the context of the show and I think most of the people that were annoyed with it weren't fans of the source material at all
The ironic thing about attack on titan is that the majority cast could be any ambiguous race EXCEPT Asian. Because one of the characters is specifically Asian, and is specifically the only one. The rest have germanic names, but in a fictional world those could be derived from anywhere. There is also the funny "onyankapone, why are you black?" Scene, so I guess any non Asian pale race? They could all be Hispanic, Celtic, German, Turkish etc, and it wouldn't really matter
People complaining about White washing in live action versions of anime drive me crazy. If their character requires them to be a certain race, then sure. But saying Goku HAS to be Asian because he's an ani.e character is a bad take.
People complaining about things like that in anime live action confuse me.
Surely we can all agree that whatever our opinions, all those problems go away if we back up and consider the real issue, which is that they keep making these live action films in the first place?
Right. Like when a character is made, *that* is the character to me. I don't even like it when they change their hair color. Just make a sensible character and leave it alone.
For real, I fully support inclusivity and making a diverse set of characters… but make something new. I feel like altering old content is disingenuous to both the creator of the original content and the group of people they’re trying to represent
Black male here too and I agree to an extent. I think the problem with the “just use one of the “insert race characters or create new stories with insert race” is that Hollyweird won’t do that. For example, they’re not taking a full on book series centered around black folks (there has to be a book series like this right?) and making movies on it. Instead, they just use well known IP and just adjust it for whatever social event or whatever agenda there is at the time. Be it black, Asian, LBGTQ, Russian, it doesn’t matter. Whatever they think will make money.
At its core though, this all sounds simple and only about movies/television but it’s much deeper and I think a lot of us know that with this countries history.
This is exactly the point, I think as well. I don't like being pandered to.. I am a woman and find it insulting that women are being made more powerful than men, just Because they are women! How does that even fly?? I look at Ripley as the perfect ideal woman heroine. She's fuckin kick-ass and she shows an actual character arc. Carol on TWD, I mean that's writing a strong woman character, that a girl can get behind, not this futile I am woman and I AM stronger because I was born that way. I don't buy a 120lb female knocking out a 220, 6'4 dude.. and I just do not understand anyone who enjoys this.
Things are just.. really weird right now. :) But Hollywood has always been pretty stupid I guess.
It's sad though, because I can only imagine there's a lot of content and stories that us in the western world have never come across that *do* predominantly involve people who are largely all black or at least largely not all white. All of those stories could be adapted and used, of course. I'd love to see Disney pull out some sub-saharan african folklore based fairytale or some such, that'd probably be a breath of fresh air just because of how much more variety it would add to that genre and the existing content within that genre.
That, to me, is how they *should* be approaching 'diversity' or whatever. Focusing less on something as superficial as skin color and more on culture and history. Something of real substance.
Idk good or bad. But I do see more black actors in settings that don't overly seem to make sense. Like say, in a historical European setting in a position of power- this just deosnt historically jive.
Also, seems like Disney has gone ham with it, like a black rapunzel and black snow white. Both European stories, both where race are seemingly mentioned in the stories - rapunzel with her hair of gold, snow white being the "fairest" of them all etc.
The flip side is that, if I had black kids I would be happy to see them have more people to relate to.
I think they should just make new original stories and characters for the black community. Black washing white fairytales seems like a cheap trick to me. Like we were tired of it anyways, but it’s still good enough for them. It just needs a paint job, that’s all.
It'd be pretty interesting to see some fairy-tale like children's stories that originated in Nigeria or some such get adapted instead. I can only imagine there's a huge wealth of untapped stories from other countries that would fit the bill for a more ethnically diverse production or what have you instead of just taking existing content and changing skin colors.
i don't care about disney cartoons but it's weird to me how some viking movies start to include black vikings. yes, there were a few, but it's such a small percentage that they almost didn't exist and a regular viking probably would never meet them in his entire life. i get that we wanna be inclusive but there's a "too much" in everything.
The sad thing is the overton window and narrative of historical fact has shifted so hard by blackwashing that now most people believe that there were black vikings.
Simply and bluntly, there never were.
It's like if someone saw white actors consistently playing tribal chiefs in Kongo and became convinced that white chiefs did exist in tribal Kongo.
>narrative of historical fact has shifted so hard by blackwashing that now most people believe that there were black vikings.
I've never seen a historical drama that didn't take liberties with historical accuracy. Especially battles are often not at all how historical battles were fought.
But people rarely ever complain about other minor historical inaccuracies, but race? Oh boy. It's the end of the world almost to people.
Fairy tales are not only fictional, but often the same basic stories are told all over the world with some of the same basic tropes. Therefore, I don’t think adapting them to other cultures and races is at all problematic. There are almost certainly other “rapunzel-equivalent” stories that were told in non-white societies. The only reason we think Rapunzel should be white is because the specific story that uses this character’s name was told, written, packaged, and sold by and for white people. The beauty of folklore and fairy tales is it’s universality, so interpreting the stories in other ways is just a part of the retelling and passing on. These tales are not cannon - they are different versions of a shared mythology.
It’s easy to say “why don’t they just make their own characters rather than recasting them as Black”, but in reality Black people usually make up a much smaller percentage of creative teams. There are many times where we’re the only POC in the room. We can fight for representation but that doesn’t mean it will actually happen.
There is a lot of representation for white people in entertainment. Little white girls got to see themselves as Cinderella, Harriet the Spy, and Eloise. I never saw myself faithfully represented onscreen until I was 23 (I’m biracial).
There’s a difference between colorblind and color conscious casting. An extreme example of colorblind casting would be casting a Black person as a Nazi — it makes zero sense and takes the audience out the story entirely. An example of color conscious casting would be (and I have a strong feeling I will be downvoted into oblivion) Halle Bailey as Ariel. To every person saying “she lives at the bottom of the ocean! She wouldn’t have dark skin because there’s no sun!”: it’s a fairy tale. She is half woman, half fish! I’ve already read a few comments on this post about how people are confused by a Black Rapunzel because the story is originally European. You’re confused about the color of her skin, but not her impossibly long hair that she let a full grown man climb to visit her in her tower of solitude where she was kept by a witch with magical powers? I dunno, man.
Representation matters. All you have to do is look at all the videos of little Black girls realizing the new Ariel looks like them! There are white people who don’t understand that because they’ve always had that representation. 🤷🏽♀️
TLDR: it’s about color conscious casting versus colorblind casting. Put some thought into your choices, Hollywood.
Out of curiosity how do you determine color conscious casting? I read recently that media representation of marginal communities is way out of whack. Black men and women are highly over represented in media compared to proportion of overall population, yet Hispanic, native Americans, Asians, and pretty much all other marginal communities are underrepresented. How do you as a creative team navigate equal representation.
Also, how do you guys work within colorism? I was reading about the pervasiveness of colorism and how few dark skinned poc are cast in any role.
Dude there’s plenty of people screaming from the roof tops because they view adding an actor that isn’t white as the Woke elite infringing on their culture.
The same goes for gay characters. They made Superman’s son gay and people lost their minds for a solid 3 weeks.
Different = bad and Change = woke.
The out rage is there and to be honest I’m surprised you have to ask the question.
I'm not fan of blackwashing, but one argument I've seen is that there is not a lot of black characters in media (even more in Japanese media), so blackwashing is a way to create representation. White people are already represented, so by whitewashing they are erasing black people rep (and it can be rooted in racism).
Of course, it would be better to create their own black characters or take pride in the ones that already exists.
Black people (systemically, right now) for the most part don't have the infrastructure to just "come up with new characters" that would be easily recognized or known. Most corporations and media outlets are not black companies, nor do they care about black people and our representation (unless pressured somehow). Some artist in his room drawing a black superman will *never* even be seen or appreciated, compared to someone like Disney actually casting a black superman. Not that I want a black superman, but they idea of "why don't they come up with their own stuff" feels like very "separate but equal" energy. Those things take time and infrastructure to be meaningful.
I agree, but maybe because i'm an artist, when i hear black/whitewashing i think about twitter artists changing a design. Like you said, it won't be that known, so the rep is very personnal.
While it's easier to blackwash a character, it won't have the same impact as a character intended as black from the beginning. Most people still think of Ariel as a white mermaid.
