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I think I'll quote somebody out of context, because that's always worked really well for me in the past.
Saying "black characters are written too broadly in New Who, making them resemble stereotypes" rather ignores the fact that white characters are treated the same way.
Look. This is the problem with trying to raise white people on Sesame Street in order to cure racism: you get a generation of white people who think it's to their credit that they hold everyone to the same standard, and run around operating like the world is one big, happy block party -- people who think they're complementing themselves when they say they're "colorblind."
BLIND is not a moral positive. BLIND is an inability to perceive what the non-blind people around you can clearly fucking see. My grandfather was red/green colorblind. His family also had a strawberry farm. His father used to beat him for not obeying instructions to pick only the RED strawberries and leave the GREEN ones on the bush.
Now, I'm not recommending regular beatings for the colorblind. That wasn't a nice thing to do (my great-grandfather was not a nice person in general, for oh so many reasons). But the thing is, my grandfather's colorblindness? Was a problem, because there is actually such a thing as color when it comes to strawberries, and it's easier to work on a strawberry farm when you can see it.
And there is actually such a thing as race. If you can't see it, you're not doing yourself or anyone else any favors. There are cases where you can give the EXACT SAME script/character arc/iconography/etc. to a white performer and to a performer of color, and the overall effect WILL BE DIFFERENT. Race is real. People respond to it, often on levels they aren't entirely aware of. So it actually misses the whole entire point of discussing race and racism if your sole defense is "but we're just treating them the exact same way we treat white characters!" It may be true, or it may not be true, but either way it's singularly useless.
Some fans seem to find gender easier to understand than race, so think of it this way: if there's a character that isn't very bright but always uses sexuality to manipulate other people, does it make a difference if that character is a man or a woman? Isn't it more of a stereotype in one case than in the other? And if some writer or producer said, "Oh, it's not sexist -- this is just what we were going to do, and we thought we might hire a male actor, but we went with a woman instead, so we kept the same stuff!" that doesn't magically make her not a sexist cliche, does it? If they'd cast a man, the character would read one way; when they do cast a woman, it reads differently. Same character. Different, because of the baggage we bring surrounding gender. If you were somehow magically oblivious to any and all gender issues, you might not notice that. But you wouldn't thereby be a better person than the rest of us. You'd just be oblivious.
Unfortunately, in our culture, we are conditioned to see white people as Real People, and black people as sort of thin slices of people, operating in one of a very few available modes and with only a very few emotions and interests. Therefore it's just different to write a white character "broadly" versus a black character. It's not enough to write the black character "just like" all your white characters, because race is not invisible to most of us and it doesn't have no consequences. In order to challenge people's already racist assumptions about black characters, writers have to work that much harder, and they have to work not blind. They have to work with their eyes open and their brains engaged and with the awareness of subtle signals and context and connotation that anyone who writes for a living should damn well be conversant with. To do less than that is to write lazily, to write foolishly, to write contemptuously of one's characters and one's craft, and to do all that because you can't or won't go the extra mile to bring race into the universe of stuff that factors into your writing does, in fact, have racist implications.
"Colorblindness" may be one's reason for making all of those mistakes, but it isn't an excuse, and it doesn't magically make the product impervious from criticism. Be less blind.
Saying "black characters are written too broadly in New Who, making them resemble stereotypes" rather ignores the fact that white characters are treated the same way.
Look. This is the problem with trying to raise white people on Sesame Street in order to cure racism: you get a generation of white people who think it's to their credit that they hold everyone to the same standard, and run around operating like the world is one big, happy block party -- people who think they're complementing themselves when they say they're "colorblind."
BLIND is not a moral positive. BLIND is an inability to perceive what the non-blind people around you can clearly fucking see. My grandfather was red/green colorblind. His family also had a strawberry farm. His father used to beat him for not obeying instructions to pick only the RED strawberries and leave the GREEN ones on the bush.
Now, I'm not recommending regular beatings for the colorblind. That wasn't a nice thing to do (my great-grandfather was not a nice person in general, for oh so many reasons). But the thing is, my grandfather's colorblindness? Was a problem, because there is actually such a thing as color when it comes to strawberries, and it's easier to work on a strawberry farm when you can see it.
