HOME | DD
EmpressFunk — Whitewashin' and Racebendin'
Published: 2011-03-09 18:21:51 +0000 UTC; Views: 26984; Favourites: 733; Downloads: 293
Redirect to original
Description
My feelings. Lemme show you them.:/
Related content
Comments: 199
god bless you and your soul and everything about you
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I agree on many parts. But not on others, I mean, yeah if it's based in China or Mexico there should be ethnic leads for the respective area. Like Catwoman, or Scorpion King. But does ethnic leads necessarily mean that the leads have to actually be colored? Can't they be Italian? German? Or other races that have their own culture but not exactly "colored". Russian. Belgian. But still have certain traits but don't pertain to their actual skin color.
And it also should be remaking an entire movie ("Death at a Funeral" at first, an English movie) but filling it all with colored people JUST to make it more diverse.
So yes, if the main character was MEANT to be a certain ethnicity, MAKE IT THAT ETHNICITY!
But if it wasn't, sure it doesn't hurt, right?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
1. "colored" is kinda an offensive and antiquated way to refer to POC, jsyk. poc does not mean ethnic as i think you are using it as. it means non-white. period. so if the role is up for a POC actor with no specific background (meaning it doesn't directly call for a certain race) then no, a white german actor should not be given the role just cause germany has their own culture~. casting a pale skin korean in the role still means that they cast a POC actor. plus, germany/italian are nationalities... not races. you can still be black/hindi/etc and be italian. much like you can still be white and born in spain or africa.
2. if the role is for a POC then yes... they need to be the POC the character was based on. getting some tanned white actor to play the role is still whitewashing it. having snooki to play the role of a latina is still whitewashing.
3. if the role/story is based on a POC culture then they should be played fully by the POC culture it was based on. in what way does getting a german to play a role in a movie based on ancient chinese theologies make sense? there is no need to insert white people into stories that don't have anything to do with them and were in fact built in a world that most probably didn't include them at all story wise. meaning there was no need for christian bale to be in flowers of war or any of the other white leads or supporting characters that somehow get more screen time/plot importance than the POC leads. tom cruise is the last samurai... really now?
4. if it was not meant for any race then that is not the same and should mean that more POC should be getting roles instead of less because race is a non-factor in character/storyline.
5. lastly, casting white passing POC in movies is just as bad as outright casting white actors because it furthers the idea of white being the default. because there is no reason for jennifer lopez's parents to always be played by white actors nor is there a reason for afro-latinas to be forced to only play roles meant for "black" actors when they are just as much latina as they are black. but you dont see gina torres playing the roles given to light/white passing latinas now do you? which means afro-latinas have pretty much been erased from media save zoe saldana and she is still usually given roles for "black" characters.
so yes, their skin color in regards to the race of the person cast is indeed very important and it is usually white privilege or upholding whiteness as default that allows you to even ask this.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well I mentioned the if the role was meant for a certain ethnicity to further the story line because even in "Remember Me" Robert P's leading lady was meant to be a Latina, it was even suggested in the script, but because Rob suggested someone else, the idea was completely dropped because of Rob's suggested actress. So with Hollywood (completely Democratic by the way) it nearly always falls with who you know and they have no discrimination with that.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you. This is an issue that's been an issue for far too long. I could go on and rant for hours, but you've summed it up nicely.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
looove this. and agree completely!! i've always wondered why white is default. there's so many great actors who aren't white.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I agree with you that it is lousy to change the races of established characters. When adapting something into a movie, the effort should always be made to stay as true to the source material as possible. Therefore, changing the character's race is defintely a no-no.
However, that means that, while I have a problem with them changing the races of the Avatar characters and Bane, I also would have had a problem with them changing Spiderman's race. Spiderman is white, and it should stay that way, just like the Avatar characters should have stayed the way they were. If an established character's race is important, that it shouldn't matter what that race is.
I also did have a problem with a black "Norse God," since I found it disrespectful to the cultural source material. Even though these gods don't have the same races we do, their portrayals are taken from Norse mythology, and therefore should have stayed true to that. It's the same reason I don't have a problem with the majority black cast of, say, "The Lion King on Broadway," even though animals don't have human races either. That production was African themed and heavily influenced by African culture, so it made sense to have black actors and actresses. But by the same token, if you're going to base something off of Norse mythology, you should try and make it look "Norse."
