Can we, just once, have a person of color playing an established character and not have a bunch of assholes crawling out of the woodwork to tell us how much this ruins things for them?
For all my Tumblr reader fans (Tumblrians? Tumblites?), let me start by saying that I adore your beloved social medium, but I haven’t really had the time to sit down and learn how to use it, so for now this blog is just crossposted there. When I have time to learn the culture of Tumblr and use it effectively, then I’ll be more involved.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t read Tumblrs (is that even right?) by streaming them to my gReader. And it was in the course of doing so that I came across this:
Before I say a word, know that I’m not a racist. I simply think that changing the ethnicity of classic characters just to prove how not racist you are is a cheap thing for production companies to do. I mean, Lancelot was not an African. Not in one story or piece of art was he depicted as anything but an English born white man. Do you have any idea how rare Africans were in England in those days? Only just recently has the first skeletal remains of a black man been found and from the condition of them, he was most likely a slave and not treated very well. I know Lancelot isn’t real. Unlike Mulan, he really is from a fairy tale… but c’mon. I know I may sound like I’m taking this stuff too seriously, but why bother getting into a TV series if you’re not going to let yourself really get into it.
This makes me want to dunk my head in lye and jump off a cliff. You’re telling me that the race of a fictional character is so jarring that you are unable to immerse yourself in the show? Really?
As to there being very few Africans in Europe during whenever-the-fuck-you-think-Arthurian-times-were (generally sometime around 600 AD, though the romances which invented Lancelot portrayed that time as basically being just like the time they were written in), and those very poor, here’s a lovely article on black people in Europe through history with links to more documentation. Educate yourself, totes-not-a-racist-who-probably-isn’t-reading-this. And as a final note, he’s usually portrayed as a French, not English born man, and his race is rarely mentioned in any of the romances in which he features.
Yea, I can see why it would be difficult to imagine a black fairy tale character.
Jess’s commentary is pretty spot on:
Isn’t it hilarious when you think about the fact that Lancelot didn’t exist? You know who else didn’t exist? Basically every character in this series! Do you know what else didn’t exist? Magic…magic totally didn’t exist. And people couldn’t turn into dragons. And there are no such things as wraiths. There’s a lot about this show that could be complaining about, but you’ve chosen to complain about the fact that Lancelot isn’t white.
Exactly! You are aware that even if you think that magic is real, it is not a part of your daily life in nearly the same fashion as it’s been portrayed on that show, right? So, dragons=yes, but black Lancelot=”I can’t buy that shit”?
I had a related discussion once when I was reacting to an episode of Science Friday where they were talking about how, in the Spider-man movies, the filmmakers went to great lengths to make sure that, for example, there was a *thunk* sound when Spidey landed on something. It seems ridiculous when you consider that the person who landed is a superhero created by a radioactive/genetically engineered spider, but it seems that we are more willing to accept the big lies than we are to accept incorrect small details.
That being said, this is part of a recent history of freakouts over traditionally white characters (or ones assumed to be) being played by black actors. Remember the freak out when Heimdall was announced as Idris Elba in Thor? Or the people who said that they couldn’t feel bad for Rue in The Hunger Games because she was portrayed by a black actress (despite being black in the book)? Yes, people said they couldn’t feel bad about a child being stabbed if she was black.
It’s time people stop saying shit like this and premising it with “It’s not that I’m racist.” Yes, yes you are racist, or at least the thing you just said was. I recognize that you can not be a racist, but occasionally say racist things without realizing it. If you think racism is bad, that’s great, but you can’t go around questioning casting choices because you never imagined a character’s race to be that way.
Don’t forget when people learned the Idris Elba was going to portray Heimdall (“the White”) in Thor: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wildhunt/2010/12/fear-of-a-black-heimdall.html
Don’t forget, too, what people said when they realized that Rue – from The Hunger Games was also black (even though Rue’s description in the book heavily implied that she was black): http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/03/some-hunger-games-fans-cry-foul-over-black-actress-cast-as-rue
Some people are invested in the fantasies they make; true, not in the overtly fantastical parts, but definitely on the more subtle parts – the parts that could be true… If only the fact that they’re completely fictional were left out, that is…
The thing that got me most about the Rue one was all the people who said they couldn’t sympathize with her death if she was black. That sounds really sick to me.
