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Let’s not forget the Hunger Games drama with that little girl who was litteraly described as to have darker skin in the books and people still complain.
the avantika situation was HIGHLY upsetting because people really didn't fact check because they wanted the opportunity to harass an indian woman. she did not deserve that AT ALL.
And then there were rumors that she would play as Gothel and suddenly people are happy and fine with it??? She looks nothing like her and she’s too young. It’s just icky because they’re basically saying they can only envision a POC girl as a villain and not a sweet and kind princess.
Yes! It was literally a fancast, why was she being harrassed online? The movie isn't even confirmed to exist and racists decided a great Indian actress needed to "be humbled". It was so sad to see, yet sadly nothing new.
@@parkchimmin7913 Literally!!! I just searched up her age and she is 19??literally my age and she is so is so talented. She was a very sweet, bubbly Karen in Mean Girls, so I can definitely envision her as Rapunzel. And Rapunzel is also 18-19 as well. These racists are delusional and blind.
I saw a cosplayer cosplay as Hatsune Miku and someone in the comments said “Oh great. So they’re making Miku black. 😒” Like- it’s a f*cling cosplayer- what do you want her to do? Paint her skin? Society is doomed.
miku is literally an instrument and also it's common knowledge miku can be anything you want from a tired wage slave to a tadpole or what now they're going to complain the guitar isn't white 💀
Same it a cosplay meanwhile they don't complain over a white person when their cosplay look like something out of spirit or a dollar store a cheap low effort outift they won't say a thing
I remember when Amandla was bullied and harrassed for being casted as a black book character because READERS saw her (Rue, the character) as white DESPITE the book saying she was black over and over, DESPITE district 11(? Or 13) being a representation of segregated and marginalized neighborhoods and communities, the projects, basically, but ✨aesthetic✨(which primarily target black people) for their white readers. I cannot keep having this discussion online when I talk about headcanoning a character as a POC or a reimagining of a typically white character.
yeah someone said they saw Rue as an "innocent white girl" and another said now that she was black they didn't feel sad she died, theres a video on the whole thing actually, "The day Rue 'became' black" by Yhara zayd
Was literally about to comment this too!!!! There's a really good video called "The Day Rue Became Black" that goes over it, I forget the creator but they did an amazing job. It's sad. I don't understand why it matters so much to people
As a black woman myself I personally like seeing black people and other poc getting more representation but what I can’t stand is seeing the lack and disregard for original storytelling. As a minority we deserve to have authentic representation just like anyone else where we are explored as multidimensional characters rather than be reduced to the token exception. A lot of these race changing films feels like performative activism at most and falls flat to me as it essentially just uses every hashtag and pop culture reference instead of actively addressing issues through the story itself
Hopefully though it can help in starting to tell more original stories with bipoc protagonists, and centered around bipoc experiences etc. this reminds me of the time we saw a few genderbending remakes with female protagonists instead, they were mostly pretty lazy films but i think they did help somewhat in making more original stories with female protagonists.
Seriously, Avantika Vandanapu was a fancast choice. There isn't even a movie, it was a rumor and people were saying that she would be a cool choice and a bunch of racists harassed her over it.
@ville__imagine begging for attention with the lowest tier click-bait in the comment section of the more popular creator that’s the subject of your insult bait. Pathetic 😭
And then rumors came out saying she would be casted as Gothel and suddenly all the comments are positive. “Wow, that suits her” or “I can see her as Gothel.” Even though Avantika is like 19 or 20 and Gothel is in her 30s-40s (at least, in her “younger” form). Aside from her hair, she looks NOTHING like Gothel. Like she has Disney princess doe eyes ffs 🤦♀️. These people can’t imagine casting a POC girl as princess, but are perfectly fine with having her as a villain.
I am indian, when I was a kid, every Sunday they will show a Hollywood action dubbed movie and next day we kids will talk about the action and explosion in it and play and pick characters as who is who. So, mostly the characters where white so a light color kid will argue I look lighter so I will be that character. And, then came Independence day where 1st time we saw will Smith a black guy play as a lead. Something I cannot explain as a 10 year old child I felt the joy and excitement seeing a guy similar to my color was the lead. The next day I played as him. I am now 30,but I can still exactly remembered that day of joy.
The harassment towards Leah playing Annabeth is extra absurd in my brain because RICK (the author) HAND PICKED THE CAST. He has outright said her appearance not matching the book’s description doesn’t matter to him and that he loves how her energy matches annabeth’s, but racists are going to be racist regardless ig-
I just don’t get it. race/general appearance really isn’t that important for the characters in that series (as long as they look the right age). I agree that Leah was perfect as Annabeth - though appearance wise I do wish they could have made her eyes gray for the sake of lore accuracy, since canonically all of Athena’s children have gray eyes.
For me, I actually appreciated the change. The idea that Greek gods would primarily have white kids is silly. She was one of several non-white kids, not just in the background, but of main characters. It feels natural, not forced. Great casting throughout, honestly.
Can you also talk about how Disney movies also rely on accents to signify who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist?? Aladdin, finding Nemo, etc, rely on having the good characters have American accents and the antagonists have native accents of the places they’re supposed to be in it really annoys me.
@@strawberryfox8819 the dentist who steals nemo is Australian and darla is Australian and bruce and all the other sharks are Australian. It’s weird. All of the “good” characters are American. Even though they’re all fish on the GBR. They should all have Australian accents realistically.
@@strawberryfox8819 like don’t get me wrong obviously white Australians are not victims of racism however I think that it is relatively othering and xenophobic. Only Americans are good and everyone else is evil.
my main problem with disney's 'blackwashing' is how it's essentially just a marketing strategy for their lazy remakes, using poc actors as scapegoats for controversy. if they actually cared about diversity, they would transform the stories in a way that reflects the leading actresses' culture (e.g., princess tiana) or pick up stories written by and for poc. it's just upsetting that diversity is only (just barely) tolerated when it's through the white lens. and even then, it triggers a fucking witch hunt ://
Yeah, Disney have really went about it in the laziest way possible just to appear progressive! I'd love more PoC stories, especially if it involves more mythology, I might scream if I have to see another Greek mythos story done in the exact same way as it's been done for decades.
Not just that but why is it always the women? Why are they so scared to replace their white boy with brown hair and blue eyes with a POC in these remakes? Until they diversify more of their casts (and, equally important, the people behind the scenes like writers and directors), it's performative. That's neglecting to mention that the scrutiny always falls onto the actress and not the studio, interesting how that works in their favour.
It's sad that Disney remakes are failing so badly for multiple reasons e.g. bad writting, lack of great songs, uncanny valley CGI, but, because they are failing with POC actors in lead roles, it just gives more ammunition for people who are complaining about blackwashing
The most harassed princess, ariel, her movie isnt even bad. It had great songs, great writing, and an amazing cast enough to get a limited edition princess character in disneyland so its so odd too. I watched it a lot last year and the songs are so recognisable and really well written, people just want excuses.
