[ SECRET POST #5194 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5194 ⌋

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


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08. [SPOILERS for The Last Book in the Universe]



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09. [SPOILERS for The Penthouse 2]



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10. [WARNING for mention of sexual assault]



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11. [WARNING for mention of dubcon]



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12. [WARNING for mention of rape]



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13. [WARNING for mention of noncon/underage shipping]































Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #743.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - 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

[(Anonymous)]

I don't get this. I know we're talking about fandom here but the whole racebending thing is just so damn performative.

Where's the enthusiasm for actual black characters? Anfin a more general sense where are all the new black characters? Let's have some new canonically black characters in new fantasy shows, or more shows about black historical figures. Hell you want costume dramas with black people let's have the tales of the actual black gentry or black community in regency London.

What do we get instead? Oh it's Anne Boleyn, but she's black. Ta da!

Anyway, sorry for the rant OP. For what it's worth I agree with Philstar above, black elves seems reasonable. I'm just so sick of the endless rehashing of old stuff though.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm entirely with you on the first half. You're absolutely right, we need more canon POC and we need to celebrate the canon POC.

but Tolkien is such a weird place to start doing performative racebending because...well, knowing the author and what he has written as his intentions, as well as the extremely terrible, unfortunate racism of a white Brit making the evil Haradrim and Easterlings actually black and middle-eastern people, I can't like trying to make elves black. there's reclaiming and then there's just noping off not wanting to touch that powder keg with a ten foot pole and I'm in the latter camp.

[(Anonymous)]

We definitely do. I love fantasy as a genre but we need new stuff that includes all of us.

I will always have a soft spot for Tolkien's works I'm afraid. It's separate enough from RL for me that I can ignore it, and it's been a safe place away from reality for me since I was a kid.

[meadowphoenix]

I think it's POC wanting their love of certain media or narratives to be reflected back by making themselves a part of the media. and I think the nature of adaptation allows for that. i don't think that's ultimately going to be optimal though because the people making the "real" decisions still aren't POC. And POC are still having a hard time with getting their own original media made.

I also think people aren't thinking deeply about the implications, like the fact that Anne gets beheaded can say a couple things if she's white, but it says several other things if she's black, and you have to be sure you want to say those things.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's POC wanting their love of certain media or narratives to be reflected back by making themselves a part of the media.

I seem to recall you were against this kind of appropriation though when it was Asians styling themselves on black American culture.

[meadowphoenix]

then you didn't understand what I was saying. i don't really care when marginalized groups appropriate from dominant culture (assimilation is a cultural pressure of the dominant group; i don't care if dominant groups have to deal with the fallout of that). I do care when dominant cultures appropriate from marginalized groups or groups dominant in their own culture uncritically copy the appropriated exports of another dominant group. it's about cultural power differential not the relatively common facet of appropriation itself. For instance, I have a huge problem with the trend in the mid-90s of everyone having chopsticks in their hair or wearing modified qipao/cheongsam, and I really do not want it to come back unless it's specifically welcomed by the cultures those trends represented. hope that helps.

[(Anonymous)]

Not really. All I'm seeing here is hypocrisy. POC are not part of the culture in question that it's rooted in. Copy pasting yourselves in doesn't change that and is a form of appropriation as it changes the cultural context of the character.

[meadowphoenix]

well you can have a problem with any appropriation if you want but eye am not hypocritical for caring about the power dynamics between cultures over what is a pretty common phenomenon interculture. I've always said it's about power and I've always said that's what I care about. you not liking that because it involves your faves is not hypocrisy on my part, but it might mean that you don't know what hypocrisy is.

[(Anonymous)]

White cultures are not in danger of being wiped out by all these appropriating POCs, you don't have to cry yourself to sleep over this.

[(Anonymous)]

No culture is in danger of being "wiped out" by cultural appropriation.

[(Anonymous)]

They are, though. When a minority culture is appropriated by the majority its meaning often gets twisted in the minds of most people. To give you an example: did you know that most people living in Khazakhstan are Asian? Most people imagine them looking Eastern European, or Jewish, because they were played by EE and Jewish actors in the only world-famous film set in "Khazakhstan". This image of Khazakhs as vaguely Eastern European-looking nation is forever burned into the minds of people around the globe. Even when people realize that the movie is a satire, most don't realize that the race of people portrayed in it is also different from the reality. Because they're unlikely to have ever met anyone from Khazakhstan or seen depictions of Khazakh outside Borat.