So my mother is listening to Hunger Games on audiobook. Out of curiosity, I asked her to describe what she thought Rue looked like.
…She described her as blonde *headdesk*
Still, missing the description in the text is one thing. Saying that a little girl’s violent death is less sad if she’s not white… that’s something else again. Sick doesn’t begin to cover it, but I don’t know any words strong enough.
I OBJECT TO THIS CASTING!!!
…because Lancelot was supposed to be ugly, and that is one ridiculously gorgeous man. *drools a little*
Srsly, ok, I agree that the “original” Lancelot was almost certainly not black. Possible, yes; probable,no. I am aware of this. I am also aware, however, that the King Arthur stories are and pretty much always have been open-source myth. (Wasn’t Lance, like, not even in the oldest version we know of?) It’s been changed by everyone who’s taken a stab at it; it includes magic and miracles and abundant anachronism and some fairly dubious history. Changing the race of a character is really kinda minor when you look at the overall evolution of the myth.
And… I don’t even know how to start addressing the larger issue. Yes, a lot of well-known characters are white. Most of ‘em, in fact. And I can understand a fan getting upset about someone changing a beloved character, except that… in the vast majority of cases, the character is not white for a reason. The creator didn’t sit down, weigh their options, and decide that whiteness was essential to this character’s concept and personality. Usually, a character being white simply signifies that race is not essential to this character’s role in the story, so the creator just made them the “default” race. (Or because the story was written in a time and/or place where racial diversity just wasn’t a thang – Vikings didn’t visualize their gods as black, because, well, Scandinavia. And that’s cool and all, but if we’re doing a modern re-imagining of an old story, there’s no need to be bound by the original creators’ limitations as long as it doesn’t drastically change the story itself.)
And that’s the problem – whiteness really shouldn’t be the default. It is, currently, in popular entertainment, though. You need a reason to be black, or Asian, or anything else. You don’t need a reason to be white – it’s the choice for the “normal, everyday” character. Except… there are normal, everyday people of all races. And media kinda needs to reflect that, and sometimes that means taking a character who is only white because there wasn’t a pressing in-story reason to have them be any other race, and casting a non-white actor to play them.
And yeah, I’ll admit when I see a black actor playing a character that I “expected” to be white, it does surprise me, and can sometimes change my perception of the character (but more in the “huh, I wonder what this interpretation will be like?” sense rather than the “OMG ruined FOREVERZ!!”) Which, in turn, prompts me to think about why I had that expectation in the first place, why my perception changed even a little bit, and whether or not a race change actually changes anything essential about the character. And I think all that is a good thing.
Right there with you. As was pointed out on the G+ version of this conversation, the best comment so far as been:
“People complaining about Lancelot being black.
I’m sorry, you misspelled “thank you God for gracing my television screen with more of Sinqua Walls’ perfect face.””
Yay, I get to use my otherwise useless Arthur scholarship!
So, yes, the Arthur stories were kind of open source in the sense that they were incredibly popular, so storytellers all over the world would jigger Arthur and his knights into every tale they could because the same story was more exciting when set in Camelot rather than in Cardiff. Even going as far back as the Welsh folk tales, many of them were adaptations of other tales that relied on sketchy and tenuous connections to other documents to occasionally claim they were history, though it was like David Barton trying to link the Bible to Every Good Thing EVAR. Geoffrey of Monmouth famously did this with his Historia Regum Britanniae, which listed Arthur as a historical king instead of a myth based on his sources, including a lot of Bardic oral tradition that he expanded on.
However, that also kicked off a new interest in the Arthurian stories, but in this case instead of being 7th century myths about a contemporary ruler (or somebody who could have been), they were 12th century romances about a historical one, and here is where we have the introduction of Lancelot. Originally, many of the stories related to Lancelot were instead stories of Gawain, who was often considered the best of Arthur’s knights. The problem is that Gawain in those stories was polyamorous and dedicated both to women and to the Goddess in many tales. In fact, he was sort of inextricably linked to female power structures, making him a problematic hero in 12th century Europe, especially France, which started with Baldwin of Boulogne being crowned the first King of Jerusalem during a wave of Crusade fever. So a good Frenchman, Lancelot du Lac, was invented to replace Gawain as a love interest for Gwenivere and as Arthur’s right hand knight. Gawain was relegated to a much reduced role as still an amazing knight, but one who lets his lust get the better of him. His dedication to women was re-symbolized with a picture of the Virgin Mary that he kept on the inside of his shield so she might give him strength in battle.
