1) getting enraged about a Disney remake is objectively silly, because no matter what we still have the original. nostalgia makes people irrationally angry about children's cartoons, but i think it's pretty obvious that this must be (also) about something else.
2) the backlash is pretty obviously racist imho, it's the media version of "reverse racism" which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how racism in society works, of how institutionalised it is. white people have a sense of entitlement over things that really should be shared in society, like in this case access to representation, they perceive that if brown people have more space in society it threatens something dear to them, and like, that's literally just racism.
3) but the white folks who genuinely get angry about the little mermaid remake don't experience it as such. like, when we say "this is actually just about racism" they feel profoundly misunderstood and like we're not taking them seriously, and i think this causes more anger. it's kind of like when you're a kid and the fact that you have to stop playing videogames feels like the worst disrespect ever so you throw an entitled tantrum, when actually you're just tired and hungry. but like, if someone pointed out to you that you're just tired and hungry, it would feel very dismissive, it would probably enrage you.
4) and this is all very frustrating because i think there is genuine criticism to be made of these live action remakes. for starter, the CGI looks like ass. but also, i think Disney knows what it's doing, and i think they're treating the actresses cast in these movies as sacrificial victims. paradoxically, there is a kind of blackwashing going on, but it's disney dressing up as a woke company.
5) many white people are genuinely convinced that black people hold disproportionate power in society. this is because they feel like the power black people should hold is very small, but they'll never admit it. instead, they use those few occasions in which black people do manage to rise above the average (like when the largest media conglomerate in the west casts a black actress as their new star, or when the first black president of the US is elected) to validate their delusions.
6) misogyny is a huge component of this. weird how y'all didn't make all this mess when Will Smith was cast as the genie in Aladdin huh
thanks for reading all of this love your videos <3
I am a white girl from Germany so I don't have the best insight on this. But I (like many other people) grew up with Grimm's tales and Fairytales in general.
So in my opinion "Black washing" isn't a problem there since these story's don't really have characters that always look the same in every, even if there is no need to if it doesn't have any relevance story wise. It is good to see diversity especially for younger children who might not see themselves represented that often in media. I grew up looking a lot like those characters and I think everyone deserves that to a certain degree.
As a half white half asian person who grew up in different continents, i have somewhat? Strong opinions on this topic. I feel like when it comes to characters some people may feel defensive because they feel like it’s being “enforced” on them, or like it’s pushing an agenda. In my personal opinion i don’t think race should matter in casting over talent, UNLESS if it is a relevant part of their character. If it isn’t then it’s probably because the story told can be transposed and adapted to any cultures. I do have a problem with hollywood however doing this “poc washing” as a distraction from the fact that they aren’t producing original stories instead for these characters. It’s easy to make repunzel a different ethnicity, it doesn’t affect the story etc but if you want to actually make a diverse story then maybe these diverse characters deserve to be in stories of their own, like for example encanto. I’d rather have them hire people of the cultures they want to tell stories of in the production AND on set then have them just remake a preexisting movie lazily with a poc actor/actress and call it “inclusive” because that would insinuate that the only thing that makes a movie inclusive is a different face on a screen.
In my opinion these poc actors and actresses have all the rights to these roles, like cinderella snow white or ariel, but they also deserve to be on the main screen as new characters instead of just cash grab ones
I think the backlash kinda shows how many people tend to (subconsciously) think of the "norm" as being white but have never questioned that until now. For example, when it comes to characteristics with vague descriptions, what do we imagine they look like (EX: Hermione in HP)? How do we react when we see someone else express I different opinion? Part of that relates to the kind of characters/people we usually see in media & it's especially present with fairytales. While most associate Rapunzel with the Grimm Brother's & Germany, it's one of those stories/characters that have existed for centuries & appears in different cultures (in fact the oldest iteration of the story has Persian origins). So the idea of a "brown Rapunzel" wouldn't be "incorrect" because the character of Rapunzel doesn't belong to just one culture. It's just that one version of the story (which just so happens to be from Europe) is more well-known.
What I do have a problem with however is how "race switching" characters is being used by companies like Disney to be lazy. Don't get me wrong I think Avantika would make a great Rapunzel but that won't change the fact that Disney Princess line-up still doesn't have a South Asian princess (I mean yeah there's Jasmine but the Aladdin movie is a mish-mash of different cultures so her ethnicity has been heavily debated). It also doesn't change the fact that their writers rooms, directors, & producers are still mostly white. As someone who's WANA & currently studying creative writing, I find it to be kinda grimm; we're not allowed in the writers room nor can we tell our stories yet these companies want to talk about us & pride themselves for being "diverse." I mean there's a reason why Encanto gained so much acclaim beyond just being a new original story.
