Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
A collection of quotes by (mostly Rhys) and Taika — who first met at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002 when Rhys was doing his first solo show and have been friends ever since — discussing their shared history and finding those dramatic beats in Our Flag Means Death.
So there are some very smart conversations about how portraying Ed, who’s played by a Maori and Jewish dude, as disproportionately bigger than Stede, who’s played by a dude so white he’s pink, is playing into racist stereotypes about the inherent brutishness of people of color, particularly Maori men. (Yes, Blackbeard is in fact pretty terrifying, but he also cries in bathtubs, so.) This is a common issue in fandoms, particularly where one part of a pairing is a man of color (it happens most frequently with Black men — see Finn from Star Wars) and often isn’t consciously done, but it’s always worth bearing in mind when creating fic or fanart. Racism can leak into places we’d never expect, so keeping that metaphorical mop handy is always a good idea.
Plus, as people have pointed out, Stede and Ed are roughly the same height:
Except… they aren’t:
I saw this picture earlier and googled the actors’ heights — Waititi’s between 6′ and 6′1″ and Darby is 5′10″ on a good day.
Which is when I realized — and I’m sure a lot of people have realized this, but it hit me right between the eyes and then slapped me around a little with a dead fish — that the reason they look like they’re the same height throughout most of the show is because Stede wears those goddamn motherfucking kitten heels the whole fucking time.
Which isn’t to say that characterizing Ed as some big huge dude in comparison to tiny little Stede is now somehow accurate — Darby clearly is still the broader guy and could probably bench press Waititi, who would giggle the whole time — but it does make me contemplate the inevitable scene where Stede, wearing only some plain-ass flat shoes, shows up again and Ed is like “what happened, did comphet shorten you or something.”
