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Everyone is racist. It's when you notice the differences. I am a little pale ginger girl. I look different from someone who is Indian, or Nepali, or Japanese. This is fact (barring things like immigrants. It's possible to have a white Chinese person if that persons parents had them whil ethey were living in China and that person is raised as a Chinese person. This happens, sure, but we're going general). Even within "white" and "black" there are racial differences. Is a Nigerian the same as a person from the Congo, or a Swede the same as a German? No.
The moral of thi story is that the world is a fucking diverse place. This is great. This keeps the human species from being stagnant. This keeps life interesting. This breeds xenophobia and racism.
Neither xenophobia nor racism is inherently wrong. Both derive from an instinctual self-preservation, which would include preservation of our communities. They arise when an outside force or an "other" is perceived as invading, whether the invasion is active and violent or passive and just immigration, cultural assimilation and the like. This changes the community. Change can be bad. It can lead to the destruction of your people (ala American Indians). Racism towards "white" and colonials on the part of native americans would have been justified. European invaders saw this continent as being "virgin soil" for the taking, as opposed to being inhabited by some 90 million people, including civilizations in the anthropological definition. Racism towards black people ro African on the part of white people is not justified, because contemporarily it's a bunch of bullshit and historically they were not invaders, they were the invaded. They were the taken, the spirited away to a continent that centuries later would still hold them generally in contempt.
So what the fuck does this have to do with movies and television?
Honestly, a whole fucking lot.
We all know the "token" racial characters. Token of South Park comes to mind as an example of the industry reminding people of this problem.
Think of television. If a tv show has black characters, they are either part of a larger cast like Leverage, Criminal Minds, CSI, and the like, or are secondary characters to main characters, such as in Supernatural, etc. Recently three shows that I watch killed off or wrote off every black character (LOST, Heroes [which later brought back one mixed race character, Micah], and Supernatural). Of these shows, two of them have characters of other races (Heroes: Mohinder, Hiro, etc.; LOST: Jin, Sun, Miles, etc.). But if we look at TV which has central characters are any of them black? As in, in a show like Supernatural or Life on Mars, the main characters are white. On TV where main characters are black race becomes a main theme. In fact, the only shows that star black main characters in recent years that I can think of (and please, tell me if there are more) are the Bernie Mac Show (RIP, Bernie) and Everybody Hates Chris. Both perfectly great and funny shows, sure, but both are black comedians who've gotten shows, instead of black actors cast as main characters on shows.
The easy answer is just that they just find the best actor they can and cast them. Sure, whatever. So, what, there just aren't any good black actors? Bullshit. They're all over the place. There are BAD black actors too, but that happens. Why couldn't the Winchesters have been black? The Closer? Buffy or Angel (also another issue, though, since Buffy was cast as a blond white girl BECAUSE of the trope of blond white girls in horror)? And then, in Angel, when we get a black character, he's from the streets. Which is another trope we see all the time. And I can't say it's necessarily BAD--that was Gunn's character. But that's all wrapped up in this issue. Why SHOULD Gunn's character have been a black kid from the streets?
And then movies. Race cinema. Third cinema. Foreign cinema. But then we get to Hollywood and it becomes a big deal when there aren't white actors. Slumdog Millionaire? Great movie, sure, I loved it. But Bollywood, India, produces about 900 movies a year, over Hollywood's 610 in 2008. In the 90's there was an average of over 4000 movies produced each year. About 450 of those would get a US release, and about 225 of them were registered with MPAA (US made movies). So Hollywood? Doesn't really produce that many movies, comperably. And non-western countries make the majority. And have since the 60s. So why are we only NOW forming ties with these places?
In Hollywood movies themselves race is equally troubling as TV for me. Avatar has been cast, and is grossly white or random ethnicities that simply fulfil a sort of exotic quota for villains or random characters, as pposed to the VERY culturally sound cartoon, where the countries had influences and bases in actual countries. The Water Tribe drew a lot of influence from Inuit cultures, and we get two white actors to play Sokka and Katara. The Fire Nation was based on historical Japan, and we get an Indian born English actor (who, don't get me wrong, I adore. Dev Patel is both cute and hot and a great actor). The Fire Lord? A Maori. It's as though, in casting, they just said, well, it doesn't matter who we cast as long as some of them aren't white. That's diversity, right? The problem with this is that it shows a lack of love for the themes and cultures presented in the show, as well as a lack of understanding what fans love about it. We don't have problems with characters being WHITE or INDIAN but with the fact that they're IGNORING the style of the SHOW, and the world it presented.
But back to racism. Tyler Perry. Great writer, fairly okay filmmaker. Makes movies about black people. And guess what? No one goes to see them in the town where I live. They make bank everywhere else, but in my little white town of Boulder, no one cares. Why? Does my whitewashed audience not identify with these stories or characters? Bullshit. If they saw these movies they would. Do we just not hear about them? Possible. They don't get advertized as much here. But it's not like it's a surprise when they're released.
So this isn't a problem just with the studios and producers and directors, but with the spectator and viewership. This is a problem with society. That no one even really notices these things. Or if, when it happens, it's a big deal. Disney's upcoming traditionally animated version of the Frog Princess comes to mind. Guess what, Disney? It's great you have an African American princess. Guess the fuck what? It's Two Thousand Fucking Nine. The civil rights movement was fifty years ago. You're not the embodiment of social progress, you're an example of the fact that America still needs to realize that it's not the paradigm of tolerance, acceptance, and goodness. i would almost say the race issue now could be more troubling than before--because people have started to ignore, started to not see it, started to accept the way things are now as the way things should be.