And there is actually such a thing as race. If you can't see it, you're not doing yourself or anyone else any favors. There are cases where you can give the EXACT SAME script/character arc/iconography/etc. to a white performer and to a performer of color, and the overall effect WILL BE DIFFERENT. Race is real. People respond to it, often on levels they aren't entirely aware of. So it actually misses the whole entire point of discussing race and racism if your sole defense is "but we're just treating them the exact same way we treat white characters!" It may be true, or it may not be true, but either way it's singularly useless.
Some fans seem to find gender easier to understand than race, so think of it this way: if there's a character that isn't very bright but always uses sexuality to manipulate other people, does it make a difference if that character is a man or a woman? Isn't it more of a stereotype in one case than in the other? And if some writer or producer said, "Oh, it's not sexist -- this is just what we were going to do, and we thought we might hire a male actor, but we went with a woman instead, so we kept the same stuff!" that doesn't magically make her not a sexist cliche, does it? If they'd cast a man, the character would read one way; when they do cast a woman, it reads differently. Same character. Different, because of the baggage we bring surrounding gender. If you were somehow magically oblivious to any and all gender issues, you might not notice that. But you wouldn't thereby be a better person than the rest of us. You'd just be oblivious.
Unfortunately, in our culture, we are conditioned to see white people as Real People, and black people as sort of thin slices of people, operating in one of a very few available modes and with only a very few emotions and interests. Therefore it's just different to write a white character "broadly" versus a black character. It's not enough to write the black character "just like" all your white characters, because race is not invisible to most of us and it doesn't have no consequences. In order to challenge people's already racist assumptions about black characters, writers have to work that much harder, and they have to work not blind. They have to work with their eyes open and their brains engaged and with the awareness of subtle signals and context and connotation that anyone who writes for a living should damn well be conversant with. To do less than that is to write lazily, to write foolishly, to write contemptuously of one's characters and one's craft, and to do all that because you can't or won't go the extra mile to bring race into the universe of stuff that factors into your writing does, in fact, have racist implications.
"Colorblindness" may be one's reason for making all of those mistakes, but it isn't an excuse, and it doesn't magically make the product impervious from criticism. Be less blind.
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Re: mild spn season two spoilers here
Date: 2007-07-14 03:54 am (UTC)From:No, I don't think it did, really.
What it has to do with Hth post: I'm assuming that, when casting decisions are made, the producers consider how an actor's race may affect the role.
Maybe I've just read more interviews with clueless PTB than you have, but I think that in a *lot* of cases, that's a really generous assumption, even when it comes to PTB like Joss who may be really progressive in other areas besides race. Besides, we're not just talking about specific roles, but about patterns, patterns that are bigger than even individual shows.
I don't view his attack on Sam as cowardly; it's what any soldier would do to survive.
He stabs Sam *in the back* and runs away. If the show was trying to portray him as honorable, they could have done better than that. I don't think he's an entirely unsympathetic character, but I also don't think he's meant to be particularly heroic.
Is it fair to see Jake as evil because he made a deal with a demon to protect his family, when both John and Dean have done the same?
First off, I didn't say he was evil, I said he wasn't admirable.
Second, comparing Jake's deal with the demon to John and Dean's is apples and oranges. John and Dean both offered to sacrifice *their own lives* in order to save a loved one. Self-sacrifice is generally regarded as noble.
Jake's deal with a demon involved murdering *Sam* in order to save his own life and gain power. Understandable, given the circumstances he found himself in, but not exactly heroic.
It's extremely interesting that people perceive the characters in so many ways, particularly Henricksen. It suggests perhaps the roles of Gordon, Henricksen, and Jake aren't broad stereotypes, if we can view them in such different lights.
I might agree with this argument if I hadn't seen plenty of people-- not just in fandom-- defending the most stupid arguments imaginable, with the worst logic imaginable, with a clear motive to deny or obscure obvious facts. I mean, remember when everyone was in denial about Willow being a lesbian? Remember when everyone was in denial about Willow being *Jewish*? Sometimes people really, really don't *want* to see what's right in front of their faces.
There are also a lot of people who will argue out of ignorance, because "everybody knows" (insert completely wrong fact here.) An example from DW fandom: there's an episode where they travel back to Depression-era New York and meet a black WWI veteran. I saw people decrying that character as the stupidest tokenism and "political correctness" imaginable, because of course, as *everybody* knows, there *were* no black WWI veterans. Oh wait... (http://noise.typepad.com/photoblog/2007/01/a_history_lesse.html). Similarly, there were complaints about the total historical innacuracy of having one or two black extras in the background at King Louis XV's court, and *why* did the casting people have to be so stupid, and oh wait (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_de_Saint-Georges), wrong again.