I been saying this. Samething happened with Velma, the show was bad because it buthered the character's personalities not because races were changed yet guess what people complain about
@@espeon871 I agree. TLM imo had the best soundtrack from front to back by far of any live action. Was it a perfect film? No, but most movies, whether by disney or not, aren't either. Majority of movies that come out are decent to good, very few are great, and even fewer are "perfect"...and even that's subjective. However, for what it was: the acting/portrayal of the characters, music, *singing*, story, leads' chemistry, updates & flushing out of the characters & certain plotlines, the world brought to life, etc. I thought it was overall rather enjoyable despite its issues (like cgi at certain times). But people still rejoiced claiming it bombed, saying it bombed because it was bad although they didn't see it. Like I recall someone saying in the comments under a youtube video that they didn't like the change at the end of Ariel and Eric only hugging bc it was anti-climatic and like they were only friends and the movie was trying to be too innocent or something, as to another reason why it was "bad" and the original was way better. And people were like 🤔🥴 Clearly you didn't watch the movie (and only watched this clip that someone recorded in a movie theater in which it cuts off early) bc they do kiss AFTER the hug, bc more than lovers they're also friends which was important to the plot/characters' archs.
@@hadrianhexe9603yes! You had people saying that the show was bad because "woke", when it was bad because, it was bad, lol. Racists and conservatives will look for any excuse to pin the blame on people of color instead
the whole thing with Rapunzel being South Asian literally started from a joke where it was like has long hair? strict mom? artistic AND can't go outside? sounds like your average Desi girl. From there artists would make renditions of a brown Rapunzel that people loved it's not like this came out of nowhere now it's in a more mainstream space
Now I'm angry because those jokes resonate with me so much and the art seems like it'd be amazing. Racist people managed to twist a beautiful thing into something filled with so much hate and anger. They always f*cking do this and I'm so sick of it.
RE. The Little Mermaid: I'm fluent in danish, I have read the original fairy tales many times, & Andersen describes the prince's kingdom as having both palm trees & white beaches. Palm trees don't grow in the wild in any nordic country. Andersen travelled quite a lot around the mediterranean before he wrote Mermaid, so the story's setting is most likely inspired by those warmer places. So now y'all know! (Great video as always Shan!)
@@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396and even if it wasnt intended to be, now that the american version of the story is the one everyone knows and loves, it certainly has become so. The Little Mermaid as i know it in Disney is the American story, so any American would be just as reasonable a casting choice from my experience with the story
@@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396the original disney animated version distinctly looks like it's set in the caribbean. The easy explanation is that it makes the sea more visually appealing, but that's the result. Sebastian having a Jamaican accent plays into it. Honestly Ariel should have been black the whole time
One thing I never understood in this whole Disney discussion - they aren't actually replacing anything. The old movies are not going anywhere. If you prefer little-white-mermaid-Rapunzel - she's still there for you to watch. I really disliked the Beauty and the Beast version with Hermione Granger ... didn't ruin the animate movie for me.
@@neigeepierrot4694right! They act like all dominant merch, cartoons, and basically non live action merch and items of the princesses aka the mainstream disney characters suddenly just get poofed off, but, theyre still there! Theyre the main ones everyone's familiar with and know, so theyll be there for a longg time
The problem is consistency. In Mulan live action they wouldn't dare change race of any characters for the sake of so called diversity, for obvious reasons. Yet, somehow Snow White is no longer white. Also what was very sus and weird to me is how in Lion King remake they called back James Earl Jones to voice Mufasa, yet they recasted the iconic voice of Scar - Jeremy Irons, who happens to be white. Now suddenly the character is voiced by a black guy, who sounds nothing like og Scar
Also so many popular movies get remade constantly. Freaky Friday. The Parent Trap. Seventeen Again. Little Women. Cinderella (a billion times over) Remakes and re-casts are not unheard of. But I feel like people are specifically using the idea of Disney remakes to push their political ideology on a bigger platform. And it's not only disingenuous (because I know half those people don't even care about the original versions of the movies they're criticizing) but also because it's a nonissue. There are no poc people "replacing" white people in anything. It's a red herring to sweep up moderates and low-key conservatives by using scare tactics about a problem that literally doesn't exist. It's fr just a movie. Sit ur ass back down.
@@almamater489 I’ll point out the clear differences in your examples. The animated and live action Mulan movies are set in Northern China based off real wars in the Wei Dynasty. Mulan's culture and race are relevant to her story, it wouldn't make a lot of sense with a non-Chinese character unless you changed its entire setting, replaced the film's main antagonist, got rid of the mythology around ancestor worship and guardian spirits, and replaced the used of fireworks and explosives. Snow White’s race isn’t a factor in her story, she can still meet a prince singing in the woods, be beautiful and threaten her stepmother, eat an apple, be kissed in a coffin, etc and she lives in a fictional kingdom.
i'm white af and growing up i really connected to tiana from princess and the frog bc i thought she was funny and kickass; i think white people that NEED a character to be white to be relatable to them simply have a skill issue when it comes to enjoying things
This is exactly the issue. White people are seen as the default so it’s rare that they’ve had to “imagine” themselves in someone else’s shoes in media - most POC have had to exercise that empathy to see themselves reflected even in fictional things
Fr, like growing up Tiana was one of the few Disney princesses who I really understood. I don’t get why some white people need a character to look exactly like them to relate
@@FunkyLittlePoptart It absolutely is. It's far too often taken for granted as just an innate thing, and while there's an element of that, one's capacity for empathy will remain very stunted if it isn't actively nurtured. It's a bit like critical thinking, or comprehension - we're born with the tools, but we need to be trained to use them.
Okay, it makes me so sad when people say "this should be called [stereotypical black name]." Most of those names are beautiful and that's clearly meant to be derogatory. Like so what if it WAS that name, why are you disrespecting a lovely young woman's name? It's so hurtful dude. Shaniqua is the canonical example. That's such a nice name and now it's like the scarlet freakin' letter.
it’s maddening that white people will dismiss beautiful names like that for not being the white norm or “traditional” and yet call their kids McBraelynn or something so they can be unique. just say you hate those names because of their blackness and cut that crap!
Like names like Shaquanda actually sound nice. Shaquantae is one Black name I really like for example. It's also interesting to see which combinations with the La and Sha prefixes for example
I love our names too! They're really sacred once you start looking into them. Many times they are a combination of the mother and father's name. Or they are named after an elder. Or a daughter is named after her father and vice versa. Names are sacred to our people. Those who mock our names are only doing their best to dehumanize us. Their desperation to make us unseen and unheard is extremely odd and that they do it as a group is even more suspect that something really diabolical is going on.