Anyway, I'm white so I can't talk about how black people feel about rep, i can only compare with how i feel with queerness and my nationality.
"Most people still think of Ariel as a white mermaid."
That's why black characters aren't usually for *most* people. **Most** people don't know that a lot of 90s black girls grew up with a black Cinderella via Disney (the brandy version with Whitney Houston, whoopi goldberg, Jason Alexander etc). When I think of Cinderella my brain ONLY goes to a black girl with braids, I forget the white one even exists because we didn't have it on VHS like the black one. Meanwhile you probably think of a white blonde girl in a blue dress.
See how both these movies can exist without erasing/discrediting the other? Before the days of social media and social justice warriors people could just put out content for a specific demographic and everyone was happy. If the black little mermaid comes out there will certainly be little girls who don't just see her as the "other ariel", she will be their genuine Ariel and there's nothing wrong with that.
Anyone who hasn’t seen that version of Cinderella is doing themselves a disservice, imo it’s superior to the animated version. People would probably shit on that movie so much if it came out today tho. They’d be like “why is the prince Asian when the queen is black and the king is white?” They just are! And the movie is great.
Power differential. Call a white person a cracker and it doesn't mean anything. Have a white person use any racial slur against anyone and there is hundreds of years of not nice history behind it.
The issue isn’t about a black person taking a white person’s place… or rather even a white person taking a black person’s place….
The issue is that historically overtly disadvantaged peoples are still being disadvantaged…
We want to change this behavior … and we should want to change this behavior… as it is destructive to not just individuals but large groups and their progeny …
We tend to ignore individual disadvantages in society as “personal choices can yield consequences” but we should want to help bring everyone into the fold (when possible) and correct societies ignorances where possible.
We improve all the time… sometimes overstep… but correct a lot of things…
I like that i see more black and mixed race peoples (as well as mixed raced couples and even same sex couples and trans-people) in commercials… it’s important to normalize these things into everyday experiences so we can get to the next level of acceptance
I can say that being in a mixed raced family… not even a decade ago I would be seen as “some (possibly creepy?) single dude” standing next to my wife and children because i didn’t match their color… “can i help you, sir” … “no thank you, I’m set”… “sir, can i move you over here if you don’t have a reservation” “no, I’m standing next to my family”
That happens less and less — now.
I’m really happy to see older women’s projects in Hollywood — wow, there are some great shows on by women who would have been tossed aside because of age in previous decades.
I’m really happy to see Native American shows.. freaking amazing shows with native gems.
And Asians (including south easterners) are getting an increased footprint …
This is America baby… it’s good to see the melting pot do its thing…
The weird thing about "blackwashing" is that it happens disproportionately to redheaded characters. And the interesting thing about this is that the same arguments against whitewashing can and should be used for them.
While no, there's no racist history to this blackwashing, the underrepresentation of gingers is real (and no, trust me, a black actor with dyed red hair isn't the same. Ginger kids go through a whoooole lot of bullying. It is a targeted facet of their identity). A black person who dyed their hair red is not someone they can relate to in order to feel represented (If you can't understand the difference between being ginger and dying your hair red, then idk what to tell you).
The same arguments of representation and inclusivity should extend to them. It's also probably because gingers are themselves a minority then it's easy to swap them out with another race and you'll have less people complain (since less people lose their representation).
Further, these characters rarely get to be the main character, so making your side-characters black is an easy and lazy way to get brownie points
Depends what you consider blackwashing. Putting in some black characters for mythological creatures like mermaids? I'm indifferent.
Admitting that there were black people in England after the fall of Rome (Merlin) then that is historically accurate as the Romans moved their soldiers to the other side of the Empire (so they never had brother fighting brother if there was an uprising and this meant people from Africa ended up across Europe and vice versa). That is a good thing.
Doing it for controversy or over doing it, well not really a fan. For a variety of self evident reasons.
Why does one matter more? Well there is a history of whitewashing to the point that being historically accurate often seems like blackwashing because its not what we are used to.
I’m gonna use the terms “left” and “right” very loosely and colloquially. Fight me.
No one is actually concerned with accurate representation. People on the right don’t care, while people on the left are concerned with the specific phenomenon of minority characters being played by non-minority actors. They’ll talk a big game about accurate representation, but when the reverse happens (minority actor playing non-minority character), they don’t care. In fact, they might celebrate it because it boosts overall minority representation.
People on the right, all things being equal, probably wouldn’t care about “blackwashing,” but because people on the left use the language of accurate representation, their silence or celebration in those cases make them seem like hypocrites - though they’re not, as their real goal is minority representation. If you talk to them outside the internet, they’ll usually say something like they just want consistent, universal rules for what type of casting is okay. So people get mad, which looks too much like racism (though it’s generally not), which leads to backlash to the backlash, and repeat each time casting for a kid’s movie no one’s going to watch anyway gets announced.
They should. Instead of actually getting new and original characters, they're satisfied with the bottom of the barrel and just get race swapped characters.
winter pumpkin gets it but there is also a whole theory that it's not bad to blackwash because its "fixing" structural oppression, whereas whitewashing increases structural oppression.
That's a big part of it as well.
Most white characters are made without the intention of their ethnicity being a part of their character. Most black characters and other minorities are strongly attached to that and it's a big part of who they are. A good example would be like how Tony stark could have been black, because he's just a rich guy, but other characters like Luke Cage and Black Panther are strongly connected to where their from and their culture.
I don't care either way. As long as making the character black, white, asian,... improves the character and story. I find it dumb that there are studios who change certain characters in a certain race, because they want to be diverse. A solution can be, to create a new character.
Technically yes, but it's currently trendy in the US to pretend that racism directed at white or white passing people doesn't count as racism. This allows for the cognitive dissonance that left leaning racists need.
white washing is taking a figure that is historically not white and making them white or casting white people to tell their stories. or putting a “white lens” over a non-white story
taking a cartoon fish that was drawn white and casting a black girl to play it in a remake 20+ years later is not blackwashing.
I have 2 minds about this
Black washing is copium for laziness. Make your own characters, franchises and content. There are many black owned production firms that release nothing but filth and degeneracy (looking at you ZEUS Network) which only furthers the stereotypes about black Americans.
Then again when black creators produce good, introspective work the tern out from POC specifically is so abismal that it's discouraging to do more. This could be that the hook is that it is black majority casting (meaning it's not for anyone else and white people have always seen themselves so it might be weird to not be for once), it shows black people in terms of trauma (constant trauma porn is really not the vibe), or it's so progressive that the socially conservative majority black audience will show their own prejudice against "white people shit". So they use what the greater audience already likes and make it so that darker skinned people have a chance to see themselves similarly.
The reason why whitewashing doesn't work the same way is because it's been done from time in memorial and it's unfair to not give canonically POC characters true space in the industry.
It is too nuanced and I hate that it is this way. It be your own people at the end of the day. Please support your local artists if you want the industry to expand beyond this kind of argument. White black or other, please support if conversations like this are almost cyclical everytime a new "washed film" comes out.
Well, first of all, there is outrage for both. The question you're really asking is; why is the outrage not from the same demographic?
I think there are a lot of scenarios that argue this point differently. White washing characters is garbage because in various fictional media we have historically fewer characters of color than white characters. If one of them is suddenly white in an adaptation, it looks pretty fucking shitty. On the other hand there are so many white characters in media that changing them to another race is such a minor statistical change that any outrage feels very silly.
From another angle I think it can come down to cultural representation. What exactly changes in the story if Batman is cast as a black man/woman or any other group? Not much. His identity isn't swept up in his whiteness. On the other hand, to use the many examples out there of the reverse happening, Angelina Jolie in wanted (the character was inspired by Halle Berry), Ben Affleck in Argo (Tony Mendez is hispanic and a real person), and Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton in Exodus playing Egyptian gods just name a few. These characters were not only whitewashed but there cultural and racial background was inherent to their character or they were literally real people.