I'm not saying *you're* ignorant or in denial, but I also really don't think it's accurate *at all* to say "Well, *you* say it's a stereotype, but there are people in fandom who disagree, therefore it must be a nuanced and well-rounded portrayal." You can find people in fandom who'll still argue that Buffy deserved to be raped, or that it's just random coincidence that there are no Hispanics in Joss Whedon's LA and no Asians in his Fireflyverse, or that the portrayal of the cannibals in POTC was historically accurate (hint, it wasn't.) You can find people in fandom who'll argue all sorts of things. Doesn't mean I automatically give their opinions any credence.
Re: mild spn season two spoilers here
Date: 2007-07-15 07:51 am (UTC)From:Unfortunately, in our culture, we are conditioned to see white people as Real People, and black people as sort of thin slices of people, operating in one of a very few available modes and with only a very few emotions and interests. Therefore it's just different to write a white character "broadly" versus a black character. It's not enough to write the black character "just like" all your white characters, because race is not invisible to most of us and it doesn't have no consequences. In order to challenge people's already racist assumptions about black characters, writers have to work that much harder, and they have to work not blind.
I applied that to discussion I've heard in the SPN fandom: is SPN casting [too many] black actors in broad stereotypical villain roles? In the case of Gordon, Henricksen, and Jake, I think the answer is no. By discussions in fandom, by the way, I meant personal discussions I’ve had with fannish friends, not with random people at TwoP or elsewhere. Generally, my fan friends do not defend the stupidest arguments imaginable, and I take their opinions seriously, even if I do not agree with them.
I do not see Hth equate "bad guy" with "broad, stereotypical role" in her post. I do not equate them; the villain can be a better-nuanced role than that of the hero, so a black actor playing a bad guy is not automatically undesirable, except when it blatantly reinforces an American racist stereotype, such as casting black actors as petty criminals.
Neither of us know why CW hired Brown, Whitfield, and Hodge; we can be sure, however, they did not do it with eyes wide open. They were squinting through a haze of profit and expediency.
CW makes casting decisions based on many factors. Actors who have appeared on previous WB/CW shows have an edge. So do Canadians, thanks to the Vancouver location. No doubt there are the usual favors owed, budget constraints, and scheduling conflicts. The time CW spends thinking about the race of an actor probably consists of "Will we get angry letters?" and no more. That, however, should not be discounted. TV execs may be ignorant, but they know plenty about what pushes the public’s buttons. Button pushing is their business.
Still, they are going to do what is expedient, and what sells. I expect little from the entertainment industry; it’s one of the reasons I like to make my own entertainment. TV especially relies on broad characterization. A 40-minute weekly drama will use narrative shortcuts, including stereotypes. When the CW cast an overweight actor as Ronald in Nightshifter, I'm sure they did it intentionally, making use of American prejudice.
[continued]
continued
Date: 2007-07-15 07:52 am (UTC)From:When I saw Shaft at a theatre, however, I was not thinking, "This is the birth of black cinema, and will create a pool of talent on both sides of the camera that will reward us for decades to come." I was angry. Five years after Nichelle Nichols broke new ground as Uhura, black exploitation films felt like a step back, no matter how many creepy white guys Pam Grier blew away.
I’m not arguing we cannot criticize popular entertainment, and I’m not excusing the shoddy job Hollywood so frequently does, but I do not believe the entertainment industry can be reformed through normal pressures [letter-writing campaigns, consumer boycotts].
When Hollywood began to put black actors in leading roles, it was because they realized they could make piles of money off of superstars such as Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy.
The discussion here now centers on the nature of American racism, and how confusing it is. American racism is not confusing once you've learned it has always had an economic purpose. African Americans were once held in bondage. Now, they are "last hired, first fired," a race color cast segregated at the bottom of the US economy. One of the best books I've read on this is Toni Morrison's Playing In The Dark. Racism keeps the working class divided and more easily exploited, and the high unemployment rate for black American men keeps wages low. Because racism is part of our economy, part of our society's fabric, ridding ourselves of it can only be done by replacing our capitalist economy with socialism -- a third American revolution, the civil war being the second. This might seem an extreme approach to eliminating racist stereotypes in the media, but it would have other benefits as well. ;)
Fanfiction, however, exists outside of the economy, so Hth's urging writers to open their eyes and not to "write lazily, to write foolishly, to write contemptuously of one's characters and one's craft," is something I embrace.