[ SECRET POST #3510 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3510 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[Stephen King]


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03.
[John Green]


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04.
[American Gods]


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05.
[Charlie Hunnam in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword]


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06.
[Penn & Teller: Fool Us]


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07.
[Steven Universe]


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08.
[Questionable Content]


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09.
[Ghostbusters 2016]











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 53 secrets from Secret Submission Post #502.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

04. http://i.imgur.com/mtCAihl.jpg
[American Gods]

Transcript by OP

[fscom]

Collapsed for length.

Re: Transcript by OP

[fscom]

I'm pretty interested in the upcoming American Gods series but I don't know if I want to watch it because of casting decisions. I like a lot of them, but I just can't see Ricky Whittle as Shadow. It's nothing to do with his acting abilities or whatever. In the trailer he seems to have the right expressions. I just think the look is totally wrong to the point where it's putting me off it.

On reading the book, to me Shadow is supposed to clearly NOT be explicitly black. A ton of other characters are given clear racial identifiers, there are a lot of black characters and white characters and people of other races, but Shadow stands out as the one person that is never ever actually identified. Whenever people look at him they see a big guy, not a big BLACK guy. He gets asked if he has native blood and his answer is like eh, maybe. To me that reads as someone who is maybe white at first glance, but questionable enough to be asked if he was mixed. Ricky Whittle is someone who LOOKS obviously black to the point where people wouldn't ask if he's anything else, and Shadow gets asked if he's part black, not if he's part WHITE.

And in America racist people don't ask black people if they're mixed. If they look black, they're black. Case in point: half-white "Black" President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Plus I actually do think Ricky Whittle is kind of sexy. Which is cool! But Shadow in the books is like a big hurpy boyish guy who is not quite a man and whose wife calls him puppy. He's cute. He's not hot, or sexy, really.

It kind of bothers me. I'm not for taking away roles from black actors or anything like that, but I am more against not putting in mixed actors which get even less explicitly mixed-race roles. And as someone who IS also mixed race I actually liked that narrative point, which felt like a physical reflection or representation of Shadow also being half-god / half-man and not quite fitting in either culture.

Secret because U RACIST HOW DARE U DISLIKE A BLACK ACTOR CASTING and all the usual wank.

Quote from the book: "Maybe you got nigger blood in you."
- said no one ever, to an obviously black person

[(Anonymous)]

I always assumed Shadow was almost white-passing but not quite. Those are the only people who get asked, "are you partly a minority?"

I am a minority. I look like a minority. I can't escape being a minority because it's all over my face. I have never been asked, "are you, in reality, partly what you predominantly appear to be?"

If I looked whiter, I'd get that all the time. Of the visibly mixed-race I've known, it's always the almost white-passing people who do. They get "white" as the default and the minority as "the Other part mixed in," so which Other is that?

So yeah. It's weird to me too.

[(Anonymous)]

>I always assumed Shadow was almost white-passing but not quite. Those are the only people who get asked, "are you partly a minority?"

Yeah, this is what I was assuming. I DON'T read Shadow as white, I don't think he'd see himself as white either, but in my experience people don't ask things like 'so are you part (whatever)' unless you look mostly white.

Like I've never heard someone who looks mostly Asian get asked 'so are you part white' - that's just REALLY WEIRD. If they look mostly Asian, it doesn't matter what they are, they're basically processed as Asian. But I have heard people ask someone who looks mostly white but with solid black hair / dark eyes 'so are you part Asian'.

[(Anonymous)]

"On reading the book, to me Shadow is supposed to clearly NOT be explicitly black."

Not sure if I agree. Gaiman admits he doesn't yell it out in all caps, but Shadow is of mixed race and Gaiman has suggested that not interpreting Shadow as black means the reader has misinterpreted it.

[(Anonymous)]

Shadow is explicitly mixed race but explicitly not visibly black. Like OP said, nobody asks an obvious black guy whether they're black or not.

[(Anonymous)]

I've not read the book, so take my comment with a grain of salt, but OP does have a point that someone who is at least a little bit white passing would have someone making comments about whether they were mixed, where as someone who's colouring is less white passing and more 'definitely other' would just be assumed to be 'other'.

On the other hand, if there was a mixed-raced character named SHADOW of all things, I would presume (maybe incorrectly) that he had dark skin.

[(Anonymous)]

OP here and I actually do read Shadow as explicitly mixed race, likely part black. It's not about what he is as much as what he appears. Like the other anon said, when it comes to people who are mixed race, it's only the white-passing ones that get asked questions like 'so do you have ____ blood'. So to me, he's explicitly not OBVIOUSLY black, or people wouldn't be asking him the kinds of questions they are.

Like it's not about 'well he's never stated to NOT be black so it's possible for him to be'. Rather, it's that the way people talk to him in the book regarding the assumptions they're making about his race based on his looks - people irl do NOT talk talk like that to a guy who looks obviously / immediately black in the way Ricky Whittle does. If he actually looked like that, no one would be questioning his race at all.