Overall, the reactions to this Avantika fancast shows how much people care about seeing people like them be represented on screen (if this is how white people feel, imagine what its like for the rest of us). I'm not against "race swapping" characters as long as it's not used as a "easy way out" by companies.
Well, I think this is a very USian problem in a way? To think always in black and white, as a non POC person in a very ethnically diverse country considered POC in the US I find it interesting how those things turn so big there. Of course the equivalence of “blackwashing” to “whitewashing” is, as always, another white people’s whim as they have to have it all. I’m not a believer of stupidity in a sense that all those people complaining about “blackwashing” are just misguided, ill informed people, no, they’re spoiled racists. And, at least from my cultural standpoint, changes that strive for more diversity always affect positively the children that see themselves in them. The movement of black children seeing for eg the black spider man miles morales was so invigorating. But then again, this a perspective of a person outside that community. In the end, the reverse, whitewashing, has been happening since the beginning of time, ergo the existence of a white Jesus, and even though it is debated now, for years it was ok to change the ethnicity of a non existing character for the white “norm”.
you know that spongebob moment where he's like "it feels like somebody....... wants to sell me something!" that's how remakes casting minority groups feels to me.
As a black woman who grew up with little representation, I don’t mind modern retellings. I understand however the need for our own stories and I like when creatives discuss this in length of why it’s so important.
But the issue lies in the fact that whenever we get these opinions, even from black and brown voices, we never get actual examples of good and diverse representation. I feel sometimes that we don’t always support as many projects as we can, myself included, as we are not looking or are apathetically “content” with what we have.
Yet when we do finally get a smidge of diversity, white people constantly complain that they’re not being included (if the story even makes it that far).
So which is it: are we unoriginal or are we exclusionists?
I don't mind casting "a different race" from the original character's unless it's a historical figure (if the work they're in is not labelled as historical fiction - like brigerton's queen Charlotte). Especially with Disney who have there own version of the story and almost never follow the "traditional story". Saying that, those people seem to forget that most fairytales have multiple origins and versions across the globe. The first known story that shared the same plot as Cinderella was "Rhadopis" an Egyptian tale, yet you don't find Egyptians saying that they whitewashed the story by making "Cinderella" because... It's A FICTIONAL STORY. Putting that aside, seeing grown adults throwing tantrums and whining about the race of the actors and not Disney's support of the colonial entity of Israel and aiding them financially while they're murdering CHILDREN and casting IDF soldiers in their movies (snow-white and the new captain America) is wild
When the live-action Little Mermaid remake was announced with Halle Bailey, I didn't see her race or her complexion as an issue. It was more about the fact that we were getting yet another nostalgia-driven cash-grab with some strange CGI choices and sacrificing a lot of the fluidity of classic animation in general. But changing characters' portrayals from traditionally white to people of color in the modern era doesn't upset me. I like Miles Morales as Spider-Man. I like Finn as one of the leads in the new Star Wars films (if only they gave him better things to do beyond the first movie).
Yeah as a brown girl (pakistani) it was so insane to see people in my social circle straight up go up to me, for the only reason of "making it clear" to me, that they didn't agree with avantika being the next rapunzel.. this type of rage bait is used by people with bad intentions+big enough platforms, to start unneeded hate against minorities for childish reasons. Yet they make it seem valid enough, and racists use these flawed reasons to keep trying to validify every ignorant claim they make to the audience, and even themselves.
I have so many thoughts on this, but to put it succinctly: I think the root of it is the fear that white supremacy is ending, that white people are going to be a minority, that non-white people will be in power and get the good jobs, and that we will start treating white people the way they have treated us.
I think in a super general sense, that getting so hung over the color of a character's skin is really stupid unless there is a plot/character point that holds their race in high value for the story. For example, I think it would be wrong to cast a white woman as Mulan because so much of her character and so much of the story revolves around her culture and race, and while technically it would be possible to cast a white actor for her role, it would be disingenuous and disrespectful to the women and culture that the story was based on. Rapunzel, however, (or Ariel for that matter) is not a character with implicit value placed on her race, ethnicity, skin color, etc. so to cast an Indian actor to play her would not alter any aspect of her character besides the visual aspect. And to refer to it as 'blackwashing' is, I feel, really really racist. Whitewashing aims to remove aspects of culture and ethnicity while what is being referred to as 'blackwashing' is just changing the visual of a character. I think that there is no removal of culture or background or anything remotely like what is done in whitewashing. To conclude, I think that it does not matter who is cast for a character role unless the character's race is statedly an important part of who they are and has an impact on the plot.
