It’s time the TAZ fandom talked about Kardala fanart
In light of Sarah Z’s new McElroy video, I’d really like to highlight a certain section regarding Kardala that I believe could be expanded on. Due to her focus on McElroys in the video and Justin’s racism regarding Kardala, I think it’s very important to mention that it was not just him who contributed to her stereotyping. Fans had also played a significant role in spreading Justin’s racist stereotypes.
I’m specifically talking about traditional Inuit tattoos drawn by artists who are not Inuit, and how I ask these artists to stay away from giving Kardala/Irene and other Inuit characters these tattoos in the future. I speak as an Inuk who lived in Nunavut and around my culture for a good portion of my earlier life, but I am also just one person. Other Inuit, Yup’ik and Aleut fans may hold different opinions, so please respect that.
I highly recommend that you watch Sarah Z’s new video first. If not the whole video, then at least the section 1:21:16 – 1:22:45 for an explanation on how racist Kardala was in canon. She spoke on it pretty well and I’m glad she decided to include it. I will add the link to the video in a reblog.
Quick disclaimer: please do not seek out any artists who may have made art depicting Kardala in an unfavourable way. I will be using art shown in Sarah Z’s video to illustrate my point, but I do not condone any harassment. The artist has since learned and I appreciate him taking the time to edit his original post, and I extend this to any artist who may have drawn in ignorance in the past. I hold no ill will to these artists, and I hope no one else does either.
TL;DR: Drawing traditional tattoos on Kardala when you’re not a part of the culture is racist and holds an immense amount of baggage to it. Ignorant art, even when old, can still have an impact on the present and can bring issues if not addressed.
For a little bit of background: traditional Inuit tattoos, referred to as tunniit for the rest of this post, are a cultural practice in many Inuit cultures that had almost been wiped out by Christian missionaries. They are an immensely personal form of documentation of one’s life, heritage and/or achievements, with meanings varying from region to region, family to family, person to person
The current revival of tunniit is still incredibly new. It is a reclamation of a practice that Inuit can never truly get back, for so many designs and meanings have been purposely wiped out, that not even many Inuit can get due to stigma in Christianity and the workforce. It’s because of this that the specific practice of tunniit is closed to outsiders of the cultures.
When artists who aren’t Inuit would put tunniit on Kardala, they did not comprehend what those lines mean. They simply can’t. They’d google these tattoos and copy them off of whatever black-and-white image of real Inuk women they saw, oblivious to the incredibly personal meanings they have meant to each individual, and slapped them onto a meat-crazed eskimo caricature. Or, and I can’t tell if this is worse, they make up their own fun designs, lines and squiggles that are their own caricature, a mockery of a practice we can’t properly reclaim, devoid of any meaning beyond faux “accuracy” or “aesthetic.” It is a terrible move to put such a sacred, newly-revived practice onto a character who was made with such awful stereotypes planted into her from the start.
[ID: A digital drawing of Irene and Kardala from TAZ: Commitment. Irene is a chubby Inuk woman with light brown skin and shoulder length, dark brown hair, and wears a grey blazer and a pencil skirt. She stands idly and glances to the side with a neutral expression. Kardala is a taller, muscular Inuk woman with light brown skin and shoulder length white hair that flows around her. She’s wearing a sleeveless black shirt and has her back facing the viewer with her head turned to the right. Her eyes glow white and her is mouth opened in an enraged expression. White lightning comes out of Kardala’s outstretched arms. Both women have triangular tattoos on their foreheads, cheeks, and chins, along with tattooed lines on their fingers. Kardala’s tattoos glow a bright white. End ID.] credit to a now informed artist, @galway-bae (note: the issues i will bring up in the next paragraph dont all apply to the art above, but are close enough i grouped them together.)
There was also a problem of using the tunniit as a sign of otherworldly power or the feeling of ancientness. Artists would place these tattoos on Kardala, along with putting her in our traditional parkas and regalia, while usually giving Irene “modern” clothing and completely disregarding putting tunniit on her unless it connected to her powers/Kardala. This action mystifies our culture and sets them as “magical” and “primitive” compared to the “normal” and “civilized” European culture. It also disconnects Irene from her own practices and culture, while simultaneously allowing people to access our most personal practice. This mirrors exactly what Justin did when canonically disconnecting Irene from her culture while also using a real life deity as inspiration for Kardala.
I know it feels strange to be mentioning all of this nearly four years after the fact. It was four years of “no bummers,” four years of holding in a grudge that I felt I could never bring up due to how long it has been since Commitment aired. But even when Sarah Z discussed Justin’s racism in her video, she placed the above art without criticism or any mention of tunniit, and I had to be reminded that people did not know that the fandom also heavily contributed to this racist caricature. That it wasn’t just Justin McElroy who made the Commitment era one of the worst times to be an Inuk TAZ fan. Old art can still be brought up in the present, and can still hurt, and that’s why I wanted to address it now. Better late than never.
Small detail I couldn’t fit elsewhere: there is an exception to those who aren’t Inuit drawing tunniit. If you are drawing Inuit with tunniit in real life or are drawing Inuit characters who canonically have tunniit, please do not remove them. They are a vital part of our identity, and if an Inuk made that character have tunniit, those meanings probably hold significance to both the character and the creator. Removing them takes away all of that.
I don’t expect artists to go back and delete any artwork depicting Kardala with tunniit. Nor do I expect artists to stop drawing her with tunniit, since I haven’t seen many artists drawing her this year to begin with lol. But I sincerely hope this post allows people to think about their decisions in drawing Inuit characters in the future, and to remember that the racism in TAZ wasn’t just spread by the McElroys alone.
Thank you for reading, and please take this as a teaching moment to bring with you in the future.
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