[(Anonymous)]

IIRC the "if you don't interpret him as black, you're interpreting it wrong" was actually about the protagonist of Anansi Boys. He's always been a bit more ambiguous about Shadow, because there's always been more room to interpret - he's definitely not white, but reading him as mixed Native or Hispanic or Indian is pretty valid, with what we're given to go on in canon.

[(Anonymous)]

Plus, Ricky has what could be considered "white" facial features, so in that light a mixed-race Shadow is not unreasonable.

[atalantapendrag]

I was kind of dubious when they announced it - not in a "omg wrong for the part" way, just a "not my mental image but I'll give it a go" way. I thought he looked the part nicely in the trailer, though.

[morieris]

I never finished this book but I thought he was mixed black and Native American.

Anyway...so if I'm understanding this right, you don't think he looks mixed (with anything else) enough?

[(Anonymous)]

SPOILERS for book plot, but in terms of what we know about his parents, Shadow's basically half Norwegian half something else. All we get as a physical description of his mom is that she's beautiful, not pale, and not thin.

Either way, I don't think Shadow should be obviously any one particular race, whether that's black or Native American or anything else. Ricky Whittle in terms of how he looks would come off to the vast majority of people as obviously black - regardless of whether or not he is.

[(Anonymous)]

I get what you're saying, OP.

I'm black/white mixed & much lighter skinned than he is, but still not white-passing. People ask me all the time "what's your nationality" "are you mixed" "what are you mixed with" etc etc.

I don't think many people would look at him & ask those questions. They'd look at him & see a black guy.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I actually found the way Shadow seemed stuck in between different things and the kinds of questions people asked him surprisingly relatable. The experience of people sort of projecting on you (a racist prison warden who likely encounters a lot of black inmates asks him if he's got 'nigger blood'; Sam who's half-Native American and likes him or thinks he's cute asks him if he has Native ancestry) is a part of his character I really liked, and not something I can see happening with someone like Whittle.

This isn't to say Whittle is a bad actor nor does it have anything to do with his actual race, it's just that most people would not do that at someone who seems as apparently black as he does. And I guess they could re-write the role so that Shadow becomes a black guy, but to me this would be changing it from the book and making it into a different sort of character entirely.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

I have a theory that part of this is due to well, Gaiman being white and English and not really getting the nuances of how race is treated in the US. Like how if you're mixed white and something else and look mixed, people always ask "what you're mixed with" and assume white is the base, even if your entire family is black besides one parent. If you don't look mixed-white enough, you're automatically "other," too bad, even if your entire family is white besides the one parent and no matter if you ID as more white or not.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a good, thoughtful secret.

I thought the same thing when the casting was first announced, but it was nothing I tripped over. Probably because I never finished the book. :/

[(Anonymous)]

From pictures of Whittle I don't think I'd categorize him as black automatically? Just because I live somewhere with a lot more south asian and middle eastern brown people than anyone of african ancestry.
But I don't live in the states, so it might be that the casting did miss there.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it matters. This is a TV series. The series will be different a hundred ways from the book, it can't help it. The lines you quoted won't be there, but the essence of Shadow will be. The trailer looks amazing; I'm really looking forward to it.

[(Anonymous)]

Have you ever heard anything said to anyone black?

It is completely worth Whittle not being ambiguous appearing to be true to book canon if we don't have to have another repeat of the idiotic arguments about why "Shadow Can't Possibly Be Black!" that followed the book.

Your secret isn't as well thought out as you think and your passive aggressive tackings on don't change all the anti black sentiment running throughout the whole mess.

[(Anonymous)]

Huh. He looks mixed to me, generally speaking, although he looks a lot darker in the secret picture than he does in most pictures (I'm sure artificial lightening is involved in promotional images, but still.) I'd assumed he had one black parent and one white parent irl, and I actually have no idea if that's the case.

[(Anonymous)]

Good job using a picture with dark lighting, I guess, since Ricky Whittle is actually mixed race (black dad, white mum) and looks it in most pictures. So...

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed to a point. Shadow shouldn't be explicitly from any group. That's why I was a big supporter of Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel (though he might not look non-white enough) and Jason Momoa (who I only recently learned ISN'T black at all!)

Bigger agreement with Ricky Whittle not being big enough. I was the one who posted that muscle secret earlier about him! I wish he had bulked up for this.

But I'm gonna trust Neil and the producers to do right. If not? Eh. The book is perfection and can't be harmed by a not-great TV show.

[(Anonymous)]

This is so stupid. The actor is mixed race, end of story. Mixed race people come in all shades and features. It's kinda stupid that you used a picture that makes him appear darker than he really is. Have you even seen him in anything else to make that kinda of judgement? It should matter if he plays the character well, not the shade of his skin or the whiteness/blackness of his features. As if American media isn't saturated enough with "white-passing" poc actors already. The fact that you assumed that half native means half white really says a lot about how you view race and how mixed race people "should look" in your eyes. Like chill man.