As a black woman myself - my greatest issue with race swapping is the fact that it feels like a lazy hand-me-down. What happened to original stories? Or even more-all of the folklore and fairytales that come from the diverse “black” culture? Edit: the reason that I say it feels like a hand-me-down, isn’t because I feel race/ethnicity matters even if it isn’t necessary to the character/ plot- I’m talking about culture mattering. I’m saying it’s a hand-me-down because the little mermaid was written in 1836 by a danish man and has always been “a white character” in the media. Romeo and Juliet was written in 1616 by an Englishman, and again Juliet is usually played by a fair skinned actress. . . 1. You can give those roles to talented actresses who’s performances can enrapture you but you can’t change the history of the role or how the role is perceived - or the fact that the roles are overdone, remakes are tired 2. We’ve yet to see more culturally diverse Disney princesses let alone culturally diverse fairytale stories in the media - I prefer the standalone originals like Moana or Raya (even if they have their flaws) and characters like the Black Panther - because they were created with the culture and history in mind. I just think it’s more interesting. I’m not saying actors and actresses shouldn’t be able to do their jobs - which is to pull us in and immerse us irregardless of gender or race. . . I’m saying that the roles aren’t really good enough for them, and it’s not genuine “diversity” America is a melting pot of culture - I don’t care about skin tone, I just want diversity of culture and history
True, I am still here waiting for some sort of adaptation of Anansi the spider. We need to see all the shenanigans she got into in order to help humanity.
It’s mentioned in the video that Hollywood won’t fund those films because the producers (mostly white men) claim they won’t make money. As if Hollywood doesn’t intentionally make white “bad films” for tax purposes. I agree with you, though. I would love to see something else. But Hollywood is led by cowards who wouldn’t know a good story if it bit them in the arse.
@@untunedguitar45 Shut up what they’re trying to say is that race doesn’t affect the narrative it’s not that she’s not really black she’s a pick me. If the character is good and the actress or actor is good it shouldn’t matter and she knows this. Like I said she’s just a pick me.
Exactly, like you couldn’t PAY me to care that much about an actresses skin tone. Imagine how unproblematic your life must be to get so worked up over something as stupid as the casting for a children’s film.
Let's never forget how Candice Patton was bullied and harassed by fandom.The producers of the Flash later acknowledged that they should have done more for her. It's frankly disgusting that the higher-ups and co-stars see it and choose to ignore it.
I never heard about this at all. I didn’t like her character, but mainly for the fact that her character and Barry are shown as *siblings* and I found that gross. Never knew people were attacking her specifically. I think. She actually did a pretty decent job for what she was given. She’s also one of only 3-4 black mostly main characters that was in the arrow verse, which is sad, because there aliens and meta humans and race doesn’t have to play a part in this shit so there definitely could have been more representation (and not supergirls hamfisted political topic of the week stuff that even as a very liberal lgbtq teen found cringy)
@@Moon17ob I love the actress and the character was enjoyable up until a certain point. Because then instead of it being a team effort it was more like Iris and Co. Idk I just feel choosing her as a leader over the other two experienced scientists was a "Hmm choice." Loved the romance arc tho.
I don’t want to call myself a “fairy tale expert” but it pisssssses me off so much when people say “In the original fairy tale!” Because… there’s almost no such thing. As you correctly said- these are originally oral traditions with roots that span all over the globe and time. We just know the Disney version and maybe some edgelord told you “the dark twisted version of the REAL story!!!” And that’s it. But yes of course Rapunzel does not need to be German because there was nothing German about Mandy Moore singing soft pop rock with a guitar alongside her chameleon sidekick. But something that did break my heart a little about the Avantika fan cast (and I need to be loud about that- it’s a fan cast! This is not a real movie that’s had a real cast announced!) is I saw one person on twitter say please give in to the thugs. It’s painful to see what online racists did to Halle and to Rachel for their Disney princesses and it felt painful to see it happen again. I don’t want that to be the case and it shouldn’t be- factually a mixed race girl has played a film adaptation of Snow White before, we had Brandy as Cinderella in the 90s there’s been a none white girl play Rapunzel in the show once upon a time (and there was annoying racism about that too, but it just wasn’t as loud). I would love to see constantly reinvented fairy tales with new versions of characters because that’s the most authentic thing a fairy tale could do.
As a Brazilian, I grew up watching Everybody Hates Chris, That’s so Raven, and My Wife and Kids every day. And I never had a problem with not seeing myself in some of those characters and stories. I always loved them ,and never once in my childhood it bothered me that there weren’t enough “white” people in those casts. Makes absolutely no sense to complain about cast diversity, and I cannot find another reason for people to be against it besides racism.
Yeah, as a white person, my favourite Disney movies were Mulan and Atlantis (which did have white people but my fave characters were Kida and Audrey), and I grew up watching The Proud Family and That's So Raven like you, and it never occurred to me that there even was a lack of white people. It's so weird seeing adults cry over children's media....
I dont know how the greater psychology community feels about in-group favoritism at young ages and how kids recognize race very early on. But I do think it proves how important it is to see diverse characters in children’s media
I want more stories created by POC, written and made for POC by POC! Give us more opportunities to prove ourselves with our Own Work!!!! I’ll always support diversity no matter what. I just want to be able to HOPE our creative sides can be shown!!! Let us be Directors AND Disney princesses 👸🏿👸🏾👸🏽🎥⭐️
But there already is ample chance to do just that. People should write good stories and produce high quality media. Let's move past race and work together for a better tomorrow
Avantika will actually be playing a South Asian princess in a disney plus show, adapted from a book by Roshini Chokshi. So yeah, while people are harassing her over a Rapunzel fancast, she’s out here already repping the brown girlies, written by a successful brown author 💅
@@llIlIlllII Dude, Bee isn't the person you should be preaching to, the reason there's an issue in the first place is because there's a bunch of loud angry racist white people who get pissy whenever non white people are cast in anything, god forbid if they "stain" one of their white characters by being allowed to portray the same role. Representation matters anyway, but it matters especially so when racists froth at the mouth and make it everyone's problem whenever anyone who isn't white has the audacity to get some.
@@llIlIlllII within current society it is impossible to ignore race, though it is a concept made for the express purpose of discrimination race is still not over as a concept we are not past race. It is not a good idea to ignore, instead we must acknowledge the existence of race in modern society and write our stories understanding it, black representation is important because of this, because we make a distinction between black and white and we too often see white as normal. We can'r just "move past" race, but we can fight against the current norms created by race and since there are too little movies with black actors and black authors made specifically for black people, that in my, and many others' minds would be truly subversive, something sorely needed and asked for for decades. "But there is already ample chance to do just that" then why hasn't it happened, why is there still so many movies with a nearly all-white casts while the "opposite" is nearly never true.
@@llIlIlllII Oh, you sweet summer child, if that were the case it'd be done already. Furthermore, whether or not you meant to, your comment implies that Black (and other POC for that matter) don't ALREADY "write good stories" to be made or "produced" into "high quality media". Idk maybe you're new here, but the US us not a meritocracy where the best always succeed. You're implying that media is and has been majority white since it's inception over a century ago because white ppl inherently write better stories worth telling, rather than our reality: white ppl initially purposely, expressly gatekept Black and brown ppl from those spaces and roles. And when they did allow them, they were background, non-speaking, often server/servant roles. Fast-forward to today, changes have been made but the constant is, you need money to "produce high quality media", which Black and POC creators tend to receive the short end of the stick on. And those actors are often not chosen for or given the opportunity to audition for. Overall, there are limited roles written for them to be able to audition for if it isn't colorblind casting going in. If 75% of casting roles for film and TV are white, it immediately axes all non-white actors the opportunity to even have a shot. So, it's not as simple as 'just forget how race impacts you unfairly compared to white ppl and simply do/be better' as if we live in a post-racial society where everything is equal all the sudden. Did you not watch the video, hun?