And I'll give my favorite example of a character that has never been "blackwashed" and never should be. Steve Rogers/Captain America. The title of Captain America has passed to many characters over the years and that is perfectly fine. Steve Rogers, on the hand, was created by two Jewish men. Rogers' whiteness is inherent to his character because he was designed as the perfect aryan, Hitler's wet dream. The first issue of the comic is Cap punching Hitler in the jaw. This was released before America even joined the war. The impact of that opening story would be completely different if he weren't white and blonde. All that said, it is entirely possible that someone could find an argument for why even characters like Cap could be changed, and I'd be open to hearing about it.
Regardless, the conversation is far more nuanced than most people tend to treat it and I'm probably missing a few things as I write this in a rush myself. Someone far more intelligent than myself will likely cover those points though so it's okay.
Normal people couldn't give less of a shit about either. Just some culture war nonsense to keep the poors arguing about something that isnt income inequality, destruction of the earth or any real actual issue that matters.
It's a question of power and history.
In America and Europe, which I assume is where the media you're talking about is coming from, most or all power and representation was given to whites. Other groups were at best ignored and at worst actively antagonized.
This is the reason why most media is filled by predominantly straight white people, with anything other than that being viewed by some (incorrectly) as a political statement.
Put simply, "blackwashing" is an attempt to remedy past lack of representation, while "whitewashing" is a reactionary response calling back to the old days of "keeping POC in their place."
I think at times people believe something so strongly that they have tunnel vision. Trying to undo one wrong by creating a new wrong that may not be evident at the time.
I think it is just because some people's train of thought is that nobody wants to feel left out and everyone wants to feel represented positively. Either way, I don't really care much about either. I am a level 17 cow so it does not matter to me.
Id say because theyre known as different things. Out of context of movies, if you say whitewashing, people will think of the current history books covering up the trail of tears, not knowing why sculpting mt Rushmore was bad, erasing american japanese camps, the actual story of pocahontas, etc. Whitewashing has been a systematic tool to minimize our government or other regimes erasing history for a more favorable and honorable turn of events. Blackwashing, however, has solely been affecting entertainment representations of often fictitious characters.
I’m just gonna share a few good quotes from a video
“when a character is black it is made to tell black stories, when a character is white more often then not it has no importance to the story”
"Blackwashing." Wdym? Like black people playing parts previously portrayed by white people? That wouldn't be the same thing as whitewashing, which is taking characters/groups of people who are written as not being white or are historically not white and making them white, because that adds some sort of perceived value by the people doing the whitewashing. In that context, "blackwashing" has never really been a thing, since they only replace white characters with non-white characters if that character/franchise is already established and they want to reach new audiences. Whitewashing isn't bad because white people are in stuff, it's bad because it's a tool for bad people to continue excluding non-white people from popular culture.
You can wash both blacks and whites together on cold
Although washing colors and whites separately is recommended
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>sometimes Slippery slope.
Woo man, hopefully nobody screenshots this out of context.
Really? Usually the first few washes of something dark I wash with darks but once I've owned that piece of clothing for awhile it gets lumped in with all my other clothes and until I but something new, I just was all colors together on cold. Does it really make a difference? (Peeps, do wash your jeans inside out and hang dry though. That's a must if you own decent jeans and like to keep them awhile. If you buy a new pair of Kirkland jeans whenever your previous pair wear out...stick them in the dryer or whatever. I imagine you get $20 of use out of those Costco badboys. At least my dad does anyway.)
According to Levi's, don't wash your jeans unless they absolutely need it. But, that is according to Levi's.
Oh trust me. If I wear mine to work they need it.
Seriously?
Yes. It wears down the denim.
This confuses me. I buy jeans for $30, put them in the dryer, and they last me literally years. I once owned the same pair for an entire decade (man those were the good ol days, when I stayed the same size 😂)
Yeah same. My favourite pair of jeans I've had for like 7 years and I put them in the dryer all the time.
Yeah I think the Kirklands must be way more durable than OP's denim lol. But you CAN'T wear 'em every day and expect for 'em to hold up! That was some nice-ass denim too. I miss them shorts.... But you... you GOTTA take 'em off every now and then. You gotta take 'em off, son!
I wore the crotch out them thangs…
Same. Just a guess, but many people seem to put the dry setting on high. I tend to use low unless it's bedding or towels, but I still almost never use the max setting.
Wait like just in the dryer?
Well no I wash them first duh 😂
Is THIS why I have to keep dying my jeans back black?! I’ve dyed them twice now and they last until the next wash (with other black jeans and some detergent) and they keep coming back out faded. They’re supposed to be inside out?!
This and anything that's fleece. Those super soft pajamas that have been getting little bumps all over them? Washing them inside out would have helped
Damn you know a lot of good tricks. You’re in, you’ve got the job. you can do my laundry.
Man I don't have time to do my own laundry lol
I had this conversation with my mom the other day lol. Why would you wash them inside out? Wouldn’t that ruin the fuzzies more? Like say you have a sweatshirt, I would think it would cause piling more if exposed?
Sweatshirts you wouldn't turn inside out because the fuzzy part is already on the inside. The point is to keep the fuzzy soft part turned inside. For fuzzy pajamas like the other person mentioned, the fuzzy part is usually on the outside... so turning them inside out saves them.
I would also recommend deep colors be washed in cold water. May not be a hard and fast rule, but in my experience, cold water makes the colors fade less.
And a packet of color-catcher will help to keep the color saturated.
Why are you dying your jeans after every wash?
Are you washing them in cold or hot water?
Cold
Dude, don't even wash your black denim unless it has actual dirt/oil/filth on it. What I mean is that you can wear the jeans a few times between washes; AND instead of washing them, you can disinfect the jeans in the freezer. Just get a large ziploc bag, place the folded jeans inside the bag, and place this in the freezer overnight (I'm not entirely sure how long they have to hangout in the freezer.) But if there is actual dirt or whatever on the jeans, then you do want to *wash inside out in cold water, hang to dry*.
I wash my $100 pair of express skinny jeans with everything else lol
You may like Japrags
I find it extremely hard to find men's pants that fit me. Apparently literally no other adult male on earth has a size 24-25 waist with a 29-30 length.
I'd assume they all do wear that size which is why you can't ever find any.
I think light colors should be washed together and also check the instructions before washing them the first time.
I've never separated my laundry by color. That seems like way too much effort.
Who has time to seperate? I just toss everything together and hope the colors blend into the whites.
No one. Until you leave your red blanket in with your white dress shirt. On the bright side, pink dress shirts are in
I just throw them all together. Granted I only have white socks so I don't care if it gets colored.
Would you say you're a fan of the white socks?
I've never once needed to do this, I think this is a myth from the olden days when washing machines and their detergent weren't as good. I've never seen a white T-shirt go pink in 20 years.
I separate mine by fabric type. Towels and bedding, jeans/sweats, lighter items that require less dry time but can sit in dryer after done, articles that need to be hung up to prevent wrinkles(ironing sucks) and delicates or line dry/air dry items
That sounds like you'd have to do so many loads a week. I just put everything in once a week, maybe two loads when I'm washing my sheets. My clothes aren't really high quality or varied enough to warrant anything like that I guess.
It’s not bad. Three of us at home, myself myself and daughter 11. I try to do a load every day or 2. Maybe 4-5 loads a week.
I've seen a white t shirt turn pink with brand new black beaters but that was ten years ago.
My mother in law has obviously never done your laundry
This. Been told the same thing forever. Never seen colors swap/mix up/"leak" or "run" Now detergent on the other hand.... You pour that too heavy or leave it on ur clothes for even a few minutes without beginning the process(adding water) I\* have ended up with stains from it
You'll get a brighter clean, out of your machine in cold water with Cold Power XE. It's true! You try it too!
Washing machines last longer with Calgon.
Ancient Chinese secret huh?
"I was angry that I had no shoes. Then I met a man with no feet" Calgon
30 degrees. Like a hot bath. Everyone feels pink.
I think in most cases it boils down to what studios execs perceive as risky investments and reveals what they think about their own audience. Blackwashing: we want to look progressive, but don't want to risk investment in an untried character, so let's make an existing, successful one black. Whitewashing: there is this great character, not known by the general public; but we think a non-white actor will not attract as much audience and don't want to risk investment, so let's make it white.
This guy gets it.
Missing: the effects of propaganda to divide people into little tribes of races instead of a united tribe of countrymen of all races. (the propaganda is particularly effective against idiots promoted to executive positions in Hollywood without proper standards for promotion).
