fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2534 ]

[ SECRET POST #2534 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2534 ⌋

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

01.

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02.

[Doctor Who]

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03.

[Guild Wars 2]

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04.

[Perry Mason]

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05.

[Sleepy Hollow]

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06.

[My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; gorefic]

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07.

[Marco Mengoni/Max Pezzali (883)]

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08.

[Hetalia]

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09.

[Once Upon a Time and Uncanny X-Men]

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10.

[Borderlands 2]

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11.

[Elementary]

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12.

[Rise of the Guardians. Art by Rufftoon.]

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13.

[Mabinogi]

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14.

[minecraft/C418]

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15.

[The Big Bang Theory]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 038 secrets from Secret Submission Post #362.
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.

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I'm happy that she's in there.

The series is so white and male.

It's nice to at least have a woman in the mix, even if it's still a blindingly white movie.

lol okay

yes, token women characters make everything better.

maybe they should add a black guy, too. definitely a better movie then.

Who says they have to be token?

And why not? Why couldn't some of the dwarves been POC?

Because adding women/POC simply for the sake of adding women/POC isn't inherently progressive.

I'm not saying one of the dwarves couldn't have been a POC. but that isn't going to make the movie automatically better, because there is nothing inherently wrong with having an all-white cast. And if the awkward addition (more to the women situation than POC) is clearly just for the sake of having a woman, it's worse than not having a woman at all imo.

It's just lazy thinking.

"because there is nothing inherently wrong with having an all-white cast"

lol right...

Don't worry, plenty of the orcs are played by Maori actors. That totally makes it better.

man.

i feel like if there's any movie where it's justified in having a white cast, it's an adaptation of Tolkien.

If there's any genre where race shouldn't be limited, it's fantasy, imo.

Sure. Fantasy, in general, I agree with you. That's not the fantasy that Tolkien wrote, though. Fantasy absolutely can be multiracial, and should be, but that's not the fantasy that Tolkien wrote and that's not what he was doing. And it's not a problem with his work that it's not that. That's a criticism that makes sense in the context of fantasy in general, and it's a critique in the context of fantasy that is not as specifically tied to a single cultural milieu and a single folklore as Tolkien's is. But it has no basis in the text.

I mean, thinking about it more, I guess if you don't care about faithfulness in an adaptation (which is basically fine) it's not an issue. But I'm not going to be a fan of it anyway, which is a big deal to me.

well, it's pretty clear that the makers of the hobbit didn't care about faithfulness of the adaptation when it came to a bunch of other stuff, so why should the whiteness be sacrosanct?

I get really fragging sick of people who bitch about how white LotR is. The series is set in a prehistoric analogue of Europe. Far less likely to have racial mixing.

And yes, I don't care that it's a sausage fest either.

Ok, I think we have to start at square 1.

You know that Middle Earth isn't real, right?

And that this is a fantasy series?

And therefore you can do whatever the fuck you want in a fantasy setting without disturbing historical accuracy?

Maybe it's because I have read a fair bit of the background stuff, about how it was originally based on the idea of writing a mythology for England that was truly English instead of imported from France. That sort of background makes me fail at seeing POCs, just like I fail at seeing POCs in Authurian legends.

Then what do you think of a black Heimdall? Similar rationalisation and yes - plenty of offence has been taken.

The bulk of the Norse myths were only written down because the Christian author was pissed that English stories/myths were infiltrating Iceland, Tolkien wanted to put a very English spin on the Norse myths... Let's put aside the verrry outdated nationalist and intrinsically racial guff and cast whoever the fuck we want in yet another adaptation of old themes. Skin colour shouldn't matter in telling a good fantasy story, or indeed most stories, in this era.

(no subject)

mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2013-12-12 01:04 (UTC) - Expand

OT, but actually there was the occasional Moorish Knight in Arthurian Legend.

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mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2013-12-12 08:42 (UTC) - Expand

nayrt

If Tolkien specifically set it in a European inspired world - which he did - there's no reason to criticize the actors being white. European fantasy, like it or not, is a thing. If they want to randomly stick POC in unexplained, hey, that's cool, but it's not an obligation. Having a white cast is not automatically a bad and racist thing, and in medieval inspired worlds where society wasn't racially diverse isn't being picky, it's being realistic. Is realism often cherrypicked in fantasy? Absolutely. But Tolkien was very detailed in his world building, society and culture both. And having magic/dragons/elves doesn't mean your world doesn't have to follow any rules at all.

If you're saying in general, POC are underrepresented in media, particularly in fantasy, I agree. But if you're saying that LOTR is bad/racist/whatever because it's all white, that's pretty ridiculous.

I find it so interesting where the "realism" argument begins and ends.

Which part, where I forgive the setting for being very white, or forgive it for not having many feature women?

I'm speaking in general, not just about your particular comment, just like I assume you were speaking about a general trend of complaints and not just fauxkaren's comment.

I just find it interesting to see where people draw the line when it comes to realism. Things that are extremely fantastical are generally okay. Dragons, elves, orcs. Things that seem to go against common sense aren't, even when that "common sense" is based on a flawed understanding of history. Which on some level makes sense to me. Change the setting, don't change human nature. I can go along with that to a point, but there's often much more room for argument in these things than some people are willing to allow.

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(Anonymous) - 2013-12-11 05:09 (UTC) - Expand

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sarillia - 2013-12-11 05:21 (UTC) - Expand

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mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2013-12-11 05:13 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2013-12-11 05:27 (UTC) - Expand

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sarillia - 2013-12-11 05:32 (UTC) - Expand

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mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2013-12-12 01:14 (UTC) - Expand

I'm presuming you don't actually mean "prehistoric". If you do, then you are talking about the first humans, who migrated up from Africa, and thus were not, in fact, white.

If you are talking more about medieval Europe, which people tend to do when talking about how all fantasy stories are okay being white, you should know that medieval Europe wasn't as lily white as most people seem to believe. Link: http://kellysue.tumblr.com/post/68195356646/but-despite-hollywoods-near-complete-refusal-to

I mean pre-history in a sense of set before known recorded history, not in the dinosaur sense. Besides, if we're talking about Tolkien in particular, it does not work with evolutionary concepts, as it includes it's own creation myth.

Tolkien also did make use of what I call "physical virtues" - the "Good" characters being tall, beautiful, nice voices, etc, and often his descriptions of "beautiful" tended more to lighter skin, with "Lesser Men" tending to be more dark.

Is that racist? It may be, by our standards, and in most fantasy I don't mind a bit more obvious diversity (and expect it a lot more in something like Forgotten Realms), but I don't know, maybe this is my one sticking point in Tolkien.

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(Anonymous) - 2013-12-12 08:38 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2013-12-12 08:58 (UTC) - Expand

Nooo. 'Prehistoric' means 'before recorded history'. In the case of Europe, that includes the Bronze Age and earlier. I.e. there were prehistoric white europeans.

Of course, Bronze Age Europe was a hell of a lot more connected to the rest of the world than people tend to suppose - but that's neither here nor there cause I'm p sure Middle Earth is supposed to be even earlier than the Bronze Age.

medievalpoc.tumblr.com

european /= white

Aren't they the folks that said that Mozart was black and used a photoshopped image as proof?

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(Anonymous) - 2013-12-11 23:50 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2013-12-12 00:03 (UTC) - Expand

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