I guarantee that Silmarillion adaptation having a black Fingon is not going to cause everybody around the world to think that all British people are black. Do you doubt that?

[(Anonymous)]

People not knowing which ethnicities live in a country =/= that culture being wiped out. Also - sorry you know so many dumb people/people who don't know any Khazakhs I guess. Still doesn't mean that culture is being wiped out. That's like saying German culture is getting wiped out because most people outside of Germany only know Nazis and Oktoberfest.

And I never said anything of what you're insinuating in your last sentence. I actually like a lot of different ethnicities in Tolkien fanart. Your argument is still dumb though.

[(Anonymous)]

But it is spreading an untrue and harmful view of the entire nation. As an Eastern European interested in Britian you should know all about how awful it is to have your entire ethnicity be subjected to harmful stereotypes and media depiction. I'm certainly very upset by how certain western media portrays Poland, so I can sympathize with other ethnicities who have had to suffer even worse than this for decades.

"That's like saying German culture is getting wiped out because most people outside of Germany only know Nazis and Oktoberfest."

Funny you mention this, there was a series of attacks on German nationals 2 years ago in my country, fuelled by this sterotype of Germans being Nazis out to get us. One of the victims was a 10 year old girl. To claim that the media and culture has no effect on people's views and actions towards different ethncities is extremely ignorant.

[(Anonymous)]

I ...absolutely never said any of this? The only thing I objected to is saying a culture is "wiped out" by cultural appropriation and also your examples aren't actually cultural appropriation at all.

[(Anonymous)]

My point is that if something that is important to one culture is taken by the majority culture, its meaning will get changed and that changed meaning and depiction will become the mainstream view of that thing. Like how Coca-Cola popularized the image of Santa Claus as a fat, bearded man in red clothing(inspired Coke's colors) living in the North Pole to the point where that image of Santa became the dominant view, while the real life Saint Nicholas is forgotten. Ask any child where Santa comes from and Greece won't even occur to them. And perhaps Greece doens't mind that their hero was appropriated to the point where nothing of the original remains, but there are certainly things in Polish culture that I wouldn't like to see twisted in a similar manner, so I can definitely sympathize with POCs, who already had their culture appropriated to the point where nobody can recognize the original (such as what I've mentioned before about rap music in Poland being appropriated by racists and used to promote white supremacy).

[(Anonymous)]

Don't mind the idiots above me, you're right and I agree. They're hypocritical jerks who only see what they want to see and if someone disagrees with their point of view, they invalidate the entire argument because they're not smart enough to give proper counterarguments.

[(Anonymous)]

Just because you're not smart enough to understand the counterargument, it doesn't mean that none have been provided.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

But ok, let me give you a counterargument: AYRT said "POC are not part of the culture in question that it's rooted in.". Ok, then let us sit down and think hard about how did POCs find themselves in this culture in question in the first place. Oh right! They were brought to it by white people in slave ships against their will and held captive for generations, forced to submit to it and disallowed to practice their own until they lost all memory of it. Maybe if white people really were so concerned over protecting their culture, not forcing other people to live in it for hundreds of years would be a good start? Just a thought! Kinda late to worry about this now, eh?

[(Anonymous)]

Then some Asian pop groups "appropriating" black American styles and culture shouldn't be any issue but that's what meadowphoenix was objecting to.

[(Anonymous)]

Are those Asian pop groups from a country where black people are routinely discriminated against?

[(Anonymous)]

Depends. Usually, in quite a few Asian majority countries white people are also routinely discriminated against yet I'm very sure you'd still not count those Asians dressing up in European cultural dress nearly as big of a cultural appropriation.

[(Anonymous)]

^ This

[(Anonymous)]

Depends which dress they're using and in what circumstances. See, rap is very popular in Poland, but a lot of rappers in Poland are far right assholes, who make xenophobic and racist lyrics. They took something that black people have created and are now using that same thing to hurt the black people living in this country. Do Asians have the same history with appropriating cultural dresses created by oppressed white ethnicities to hurt them? If so, then I condemn this behavior, but if not.. well then it's apples and oranges. Things don't exist in a vacuum, historical and cultural context makes a big difference. In my country Jewish people expect gentiles to wear a jarmulke when visiting old Jewish cemeteries and places of worship, to show respect. I wouldn't consider that an appropriation, because visitors are invited and welcomed to do this. But there's a difference between participating in a culture when you're invited by people from that culture to do so vs ignoring their feelings and deciding that you have some kind of inherent right to things created by them for them. It's just plain rude and arrogant.