White American here, so my opinion might be a little skewed, but I don't see blackwashing as a problem. I see whitewashing is an issue because white actors don't have the same experience as nonwhite actors, or even nonwhite characters, but it doesn't work the other way around. The backlash to nonwhite/ POC actors is rooted in racism, and often sexism (another commenter talked about Will Smith as the Genie and the lack of an issue there)
I think this is such an interesting conversation because people are passionate about it. Do I find it a little silly to be so incredibly passionate about a fictional character to the point where you are bullying and being racist to a child or any actor, yes I do. I think it comes down to feeling represented and this weird and intense bond people can feel with fictional characters.
I do think that most of the people raising hell over this are racist and fear seeing anyone different than them dominate the mainstream. As a redhead, I was disappointed to see Ariel was going to look different because as a child I was able to see myself in her and identify with her. Now as a grown adult with the ability to critically think I understand that I as white woman don’t have to struggle to find representation and that the world is catered to me. I’m happy to see other races be represented and brought into the dominate narrative. At times, it does feel a bit “woke” though. I think if these large companies truly wanted to represent other cultures and races they would be giving us original stories surrounding these cultures as well as recasting. We’ve seen this a handful of times with films like Encanto, Moana and Coco which are amazing films and have quickly become classics. I think recasting is an easy way to slap diversity on a project and ends up diminishing diversity into a check mark requirement rather than a true attempt at inclusion and understanding. That being said I love to see representation when I can and I’ll take the cheap woke way out because any representation is better than none. I think people who get so heated over this can maybe sense the company’s lack of enthusiasm and to them it feels like a forced agenda which sparks them feeling threatened that something they hold in value, their dominant representation is being taken away or that they are being manipulated into adopting a form of beliefs which is silly. Kinda rambley but those are my thought.
I'm an Indian woman living in India. I spent my whole childhood playing with dolls that look like white women. To learn that white women were literally crying on social media because an Indian woman could be playing a historically european part in a FANTASY-based tale has left me speechless. All I can think is wow, us women of colour surely have very big hearts. Look at these people. Chee.
some thoughts as a white european:
1) getting enraged about a Disney remake is objectively silly, because no matter what we still have the original. nostalgia makes people irrationally angry about children's cartoons, but i think it's pretty obvious that this must be (also) about something else.
2) the backlash is pretty obviously racist imho, it's the media version of "reverse racism" which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how racism in society works, of how institutionalised it is. white people have a sense of entitlement over things that really should be shared in society, like in this case access to representation, they perceive that if brown people have more space in society it threatens something dear to them, and like, that's literally just racism.
3) but the white folks who genuinely get angry about the little mermaid remake don't experience it as such. like, when we say "this is actually just about racism" they feel profoundly misunderstood and like we're not taking them seriously, and i think this causes more anger. it's kind of like when you're a kid and the fact that you have to stop playing videogames feels like the worst disrespect ever so you throw an entitled tantrum, when actually you're just tired and hungry. but like, if someone pointed out to you that you're just tired and hungry, it would feel very dismissive, it would probably enrage you.
4) and this is all very frustrating because i think there is genuine criticism to be made of these live action remakes. for starter, the CGI looks like ass. but also, i think Disney knows what it's doing, and i think they're treating the actresses cast in these movies as sacrificial victims. paradoxically, there is a kind of blackwashing going on, but it's disney dressing up as a woke company.
5) many white people are genuinely convinced that black people hold disproportionate power in society. this is because they feel like the power black people should hold is very small, but they'll never admit it. instead, they use those few occasions in which black people do manage to rise above the average (like when the largest media conglomerate in the west casts a black actress as their new star, or when the first black president of the US is elected) to validate their delusions.
6) misogyny is a huge component of this. weird how y'all didn't make all this mess when Will Smith was cast as the genie in Aladdin huh
thanks for reading all of this love your videos <3
I am a white girl from Germany so I don't have the best insight on this. But I (like many other people) grew up with Grimm's tales and Fairytales in general.
So in my opinion "Black washing" isn't a problem there since these story's don't really have characters that always look the same in every, even if there is no need to if it doesn't have any relevance story wise. It is good to see diversity especially for younger children who might not see themselves represented that often in media. I grew up looking a lot like those characters and I think everyone deserves that to a certain degree.