Anyway, I'm still POed about Bane. Not only does it suck that they changed his race, but his new costume also sucks. Where's his adorable Lucha mask?
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
I hope you know that the new Spiderman is a PoC. I really hope you know that.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Which new Spiderman are you referring to? The new Ultimate Spiderman? He isn't the same person as Peter Parker, therefore, I don't have a problem with him being a different race. I still hate him, but it's because he's a replacement character. I hate all replacement characters. Give me the originals any day of the week.
Or are you talking about the new Spiderman in the upcoming movie? Because he sure looks white to me (I'm aware the actor has Jewish heritage, but haven't heard anything about that being applied to the character. Unless you've heard some new info I haven't? I admit to not following news about that movie simply because I don't give a sh*t about it 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
The new spiderman movie promises to be much better than the old one, mostly because of casting, but I really won't know until I see it.
I don't see how he's a replacement character, mostly because it's been high time they made some changes to Marvel. There's only so long that you can milk the crap out of the old characters without boring everyone.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm just unhappy with the reboot in general. I love Spidey's rogues gallery, and there were so many more characters I would have liked to see, but instead, we're getting a reboot, which makes me afraid he'll just face the same ones all over again. Though I am happy we'll be seeing Lizard. But I'm pretty sure we would have seen him without a reboot, given that they had established Dr. Connors as a character in the original film series.
For the most part, I never had an issue with the casting choices in the old movies.
The New Ultimate Spiderman is a replacement character because he's replacing Peter Parker as Spiderman. That makes him a replacement character. Whether you think it's good or bad that they are doing that is a separate issue, but it doesn't change the fact that he's a replacement character.
Personally, I hope they give him the "Ben Reilly" treatment
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I think you should re-read that spoiler alert part... and let it sink in.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I did read it. I disagree with it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is brilliance. Sheer brilliance.
I think you are the last vestige of intelligence on the internet.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
the thing is tyler perry casts all black actors but his movies suck >.>
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
well played, fully agree and I am an average white guy
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Amazing and the way put it is so nicely done! I wish I could express my views as eloquent (or some fancy word like that XD ) as you do here. I hope I am not self-serving by doing this but I think you might find me, a Chinese Canadian, would have interesting things to say as well [link]
On the other I have a mixed feeling about Prince of Persia due to what I know about Persia (which I admit, not an expert). If memory serves, the Persians is an Aryan Race (Don't listen to Adolf Hitler!). Not to mention the Chinese record of Persians (in 100 BC or something like that) goes like "Folks with big tall noses, deep brows and bigger eyes, some are even a bit paler than us..." Consider Jake G is not blond and blue eyed like a western European, I guess he could pass as a Persian. But when I hear the PoP characters speaking with British accent, that was a for me.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Your deviations make me laugh so hard!
Especially with that "C'MON, SON. C'MON." at the end.
Ahhh, I love going through your gallery. :')
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Have you heard of a book called "Anansi Boys?" It's by Neil Gaiman who also wrote "Coraline" and "Stardust," any who, the story centers around two black brothers, who happen to be the sons of African trickster spider god Anansi. At one point Gaiman was approached by Hollywood to adapt it into a movie but he turned it down, reasoning he has enough money to support himself and his family. However, It could be said he turned it down because Hollywood asked "Is there any way we could make the main characters who are descendants of an African spider god white?"
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Wait, seriously? Do you have a link to that? I could use it for future arguments.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
[link]
Here's something that could help validate it without relying on Wikipedia. TV Tropes helps, too.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I know all about that. It made me love Neil Gaiman even more because he created that book for his friend Lenny Henry (a Black British Caribbean comedian and actor). When Lenny Henry said it is hard to find sci-fi and fantasy books with Black leads and Gaiman said I'll write you one.
Same thing goes for the carter kane series. Worst of all you have so called fans of these books who cannot accept that they are Black and draw them as white proving the casting directors point when they say that White people can't relate to anyone who isn't white.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is why I like Howard and Kumar go to Whitecastle. Probably my favourite of the dude-comedies XD
But i agree entirely. the casting in Last Airbender was dreadful. And the acting was even worse. Dev Patel would've made a better Sokka.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This exactly. Thank you for putting it so well (and I love the illustrations)!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thanks for educating me about dem pictcha' shows, sis. I enjoy this for some reason. Wait I should be doing home work right now...
