The Whiteness of Dark Academia
The Whiteness of Dark Academia
I love the dark academia genre. Its honestly so cool, in fact, the WIP I’m gonna start after writing my current fantasy is a thriller based on Shakespeare! So let’s talk about a huge issues in the genre: the whiteness
To preface, white characters will always exist, and they should. Just like any other race, treat them as equals. The ‘whiteness’ here isn’t the issue, but the fact that it doesn’t allow space for diverse stories. Or most importantly, people don’t have the mindset to think about stories from different views. For example:
Languages
Dark Academia is a genre which greatly appreciates the the study of language. Especially ancient ones, like Latin and Greek, or other other languages like French and Italian. Do you notice the trend? It’s all Western. These languages are beautiful, but if you have to know, the most ancient languages are from the East. Sumerian & Sanskrit might not be spoken to modern day but they’re still very nuanced. Tamil is the longest surviving language in history, dating back to 5,000 years and still spoken to this minute. Arabic,Chinese,Egyptian. There are so many languages, so why do we only look at the Western ones?
People:
Dark Academia’s color scheme generally contains of dark tones. And honestly, who fits Dark Academia more than people who quite literally have the same tones in their skin? (I’m not saying me, but I am). Most depictions of dark academia shows, able-bodied,white males in their early 20s. It could so easily be about a black grandmother with a sinister secret from her childhood at an all-girls school in the 50s.
Why is it like this?
The aesthetic and idea inspiration of Dark Academia stems from 18-19th century elite boarding schools. Which, obviously, admitted only wealthy white males But, even after (200? years?), narratives are still written around them. Right style, wrong way, As much as owe the creation of this genre to it’s inextricable history of whiteness , it doesn’t mean we can’t meander away and create our own tales which celebrates people from different walks of life. The world has changed a thousand times, according to times, so obviously, so can this genre.