I am not an advocate of affirmative action. I don't think black actors or non-white actor should be cast for the sake of having diversity. I'm just saying there's a problem. There's a problem, and no one even notices, or says it's not there, or says I'm racist for noticing.
Well so what? Everyone's racist. At least I'm thinking about it.
The moral of thi story is that the world is a fucking diverse place. This is great. This keeps the human species from being stagnant. This keeps life interesting. This breeds xenophobia and racism.
Neither xenophobia nor racism is inherently wrong. Both derive from an instinctual self-preservation, which would include preservation of our communities. They arise when an outside force or an "other" is perceived as invading, whether the invasion is active and violent or passive and just immigration, cultural assimilation and the like. This changes the community. Change can be bad. It can lead to the destruction of your people (ala American Indians). Racism towards "white" and colonials on the part of native americans would have been justified. European invaders saw this continent as being "virgin soil" for the taking, as opposed to being inhabited by some 90 million people, including civilizations in the anthropological definition. Racism towards black people ro African on the part of white people is not justified, because contemporarily it's a bunch of bullshit and historically they were not invaders, they were the invaded. They were the taken, the spirited away to a continent that centuries later would still hold them generally in contempt.
So what the fuck does this have to do with movies and television?
Honestly, a whole fucking lot.
We all know the "token" racial characters. Token of South Park comes to mind as an example of the industry reminding people of this problem.
Think of television. If a tv show has black characters, they are either part of a larger cast like Leverage, Criminal Minds, CSI, and the like, or are secondary characters to main characters, such as in Supernatural, etc. Recently three shows that I watch killed off or wrote off every black character (LOST, Heroes [which later brought back one mixed race character, Micah], and Supernatural). Of these shows, two of them have characters of other races (Heroes: Mohinder, Hiro, etc.; LOST: Jin, Sun, Miles, etc.). But if we look at TV which has central characters are any of them black? As in, in a show like Supernatural or Life on Mars, the main characters are white. On TV where main characters are black race becomes a main theme. In fact, the only shows that star black main characters in recent years that I can think of (and please, tell me if there are more) are the Bernie Mac Show (RIP, Bernie) and Everybody Hates Chris. Both perfectly great and funny shows, sure, but both are black comedians who've gotten shows, instead of black actors cast as main characters on shows.
The easy answer is just that they just find the best actor they can and cast them. Sure, whatever. So, what, there just aren't any good black actors? Bullshit. They're all over the place. There are BAD black actors too, but that happens. Why couldn't the Winchesters have been black? The Closer? Buffy or Angel (also another issue, though, since Buffy was cast as a blond white girl BECAUSE of the trope of blond white girls in horror)? And then, in Angel, when we get a black character, he's from the streets. Which is another trope we see all the time. And I can't say it's necessarily BAD--that was Gunn's character. But that's all wrapped up in this issue. Why SHOULD Gunn's character have been a black kid from the streets?
And then movies. Race cinema. Third cinema. Foreign cinema. But then we get to Hollywood and it becomes a big deal when there aren't white actors. Slumdog Millionaire? Great movie, sure, I loved it. But Bollywood, India, produces about 900 movies a year, over Hollywood's 610 in 2008. In the 90's there was an average of over 4000 movies produced each year. About 450 of those would get a US release, and about 225 of them were registered with MPAA (US made movies). So Hollywood? Doesn't really produce that many movies, comperably. And non-western countries make the majority. And have since the 60s. So why are we only NOW forming ties with these places?
In Hollywood movies themselves race is equally troubling as TV for me. Avatar has been cast, and is grossly white or random ethnicities that simply fulfil a sort of exotic quota for villains or random characters, as pposed to the VERY culturally sound cartoon, where the countries had influences and bases in actual countries. The Water Tribe drew a lot of influence from Inuit cultures, and we get two white actors to play Sokka and Katara. The Fire Nation was based on historical Japan, and we get an Indian born English actor (who, don't get me wrong, I adore. Dev Patel is both cute and hot and a great actor). The Fire Lord? A Maori. It's as though, in casting, they just said, well, it doesn't matter who we cast as long as some of them aren't white. That's diversity, right? The problem with this is that it shows a lack of love for the themes and cultures presented in the show, as well as a lack of understanding what fans love about it. We don't have problems with characters being WHITE or INDIAN but with the fact that they're IGNORING the style of the SHOW, and the world it presented.
But back to racism. Tyler Perry. Great writer, fairly okay filmmaker. Makes movies about black people. And guess what? No one goes to see them in the town where I live. They make bank everywhere else, but in my little white town of Boulder, no one cares. Why? Does my whitewashed audience not identify with these stories or characters? Bullshit. If they saw these movies they would. Do we just not hear about them? Possible. They don't get advertized as much here. But it's not like it's a surprise when they're released.
So this isn't a problem just with the studios and producers and directors, but with the spectator and viewership. This is a problem with society. That no one even really notices these things. Or if, when it happens, it's a big deal. Disney's upcoming traditionally animated version of the Frog Princess comes to mind. Guess what, Disney? It's great you have an African American princess. Guess the fuck what? It's Two Thousand Fucking Nine. The civil rights movement was fifty years ago. You're not the embodiment of social progress, you're an example of the fact that America still needs to realize that it's not the paradigm of tolerance, acceptance, and goodness. i would almost say the race issue now could be more troubling than before--because people have started to ignore, started to not see it, started to accept the way things are now as the way things should be.
I am not an advocate of affirmative action. I don't think black actors or non-white actor should be cast for the sake of having diversity. I'm just saying there's a problem. There's a problem, and no one even notices, or says it's not there, or says I'm racist for noticing.
Well so what? Everyone's racist. At least I'm thinking about it.