Yeah casting a Black woman as Ariel was the only really bold and creative choice they did in the movie. I am convinced that if it had a White woman playing Ariel, in the exact same crappy CGI- fest, reviewers would dunk it just as mercilessly as those other dumb remakes. Most of the reviews focus on her performance, and not the the world and story that's crumbling around her (Disney meatpuppets don't @ me)
@@sophiepooks2174 I think that word sounds kinda funny. I mean, just imagine a puppet made of meat, just rawly globbing on about things a corporation wants them to say. But I suppose the more scientific, and widespread term for such corporate drones would be 'astroturfers'.
White people saying BIPOC representation is “cultural genocide” is crazy especially when these same yt ppl outwardly support the genocide that we are seeing happen globally around the world to Palestinians, Congolese, Darfuri, West Papuans , etc. amazing video Shanspeare❤️
Funny how you think it’s just white people who are contributing towards events in Gaza. Shows how disgustingly ignorant you are, you just want to be considered the “better” group for some reason, weird behavior
Especially crazy if the white people in question come from settler colonial states, like Canada, the U.S, Australia, and Israel, that are still comitting genocide against the respective indigenous peoples.
@@user-ve5hr4pi7e I have seen many poc, not only in the American context, but outside of the Western world supporting the people of Gaza and Palestine.
@user-ve5hr4pi7e the majority of people i've seen defending palestinians are palestinians themselves or OTHER POC, myself INCLUDED. your "facts" are absolute rubbish.
@@user-ve5hr4pi7e anti Zionism is present in the whole world, made of poc, by your logic only white countries are against Israel and that’s so stupid it’s hilarious
@@devonmunn5728 IIRC, she was assertive about correcting people who mispronounced her name. That's it. That's the whole reason they were swearing at a 9-year-old on Twitter.
@@Eloraurora Yeah like who cares if it's "conventional" or not. A name is a name. Her parents made her name out of the first 2 syllables of their names and the Swahili word for fairy or sprite
Two recent Disney Marvel projects were pretty revelatory about the arguments people make about racebending. People whined “make original POC characters” over racebending, so Marvel made Kahhori in their What If cartoon series in late December, a Mohawk superhero in an alternate Marvel Universe. So then they said “why make a new Native American character when you have other Native American characters who are being ignored.” Cool. So in early January they released a live action miniseries called Echo, about a Native American superhero from the comics, who’s Native in the comics too. Then the same people who said we should give attention to existing Native American Marvel Superheroes said “who asked for this?” The fact is that they just don’t want non-white characters leading shows they’d otherwise want to watch. They think they own culture, and they hate us. That’s it.
I've mostly heard of "blackwashing" in fandom, specifically fanart spaces. It's often used against people who draw typically "white" (or characters with no set ethnicity) as black. People cry "just make your own black characters" but proceed to act racist towards these new characters still
I see your Xueyi pfp, did you see the whip comment someone made about Jade coming for Arlan? The only black character in the game and they still can’t be normal in fandom.
Yup. The same people who say "JuSt MaKe NeW cHaRaCtErS" also cry woke and get mad when a new character shows up and gets popular, then try to gaslight everyone into thinking they have no issues with poc characters and it's actually just about e̶t̶h̶i̶c̶s̶ i̶n̶ g̶a̶m̶e̶s̶ j̶o̶u̶r̶n̶a̶l̶i̶s̶m̶ good writing and characters.
@@muwuriel8231 i was so disappointed and pissed at the fandom when i heard about that. jade's whip is cool character design by itself, but people just had to be disgusting about it. 😑
YES THANK YOU. That was so so annoying, draw what you want for the most part. Who cares if you draw like a mlp character as black? This was a genuine discussion and it always felt so weird to me
36:35 quick note: the Charolletesville protesters are not chanting "you will not replace us" but "Jews will not replace us." Antisemitism and racism often go hand in hand, though I understand this is outside the scope of this video
Jews obviously don't matter to her, she referred to Moses as an Egyptian when Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Mormons all believe he was Jewish. The far left hates Jews just as much as the far right
Nobody knew or cared if the Little Mermaid took place in Denmark until it was a convenient argument. If the movie took place in Italy with an all white cast, people wouldn’t question it because the setting never mattered to them.
The thing is that the original story does not state an actual place, or a name for the main character, because the story was not meant to be taken literally. The Little Mermaid is a metaphor for Hans Christian Andersen's personal feelings about his own sexuality and the man he loved rejecting him. From that, a gay tragedy made by a gay man, Disney made a straight rom-com with a happy ending, so accuracy was not in the game ever.
@@LettiKiss literally. Like did the story ever open with "in a little town on Denmark" lol, no, it's obviously a fantasy fiction book. Just because it was written there doesn't mean it takes place there? Authors aren't fixed to the countries they live in?? People just get literal in order to justify their racism 🙄
European fictional stories: it’s not real, quit ya whining you YT babies African fictional stories: iT is aBsOlUtElY eSsEnTiAl ThAt ThEy Be BlAcK, wHo CaReS aBoUt MoRrOcCo Or EgYpT oR sOuTh AfRiCa, iTs ImPoRtAnT tHaT tHeY bE bLaCk!.!.!
@hadrianhexe9603 where are you thinking I do complain? I'm saying, we should be demanding better of these studios than something like the Little Mermaid remake, which was not visually interesting, had no "character" in the CGI animals, and just about missed every beat that made the animated movie enjoyable (such as with the musical scenes). I don't care about the casting, but I do care that they keep making lazy, soulless movies and using a diverse cast as a prop to get people to support that movie. And they aren't getting it wrong all the time, there are movies and shows where they've tried to add diversity quite successfully (one piece for instance), and others where they've at least tried - but you can't argue that some of these unnecessary remake are just using diversity to foster both outrage (and thus attention) and blind support (because people do want to support this diversity) of otherwise lazy cash grabs.
As someone who makes art and sometimes writes shit, the conversations around "blackwashing" are so disheartening because if someone made fanart of some character I made but as their race I'd consider that to be a compliment personally, like someone identifying with your work is like one of the better parts of actually publishing art, right? Idk this conversation it makes me think back to that story of a young black boy seeing a Miles Morales Spiderman comic for the first time and beaming with joy because "Spiderman looks like me!" and it's like as an artist or creator, isn't that the most heartening experience one can have, to see your work mean something to someone?