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I agree with you. But I hate the term "POC" so much. :I
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Right on.
I would totally join you on your rant, but it's midnight where I am and I doubt it would be coherent...
But anyways, thanks for being coherent for the rest of us.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
they really did *bleep* up the movie
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I was sitting in the theater, loling, at Sokka and Katara's "minority representation" against the rest of the water tribe.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This was awesome. I definitely agree with the Avatar part especially. Someone needs to explain to me why ZUKO, who of all the animated characters looks the whitest (not saying he is white, just... whitest) was the only character played by a POC. Sounds like they got it backwards (not to mention all the racial undertones that can be there due to the fact he's kind of the bad guy in the first movie/book- and I hope it's the only, zeus help us if it isn't).
I find that I often have to evaluate my use of race in my own stories. Often, I don't even say what the race of a character is because frankly... it doesn't matter, really. Some stories it does matter. And some, assumptions can be made. For instance, if I'm setting a story in a midwest college... chances are most of the mains are white, because... well, I go to a midwest college. Not a ton of minorities here (and my group of friends proudly sports 1 and a half asians, and 1/4th a black person... which is actually proportionally more diverse than our campus overall). But, if the story has worldwide implications... yeah, freely assume any character could be any race. The world isn't entirely white, after all.
Personally, I've always wanted to try acting just so I can utterly confuse casting directors. I've got a very, very german last name, but I'm German/French/Austrian/Irish/Welsh/British/Dutch with a little bit of Native American on both sides of the family... making me "dark" (according to my mom's coworkers who I met this week, and compared to her I am quite 'dark')... the Native American shows through significantly. What the hell would they do with me? I'm too white to ever play POC roles without there being objections, but I'm too naturally olive-skinned to play white roles. For that reason, I want to act... I love confusing people.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I love this! I wish I could spread it. Actually, Imma link it on FB.
thank you so much for this! From a hal-mexican to hated that white bit in Avatar
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Yeah, Heimdall is nothing more than a glorified doorman who barely does anything in the Thor comic series. You'd think that the complainers would be happy about that. (Just kidding...or am I??) But more importantly, it seems that they forgot that the Norse Gods in the comic were aliens who took on the shape of the planet's inhabitants. They're not the Ultra Powerful, Born On Earth, Humans (i.e. "Gods") that we all worship!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Dude, I wish you were sitting next to me so i could high five you. FUCK YES to everything you've said here! I'm going to share it with the folks at Racebending's LiveJournal community ([link] ) if you don't mind. You'll get full credit, of course.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, go right ahead, thanks!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
really the only writer/director creating leading roles for black people is Tyler Perry... and we all know that those are some fine quality movies. :/
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I agree... I didn't even watch the whole show until a few days later when my brother and sister made me... I played pokemon through the whole thing... and never cared.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hell. Freaking. Yes. Thank you for so perfectly encapsulating all my feelings on this issue, so I have something convenient to thrust in the faces of people who don't get why racebending is so heinous. Faved!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
See, it's wonderful, thoughtful stuff that started me following you.
HELL YES.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
That happened in a show I was in! We did Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and there's this character Jewel who is the housekeeper and gets to sing this big awesome "diva" song. Jewel is SUPPOSED to be a big African American lady. It makes absolutely NO sense to cast a 5 foot tall 90lb white girl with red hair who can't sing for pennies. But tiny ginger was what we got because the director didn't want the housekeeper to be black he thought it was "inappropriate." That's the way the show was written! It took place in the 70's! IN TEXAS. And inappropriate? The show is about prostitutes for gods sake. The ONE African American girl in the cast, who is *amazing*, got shuffled off into the scenery as hooker number 4. She was one of the ensemble members that we had to make up a name for so she didn't feel bad that she was "extra."
Everything about the Avatar was messed up, from Twilight and his china doll sister to AAAAAAAHng and Soak-a.
And the Earthbenders, what the hell was the deal with that?
ALSO.. (last one I promise) I always thought that the Green Lantern was black, cause I grew up watching Justice League. I was SO confused when they announced Ryan Reynolds as the title. I've since been informed that I need to read more comics..
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
<= Prev | | Next =>