Seriously, it surprises me that people still donât get that âwhitewashingâ doesnât just mean âtaking a character of color and turning them white,â but also applies to âfocusing disproportionately on the stories of white people,â âglossing over or altering parts of a story to make it more palatable or make white people look better,â and âtreating âwhiteâ as the default raceâ
The fact that Disney churns out film after film after film after film about white people with a maximum of one film per ethnicity that showcases a group other than white people is whitewashing.
The fact that the story of âPocahontasâ (not her real name) has been substantially altered so that some of the white people in that story donât look like such villains, with John Smith younger and Pocahontas significantly older, as well as recounting a popular myth of her saving John Smith from near-execution (a story John Smith made up to make himself look brave, the real Pocahontas told him to stop telling and hated him for using her to make himself look good, and he started to spread like wildfire after she died because she could no longer object) is whitewashing.
The fact that the characters on âHow I Met Your Motherâ are all white, and they supposedly live in New York City, but apparently associate exclusively with other white people (with the exception of Wayne Brady, who occasionally visits from out of town, and a recurring taxi driver) is whitewashing.
The fact that the Doctor has now been a white man a full twelve times in a row is whitewashing even though the characterâs always been white, because the idea that thereâs a character whose entire appearance can change in a matter of seconds, yet ends up white twelve times in a row by pure random chance, implies that white is a neutral default and other races are a deviation from that norm.Â
The fact that people get really angry at the suggestion that characters like Newt Scamander or Hermione Granger could be black because the books never explicitly say âthey are blackâ is whitewashing.
Because thatâs the thing. People often assume that when someoneâs race isnât explicitly specified, theyâre white. People insist that Katniss Everdeen must be white because it is possible for them to rationalize that idea in their head. People think of white as âracelessâ and every other color or ethnicity as âraced,â and thatâs what we call âeurocentrism.âÂ
And thatâs the thing about whitewashing. Itâs this idea that a âpersonâ is white, and a âperson of colorâ is black or asian or arab or latin@ or whatever they might be.
Itâs why people call John Stewart the âBlack Green Lanternâ but just call Hal Jordan the âGreen Lantern.â Itâs why Miles Morales is called âBlack Spider-manâ but Peter Parker is just âSpider-man.â If you want to throw gender into the mix, itâs why Jennifer Walters is the âShe-Hulkâ but Bruce Banner isnât the âHe-Hulk.â
People think âcharacterâ is white and âcharacter + blackâ is black. There is no default race. Community did a whole episode about how a truly raceless character would look something like this monstrosity:
But thereâs the tricky part: Once you stop thinking of white characters as âcharacterâ and start thinking of them as âcharacter + white,â it becomes really overwhelming how many characters are white.Â
I mean, I know thereâs a kerfuffle over Disney Princesses right now, so letâs look at the list of official Disney Princesses, shall we? That is, letâs look at the list and include everyoneâs race, not just the princesses of color:
Pocahontas + Native American
Merida + White
Soon to be added:
4 of those 13 women are women of color. All four of those women of color are different races than one another. At the moment, the number of white princesses is seven, but itâs about to go up to nine. All nine of those princesses are the same race as one another, despite a few of them being different nationalities, although most of them hail from Western Europe.
And a lot of people are saying âbut theyâre just accurately portraying the parts of the world those stories are set in!â First of all, the presence of a person of color has never been implausible in any part of the world, in any period of human history. Hell, a bunch of these movies were set after Shakespeare had born, lived, and died, but he still managed to write a play set centuries earlier featuring a black male lead in Italy.Â
Second, and most importantly, itâs not like they are being assigned a setting at random and have to accommodate it in their character designs. The people at Disney choose to set film after film after film in France and Germany and Denmark.
Itâs not that those areas produce more or better fairy tales and folk tales than any of the other continents, itâs that the stories that come from those areas are the ones Disney considers universal.
In the eyes of Disney, thereâs a Princess for Black little girls to look up to, a Princess for Native little girls to look up to, a Princess for Arab little girls to look up to, a Princess for Asian little girls to look up to, and nine princesses for all little girls to look up to. Itâs no coincidence that in almost all promotional art featuring the âPrincess Lineup,â Jasmine, Tiana, Mulan, and Pocahontas are all standing in the back, usually obscured by other white Princessesâ dresses, while the blonde lady brigade stands in the front.Â
And that is whitewashing.
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