A Note On Whitewashing, And Honest Storytelling


The Ongoing Problem of Race In Y.A.: Being a person of color myself and the author of a YA novel which features a black protagonist, I definitely related to most of the issues raised in this article

"Is Game of Thrones too White?" subtitled, "Fantasy fiction might have racial problems, but they're just a reflection of America's broader battles." On reading this, I really enjoyed seeing these problems with GOT and the fantasy genre in general laid out so clearly. (With thanks to hand2hand. Content advisory: Mr. Ahmed quotes, among other sections of the novels, a sequence graphically depicting sexual assault.)

Reblogging this from my journal. Read at what was not mentioned:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-03-30/wrath-of-the-titans-writer-discusses-live-action-bleach

Hey, aren't you going to frikkin' cast Asians in this at all? Because that's the main reason a lot of manga/anime-to-live action movies sucked because you didn't include us in this.

I can't wait until I see that even though they were 'faithful' to the source material, then they start putting white actors/actresses in it and wonder what the hell they did wrong.

So over on Goodreads, we've been discussing the Hunger Games racefail in a POC-community in which I belong. One of the members reposted a comment from Jezebel which eloquently sums up the issues at hand.

"This is what happens when your culture teaches you that you are the world and the world exists to reflect you when, even counting your cousins back from where your family originally came, you're not even a majority of the world population.

This is what happens when Hollywood makes it okay to take other forms of media about PoC and make them about white people, claiming all the while that it was about "the best actor" when the pool was artificially narrowed to favor even those who aren't great but have their preferred "look." (I see you Angelina Jolie in Wanted, the tragedy that was Earthsea, and the whole heroic part of the cast of The Last Airbender.) We hear how it's about "the story" and that's what matters even if the original context is important to the film. (Hello, there, 21 and Akira.) Stories about PoC that aren't white washed outright are made to revolve around white characters or can't get made without changing history to make one the hero. Good thing Sandra Bullock was there to save the Michael Oher they rendered in more dire straits than he was and neglected her character's role as a booster in herding him toward the school they supported. They were doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, right? I'm sure the Haitian Revolution will be lead by Matthew McConaughey since he already helped change slavery in Amistad. Could we have seen a movie about the last samurai without Tom Cruise playing Tom Cruise in a different costume?

Flip it and there's death threats because a Black guy playing an alien in a movie about a comic book loosely based on the Norse mythology becomes an attack on Western (read: white) culture. Can't have a Black Nick Fury! (....what do you mean they made a version of him based on Samuel L. Jackson and got his permission only if he could play him in the movies involving that version..) Or the Doctor--who regenerates randomly enough to be worried about being a chick or being ginger--can't ever come back as a PoC because the universe would end! END! (Must be why he never gives a thought to traveling back in time with his companions who can't pass for white, which curiously seems to be safe across all space and time.)


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Just a heads up, because I found this out today.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-02-22/warner-develops-live-action-film-of-tite-kubo-bleach-manga

Masi Oka is in this, but I'm still skeptical that Hollywood could ever do this justice (and, never mind the fact that I get irritated enough seeing fanatic Bleach fans claim Kurosaki Ichigo is 'white,' when he is Japanese just by the name and setting alone!).

Hey, everyone. I just completed this parody of the Sh*t Girls Say video called Sh*t Duran Duran Fans Say. It's my first time directing and I had a lot of fun with it. And I'm particularly proud of it because it was a collaboration between three Black Durannies.



If you like it, please share. Thanks!

(also posting this to deadbrowalking).

Hi all!

I'm co-editor of the speculative poetry zine Stone Telling, along with founding editor rose_lemberg. We're looking for speculative poems with a strong emotional core, and we're looking for voices that too often go ignored or unrecognized.

We're currently reading for our Queer issue; while we've published some wonderful speculative QuILTBAG poems before, we think there should be more! Thus the themed issue. We do define this broadly, and we have no interest in identity policing or in outing people; for this issue, we will consider any treatment of sexuality and gender that does not fall under the heteronormative paradigm.

We've got general guidelines here and
the specific call for submissions for this issue here. Poets, do please send us something :)

And - if you'd be willing to signal-boost our call for submissions, we'd really appreciate it! It's part of Stone Telling's mission to actively counter the whitewashing that pervades so much spec poetry, and to showcase a variety of awesome poetry that isn't white-default (and US-default). We think we've made a pretty decent start on this, but of course we can only take poems that people send us. And right now, our slush pile is overwhelmingly white.

We love receiving and showcasing diverse submissions, and the current state of the slush makes us really unhappy; we're hoping for a better balance. So, y'know, *flail* any help getting the word out would be awesome!

Originally posted by leoprincessat Final Year Quest - The Great Fundraising (and Signal Boost)