As a half white half asian person who grew up in different continents, i have somewhat? Strong opinions on this topic. I feel like when it comes to characters some people may feel defensive because they feel like it’s being “enforced” on them, or like it’s pushing an agenda. In my personal opinion i don’t think race should matter in casting over talent, UNLESS if it is a relevant part of their character. If it isn’t then it’s probably because the story told can be transposed and adapted to any cultures. I do have a problem with hollywood however doing this “poc washing” as a distraction from the fact that they aren’t producing original stories instead for these characters. It’s easy to make repunzel a different ethnicity, it doesn’t affect the story etc but if you want to actually make a diverse story then maybe these diverse characters deserve to be in stories of their own, like for example encanto. I’d rather have them hire people of the cultures they want to tell stories of in the production AND on set then have them just remake a preexisting movie lazily with a poc actor/actress and call it “inclusive” because that would insinuate that the only thing that makes a movie inclusive is a different face on a screen.
In my opinion these poc actors and actresses have all the rights to these roles, like cinderella snow white or ariel, but they also deserve to be on the main screen as new characters instead of just cash grab ones
As a WANA-Canadian, I have mixed thoughts.
I think the backlash kinda shows how many people tend to (subconsciously) think of the "norm" as being white but have never questioned that until now. For example, when it comes to characteristics with vague descriptions, what do we imagine they look like (EX: Hermione in HP)? How do we react when we see someone else express I different opinion? Part of that relates to the kind of characters/people we usually see in media & it's especially present with fairytales. While most associate Rapunzel with the Grimm Brother's & Germany, it's one of those stories/characters that have existed for centuries & appears in different cultures (in fact the oldest iteration of the story has Persian origins). So the idea of a "brown Rapunzel" wouldn't be "incorrect" because the character of Rapunzel doesn't belong to just one culture. It's just that one version of the story (which just so happens to be from Europe) is more well-known.
What I do have a problem with however is how "race switching" characters is being used by companies like Disney to be lazy. Don't get me wrong I think Avantika would make a great Rapunzel but that won't change the fact that Disney Princess line-up still doesn't have a South Asian princess (I mean yeah there's Jasmine but the Aladdin movie is a mish-mash of different cultures so her ethnicity has been heavily debated). It also doesn't change the fact that their writers rooms, directors, & producers are still mostly white. As someone who's WANA & currently studying creative writing, I find it to be kinda grimm; we're not allowed in the writers room nor can we tell our stories yet these companies want to talk about us & pride themselves for being "diverse." I mean there's a reason why Encanto gained so much acclaim beyond just being a new original story.
Overall, the reactions to this Avantika fancast shows how much people care about seeing people like them be represented on screen (if this is how white people feel, imagine what its like for the rest of us). I'm not against "race swapping" characters as long as it's not used as a "easy way out" by companies.
Well, I think this is a very USian problem in a way? To think always in black and white, as a non POC person in a very ethnically diverse country considered POC in the US I find it interesting how those things turn so big there. Of course the equivalence of “blackwashing” to “whitewashing” is, as always, another white people’s whim as they have to have it all. I’m not a believer of stupidity in a sense that all those people complaining about “blackwashing” are just misguided, ill informed people, no, they’re spoiled racists. And, at least from my cultural standpoint, changes that strive for more diversity always affect positively the children that see themselves in them. The movement of black children seeing for eg the black spider man miles morales was so invigorating. But then again, this a perspective of a person outside that community. In the end, the reverse, whitewashing, has been happening since the beginning of time, ergo the existence of a white Jesus, and even though it is debated now, for years it was ok to change the ethnicity of a non existing character for the white “norm”.
you know that spongebob moment where he's like "it feels like somebody....... wants to sell me something!" that's how remakes casting minority groups feels to me.
As a black woman who grew up with little representation, I don’t mind modern retellings. I understand however the need for our own stories and I like when creatives discuss this in length of why it’s so important.
But the issue lies in the fact that whenever we get these opinions, even from black and brown voices, we never get actual examples of good and diverse representation. I feel sometimes that we don’t always support as many projects as we can, myself included, as we are not looking or are apathetically “content” with what we have.
Yet when we do finally get a smidge of diversity, white people constantly complain that they’re not being included (if the story even makes it that far).
So which is it: are we unoriginal or are we exclusionists?