Personally I love people putting their own spin on their fan art, and I think most people do! I’d get why people would object to turning a BIPOC character into a white one; white colonizers co-opting art forms is atrocious very real issue, but if they’re adding their work *in addition to* the BIPOC versions it feels harmless enough. Unfortunately the majority of characters altered to be white tend to be people who will insist their version is objectively better in some way. Not because of their skin tone, obviously that would be racist, but because of some other made up reason. It’s gross and I think other white artists who feel how I do just avoid altering existing characters to be white so we don’t get lumped in with them. I’m honestly *not* sure I’ve ever come across someone who’s made a white version of a character who did it in good faith. Maybe I’m biased because LGBTQ+ representation is part of the push for diversity and inclusion in media, but I genuinely adore seeing non-white and non-straight actors getting more and more leading roles in big productions.
@@caketality I think you might have misunderstood me here? I wasn't talking about someone making a white version of a BIPOC character. But that I think if someone makes a BIPOC version of a white character that it's actually a good thing, because people often do so because they identify with the character in question which is itself a good and even wholesome thing.
@@aflockofconnivingmagpies3490 tbh I’m gonna have to chalk it up to me forgetting to take my adderall and flying off on a tangent. I think mentally I was chewing on the idea of shifting characters to *any* colour and it just sort of… spilled over. So my apologies on that one. If it’s any consolation you and I definitely agree on BIPOC versions of characters being awesome to see. People resonating with a piece of work is nice, but seeing multiple different groups of people relate to something you’ve made feels especially successful!
This is where i get kinda sad that so many people are not artists and have no clue about art direction, style, influence and inspiration, reimaginings, etc. My favourite headcanon ever is Harry Potter as Hari, the Indian boy with a lightning scar that grows across his face as Voldy gets more powerful. Beautiful art but also the headcanon it came from was so in-depth and lovely, containing many cultural references and imagery that the original series would have been improved by in terms of its depth as a piece of literature and social commentary about wizard/muggle racism. Success in art is having your work adapted and changed and repurposed to last, not having its preserved corpse sealed away in the back of a museum never to be interacted with or challenged again
One of my oldest friends is a pretty well known fan-artist that's mostly known for her Percy Jackson fanart. The absolutely unhinged vitriol she got when she started depicting Annabeth as black is still something that shocks me.
one of the most infuriating things i've encountered in trying to talk movies with certain white people is that they see white-led films as universal stories, while black-led films, especially those that aren't otherwise centered on white people and white society, are "beyond their scope of understanding". they consistently balk at the idea of consuming media not tailored to their own image and experience, even if it's fantastical make-believe. they are are deeply uncomfortable imagining a world that isn't exclusively about them. when white people tell black actors and creators to stick to black characters and black stories, it's because they want the out-of-sight, out-of-mind insular comfort of cultural segregation. it's disgusting and i'm tired of it being downplayed as anything other than blatant racism.
“Beyond their scope of understanding” meanwhile if I sit down and watch such media I gain a little more understanding!!! Gosh! Make it make sense 🙃 as per usual racism of course is never logical.
The way they behave about this reminds me of Stormfront's speech. They hold a good chunk (if not all) of the beliefs held by racists of times past, but they don't like the word racist.
Pop Culture Detective put out a video essay recently about the Barbie movie and made the same sorta point about male centered stories being seen as universal vs women centered stories being about the experiences of being a woman specifically. Your comment is very well said dude!!
Yeah, the original artist (George Perez) definitely based her on a BIPoC appearance - he thought of her as looking like a mixed-race Brazilian bikini model, basically. Casual comics sexism aside, my only complaint was in fact that they didn't find a way to make her more orange - and also, they didn't let her fly. Also also? Tamaraneans are cat-people. Starfire is a catgirl. 😁
As a Dane who grew up with the fairytale of the little mermaid, instead of the Disney movie, I would like to say that I think casting a black Ariel is amazing. It is a very common theory that H.C Andersen wrote the fairytale, about being in love of another man and knowing that they could never be together. So, to me at least using the relationship between a black woman and a white man works really well, as it is a relationship that the same kind of people who hates gay relationships would also hate. To me it works more in parallel with the original fairytale, than the earlier Disney movie did.
as someone from eastern europe and interested in our history and myths from before christianization, it PISSES ME OFF, when people talk about "historical accuracy" to mean "every race was separated and all of europe was white until """"globalization""", IT WASNT LIKE THAT AT ALL!!!! If you look back youll find turks and arabs having great influence on slav culture as they shared lands, youll find black vikings as they travelled all around the seas, youll find roma people exchanging stories and fairytales, markets filled with all different races and cultures in the mediterranian and slav territories, hell a lot of eastern europe was very diverse until world war 2!!! If anything, to portray europe as all white IS HISTORICALLY INNACURATE, but they dont want to see this, they want to call back to a past that doesnt exist where the only people in a continent were somehow fair, blonde and blue eyed, its just fas /cism but they dont want to admit it.
I'm convinced that all the people who whine about "historical accuracy" when it comes to how characters look, only use the Disney versions as references. Because they assume that Disney did completely accurate adaptations, I guess.
@@thetwelfth9987 "norse pirate" that sailed all across seas and interacted with various cultures which interacted with cultures of different races, its not weird at all or unrealistic if one was to make a game or story about a viking whos black
Omg hello fellow slav, im so happy to see you because god, these conversations are so painful where i live… Also it infuriates me when Slavs fall for white supremacy myths - as if we were white the same way as westerners. We are not equals in their eyes, but because of the history of oppression, we keep idealising the western world and demonising POC and their countries of origin. It hurts to watch…
@@thetwelfth9987Vikings were an occupational choice, not a race. Whilst rare, people from the lands they went to would sometimes join them, sometimes were taken. They were some of the most well-traveled people of their time period.
I remember a black TH-camr saying she doesn't like racebending. It's because that character would be remembered by "Black such-and-such." There might be an occasional race permanent race change, but typically, the character would return to status-quo. So characters are only temporarily black. There was a push for Donald Glover to be the next Spider-man. Andrew Garfield ended up getting the role in the end. But this inspired the character Miles Morales. While the comic wasn't the greatest, Miles in the Spider-verse movies is amazing. This was much more interesting than yet another Peter Parker movie. But if there is going to be a remake, let the race swapping happen. They are probably the only movies with the marketing and budget. You can go to the original source material if you want your white lead.
id like the argue though that as these racebended movies get older, people get more used to them. the first time i ever watched annie was the 2014 version when i was about 8 and i didn’t realise that annie wasn’t always black. when i realised that the original annie was white, i didn’t see 2014 annie as ‘black annie’, i just thought ‘oh okay, there are two versions of annie’ in the same way that there are 3 versions of spider-man. if lots of ‘racebended’ movies are coming out now i think that young children will have the same thing that i did with annie, they’ll just think there are multiple versions of the characters rather than ‘poc such and such’ and ‘white such and such’
@@hollysmilyface I remember John Stewart's Green Lantern and how I thought he was *the* Green Lantern because of the Justice League cartoon. But Hal Jordan seems to take back the spotlight every so often. I would like to see other black super heroes take up the spotlight and not be a cameo or side character. Static Shock was one of my favourites growing up.
