ok so i figured i’d make a full breakdown post about the ever popular “barbarian AU” you commonly find in the transformers fandom and why it is every bit as racist as the also staggeringly common slavery AUs.Â
this is rather long post but it is by no means comprehensive and there is a little tl;dr at the end if these content warnings or the post length intimidate you
cws for: colonialism, racism against indigenous people & antiblackness, xenophobia, racist fetishisation, rape, kidnapping, slavery
first, let’s define the beast: the so-called “barbarian AU” involves two different cultures of mechs, one that lives in cities (“citymechs”) and another that has some other traditional lifestyle (“barbarians”), these groups are often antagonistic towards each other and sometimes do not speak the same language. another common feature of note is that, in these stories, “barbarians” often kidnap “citymechs” as brides, and this is what the plot of most fics set in this AU centre on.
1st point of contention: “barbarian”
calling traditional non-Western forms of social organisation “barbaric” is racist, plain and simple. the term “barbarian” comes from the latin word for “outsider” and was used to denote societies resistant to roman colonisation. it was first imported into middle english as xenophobic term for a person with different speech and customs has since come to mean, lifted straight from the dictionary, “an uncultured or brutish person”. similarly, the word “barbaric” can mean “savagely cruel; exceedingly brutal” or “primitive; unsophisticated”. this evolution of meaning is decurrent of racist and xenophobic stereotypes perpetuated by europeans in order to justify war and colonisation. you will often see eurocentric sources refer to indigenous religious practices or even leisure activities as “barbaric” and exaggerate them in order to justify invasion and genocide.
this brings us to the 2nd point of contention: the dynamic
this setup of having contrasting societies where one has a typical late medieval/early modern european urban organisation whereas the other has any manner of nomadic or “tribal” traditional organisation, having the relationship between them be antagonistic and the traditional society being a constant threat to the urban society’s values and livelihood is ripped straight up from settler colonial imaginary.
which leads to the 3rd point of contention: the plot
as stated all the way back in the 1st point, eurocentric sources love to exaggerate indigenous traditions and invent completely new ones in order to further demonise those people so as to have a justification to enslave and decimate them. most of the barbarian AU writers’ depiction of the “barbarian” society and its traditions would feel right at home among those sources.
primarily, though, we must talk about the “barbarian kidnaps citymech as bride” plot. this is LITERALLY a colonialist fearmongering trope. white settlers built up an entire mythology of men of colour stealing virtuous little white women in order to further demonise indigenous people AND THAT NOTION IS ALIVE TO THIS DAY in the myth of the black rapist and the white woman’s fear of assault by men of colour. a very pernicious thing that is often left out is: the one’s who actually kidnap another ethnicity’s women and girls to use as servants and sex slaves ARE WHITE MEN, and that has not changed form in the past 500 years. indigenous women and girls are STILL kidnapped by white settlers to serve as “wives” and it’s not uncommon, at least in my country, for someone to refer to their indigenous grandma or whatever as having been “taken by the lasso”, which is painfully literal.
the romance between indigenous kidnapper and settler victim is also straight from colonialist white female fantasies, a whirlwind romance between a savage and his stolen civilised bride. it is derived from white women’s fetishisation of men of colour (though it would still apply were the genders flipped or switched) and the so-called “jungle fever” of white chasers. these people are obsessed with “dominating” a “savage” person of colour like some neo-slaveowner bullshit (and again i must tell you, most ~famed romances~ between white slaveowners and their slaves were in fact coercion at best and violent rape at worst, yes even in the case of white mistresses and male slaves) except they want to do that in their beau’s own “domain”, where they can escape white patriachy and establish their own “rule” by virtue of their whiteness and the superiority it affords.
tl;dr: barbarian AU is a colonialist wet dream based 100% on stereotypes and myths created by european settlers in the early days of settler colonialism, and perpetuate racist notions that actively contribute to fetishisation and assault of people of colour to this day. read a fucking book on the horrors of colonialism and come back when you’ve learnt to behave
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amandla
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