Things not mattering

[aesmael]

This whitewashing thing, taking stories written by, featuring or about people of colour and twisting them, recasting so at minimum the heroes are replaced with white people and at maximum... well.

It is a pretty pervasive and appalling practice -- the link above is by no means exhaustive.

There are a couple of reasons commonly given to justify these practices. One is to claim it is not the fault of the company producing the work, they are merely doing what sells. Perhaps, but to say "We do this because racism is profitable" is far from what I would consider a laudable business practice, and it doesn't much help the argument that proper capitalism* would eschew oppression because it is economically disadvantageous, either.

Another is to say race doesn't matter, at least to them. Perhaps so, but if it really is the case then why is there a trend to recasting people of colour as white and not so much the other direction? Why change the settings of stories to be white and Anglo if this doesn't matter? And if it matters so little to the people making these things, then why not cater to the people for whom it does matter by leaving the stories, characters, settings, etc. intact? Really, if people don't care about race, then why keep replacing people of colour with white people?

Comments

[allieflowlight.livejournal.com]

This. All of this. Imma link people to it.

Question, though: What is the asterisk after "capitalism" supposed to signify?

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

The asterisk is to signify that if called for, can specify that I think capitalism is unrelated to bigotry, as I think socialism is - bigoted capitalist / socialist people will produce a society which perpetuates and caters to their bigotries, as unbigoted capitalist / socialist people would not. Sort of an invisible bonus footnote.

[lost-angelwings.livejournal.com]

Srsly.. if they were truly "colour blind" then they'd have like a wheel or dart board or pick slips of paper out of a hat or something to determine the ethnicity, race, gender, etc of their chars...

the capitalism thing is such bull too and it shocks me how ppl have this utter faith in capitalism and corporations.. if they tell you that they will go out of business if they even cast 1 asian hero, then well they know, they're the gods from up high, and only they know the truth, so we gotta believe them. The problem is we don't have a true free market, and corporations aren't run by robots, they're run by ppl who are influenced by the same society biases and prejudices and privilege that the rest of us are, perhaps more so since they can be even more disconnected with "the unwashed masses".

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

Help

Srsly.. if they were truly "colour blind" then they'd have like a wheel or dart board or pick slips of paper out of a hat or something to determine the ethnicity, race, gender, etc of their chars...

And they wouldn't treat trying to authentically represent those identities (even if they aren't their own identities) as a burdensome chore, or as automatically a niche interest.

The problem is we don't have a true free market

I'm not sure that a true free market would prevent this kind of behavior. Corporations exist to turn a profit. Any other motives are ultimately secondary, or become so after the business reaches a certain size. Even if any given corporation isn't like that, it can be outcompeted by more ruthless ones that are driven only by profit.

they're run by ppl who are influenced by the same society biases and prejudices and privilege that the rest of us are, perhaps more so since they can be even more disconnected with "the unwashed masses"

Exactly. As long as this kind of thing goes unchanged, we'll still see this sort of thing.

[lost-angelwings.livejournal.com]

Well in a true free market corporations wouldn't exist int he form they do today (which they do b/c of government interference and rules that allow corporations rights htey normally wouldn't have as just a business), but that wasn't my point neways xD My point was that ppl believe that corporations are just doing whatever they can to maximize profits and that the white washing, if they are doing it, must be towards that goal and what consumers want, but that's not rly true. If they only cared about profits for example, then MTV films would have a demographic for Asian youth, but they don't... industries and corporations have run themselves into the ground by refusing to change and do stuff necessary TO maximize profits (just look at the American auto industry, or the video game industry in the 80s)... I don't believe for a second that white washing actually brings them the maximum profits, I believe that they're making SOME profits, and dun care to rock the boat.

[floorcandy.livejournal.com]

Based purely on my own observation there seems to be this notion out there that a protagonist must be white because white is racially 'neutral', like being of a non-white culture is some sort of spice you add to a story for flavour. I've heard it said that apparently white people don't have a culture, nor are they an ethnicity, and with that sort of thinking as a base it's a short stepping stone or two into thinking a story about white characters appeals to all consumers. Of course should for some reason a non-white group feel the need for representation (heaven forbid >.>) there's always the token African/Hispanic/Asian neighbour/classmate/best friend to call on.

This has probably been stated somewhere before and I'm sorry if I'm repeating the same ideas that may have been said over and over.