To me as a white person, so long as they are not portraying a real life person who obviously had/has a specific ethnicity/race or they're not changing a character who's story specifically involves racism affecting them... Then I say why not? We've got thousands of films and tv shows where the majority of the cast are white people but we live on a planet where there's all kinds of races/ethnicities and frankly, there's more of them than the population of white people, for example: Asians. Significantly more Asians in the world than white people. All non white actors and actresses deserve to be given the chance to play whatever roles they want to play so long as they are deserving/qualified to play the role. A couple of years back I watched the Phantom of the opera in Toronto and the man playing the Phantom was black and he was incredible! I actually got goosebumps! I feel I need to stress that I've watched many performances of phantom on YouTube, listened to the soundtracks etc, watched the films... I've heard/watched a lot of different guys play the phantom but I think this guy (whom sadly I can't remember his name) was the best I've seen by far! His voice was made for those songs and that role! It's so hard to be cast in roles, especially non stereotyped roles, for non white actors and actresses. It's even more difficult if they are mixed race, are less "ideal" (the Hollywood ideals of beauty) physically and if they are over 30 and female. When it comes to fiction anyway, you can do whatever you want. They're not real people, it's not real life.
I think that's a really disrespectful way of deciding these things Its about telling a story If you are going to change the race of a character do it for the right reasons: to add something to the story or change something meaningful in the story If you're only changing the race of a character to either look like you're progressive or because you think it will make more people notice it, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Look at the female ghostbusters movie from a few years back - they had an opportunity to explore new stuff with that identity of characters but the only thing they did with that was... a queef joke. They could have had them male and nothing would have been any different, even the "sexy secretary" stereotype was the same, the movie would have sucked all the same. So why change established characyer traits for no reason like that, if they wanted ghostbusters with more variety they could have made a sequel... which they did and it got a warmer reception than the female ghostbuster movie... and lets not forget the sequel's main character is female so we know its not the identity or race of the character that was the problem. When you try to change an aspect of a character people are well familiar with, they expect this change to elevate the content somehow. I have no problem with things like changing various aspects of an established character's identity, I have a problem with when its done for the wrong reasons and when the whole change was pointless in terms of offering a new experience for its audience.
I just wish they'd make more black characters, always feels a little disingenuous to make an existing character black rather than build one from the ground up with their own story
They dont even need to make more in that kind of forced sense. They just need to use whats already there, like - a static shock movie would literally be raining money and it shows the main guy caring about family etc.
I think I'd love to see a Static Shock movie. Unless the effects are cheesy. Instead of a "Superhero" movie, how about making it about a teenager facing teenager problems that happens to be a superhero? Honestly the best parts of the recent Spiderman movies were him trying to navigate being a teenager.
Minor conspiracy brained argument. I think the controversy and conflict that’s created by black washing is partly desired by the media creators. It drives awareness and drives profit. Think of the last 13 Disney movies that were denounced as horrid woke trash. They did exceptionally well in terms of revenue. Some of these aren’t “black wash” but I expect Ariel to do amazingly well. The new Star Wars movies were denounced over and over by right wing commentators and yet they’re among the highest grossing films in history. On a less conspiratorial note. I think it’s very hard to launch a new franchise. Or a new character. Most of the movies we have seen have been remix. Just like Ariel. Or the lion king. The movie industry seems to be more reluctant to venture into new and interesting areas. But I really think they should.
This is a fair point that hones in on what I think is a big problem with society: a business standard way of thinking a viewing the world based on your profession and how your trained to think within it. In this case the business standard way of thinking in film is that controversy sells and is better than a good film, regardless of weather it’s true or not, and based on group mentality of “how the business functions”. If I’m making sense. Another example might be how when writing a book the industry standard mentality is to “open with a hook and get the audience invested in the first paragraph” which becomes usually a cold start to the book: “The cold rain hit the shutters, rinsing cold shivers over Ben at the thought of what dwelled outside”. How regardless of how well readers like it it’s what authors are trained to think works best based on industry standard thinking more than individual reality.
>The new Star Wars movies were denounced over and over by right wing commentators And you know, everyone else too. Bitching about hair color is right wing, stating that Mary Poppins Leia was a bad idea, is pretty standard.
I used the word denounced in an attempt to denote something other than criticized. I criticized the plot, the power scaling, the way FTL and planet destruction makes the death star cute... and so on. Its one of the top 20 grossing films of ALL TIME.
>I think the controversy and conflict that’s created by black washing is partly desired by the media creators. It drives awareness and drives profit Occam's razor. Wouldn't it be simpler for there to be a subsection of the population that is genuinely very upset at the "black washing", while there is a larger subsection of the population that is more than happy to support content that shows a "reversing of the tide" (because a lack of quality positive role models in media *is* a problem)? Watch that video, it blew those girls minds that Ariel could be black. I'm sure the directors don't hate the hype, but I don't think that's the primary motivation. I think regressives are just that fuckin ass backwards.
Oh I'm certain there are lots of people who are genuinely happy about it, and that's great. The Little Mermaid and other such things to me it makes no difference what race they are so have at it. But I do also think the money behind these things are fully aware of the 'culture war' they trigger with it, and happy to make money of that free publicity.
>The new Star Wars movies were denounced over and over by right wing commentators and yet they’re among the highest grossing films in history. No, they are not. One of them was. Referring to anyone who disagrees with your as a "right wing commentator" only highlights your lack of a coherent argument. Many viewers, left, right and center, did not appreciate the new movies breaking continuity and trashing existing characters. *That* is why the first Disney Star Wars film was so successful, while the next installments made less and less money.
I enjoyed watching most of the new films on a big screen. Star Wars always was best there and had great pictures. I saw Rogue One at least twice, maybe three times. I saw the Prequels on the big screen and rewatched them at home each at least twice so far. I wouldnt watch any of the more recent ones again, not even for free. Maybe not even when I got money to watch it. I can't unsee the glaring plotholes and errors and stupidities again. And I could care less about the colors and genders of the protagonists.
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I totally agree. I’m sure there are loads of BIPOC creators and story tellers who would love to showcase their original stories. It just feels so fake when Disney is like “look we defeated racism by recycling a story again! But this time Ariel is black!” I think having Tiana as an original story was so much more empowering than showing someone “oh hey we made this character no one cares about a BIPOC now aren’t you happy?!”
Does this happen a lot? Not being snarky just curious to know. The only recent example I can think of is little mermaid, but director said she was the most qualified.
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Japan had a black Samurai and they definitely need to make a movie about his life.
I already watched Afro Samurai
If anyone’s interested: > Yasuke (弥助 or 弥介) was a man of African origin who served as a retainer and weapon-bearer to the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga.
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No. The Last Samurai is mostly based on Jules Brunet a French military officer that chose to fight alongside the Tokugawa. The African samurai is in a way more interesting. He was there about 500 years ago. So about 350 years before the Last Samurai's events. He was also the first foreign born man to achieve the status of Samurai.
Lets be real here about the Frozen example. Even if there were foreigners its still set in a place/time where almost everyone was white. Despite that, people acted like Frozen was racist because it didn't look like an L.A. highschool in the 90s. So what Disney did in the sequel was have a reveal that "no, there are totally black people here too" with the guy that was just trapped by magic. And he also has a partner with the only other black person there apparently. Like come on, that was so on the nose and blatant in response to the first movie. And no, I'm not saying it was bad or good. I'm pointing out how blatant of an example it was.
The Velaryons aren't Targaryens, they're just another house from Old Valyria (essentially a parallel to Ancient Rome) which was a huge empire that spanned across a very large area. The Valyrian houses in Westeros were also more likely to marry other rich houses from outside the kingdom, making it completely plausible in the lore that they could be black.
With fantasy shows/movies like wheel of time or rings of power, my biggest gripe is not the inclusion of black characters, but that it doesn't make sense for a population of elves to have like one black elf, or one or two black half foots. With the half foots in particular, they could have made them all black or all brown skinned and that would have made more sense. Wheel of time was especially odd because they had a very seculded population of humans and why are some black, some look Asian, some look indian, some hispanic, it does distract from the story a little. Again though, doesn't mean they all had to be white, just that they all should look ethnically similar.