I really ought to write a more lengthy extrapolation of this, but maybe another time. For now, there’s your literary history for the day. %)
Woohoo literary history! And yeah… i knew the basic shape of that, but not the details, so thanks!
“And media kinda needs to reflect that, and sometimes that means taking a character who is only white because there wasn’t a pressing in-story reason to have them be any other race, and casting a non-white actor to play them.”
Precisely – just what I was thinking. This is something I ran into, and liked very much, when I read about “Torchwood: Miracle Day”. The American male lead was originally supposed to be white, and the American female lead was supposed to be black. In the end, they’re the other way round. End of story.
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(In other news, I finally got to see the episode in question. I was all “OMG OMG IT’S LANCELOT DID YOU SEE THAT IT’S TOTALLY LANCELOT and he’s BLACK and he’s HOT and it’s AWESOME and waitaminute I read about this!!” Because that is how I react when I’m watching tv, sad to say.)
I just find it extremely insulting that today’s fashion is to change white characters into black, heterosexual characters into homosexual characters. It’s so antiracism. A good example is the new Spider-Man in the comics. The old white, heterosexual Peter Parker was killed off and replaced with a half black, half hispanic possibly (as the writers say) gay teen. I have nothing against gay people, and I’m not a racist. I just know what kind of a shitstorm would arise if a black character would be changed to a white character or a gay character would be suddenly portrayed having a heterosexual relationship. The thing is… being a white, heterosexual man in the 21st century is looked down upon… it was never supposed to go this way. Where’s the equality?
And I find it insulting that people assume that because a character was originally portrayed as white and heterosexual that it’s somehow a statement when they aren’t. As Foz Meadows, who linked to this post, pointed out, “Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical”. Just because white, heterosexual men tended to make the majority of entertainment that has been held up as an example by white, hertosexual men as valuable for hundreds of years does not mean that the characters being presumed to be white and heterosexual are necessary for their story arcs, or that story arcs that don’t necessarily relate to being white and heterosexual shouldn’t be explored with these characters.
As to Spider-man, yes, in the Ultimate Universe, Peter Parker was replaced with Miles Morales. First, let’s keep in mind that nobody touched Peter on Earth-616, so it’s not like the Spider-man that people actually read has been changed. However, the point of the Ultimate Universe was to experiment with new characters and ideas without having to screw with standard continuity, so this change is entirely appropriate. Also? Miles Morales is far and away a better, more interesting character than Peter Parker, and his power set is really clever. Do you feel just as bad when a white, straight character is replaced with another white straight character? Did you have the same reaction when, for example, Hal Jordan turned into Parallax and was killed by Kyle Rayner? Or would that only have been a problem if Kyle Rayner was a racial minority and possibly gay? Super heroes die and are replaced by other people all the time, and there’s no reason why the replacement being another race should be an issue.
” I just know what kind of a shitstorm would arise if a black character would be changed to a white character…”
You mean like Katniss Everdeen? Cleopatra? Alicia Nash (who has the benefit of being a real person from El Salvador portrayed as white in a movie)? Brandi Bosksi (ditto, except black)? Eben Olemaun? Ben Campbell (another real, Korean person)? Fucking Goku? Katara and Sokka? Irene from the movie Drive? Tony Mendes (who maintains a hispanic name, is a real person, and is played by Ben Affleck)?
I can keep going to list characters that were minorities and then, somehow, were changed to white in the course of filming. That’s not even counting white actors picked to play minority roles (Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s being one of the best examples). Strangely, I heard of absolutely no shitstorm when these choices were made and I think Argo won some sort of award last month or something?
“…being a white, heterosexual man in the 21st century is looked down upon…”
You’re right. If only white, heterosexual men had any respect from people, they might still be able to be elected to public office, which we know never happens any more. You might be able to turn on the TV and see a white, heterosexual man on a show again, which is so rare these days. And maybe when a role that is traditionally played by white, heterosexual men is cast as anybody else, somebody, somewhere might speak out, entirely unaware that the vast majority of films not only involve, but actively star just that demographic. Thank you, citizen!