The other problem with Donald Glover as Spider-Man is that Stan Lee firmly believed that's not how representation works. He thought, as you can see in how they handle MM, a Black Spider man would have a different story and different experiences
@@PrincessNinja007Ultimately the story of Peter Parker is a geek gets bit by a radioactive spider, then gains all the abilities of a spider, while also being so poor he has to work on the side to help provide for him and his aunt because his father figure got shot in cold blood. And also, his real parents may have been spies, buy we don't really talk about that much. There's nothing there that tells me that Peter Parker couldn't have been black. Miles is different because he was written into a story that already had Peter Parker as a character, but ultimately his story isn't that much different from Peter's.
It’s like making a female director the “female Spike Lee” or something like that. Women don’t really want to be attached to a male director that came before them.:/
I went with my white female friend to watch the little mermaid. She left in tears. I remember asking her what she thought of Halle and she said felt resistent at first but when Halle started speaking (not even singing) she got shivers by how much it reminded her of Ariel. I was happy that she was honest with me and it's sad to think of the people around the world that didn't give Halle a chance due to the colour of her skin.
I went to see the new Little Mermaid with Halle Bailey on the big screen with my BFF. We often watch movies with a Black cast together. It's one way I support her and my friends who are people of color. I will always support diversity in the arts. ❤
Why can’t Disney make new ideas in films that include POC? With actual POC producers, writers and directors? I just think taking a male cast and making a female version like Ghostbusters or changing the race of Ariel seems lazy compared to making a new Princess. Ariel is a character though. From a folktale. So, it isn’t a certain girl. It could be any girl as a mermaid. That’s her power. Like Starfire, she is a mythological character.
@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396, Why so ppl can call it "Woke"? Finn from Star wars and Rue from hunger games got hate and they're original blk characters.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the gaming community but now anytime a black video game character or game exists, there’s outrage. It doesn’t matter the context, they’ll find reasons to cancel the game and will claim anything but racism. Doesn’t matter if it’s an original character or an actual historical figure. The sight of black people in their games makes them foam at the mouth. And the comment sections are always flooded with the misuse of the word “woke.”
I adore video games as a medium which makes it unfortunate that a lot of online game spaces are bigoted shitholes. And I'm not experiencing *near* the worst of it as a cishet white guy. If it makes it feel like a hostile environment for *me*, bro I can't imagine
The outrage over Assassin's Creed featuring Black man is so outrageous. Gamers are so unserious suddenly caring about historical accuracy when AC (as an outsider) use historical setting and figures for totally fictionalized storyline. There are a lot of historical figures with which we have less information due to very limited historical documents, but that to me how Yasuke being featured as protagonist even more compelling to explore. But ofc people dont want to explore it because he's black.
@@hankboog462 definitely, there's so sexism, racism, anti-queer sentiments, colorism, etc.,) When videogame tries to be more inclusive and expand beyond typically white man protagonist (for japanese videogames, as long as they are white colored, they are okay. but when they are dark skinned suddenly "negative" traits were magnified eg. Tidus from FFX and Sazh from FFXII)
Black and other divers characters have been in video games for many years, both as protagonists and antagonists. To hear about the outrage in recent years makes little sense to me as these are fantasy characters in a fantasy world where sometimes the other races (protag / NPC) are aliens, monsters or other fictional creatures you can connect with. I love VGs but for the longest time I’ve stayed clear of other (male) gamers and the gaming community and with good reason ☹️ trust me when I say the hate isn’t just limited to online… its in real life too….😢
@@414caramelI agree. It was pretty fun, though, watching their brains melt trying to reconcile the success of BG3 with their worldview. Black people existing in a fantasy world, a black person in the main caste, all the female companions are physically stronger than the male companions and most of all everyone is gay. Everyone. I watched two of them talking to each other trying to figure out how they could like a game with some much gay in it and they weirdly decided it was because everyone in the world was gay so it didn’t seem out of place. Aside from that, though, I make sure I reduce my exposure to gaming channels where those people gravitate. I get nervous every time I get a new gaming channel in my YT feed. I read the comments before I listen to the video to see what kind of audience they attract. I’m not interested in their weird conspiracy theories and general bigotry.
The fake outrage from non theatre fans over a single production of Romeo and Juliet they were never going to bother to go out of their way to see having a black lead has to be the most caucacious thing to happen this year.
Yeah because as a...you know..averagely theatre fan, isn't theatre supposed to be more open to diversity? Even the fans knows and acknowledging that Idk why they are so surprise by juliet is played by a black women
No bc this literally goes for all these movies and films. For years nobody gives a shit about these movies but the second they find out the new version is being portrayed by a black women? "Noo she was an icon for me growing up🥺 " or "lets make Tiana white!!😋 " like bro these people are such bums 😭and then second the movie loses popularity watch them like never talk or care about it again 💀
@@ilmanmufiydhaagustadia_1346 literally theatre is the most diverse creative medium out there. Unless a characters feature plays a significant part of the story (I.e: legally blonde - Elle needs to be blonde) race, sexuality, gender even does not matter in the showbiz. I’ve seen gay men play sharpay in hsm and consistently play women and fem presenting people in theatre, I’ve seen butches play men in Shakespeare, I’ve seen black Hamiltons and he/they elsas (they did amazing) and guess what. No one cared. Conservative or liberal, no one threw a hissy fit, bc at the end of the day, if you put on a good show, people will come and watch, and nothing else matters.
I remember when I learned about the casting for the little mermaid remake. I thought "I wasn't expecting that, but that's cool! She'll make a cute Ariel!" And then I heard that everyone was freaking out about it, and I was super confused. Like.... why?
Literally there cld be no black people in something and if a racist gets mad at something it got to somehow involve black people and other minorities they despise 🥴
It is called anti Blackness and anti Black racism. A lot of non-Black POC’s and White people hold some anti Black views due to white supremacy, white nationalism, post colonialism, imperialism, and colonial beauty standards. I’m Black and you can blame the transatlantic slave trade to the enslavement of Africans and West Africans dealing with racial hierarchy and racial oppression from their European male enslavers and European slave trader🙄👎🏾
The anti woke rhetoric is going to age terribely, you won't be able to tell the difference between early 2000s and 1930s - to 70s rhetoric on diversity.
People in the future are gonna be so confused when they realize the all racist white colonizers with their white supremacist ideologies never really disappeared and just bled into more modern cultures, despite not really having colonizers anymore.
MINE MINE MINE! People seem so scared to lose their current privilege over others and having to share this multi-cultural world. It's already extremely uneven and we need to work to fix it for ourselves and those coming after us! Thank you for this video and calling out the bullshit and hypocrisy! You are totally right - they are using ignorance as a weapon. New subscriber!!