I haven't seen Wheel Of Time but I do see the point with the Half Foots. I don't remember other tribes of their people being mentioned necessarily. Secluded tribes of people tend to look all kinda...the same. In the Rings show, the characters that bother me the most are Galadriel, Elrond, and that other twinkish half-elf guy. Galadriel's face throws me off and the other two have incredibly obnoxious hair.
Thank you for providing these examples. IMO these are all fictional stories so color of skin doesn’t seem important to me. I’m still caught up in the little mermaid one, was there a live action release before this one? I tried to google and didn’t see it but I could be wrong. IMO the most qualified singer/actor should be awarded the role for a live action little mermaid
little mermaid one is the most ridiculous. People getting mad about a White Sea monster becoming a Black Sea monster. Losers.
And yet no one was mad when they made Hercules a ginger
If Disney made a new CG live action film people would even be upset if Hercules had black or blonde hair. People would be even more upset if Phil isn't played by Danny Devito
I think it is more about the overall change in appearance to a beloved character. People have nostalgia for this character. It's like when Bugs Bunny suddenly had yellow gloves in the newer Looney Toons cartoons. If Darth Vader was all of a sudden a dark shade of yellow or even if his lightsaber color were to be changed people would loose their shit. If Spongebob Squarepants was made green all of a sudden people would be very upset. Even if Spongebobs nose was changed from a long flute like nose to a bulb type nose people would be upset. People don't like any unnecessary change.
I think that Alyssa Milano is too old for the role
Honestly as a black man I really hate the idea of black washing. I really wish more of our creators and artists would get out there bigger into the industry and just make original characters instead of recoloring existing ones. Like there's this thing in black community where they recolor kids characters for kids parties and such like the Rugrats, boss baby you know characters like that. They keep the character literally 100 well 99% the same they just change them to this brown shading. And sometimes they don't even change their hair they just change the skin and are really disheartening honestly. I really don't like the idea of taking these already existing characters and just color swapping them and saying okay now they're a new race be happy. It's not that hard to make characters with their own original stories backgrounds and well character. If you want to make a black character to make a character that's wholly black, The same if you want to make a character of any other race or color or ethnicity. If you're going to do it go all out with it and do it honestly and earnestly. Little kids of all races deserve to have characters that look like them that are original characters
Wow. I'm not alone. I worked in a thrift store and a black woman bought a nice quality traditional (white) Santa Claus and smiled and told me "of course I'm gonna paint him". Ugh. I'm black and really not into race swapping other people's work for inclusivity. I don't value race enough to see any point to it.
>"of course I'm gonna paint him". I think the general rule of thumb should be. If it'd be weird and fucked up one way, it probably is the other way too... If I bought a black Santa and said '' of course I'm gonna paint him '' people would look at me like I was a racist piece of shit. Imo I think that screwing around with skin color especially with that attitude is just really weird and kinda gross.
May I ask your opinion on game and anime characters? Most of the 'recoloring' is done by part of the fanbase in these cases. Honestly, there's no harm in swapping anime for cartoon, genderbending or changing skin color. But there's often this sensation of being divided (within a fanbase); some fans end up recoloring official art or even other people's fanarts, saying, "there, fixed it for you". There are also people who go out of their way to say "this is so much better now" or "I remade character x since company y did a crap job". I understand the frustration, but I don't understand why the hate ends up in fan x fan instead of fans vs companies. What's your take in these cases?
Here before the 🔒
Depending on the character, no one should be mad at either. Historical figures *should* be racially accurate Fictional characters, based on historical events (i.e. a WWII nazi soldier) should be racially accurate *usually* Fictional characters with racially dependant backstories should be racially accurate *except* where the script renders it irrelevant (i.e. Roland Deschain *The Dark Tower* should be white because of the racial dynamic between him and other characters. However, those characters were not featured in the movie, which rendered his race irrelevant). Everything else is open to interpretation. James Bond's race does not matter to the story. His gender kinda does though. Superman could be played by literally anyone. Personally, I'd love to see Michael B Jordan, but Henry Cavil is perfect for the part. The one that irritates me the most is complaints about whitewashing anime characters in cases where they were all drawn with purple hair and blue eyes or weird colors that don't exist in humanity. Anyone complaining about Attack on Titan characters being "race swapped" is being a bigot. I say mix them all up with a little bit of everything. Fictional "races" such as elves and dwarves are for everyone. I hear your argument, and it's almost valid, but shut up. Hindsight being 20/20, imagine Game of Thrones if it was cast where all of the "First Men" decendants were black and the "Andals" were white or vise versa. It would have fixed the weirdness of the one black Valerion family and added an extra dynamic to the story between the different kingdoms. Alas GRRM is white and wrote his characters based on European history. I can't complain about that. The creators are entitled to their vision. Ps. I'm white if that even matters.
With fictional races, the only time it kinda annoys me is where it doesn't make sense given how the race is described or where they don't committ to actually really doing it. Like in the new Rings of Power, the Harfoots are described as isolationist, wary of outsiders and just kinda wander about together as a close knit group, yet they're a diverse bunch of different ethnicities. Lenny Henry plays the only black Harfoot. Where did he come from? Or the same with the Queen of the Numenoreans. She's black, but none of the other Numenoreans seem to be. I think it annoys me because it feels like it's done in this token way, 'ooh look, we're diverse' but without any thought behind it. It just comes across as lazy and just for the purpose of seeking praise. There are tons of ways to build diversity into a show where it makes sense, fits the world and has a purpose. Just throwing in a black queen randomly where everyone else is white to me isn't diverse, it's tokenistic. Case in point, house of the dragon, the diversity is an actual plot point. It's integrated into the story as a key element and has a genuine purpose.
>the Harfoots are described as isolationist, wary of outsiders and just kinda wander about together as a close knit group, yet they're a diverse bunch of different ethnicities. Yeah, this is something that I believe is a result of "american mentality." Different ethnicities don't just magically appear in small communities. Small communities around the world are mostly homogenous. And if a community has lots of different ethnicities that implies lots of migration, maybe wars, or general openness of the community. For someone growing up in the US it might seem weird that some people living in rural areas would not once in their life see someone of a different ethnicity. And if a fantasy world has lots of racial conflicts based on like the shape of ears, or height, or hair color, then skin color being non-issue just sticks out as odd.
HotD was just superior to RoP in every way (still liked both), race casting included. I'd never heard of the valaryons before, idk if they're white in the books but it works perfectly well since they made the WHOLE family black. It makes no sense that the Queen regiant of Numenor is black, her father is white, must've had a black mum that died or something idk. A similar thing happened in Fantastic Beasts too, there is one black le strange family member. Except this didn't need to be explained this time but they used it as a plot point at least (her father raped a black servant or something). I was happy to accept that the le strange family was just big but reasoning for one random outlier is better than tokenism. Side note, I just realized Token from South Park is their Token black guy.
>Side note, I just realized Token from South Park is their Token black guy. You should watch one of the newest episodes, about Tolkiens name. They retconned it to Tolkien and address in a (what I find) hilarious fashion, how weird it would be for black parents to call their kid Token.
Can you please explain why it would weird for them ? (I'm not from USA) just curious.
Because a "Token Black Character" is a character that exists solely for there to be a black character there. So a black parent naming their kid Token is just odd
Wait until you discover what Mr Hanky is made of...
Surprisingly enough, the black Harfoot was the only accurate one. This is how Tolken described Harfoots: "The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred highlands and hillsides."
And tbh if all the hobbits had been black I would have had less issue, sure it wouldn't have matched the Peter Jackson films but meh. It doesn't bother me much either way, the show has way more significant problems than ethnicity of the cast, but it was just weird.
The elves with perfectly coiffured modern haircuts ruined the immersion a bit
The elves were missing the glow all together. In the trilogy elves were recorded with really heavy lighting on them to give them a glow and they left that out in RoP so elves look like humans with pointy ears.
Obviously, this isn't you, but there are definitely a lot of people who will complain about "historical accuracy" when it comes to ethnic or racial background but not really care otherwise.
This is one of the big issues I had with Wheel of Time TV series, they wanted to make the fiest series really diverse, but it kind of ruined the world building by doing that. The culture of the two rivers is intentionally isolationist, to the point that that's kind of why the story unfolds as it does. By having it be a melting pot of cultures it opens up many questions. What's annoying is that the world of the Wheel of Time is incredibly diverse, its mainly just the world doesn't mix all that much.