Obviously, I’m being sarcastic above, but let me be serious for a second. When you ask “Where’s the equality”, it comes off as horrendously blinkered because what you perceive as being “looked down on” is actually “not given immediate and unquestioning reverence”. Seriously, look at your example: white, straight men are looked down on because fictional characters that are generally portrayed as white, straight men are being played as minorities. That’s not what I would call the height of oppression, it’s what I would call a whine about losing privilege.
Trust me, white straight men will never be searching for jobs in Hollywood, and that movie studios and television networks and comic companies are recognizing that people who are not White Straight Cis Male Christians actually have stories to tell is a Good Thing and in no way does it “look down upon” anybody.
…I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that you didn’t actually MEAN to use the word “antiracism” as though that were a bad thing. Let’s pretend you said “reverse racism.” (Which is not actually a thing, and it still makes you look ignorant, but it doesn’t make you look EVIL and ignorant.)
You are right that if a character who added diversity to a cast were changed in a way to decrease said diversity, that would prompt a negative reaction. That is not, however, because “white, straight men are looked down on.” It’s because we as audiences recognize that diversity is a good thing, and decreasing diversity is a bad thing.
White, straight men are not looked down on. First of all, the vast majority of people in positions of power (political, financial, cultural) are white, straight men. They’re still running the show. People are still looking up to them as leaders. Exceptions to this rule are lauded and celebrated, because they are rare – because for someone who is non-white, or female, or gay, or all of the above, to get into a position of power means that they have beat the odds. They’re celebrated precisely because white, straight men are still society’s default.
What you are experiencing as being “looked down on” is actually a leveling of the playing field – a loss of privilege. Which, yes, can feel like being looked down on if you’re not used to it, but try to take a moment to look at it from an outside perspective.
For years – decades, centuries – the white straight male has been society’s default. Sticking only to art and media, characters are assumed to be white, straight men unless explicitly stated otherwise. And creators rarely think to make a character anything other than a white, straight man unless they have a specific reason not to. So non-white characters tend to be limited to works that somehow explore their ethnicity, specifically. LGBT characters tend to be limited to works where their sexuality or gender is a major plot point. Women tend to be limited to roles that are either highly sexualized or specifically intended to challenge and highlight gender roles (or both.) But if you just want a “regular” protagonist, someone that pretty much anyone can relate to, to tell a story that isn’t specifically about any of the above things – you use a white, straight male.
So take Spidey, for instance – Peter Parker was intended to be, as a contrast to other popular superheroes at the time, an Everyman character. Not a refugee from another galaxy, not an heir to a mystical kingdom, not a billionaire playboy. Just a dude – funny, smart, occasionally dorky, but ultimately normal, until he got his powers. And so the writers made him – survey says – white, straight, and male. Because it never occurred to them to make a “normal” character anything else.
But the thing is, “normal” doesn’t just mean white, straight men. “Normal” people can be any race, gender, sexuality, etc. When comics and tv shows and books, etc. don’t reflect that, however, it reinforces the idea that whiteness and straightness and maleness is how everyone is supposed to be, and anyone who deviates from that is “weird” and “different.” And that mindset is a PROBLEM in our society.
So the writers decided Spiderman was due for a reboot. This is, in and of itself, not strange – comics pull that all the time. (I’ve lost track of which version of the X-Men we’re currently on.)
Now I want you to ask yourself a question for a moment. If this reboot had replaced Peter Parker with another white, straight guy – would you be upset? Or would you consider that “normal?” If you say you’d still be upset, well ok, but I’ll be interested to see the protests you’ve raised over other legacy superheroes.
But I’m guessing you’re upset not because Parker is being replaced (which, again, is par for the course in superhero reboots), but because he’s being replaced specifically with a non-white, possibly non-straight person. And while you, yourself, may be “not a racist,” that is a racist mindset. It is a mindset that says you need a reason to be black or gay; you don’t need a reason to be white and straight.
We’re not trying to put down white, straight men. I like white, straight men. I married one. If there were NO white, straight men in media, I would be unhappy. But right now, they make up the vast majority of characters. That is disproportionate, and it needs to change. If we greatly reduce the number of white straight male characters, there will STILL be a lot of white straight male characters out there, but there will also be more room for other character types too. That is a good thing. So yes, when a character is being reimagined or rebooted, I do hope the writers will take a moment and go “is there a compelling reason to keep this character white, straight, and male? Or could they be just as easily another race, another sexuality, another gender?” And that they will take that opportunity to introduce some diversity, and get away from the assumed “default.”