Halle has the perfect face and aura of Arial. The big doe eyes and smile exude the sweet naivete we remember. Not only could she sing (unlike Emma Watson) but she could sing in the same way. I DON'T UNDERSTAND! These are all the right things to care about. Sometimes people just have "IT"
honestly the live action should of never happened nobody wanted one but i’d honestly take halle over emma nothing against emma love her but really as ariel?
I have two things to say: One I am actually angry at disney/big movie companies for casting young bipoc actress for big roles because it feels like they are using them to gain "good points" in the eyes of the public while doing NOTHING to protect these babies/teens/young women. I find it just discusting and unfair. Second, i do feel like being too attached to stories and "accuracy" to the source material to be dangerous creatively. Literature and the art in general have always been influencing and "copying" each other. In theatre, the act of transposing a play which is 300 years old can be so powerful as you can add to the original theme and make it more contemporaineous (dont know if it is an english word sorry. English is not my first language) and this is why literature is so great! Like maybe les mis was written with white characters but transpose the story in 2024 with a diverse cast and you would have such a powerful and rewriting of the story! Plus it would be way more interesting than just the same old adaptation that everybody knows. I dont know if it makes sense. 🤔
Conservatives: Anyone can be anything in America, we're the land of the free! A small black child: I want to portray (insert traditionally white character here) on screen. Conservatives: *ear splitting scream, uncontrollably sobbing, face as red as a beet*
A lot of these diversity complaints also highlight one of the most important reasons for diversity: empathy. A lot of people, clearly, cannot relate or sympathize or feel compassion for someone different from them. Which is the real reason why they are complaining.
Sadly so, that can be true on the other side of the coin also. And why a lot of heterosexual people of all races also have that attitude towards queer characters.
They don't truly love yourself and need constant confirmation that they are the best (incl. in media), those people don't have empathy in their glossary. Its replaced with "I am the main character and world revolves around me"
as someone who bangladeshi/indian american, my sister, who grew up in the 2000s, always remarked that people in bangladesh would say someone looked ”american” in reference to them looking white American. this was only 10 years ago and reflected the deep ignorance and lack of representation in American media. growing up, my first piece of representation in media was Ravi from Jessie, and his role was so stereotypical and inaccurate that my memory blocked him out. i’m SO happy that American media is diversifying, and I feel so bad for these black and brown women who have to face the vitreal of racists. I will ALWAYS support these actors (avantika, halle, and rachel zegler) and I truly hope they get the best career as possible and an apology in the near future from the media. 👏
I agree. As a desi living in the west myself, im still waiting for good indian/south asian representation from characters and stories other than brigerton tbh… i dont think i’ve seen any other good desi rep in western media (that i can name from the top of my head which says a lot here)
My issue is just that instead of making more great shows like Raising Dion or Abbott Elementary, these big corporations just want to remake old IP's and race swap characters as a cash grab because whether the reaction to the character is good or bad they still profit from the publicity no matter what. I just hate corporate greed and am still mad Raising Dion got canceled.
these people cry about “acCurAcY” and “rewriting history before our very eyes!!” they do know that Romeo and Juliet are fictional people, right? right?????
@@BelugaGuy-ks5mp THIS!! The public doesn't want a fully accurate Romeo and Juliet, and yet they don't even realize that. They'll use literally any argument if it means excluding POC from their beloved tales.
Fun fact about Starfire; The original design was based on Naomi Campbell, a black model. Which means the casting was the closest thing to the character creators' original idea. Unfortunately racists can't read lmao.
I thought she was based on the creator's ex wife, Red Sonja and Iris Chacón. Because Starfire's first appearance came out in 1980 and Naomi Campell would have been 10 years old at the time.
@@katiemurray4901 starfire was based on multiple women, he even talk about a girl from a bar and a sec worker, but it still don’t change the fact that she is an orange alien and that white people are not the default human and that she has been so white wash on like every of her adaptation that people don’t even remember that she is an orange alien. (it was for Pocahontas that they use Naomi Campbell as a reference)
Actually though, many comic Fans didn't hated Starfire being playes by a black actress, they thought it made sense, but they should have made her more Orange with special effects or something. That's what many wanted. Plus that Pink Hair and Outfit at the start was geniunly awfull, and didn't help her case. Many think of Ana Diop as a beautifull woman but they did her dirty at the beggining of Titans. Those who talked about "White Starfire" were only Teen Titans wacthers who don't know Comic Starfire.
this topic has been on my mind since ive seen people make fanart of people of colour who got white washed in gacha games (to, you know, sell better, because you can have brown culture as long as you dont have brown skin). every single comment on those posts was harassing the poor artist who just drew the character as brown/black, so full of vitriol and hatred. "oh so now racism is ok if its done to white people" type shit. this gave me a lot of insight into how to respond to those comments
i am SO tired of people being mad that black actors and actresses are doing ANYTHING in the industry it's Exhausting. i am just happy every time i see a black person on the cast (be it actors or voice actors) and that's it. i just don't engage in drama anymore 🙏
Like even when there's a mere presence of a interracial couple some rando is going to complain about it. Ok several different reviews of the miniseries Echoes some randos were complaining about the mere presence of a interracial couple among the main cast. Some person even brought up a statistic of the percentage of interracial couples in the US that was last accurate when my mother was a baby (the person claimed it was 3% and the study citing this specific statistic that I could find was from 1967, when my mom was a baby. Just absolute foolishness)
@@devonmunn5728because commercials make it seem like they are the only couples in existence, and this was within only the past decade which makes it clear when it was artificially increased
Another creator phrased my idea of this perfectly "Give African people their own stories instead of your garbage second hand europian stories." In other words why are we wasting talent retelling the same eurosentric stories instead of exploring stories from other cultures? One of my favorite books is a fantasy book written by a Nigerian author. She was so tired of reading European based fantasies that she decided to make a fantasy story based in her own cultures mythos and histories. It was an amazing story (The title is Raybearer) and its one of my favorite books to date. Why can't we do this with films? Im tired of reboots and remakes i would love to see more diverse stories with more diverse and interesting people in the mainstream
As someone that’s planning on majoring in theater and communications, I’m going to need the people complaining about the recent Juliet casting to step away from their phones because her RACE DOES NOT AFFECT THE STORY!!!! I looked up the actress and she looks so beautiful and was perfectly cast as Juliet and I hope she’s surrounded by a good inner circle of friends. EDIT: I also find it weird that people clutch their pearls at Avantika being fan casted as Rapunzel which is not confirmed but they seem to be okay with characters like Nightwing, Doctor doom, Damian Wayne, Esmeralda, Scarlet witch, and Sunspot (Roberto da costa) being whitewashed. 🤔 I saw some comments saying that Avantika should play Pocahontas, Tiana, and Moana when Avantika is neither Native American, black, or Polynesian which is clear that most people can’t tell brown people apart. 🤦🏽♀️
I remember when that live action winx show came out people were complaining about whitewashing 2 characters. No joke I heard someone defend it saying, “Well this actor is actually 1/16 Filipino, so it’s ok.”
Right and they got rid of Flora too and claimed she was (I forgot her name)‘s cousin or some crap? I don’t think they even had Techna as well (which sucks because she was my favorite growing up and I loved her tomboy aesthetic).