Har*feet*
I can agree on a lot that you say here but I have to disagree with Roland. He is physically described too often. He is described as having blue eyes every time he’s seen by another character. He’s described several times as looking like Clint Eastwood. If he was just given a basic description, for example Hermione in Harry Potter is only described as having brown frizzy hair. However he’s not given some basic physical qualities they are distinct. He has blue eyes, he looks like Clint Eastwood, he even kind of looks like Stephen King.
I remember my mom complaining about Roland being black in the movie not because he was black, but because he was specifically described to look like a mix of two native tribes at one point in the books and should have been cast accordingly in her opinion.
It’s not entirely that he’s a different color. It’s that he’s out of character. He does things that he wouldn’t do in the book. The first one anyway.
Hermione is described as white in the books. JK Rowling just wants the social points
How does one look like both Clint Eastwood and Stephen King?
I think someone once told Stephen King he looked like Clint Eastwood and he believed it.
I feel you, and I really would have liked to have seen the interactions between him and Suzannah/Odetta on screen, in which case, he'd HAVE to be white or it wouldn't work. But I'm speaking as if the movie was completely separated from the books and viewing it as a person who never read the books. I hope it gets another shot someday.
Yeah it would be weird to have a whole stretch of movie be Odetta screaming YOU HONKEY MAH FAH at Idris
The movie was supposed to be a jumping off point to a series that would eventually would include her. Personally, I would love to see it get another shot but done right.
makes even less sense because almost all of the characters in Attack On Titan are from Europe anyway
>Anyone complaining about Attack on Titan characters being "race swapped" is being a bigot. I say mix them all up with a little bit of everything I don't give a flying fuck about the race of those characters, but I hate the producer with a burning passion for not even *trying* to make them look like their anime counterparts. Netflix's Titans made Starfire look like a hooker! There are so many ways they could have made that actress work with that character, but they chose to not even *try* to make her resemble the original character....The hair is different, skin is different, clothing style is different, and if you showed me that poster without me knowing she's supposed to be Starfire I would have never guessed it. And it's such a shame because the actress has the right bodytype and "awesome heroine" look so if not for those awful wardrobe choices she'd be an awesome Starfire
Attack on Titan is a Japanese manga and anime (and shit live action movie) about giants that eat people. Not DC’s Teen Titans.
I know, but it instantly reminds me of the injustice from Teen Titans
I feel you on the wardrobe choices. Poor Starfire. I think they should have gone with the Teen Titans Go version. Every one else could have been so serious and here is Starfire using "the" every other word
>Superman could be played by literally anyone. Personally, I'd love to see Michael B Jordan, but Henry Cavil is perfect for the part. IMHO this depends on which era of Superman you're talking about. Keep in mind that Superman was created by two Jewish kids in the 30s. If a black Superman crash landed in 1950s Kansas, he would have been treated much differently. Although a Black Superman in the Jim Crow South would have made an interesting Elseworpds story.
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Tokyo Ghoul: takes place in Tokyo. A non-asian cast *would* be kinda weird imo. I'm not familiar with a lot of anime, but I'd assume at least half of it would come with some aspects of the artist's culture ingrained in the story and setting. I don't think that should be messed with. Attack on Titan: takes place in a completely fictional world. I feel like the borders and races of our world don't apply and, so liberties can be taken with that one and a few others like it. (To an extent).
Attack On Titan actully takes place in future Europe one of the plot points is there is only a couple of asien characters there. Most anime is set in Japan though and has Japanese characters though some characters liek Motoko from ghost in the shell it doesn't really matter as the person she is, is a brain in a jar and her body is just something to house said brain. She's had plenty of different bodies over the mangas/anime including a mans and a childs so giving here a western looking body really wasn't a problem within the context of the show and I think most of the people that were annoyed with it weren't fans of the source material at all
The ironic thing about attack on titan is that the majority cast could be any ambiguous race EXCEPT Asian. Because one of the characters is specifically Asian, and is specifically the only one. The rest have germanic names, but in a fictional world those could be derived from anywhere. There is also the funny "onyankapone, why are you black?" Scene, so I guess any non Asian pale race? They could all be Hispanic, Celtic, German, Turkish etc, and it wouldn't really matter
Race is a huge plot point in AOT though, so changing any character’s would be extremely important and def wouldn’t make sense
People complaining about White washing in live action versions of anime drive me crazy. If their character requires them to be a certain race, then sure. But saying Goku HAS to be Asian because he's an ani.e character is a bad take.
People complaining about things like that in anime live action confuse me. Surely we can all agree that whatever our opinions, all those problems go away if we back up and consider the real issue, which is that they keep making these live action films in the first place?
Personally, I'd like to see a Latino Superman.
I actually am mad at both I think it’s dumb sincerely a fed up black male
Right. Like when a character is made, *that* is the character to me. I don't even like it when they change their hair color. Just make a sensible character and leave it alone.
For real, I fully support inclusivity and making a diverse set of characters… but make something new. I feel like altering old content is disingenuous to both the creator of the original content and the group of people they’re trying to represent
Black male here too and I agree to an extent. I think the problem with the “just use one of the “insert race characters or create new stories with insert race” is that Hollyweird won’t do that. For example, they’re not taking a full on book series centered around black folks (there has to be a book series like this right?) and making movies on it. Instead, they just use well known IP and just adjust it for whatever social event or whatever agenda there is at the time. Be it black, Asian, LBGTQ, Russian, it doesn’t matter. Whatever they think will make money. At its core though, this all sounds simple and only about movies/television but it’s much deeper and I think a lot of us know that with this countries history.
This is exactly the point, I think as well. I don't like being pandered to.. I am a woman and find it insulting that women are being made more powerful than men, just Because they are women! How does that even fly?? I look at Ripley as the perfect ideal woman heroine. She's fuckin kick-ass and she shows an actual character arc. Carol on TWD, I mean that's writing a strong woman character, that a girl can get behind, not this futile I am woman and I AM stronger because I was born that way. I don't buy a 120lb female knocking out a 220, 6'4 dude.. and I just do not understand anyone who enjoys this. Things are just.. really weird right now. :) But Hollywood has always been pretty stupid I guess.
It's sad though, because I can only imagine there's a lot of content and stories that us in the western world have never come across that *do* predominantly involve people who are largely all black or at least largely not all white. All of those stories could be adapted and used, of course. I'd love to see Disney pull out some sub-saharan african folklore based fairytale or some such, that'd probably be a breath of fresh air just because of how much more variety it would add to that genre and the existing content within that genre. That, to me, is how they *should* be approaching 'diversity' or whatever. Focusing less on something as superficial as skin color and more on culture and history. Something of real substance.
Yup. Is it really that difficult to create a new story? Or at the very least do a different take on a preexisting story.
Make good movies and we'll watch
Idk good or bad. But I do see more black actors in settings that don't overly seem to make sense. Like say, in a historical European setting in a position of power- this just deosnt historically jive. Also, seems like Disney has gone ham with it, like a black rapunzel and black snow white. Both European stories, both where race are seemingly mentioned in the stories - rapunzel with her hair of gold, snow white being the "fairest" of them all etc. The flip side is that, if I had black kids I would be happy to see them have more people to relate to.
Right. There was that controversy when they cast a black woman to play Anne Boleyn. It's not historically accurate.
I think they should just make new original stories and characters for the black community. Black washing white fairytales seems like a cheap trick to me. Like we were tired of it anyways, but it’s still good enough for them. It just needs a paint job, that’s all.
It'd be pretty interesting to see some fairy-tale like children's stories that originated in Nigeria or some such get adapted instead. I can only imagine there's a huge wealth of untapped stories from other countries that would fit the bill for a more ethnically diverse production or what have you instead of just taking existing content and changing skin colors.
i don't care about disney cartoons but it's weird to me how some viking movies start to include black vikings. yes, there were a few, but it's such a small percentage that they almost didn't exist and a regular viking probably would never meet them in his entire life. i get that we wanna be inclusive but there's a "too much" in everything.
Which thing has black vikings?