I don't mind casting "a different race" from the original character's unless it's a historical figure (if the work they're in is not labelled as historical fiction - like brigerton's queen Charlotte). Especially with Disney who have there own version of the story and almost never follow the "traditional story". Saying that, those people seem to forget that most fairytales have multiple origins and versions across the globe. The first known story that shared the same plot as Cinderella was "Rhadopis" an Egyptian tale, yet you don't find Egyptians saying that they whitewashed the story by making "Cinderella" because... It's A FICTIONAL STORY. Putting that aside, seeing grown adults throwing tantrums and whining about the race of the actors and not Disney's support of the colonial entity of Israel and aiding them financially while they're murdering CHILDREN and casting IDF soldiers in their movies (snow-white and the new captain America) is wild
When the live-action Little Mermaid remake was announced with Halle Bailey, I didn't see her race or her complexion as an issue. It was more about the fact that we were getting yet another nostalgia-driven cash-grab with some strange CGI choices and sacrificing a lot of the fluidity of classic animation in general. But changing characters' portrayals from traditionally white to people of color in the modern era doesn't upset me. I like Miles Morales as Spider-Man. I like Finn as one of the leads in the new Star Wars films (if only they gave him better things to do beyond the first movie).
Yeah as a brown girl (pakistani) it was so insane to see people in my social circle straight up go up to me, for the only reason of "making it clear" to me, that they didn't agree with avantika being the next rapunzel.. this type of rage bait is used by people with bad intentions+big enough platforms, to start unneeded hate against minorities for childish reasons. Yet they make it seem valid enough, and racists use these flawed reasons to keep trying to validify every ignorant claim they make to the audience, and even themselves.
I have so many thoughts on this, but to put it succinctly: I think the root of it is the fear that white supremacy is ending, that white people are going to be a minority, that non-white people will be in power and get the good jobs, and that we will start treating white people the way they have treated us.
I think in a super general sense, that getting so hung over the color of a character's skin is really stupid unless there is a plot/character point that holds their race in high value for the story. For example, I think it would be wrong to cast a white woman as Mulan because so much of her character and so much of the story revolves around her culture and race, and while technically it would be possible to cast a white actor for her role, it would be disingenuous and disrespectful to the women and culture that the story was based on. Rapunzel, however, (or Ariel for that matter) is not a character with implicit value placed on her race, ethnicity, skin color, etc. so to cast an Indian actor to play her would not alter any aspect of her character besides the visual aspect. And to refer to it as 'blackwashing' is, I feel, really really racist. Whitewashing aims to remove aspects of culture and ethnicity while what is being referred to as 'blackwashing' is just changing the visual of a character. I think that there is no removal of culture or background or anything remotely like what is done in whitewashing. To conclude, I think that it does not matter who is cast for a character role unless the character's race is statedly an important part of who they are and has an impact on the plot.
White American here, so my opinion might be a little skewed, but I don't see blackwashing as a problem. I see whitewashing is an issue because white actors don't have the same experience as nonwhite actors, or even nonwhite characters, but it doesn't work the other way around. The backlash to nonwhite/ POC actors is rooted in racism, and often sexism (another commenter talked about Will Smith as the Genie and the lack of an issue there)
I think this is such an interesting conversation because people are passionate about it. Do I find it a little silly to be so incredibly passionate about a fictional character to the point where you are bullying and being racist to a child or any actor, yes I do. I think it comes down to feeling represented and this weird and intense bond people can feel with fictional characters.
I do think that most of the people raising hell over this are racist and fear seeing anyone different than them dominate the mainstream. As a redhead, I was disappointed to see Ariel was going to look different because as a child I was able to see myself in her and identify with her. Now as a grown adult with the ability to critically think I understand that I as white woman don’t have to struggle to find representation and that the world is catered to me. I’m happy to see other races be represented and brought into the dominate narrative. At times, it does feel a bit “woke” though. I think if these large companies truly wanted to represent other cultures and races they would be giving us original stories surrounding these cultures as well as recasting. We’ve seen this a handful of times with films like Encanto, Moana and Coco which are amazing films and have quickly become classics. I think recasting is an easy way to slap diversity on a project and ends up diminishing diversity into a check mark requirement rather than a true attempt at inclusion and understanding. That being said I love to see representation when I can and I’ll take the cheap woke way out because any representation is better than none. I think people who get so heated over this can maybe sense the company’s lack of enthusiasm and to them it feels like a forced agenda which sparks them feeling threatened that something they hold in value, their dominant representation is being taken away or that they are being manipulated into adopting a form of beliefs which is silly. Kinda rambley but those are my thought.
wonderfully said, thank you!
I think that diversity is important as long as it fits the context of the time period/world.
I am sick of people being needlessly racist over a choice that really shouldn't concern them.
It's not for you. It's for the people who didn't get representation before.
Don't like. Don't watch.
I'm an Indian woman living in India. I spent my whole childhood playing with dolls that look like white women. To learn that white women were literally crying on social media because an Indian woman could be playing a historically european part in a FANTASY-based tale has left me speechless. All I can think is wow, us women of colour surely have very big hearts. Look at these people. Chee.