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.
WHITEWASHING doesn’t only mean making someone’s complexion lighter or paler. its in the way you change their nose to pointier one, the way you make their face smaller, the way you draw their chin like its “delicate.” whitewashing means to take away ethnic features poc have.
Criticizing Joss Whedon’s problematic writing choices does not translate to hate.
Also, word of advice, if you want people to stop accusing you of being racist or sexist, then you might want to stay away from the following:
Having the lead female protagonist of your show almost raped by her love interest and then have the showrunner praise the rapist as being his favorite character and having the best character development (Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Plan to have a prostitute gang raped to feed into the character development of her male love interest (Inara, Firefly)
Have a show that heavily features Asian culture and religions, but then fail to cast any Asian actors (Firefly)
Claim that having Asian actors was unnecessary because one of your white actors “kind of looked Asian.” (Summer Glau, Firefly)
Fire your lead actress for getting pregnant and then spend the next season shitting all over her character (Charisma Carpenter, Angel)
Inviting that lead actress to come back to the show, promising her that she’ll stick around until the final episode, only to turn around and kill her character off at the last moment as revenge (Charisma Carpenter, Angel)
Creating the single most racist depiction of a black female character by making her violent, savage, animalistic and so dumb that she isn’t even able to speak, and then reveal that the way she became the first slayer, was by having a group of old men force a demon into her body without her consent (The First Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Have one of the most popular female superheroes referred to as a “cunt” by the main villain (Natasha Romanoff, Avengers)
Claim that because a female character was unable to have children, that she was considered a monster (Natasha Romanoff, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Taking one of the strongest female superheroes in the MCU and turning her into an outlet for her male love interest to pour his man angst all over and then completely dump her in the end without any expression of gratitude for all she did for him (Natasha Romanoff, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Have one of the most popular superheroes in the MCU joke about raping women (Tony Stark, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Feature two characters who were originally of Jewish-Romani descent and then have them whitewashed by hiring white actors to play them (Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Having two Jewish-Romani characters volunteer for a Nazi organization, despite the fact that Jewish and Romani people were victims of the Holocaust (Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff,Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Have the audacity to redefine feminism and re-brand it because he found feminism distasteful.
Constantly using the “break the cutie” trope to punish his supposedly “strong female characters.” (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Avengers: Age of Ultron)
Using the threat of sexual violence against his lead female protagonists on multiple occasions (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Avengers)
Check yourself, fandom. These criticisms of Joss Whedon’s work have been long-standing and are completely valid. So, before you get on your high horse and try to accuse his detractors of being bitter fangirls, take a look at all the fucked up shit your problematic fav has said and done, and then we’ll talk.
Anonymous: I was just wondering. What is your opinion on both Heimdall and Valkyrie being black in the MCU considering that they actually come from Norse mythology?
I don’t see a problem with it. Whose to say that people in Norse mythology weren’t PoC as we understand it today?
I know Norse gods are painted and showed as white but so is Jesus and we all know given where he was born he wouldn’t be white so like current depictions of the gods don’t really mean anything to me.
1. They don’t come from Norse Mythology, they come from a comic that borrows elements from Norse mythology. A comic that people should have pointed out as inaccurate years ago (if they’re really going to be purists about Norse mythology). If they weren’t complaining about a beautiful Hela or a Loki who isn’t red and doesn’t have sex with horses than they’re being pretty selective.
2. Many people are working from a bastardized, and frankly almost white supremacist version of Norse mythology, like they do with Greek mythology.
3. Vikings (who people like to use as their example in these complaints) travelled and interacted with people from other groups all of the time. The assumption (from people who have NO relation to any ancient Nordic culture outside of what white supremacists pretend they have) that these movie versions of characters *based* on mythology MUST be white in any incarnation comes from the claim that Nordic people’s were “pure”, colorless, and separate from non-white “interlopers” until “forced diversity” stole their culture.
4. Why is it that people think that black people can be their “gotcha”?
I just received this reply on my reblog of this (url clipped off):
Leaving aside the fact that the Yoruba faith is still practiced while the Norse gods are now largely the domain of Neopaganism and fiction… If white people are annoyed that Idris Elba is playing a Norse god, it’s because their White Pride is wounded. Same as when Samuel L. Jackson was cast as Nick Fury (except Nick Fury was always just a character and never an actual symbol of white supremacy, which a good deal of Norse mythology has become). Having a black person playing a traditionally white role does not diminish the existence of thousands upon thousands of other traditionally white roles that are filled by white people.
