#blackfacing

[no-more-hide]

Blackfacing, the representation of dark-skinned people by light-skinned people who have dyed themselves black with make-up, is regarded as racial discrimination. When women cut their hair short, make up their faces edgy and slip into men's suits, it is menfacing and a possibility to escape discrimination. Some thereby free the man they are supposed to be.

[mk-wizard]

Race-Bending: It demeans us all

Ok, for real this time, this is my very last argument against “bending” especially when it comes to race. When white actors played the parts of BIPOC people long ago, we still held Hollywood accountable for this bad casting because it is racist. It’s so serious, that a lot of these films mention and apologize in advance for doing this admitting that looking back, it was not ok. And I agree. It’s not right. A person’s culture or race is not a role even when the “tribe” or “clan” is fictional. These people are a reference to actual people, an actual culture and actual mythology. It merits respect.

And the same goes for recolouring BIPOC characters to be white. This is Baxter Stockman who is established as being black yet he was recoloured here. This is not a cool thing to do. The Lord himself meant for the human race to be colourful and equal. There is no rhyme or reason to not cast BIPOC actors to play BIPOC parts or to not paint established characters in their correct colours. Being BIPOC is natural and beautiful.

With that said, the reverse is not ok either. Even if the character and their nation is fictional, like I said before, they mirror and represent real life. And a lot of these characters are iconic. Not to mention, it’s very uncomfortable, disturbing and wrong to see a BIPOC actor/character pretending to be white. It’s like you’re saying that original BIPOC characters and roles aren’t as good as white ones and that only white characters have value. To me, that is bigoted.

Moreover, it is also bigoted towards white people and please hear me out. White people deserve to have their culture and intelligence respected too. As a Greek woman, I am not ashamed to say that I would be very offended is someone casted a BIPOC person to play Apollo the Greek God of the Sun or a BIPOC person to play Aphrodite the Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty. I can understand them having tanned or olive skin, but they would still be white. They’re Greek. And I doubt England would be pleased to see King Arthur or any of his knights be played by a BIPOC actor. Though if memory serves me correctly, this did happen and people were outraged. And rightly so. I also doubt people would be comfortable with seeing a BIPOC Thor who is the Norse God of Thunder. It looks ridiculous and it is offensive to the culture.

I’m all for representation, but it has to be done the right way otherwise the attempt not only fails, it actually makes you look bigoted because you did not put any thought into it. And if we want BIPOC leads so badly, why not make films and TV shows based on BIPOC mythology? There is so much to you can do with it and I would be elated to see it. We got a taste of it with Mulan and Moana, but we all know there’s more. Let’s see it. Let’s see it all. And there are tons, upon tons, upon tons of books with BIPOC main characters. I would love to see a film or series reboot of “n the Head of the Night which is one of my favourite cop books.

And I would love to see a Green Lantern film or series starring Jon Stewart who is the best Green Lantern in my opinion.

And I would love it if Parasite Eve got its own series from the novel that sparked it all, to the video game. Yeah, Parasite Eve the video game is actually a sequel to a Japanese horror-science fiction novel.

If I am STILL a bigot after making this argument, then all I have to say is... I’m not sorry.

[mk-wizard]

Series Reimagining Robin Hood as a Black Female ‘Gen Zer’ Reminds Us It’s Time for Anti-Woke Reimagining

Robin Hood is the latest character being reimagined in a progressive direction. Therefore, it’s time to reimagine characters as anti-woke.

They’re not even hiding that they’re lazy, have no imagination and only see a character worth casting as long as they were originally white, straight, male, etc. My question is, why are the actors who clearly have talent and can act well accepting these roles?

If you’re an aspiring actor, please, don’t accept these kinds of roles. You deserve better than to embarrass yourself like this. You’re not in high school play.

[mona-schreibt]

Lately I was listening to the audio book "Percy Jackson" by Rick Riordan. I love this book series and have read and listened to it so many times. It reminded me that Disney+ plans a TV series based on these novels and I wanted to find out when it will be published. The first thing google shows me when searching for "Percy Jackson TV series" are photos of the actors who will play the main characters. I must admit I stumbled when seeing that Leah Jeffries, a poc girl, will play Annabeth Chase, who was (in the books) described as a blonde girl. I told myself "dont be a racist, she will do well" and continued looking for the date of publication. But what I found on wikipedia was a comment that many fans were apparently discontent with the cast of Leah. And then I found this link to a comment by Rick Riordan, the author:

Leah Jeffries is Annabeth Chase | Rick Riordan

In my opinion, he is absolutely right, what is most important is the character and not the physical appearance. But while reading this comment, another thought came to my mind: This is a fictional story and the skin colour makes no difference to the story.