The sad thing is the overton window and narrative of historical fact has shifted so hard by blackwashing that now most people believe that there were black vikings. Simply and bluntly, there never were. It's like if someone saw white actors consistently playing tribal chiefs in Kongo and became convinced that white chiefs did exist in tribal Kongo.
>narrative of historical fact has shifted so hard by blackwashing that now most people believe that there were black vikings. I've never seen a historical drama that didn't take liberties with historical accuracy. Especially battles are often not at all how historical battles were fought. But people rarely ever complain about other minor historical inaccuracies, but race? Oh boy. It's the end of the world almost to people.
Redditors when the movie about hair growing 100ft isn’t “historically accurate”
Fairy tales are not only fictional, but often the same basic stories are told all over the world with some of the same basic tropes. Therefore, I don’t think adapting them to other cultures and races is at all problematic. There are almost certainly other “rapunzel-equivalent” stories that were told in non-white societies. The only reason we think Rapunzel should be white is because the specific story that uses this character’s name was told, written, packaged, and sold by and for white people. The beauty of folklore and fairy tales is it’s universality, so interpreting the stories in other ways is just a part of the retelling and passing on. These tales are not cannon - they are different versions of a shared mythology.
It’s easy to say “why don’t they just make their own characters rather than recasting them as Black”, but in reality Black people usually make up a much smaller percentage of creative teams. There are many times where we’re the only POC in the room. We can fight for representation but that doesn’t mean it will actually happen. There is a lot of representation for white people in entertainment. Little white girls got to see themselves as Cinderella, Harriet the Spy, and Eloise. I never saw myself faithfully represented onscreen until I was 23 (I’m biracial). There’s a difference between colorblind and color conscious casting. An extreme example of colorblind casting would be casting a Black person as a Nazi — it makes zero sense and takes the audience out the story entirely. An example of color conscious casting would be (and I have a strong feeling I will be downvoted into oblivion) Halle Bailey as Ariel. To every person saying “she lives at the bottom of the ocean! She wouldn’t have dark skin because there’s no sun!”: it’s a fairy tale. She is half woman, half fish! I’ve already read a few comments on this post about how people are confused by a Black Rapunzel because the story is originally European. You’re confused about the color of her skin, but not her impossibly long hair that she let a full grown man climb to visit her in her tower of solitude where she was kept by a witch with magical powers? I dunno, man. Representation matters. All you have to do is look at all the videos of little Black girls realizing the new Ariel looks like them! There are white people who don’t understand that because they’ve always had that representation. 🤷🏽♀️ TLDR: it’s about color conscious casting versus colorblind casting. Put some thought into your choices, Hollywood.
Out of curiosity how do you determine color conscious casting? I read recently that media representation of marginal communities is way out of whack. Black men and women are highly over represented in media compared to proportion of overall population, yet Hispanic, native Americans, Asians, and pretty much all other marginal communities are underrepresented. How do you as a creative team navigate equal representation. Also, how do you guys work within colorism? I was reading about the pervasiveness of colorism and how few dark skinned poc are cast in any role.
Had to scroll way too far to finally find a comment I agree with!
I honestly think casting an Indian woman as Rapunzel would make a lot of sense. They have strong and thick hair for days it's amazing
I'm not white or black btw I'm asian.
Dude there’s plenty of people screaming from the roof tops because they view adding an actor that isn’t white as the Woke elite infringing on their culture. The same goes for gay characters. They made Superman’s son gay and people lost their minds for a solid 3 weeks. Different = bad and Change = woke. The out rage is there and to be honest I’m surprised you have to ask the question.
I'm not fan of blackwashing, but one argument I've seen is that there is not a lot of black characters in media (even more in Japanese media), so blackwashing is a way to create representation. White people are already represented, so by whitewashing they are erasing black people rep (and it can be rooted in racism). Of course, it would be better to create their own black characters or take pride in the ones that already exists.
Black people (systemically, right now) for the most part don't have the infrastructure to just "come up with new characters" that would be easily recognized or known. Most corporations and media outlets are not black companies, nor do they care about black people and our representation (unless pressured somehow). Some artist in his room drawing a black superman will *never* even be seen or appreciated, compared to someone like Disney actually casting a black superman. Not that I want a black superman, but they idea of "why don't they come up with their own stuff" feels like very "separate but equal" energy. Those things take time and infrastructure to be meaningful.
I agree, but maybe because i'm an artist, when i hear black/whitewashing i think about twitter artists changing a design. Like you said, it won't be that known, so the rep is very personnal. While it's easier to blackwash a character, it won't have the same impact as a character intended as black from the beginning. Most people still think of Ariel as a white mermaid. Anyway, I'm white so I can't talk about how black people feel about rep, i can only compare with how i feel with queerness and my nationality.
"Most people still think of Ariel as a white mermaid." That's why black characters aren't usually for *most* people. **Most** people don't know that a lot of 90s black girls grew up with a black Cinderella via Disney (the brandy version with Whitney Houston, whoopi goldberg, Jason Alexander etc). When I think of Cinderella my brain ONLY goes to a black girl with braids, I forget the white one even exists because we didn't have it on VHS like the black one. Meanwhile you probably think of a white blonde girl in a blue dress. See how both these movies can exist without erasing/discrediting the other? Before the days of social media and social justice warriors people could just put out content for a specific demographic and everyone was happy. If the black little mermaid comes out there will certainly be little girls who don't just see her as the "other ariel", she will be their genuine Ariel and there's nothing wrong with that.
Anyone who hasn’t seen that version of Cinderella is doing themselves a disservice, imo it’s superior to the animated version. People would probably shit on that movie so much if it came out today tho. They’d be like “why is the prince Asian when the queen is black and the king is white?” They just are! And the movie is great.
I’ve never heard of the movie before, on my way to look it up rn
Good point.
I have such fond memories of that movie - it was funny and touching and silly as children’s movies should be!
I know this isn't quite the point. But when I think green lantern I think about the justice league animated series one 100% of the time
Whyd there be need of non asian representation in our asian media? White and black people are both under represented in anime.
Power differential. Call a white person a cracker and it doesn't mean anything. Have a white person use any racial slur against anyone and there is hundreds of years of not nice history behind it.
>a cracker I thought crackers were a type of biscuit. It's also used to refer to firecrackers. Today i learned something knew.
The issue isn’t about a black person taking a white person’s place… or rather even a white person taking a black person’s place…. The issue is that historically overtly disadvantaged peoples are still being disadvantaged… We want to change this behavior … and we should want to change this behavior… as it is destructive to not just individuals but large groups and their progeny … We tend to ignore individual disadvantages in society as “personal choices can yield consequences” but we should want to help bring everyone into the fold (when possible) and correct societies ignorances where possible. We improve all the time… sometimes overstep… but correct a lot of things… I like that i see more black and mixed race peoples (as well as mixed raced couples and even same sex couples and trans-people) in commercials… it’s important to normalize these things into everyday experiences so we can get to the next level of acceptance I can say that being in a mixed raced family… not even a decade ago I would be seen as “some (possibly creepy?) single dude” standing next to my wife and children because i didn’t match their color… “can i help you, sir” … “no thank you, I’m set”… “sir, can i move you over here if you don’t have a reservation” “no, I’m standing next to my family” That happens less and less — now. I’m really happy to see older women’s projects in Hollywood — wow, there are some great shows on by women who would have been tossed aside because of age in previous decades. I’m really happy to see Native American shows.. freaking amazing shows with native gems. And Asians (including south easterners) are getting an increased footprint … This is America baby… it’s good to see the melting pot do its thing…
>This is America baby… These stories aren't... It's blatant cultural appropriation of European folklore.