People of color are offended when non-white characters are made white because it keeps happening, and it’s harmful, because it reduces an already small representation of non-white characters in media.
Representation in the media matters, but with so few complex, non-stereotypical examples of people of colour in media, representation matters that much more. For this reason, taking one of the few stories explicitly starring people of colour and casting them as white leaves people of colour poorer in our media portrayals as a result.
It is genuinely harmful to have even one less representation of people of colour in a society that shapes so much of its perception and acceptance of people different from them through visual media.
Casting a black actor as James Bond, or a Mexican-Lebanese actress as Isabelle Lightwood on TV’s Shadowhunters, or even a black actor as the Nordic god Heimdall does not have this same effect.
While one might not personally like the idea of a black Bond, having one is not detrimental to the perception of white people in society because there are thousands – tens of thousands – of other portrayals of them.
THR invited the women to join a no-holds-barred conversation about cultural authenticity and why Japanese nationals fail to understand the race controversy: "People in Japan worship white people."
Traci Kato-Kiriyama: It was stunning visually, but emotionally it didn’t draw me in.
Keiko Agena: It was harder to watch than I thought
it was gonna be. To get emotionally invested, you have to really care
that she needs to find out who she is. But when she finally meets her
mom, my gut felt so weird in that moment.
Kato-Kiriyama: That scene was devastating on all
levels. It got me because of the emotion of the mother [veteran Japanese
actress Kaori Momoi]. She’s really wonderful. That scene should have
been beautiful, but Major had nothing in her eyes. Acting-wise, what a
missed moment.
Atsuko Okatsuka: I wasn’t aware they were gonna
explain the whitewashing. I thought it was just going to be an action
film, no explanation, just go with the fact that it’s a future Japan
with this robot cop. And then to be like, “Oh shit, I used to be a
Japanese woman!” (Laughter) That was against my expectations.
How did you feel when that twist was revealed?
Agena: That was hard, y’all. Hard and awkward.
Ai Yoshihara: Major’s backstory is white people trying to justify the casting.
Okatsuka: And they f—ed up in the process because
now it looks even worse. The text at the beginning of the movie
explained that Hanka Robotics is making a being that’s the best of human
and the best of robotics. For some reason, the best stuff they make
happens to be white. Michael Pitt used to be Hideo.
Agena: That was the other cringe-worthy moment, when
they called each other by their Japanese names. We’re looking at these
beautiful white bodies saying these Japanese names, and it hurt my heart
a little bit.
Kato-Kiriyama: It was supposed to be so touching and intimate, and it felt gross. And kind of laugh-worthy at the same time.
Okatsuka: I would have preferred them just using American names. “You used to be Bob.”
white person defending a movie with an all white cast: it’s set in New York in the 1920s !! every single person in the WEST before the year 2016 was a white! historical accuracy!
poc: ok…so why has this movie about Moses, set in Ancient Egypt, got an all white cast
white person defending a movie with an all white cast: shut the hell your mouth! skin colour doesn’t matter! it should be the best person for the job….like this white guy……… with EYELINER
Update: In a new interview with Vulture, Constance Wu keeps the fight for Asian American actors alive. Specifically the struggle she has with white studio executives now who get defensive when she brings up whitewashing:
if youre white you need to keep your eyes peeled for whitewashing at all hours. if the thought of reblogging something even crosses your mind and theres a character in it who canonically has bronze or dark skin or just. not fucken. pale skin, just take a damn second and review it. ‘does the character in question/every character here actually look like the people in canon, especially with regards to skin tone or nonwhite features’ just take a damn second ok
& white people watch your friends too for gods sakes and tell them when they fuck up. it shouldn’t be 100% brown + black emotional labor goin into destroying whitewashing otherwise youre complicit in it
white ppl please reblog this + hold ur white friends to these standards.
A biopic about Rumi, the 13th century Muslim poet (born in present-day Afghanistan) is now in development. Producer Stephen Joel Brown told the Guardian they hope Leonardo DiCaprio will play Rumi. But wait it gets worse, they want another hugely famous white actor to play Shams of Tabriz, Rumi’s Iranian spiritual advisor.