Several years ago there was a huge discussion that the "Zwarte Piet", a historical character in the Dutch culture, should be forbidden. I agree that it is no longer uptodate that a blackfaced man is the fear spreading henchman and as far as I know they agreed on the solution that the "Zwarte Piet" is now black because of soot. But dont forget that this was a historic character. The story, that they tell, only makes sense when the children are scared because of an aspect in the physical appearence. Fear mostly arises out of ingnorance. Many years ago, before globalisation had started, a huge majority of the people in central europe had never seen or heard about poc. And there was no TV showing them pictures or films or telling them about other cultures. Imagine you just don't know that there are people somewhere on the world who have a different skin colour. And then you see a person looking so different to you. Wouldn't you be scared? This shall not be an excuse that this image, blackfaced man = evil, is still used, just an explanation how it had come to this.

Another thought to it: Concerning the discussion about blackfacing. In the area where I live you cannot see many (sorry for the word but I'm just in miss of a better one) black people. You can see many poc with their roots in Asia, Southern Europe, the Mideast. Still, in the theatre blackfacing is - I don't know if forbidden but at least frowned upon. But who has a solution when there simply is no actor whose physical appearance fits to the role? Of course you can say, like Rick Riordan, I don't care about the appearance, the character is more important. But what about a famous character as e.g. Martin Luther King? His story would be completely different if it was played by a white man. I don't know if in my city (around 500k people) there is at least one black person who works as an actor. I just dont know. I, personally, would not bother, if a poc would "whiteface" if he/she fits best to the character and if it was essential for the role...

[q-the-rockaholic]

To every other POC

If you find Hollywood or other people whitewashing people and characters of your skin colours offensive, don't do the same thing to other people or characters of a different ethnicity.

WTF is with the trend of 'blackfacing' Japanese anime characters?! We Asians find it just as offensive as you find people whitewashing your skin colours offensive.

I'm sorry, but I'm Asian myself, I know we are all people of colour, it still doesn't make it okay for you to go colour and change someone else's skintone. We Asians have what you will call a yellow skintone.

If you hate being whitewashed so much, why the fuck do the same thing to us Asians?!

[taunuswolf]

Der Kabarettist Helmut Schleich schminkt sich schwarz, um gegen die korrupte Allparteien-Politik zu polemisieren und die gleichgeschaltete Staatspresse, angefangen von FAZ bis Spiegel sieht „rot“ und macht sich zum Sprachrohr empörter Linker Eliten… Ein Paradebeispiel, dass sich Deutschland von einer unabhängigen Presse längst verabschiedet hat und fest in der Hand linker Einheitsmeinungsmacher ist, die sogar gegen die alte Satire Sturm laufen. Schlimmer als die Zensur des  Metternich-Systems. Als Beweis drei Kostproben:

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/medien/schleichfernsehen-br-bleibt-beim-blackfacing/27071956.html

 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/blackfacing-beim-bayerischen-rundfunk-rassismus-aus-bequemlichkeit-kommentar-a-02527570-c938-4f3b-b7e8-2fe632a5f7cf?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-de-DE

https://www.merkur.de/bayern/rassismus-br-blackfacing-shitstorm-satire-tv-helmut-schleich-kritik-twitter-news-aktuell-zr-90314626.html

[smoovecosplaya]

Race-facing: JUST DON'T DO IT!!!

My thoughts on the too-often reoccurring incidences of race-facing/black-facing in #cosplay.

TLDW: - If the skin tone exists in real life, don't do it. If it doesn't, have at it. - When you choose to race/black-face, you are selfishly putting your own "fun" and "art" above the pain of several large groups of people. - Your "intentions" when race/black-facing do not outweigh the impact it has on others.

[intpleasedontgo]

Stop! Wearing! Costumes! That! Make! Fun! Of! Non! White! Cultures!!!

thank you for your attention.