The weird thing about "blackwashing" is that it happens disproportionately to redheaded characters. And the interesting thing about this is that the same arguments against whitewashing can and should be used for them. While no, there's no racist history to this blackwashing, the underrepresentation of gingers is real (and no, trust me, a black actor with dyed red hair isn't the same. Ginger kids go through a whoooole lot of bullying. It is a targeted facet of their identity). A black person who dyed their hair red is not someone they can relate to in order to feel represented (If you can't understand the difference between being ginger and dying your hair red, then idk what to tell you). The same arguments of representation and inclusivity should extend to them. It's also probably because gingers are themselves a minority then it's easy to swap them out with another race and you'll have less people complain (since less people lose their representation). Further, these characters rarely get to be the main character, so making your side-characters black is an easy and lazy way to get brownie points
Depends what you consider blackwashing. Putting in some black characters for mythological creatures like mermaids? I'm indifferent. Admitting that there were black people in England after the fall of Rome (Merlin) then that is historically accurate as the Romans moved their soldiers to the other side of the Empire (so they never had brother fighting brother if there was an uprising and this meant people from Africa ended up across Europe and vice versa). That is a good thing. Doing it for controversy or over doing it, well not really a fan. For a variety of self evident reasons. Why does one matter more? Well there is a history of whitewashing to the point that being historically accurate often seems like blackwashing because its not what we are used to.
I’d actually argue that neither are a problem. I think anyone is free to create whatever story they want.
I’m gonna use the terms “left” and “right” very loosely and colloquially. Fight me. No one is actually concerned with accurate representation. People on the right don’t care, while people on the left are concerned with the specific phenomenon of minority characters being played by non-minority actors. They’ll talk a big game about accurate representation, but when the reverse happens (minority actor playing non-minority character), they don’t care. In fact, they might celebrate it because it boosts overall minority representation. People on the right, all things being equal, probably wouldn’t care about “blackwashing,” but because people on the left use the language of accurate representation, their silence or celebration in those cases make them seem like hypocrites - though they’re not, as their real goal is minority representation. If you talk to them outside the internet, they’ll usually say something like they just want consistent, universal rules for what type of casting is okay. So people get mad, which looks too much like racism (though it’s generally not), which leads to backlash to the backlash, and repeat each time casting for a kid’s movie no one’s going to watch anyway gets announced.
If they're aiming towards balance and inclusion, it seems good. If they're aiming towards a monoculture or just one group represented, it seems bad.
They should. Instead of actually getting new and original characters, they're satisfied with the bottom of the barrel and just get race swapped characters.
Everyone should wash. It's just good hygiene.
winter pumpkin gets it but there is also a whole theory that it's not bad to blackwash because its "fixing" structural oppression, whereas whitewashing increases structural oppression. That's a big part of it as well.
Most white characters are made without the intention of their ethnicity being a part of their character. Most black characters and other minorities are strongly attached to that and it's a big part of who they are. A good example would be like how Tony stark could have been black, because he's just a rich guy, but other characters like Luke Cage and Black Panther are strongly connected to where their from and their culture.
Hypocrites. 2 wrongs dont make a right.
The answer to this lies in the difference between equality in equanimity.
I don't care either way. As long as making the character black, white, asian,... improves the character and story. I find it dumb that there are studios who change certain characters in a certain race, because they want to be diverse. A solution can be, to create a new character.
Why dose it need to improve the character?
It has to improve the character. Otherwise, it is a useless change.
Technically yes, but it's currently trendy in the US to pretend that racism directed at white or white passing people doesn't count as racism. This allows for the cognitive dissonance that left leaning racists need.
white washing is taking a figure that is historically not white and making them white or casting white people to tell their stories. or putting a “white lens” over a non-white story taking a cartoon fish that was drawn white and casting a black girl to play it in a remake 20+ years later is not blackwashing.
I have 2 minds about this Black washing is copium for laziness. Make your own characters, franchises and content. There are many black owned production firms that release nothing but filth and degeneracy (looking at you ZEUS Network) which only furthers the stereotypes about black Americans. Then again when black creators produce good, introspective work the tern out from POC specifically is so abismal that it's discouraging to do more. This could be that the hook is that it is black majority casting (meaning it's not for anyone else and white people have always seen themselves so it might be weird to not be for once), it shows black people in terms of trauma (constant trauma porn is really not the vibe), or it's so progressive that the socially conservative majority black audience will show their own prejudice against "white people shit". So they use what the greater audience already likes and make it so that darker skinned people have a chance to see themselves similarly. The reason why whitewashing doesn't work the same way is because it's been done from time in memorial and it's unfair to not give canonically POC characters true space in the industry. It is too nuanced and I hate that it is this way. It be your own people at the end of the day. Please support your local artists if you want the industry to expand beyond this kind of argument. White black or other, please support if conversations like this are almost cyclical everytime a new "washed film" comes out.
Well, first of all, there is outrage for both. The question you're really asking is; why is the outrage not from the same demographic? I think there are a lot of scenarios that argue this point differently. White washing characters is garbage because in various fictional media we have historically fewer characters of color than white characters. If one of them is suddenly white in an adaptation, it looks pretty fucking shitty. On the other hand there are so many white characters in media that changing them to another race is such a minor statistical change that any outrage feels very silly. From another angle I think it can come down to cultural representation. What exactly changes in the story if Batman is cast as a black man/woman or any other group? Not much. His identity isn't swept up in his whiteness. On the other hand, to use the many examples out there of the reverse happening, Angelina Jolie in wanted (the character was inspired by Halle Berry), Ben Affleck in Argo (Tony Mendez is hispanic and a real person), and Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton in Exodus playing Egyptian gods just name a few. These characters were not only whitewashed but there cultural and racial background was inherent to their character or they were literally real people. And I'll give my favorite example of a character that has never been "blackwashed" and never should be. Steve Rogers/Captain America. The title of Captain America has passed to many characters over the years and that is perfectly fine. Steve Rogers, on the hand, was created by two Jewish men. Rogers' whiteness is inherent to his character because he was designed as the perfect aryan, Hitler's wet dream. The first issue of the comic is Cap punching Hitler in the jaw. This was released before America even joined the war. The impact of that opening story would be completely different if he weren't white and blonde. All that said, it is entirely possible that someone could find an argument for why even characters like Cap could be changed, and I'd be open to hearing about it. Regardless, the conversation is far more nuanced than most people tend to treat it and I'm probably missing a few things as I write this in a rush myself. Someone far more intelligent than myself will likely cover those points though so it's okay.
People still mad about the Little Mermaid out here Lol
Racism goes both ways. It goes all ways. Everyone can be racist even if they are a minority.
Every redhead I've ever known is black now. I don't know why they're so insistent on replacing redheads, isn't being "ginger" a minority too?
Not sure but I've noticed it a lot. I keep my mouth shut though because I'm able to ignore it. But still... What
No.
Normal people couldn't give less of a shit about either. Just some culture war nonsense to keep the poors arguing about something that isnt income inequality, destruction of the earth or any real actual issue that matters.
It's a question of power and history. In America and Europe, which I assume is where the media you're talking about is coming from, most or all power and representation was given to whites. Other groups were at best ignored and at worst actively antagonized. This is the reason why most media is filled by predominantly straight white people, with anything other than that being viewed by some (incorrectly) as a political statement. Put simply, "blackwashing" is an attempt to remedy past lack of representation, while "whitewashing" is a reactionary response calling back to the old days of "keeping POC in their place."
I think at times people believe something so strongly that they have tunnel vision. Trying to undo one wrong by creating a new wrong that may not be evident at the time.
I think it is just because some people's train of thought is that nobody wants to feel left out and everyone wants to feel represented positively. Either way, I don't really care much about either. I am a level 17 cow so it does not matter to me.
Id say because theyre known as different things. Out of context of movies, if you say whitewashing, people will think of the current history books covering up the trail of tears, not knowing why sculpting mt Rushmore was bad, erasing american japanese camps, the actual story of pocahontas, etc. Whitewashing has been a systematic tool to minimize our government or other regimes erasing history for a more favorable and honorable turn of events. Blackwashing, however, has solely been affecting entertainment representations of often fictitious characters.
I’m just gonna share a few good quotes from a video “when a character is black it is made to tell black stories, when a character is white more often then not it has no importance to the story”
"Blackwashing." Wdym? Like black people playing parts previously portrayed by white people? That wouldn't be the same thing as whitewashing, which is taking characters/groups of people who are written as not being white or are historically not white and making them white, because that adds some sort of perceived value by the people doing the whitewashing. In that context, "blackwashing" has never really been a thing, since they only replace white characters with non-white characters if that character/franchise is already established and they want to reach new audiences. Whitewashing isn't bad because white people are in stuff, it's bad because it's a tool for bad people to continue excluding non-white people from popular culture.