@@parkchimmin7913They brought her back the second season and pretended that was the plan all along and that Terra wasn't blatantly replacing her and they also unsurprisingly ruined Flora like they did everyone else, although apparently the actress who played Terra fought to bring Terra into the show once she found out her character was a whitewashed version of Flora so that's nice but I wish everyone involved in F*te had watched the original show or Netflix let someone who actually liked Winx Club to write the show because both the showrunner and most of the cast treated the og show with contempt or mocked the actor playing Sky for reading the wiki page for his character (which was the bare minimum)
@@awhimsyreader9015 Gosh that’s horrible! I hate it when live adaptations disrespect the original source material. Like it’s so different from the original, it might as well be a whole separate show!
Just kind of giving and ironic amused snort at "Juliet should be played by a WHITE Italian woman," said by Americans whose grandparents and great-grandparents considered Italians black...
@@mstr293 That's not the point, in history Italians were always seen as inferior to the "actual" white citizens who originated from Britain. So basically, they were treated in a similar way to how black citizens were treated in America. It obviously wasn't as horrific, but still worth mentioning.
@@mstr293 We were still called "the dirty people" through the 1980s as far as I'm aware, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. I think the point is that a lot of people groups even from Europe were not the "right" kind of European, and it's only fairly recently (in the history of the world) that Europeans are considered all one white group.
i was waiting for your take on this!!! as a desi (& more specifically indian) femme presenting person, the racism against us is so fucking ghoulish and uniquely awful bc no one ever really inspects it? the fact that the racism jumped out over a FANCAST is insane to me. avantika is so stunning & talented but people will see her first and foremost as an indian woman and not white + blonde and then do mental gymnastics to justify to themselves why it makes them uncomfortable. it's strange to me that we've successfully made 'racist' a bad thing to be only in name and there isn't much of a widespread push to deconstruct those internal workings. it's exactly like you pointed out! people truly think racism is over after a black man took office!! anyway that was a lot of yapping LOL love your videos !!! keep it up!!
It’s crazy because but i don’t get how still don’t know that “IT tech support” or “scam caller” stereotypes are racist. Like they’ll always say “Indian scammers” but not “white scammers.” White scammers are just scammers because “their race doesn’t matter.” And then they’re like “who cares, they’re evil scammers,” without realizing the legacy of colonialism leading India to have a high amount of call centers thanks to English skills from colonialism and shitty companies wanting to offshore their call labor for cheap.
I just want to highlight the general success of the new Interview with the Vampire show which reformatted the story to utilize black talent to face the source materials racist nature. The choice and commitment to have Louis be black and have an immense amount of black creatives off screen elevated the story to a whole new level. There was some push back but the overwhelming majority embraced, celebrated and has created a lot of fan art.
i LOVED (and still do) the new annie over the old one. i was eight when it came out, and i never understood why people were so pissed that annie was black. another reason white people shouldn’t play characters of color is that characters of color often have ties to their culture. for example, the only disney movie that really ties into my culture is aladdin (which has a lot of issues, but that’s for another day LOL). if a white actress were to play jasmine, it would erase the core of her character. jasmine, tiana, mulan, and pocahontas’ races are tied into their characters and their stories (disney did pocahontas so dirty btw). even if the character doesn’t have cultural ties, you’d be erasing the limited representation that poc have.
I haven't seen the Annie remake, but my only concern is that it had better still be a musical, and they better not have effed up the songs! I don't see what difference race makes to the story- orphans come in all varieties.
I liked the older one more, but the new one was fine. It's been a while since I saw either of those movies, and I saw the older one first, which I think I remember having better set design.
I'm a fair bit older than you. I watched to old Annie when I was a kid. I definitely prefer the new one. It's a better production- in my opinion. Not in the US, I didn't see the controversy at the time and didn't think twice about the choice of actors. I felt they were all cast well.
In my opinion. I did not like the new Annie. Not because she was Black. The music production was terrible. They left out my favorite song and had Sia sing it instead. The new songs sucked. The girl was cute though. I prefer it being around the 1920s. The plot made more sense if it was on the great depression ever.
The most hilarious irony to me is that Emma Watson being cast as Belle ruined the BATB remake, while Halle Bailey's Ariel ended up being the best part of the TLM remake. But in all seriousness it's so fucking frustrating to see this cycle play out over and over again because god forbid people be exposed to stories featuring someone not like them as a complex human being with their own thoughts and feelings and dreams.
28:32 idk if this is mentioned but juliet is also like 13-14 in shakespeares original romeo and juliet soo... i dont see people whining about that being "inaccurate"
The Nurse has a line where she says “I’ll bet fourteen of my teeth she is not yet fourteen.” So yeah, canonically 13 in the play. IIRC the stories Shakespeare drew from has her and Romeo at more 16-18 but he aged it down either so there’d be less suspension of disbelief with a male child playing her, or to make a statement opposing child marriage at the time, considering the narrative is p clear that Paris is a weirdo for trying to marry her.
For the people who claim oh how abt the 5 poc princesses?? The poc character's stories are tied with their race and culture, the white princesses, arent. Their cultural bg doesnt inform or shape their stories, they just happen to be white, except merida, but everyone else, is very acultural. To act dense and not understand why its erasure to erase the few poc princesses whos cultures inform their stories, just cuz one is deep in their feelings about perceived unfairness is really the crutch of this. The racism that stops one from thinking beyond themselves, even fancasts got people bullied.
It’s so hard! The amount of Latine actors in roles have also gone waaaaay down lately. There’s such a fear of diversity and a need of change. Great video
It's also funny because some Italians don't consider themselves white. And as mentioned in the video, there's already Gnomeo & Juliet. I guess that was fine because they were voiced by white actors...
@@mhawang8204 It's infuriating. Italian-Americans really like to hang on to the marginalization we suffered before we were given White status in the 1940s. Nothing says White privilege like the kind of space so many of us take up without a second thought.
You’d think we as a group would have more empathy when there’s still elders alive who saw how their adult family were treated, but nope! My father looked “Mediterranean” enough that some thought he was Latin or even a light-skinned Black person and treated accordingly :/ The more educated I become about racism and more messed up and ridiculous bigots become
My problem with remakes is that they are remakes. First of all, they are bad. Second of all, POC shouldn't have to settle for exact copies of movies that already exist. Here's what I mean; Cinderella has been done a million times by a million different companies. Black women have played Cinderella. But it was not an exact copy of the animated movie, and thats kinda what makes it better. I think people are just tired of seeing the same thing over and over. And then it feels "forced" to them because, hey, you're quite literally filling a role to a script you already had and thats the only thing of obvious note that is changing. It feels forced because nothing else is being done, but if you were to do a new version of all these movies, you wouldn't hear anything about diversity again. it all comes down to the issue that Disney refuses to make new things, so they are quite literally trying to compensate by making actors and actresses fill in stories that everyone already knows. Its not hard to retell a story. They've done it a million times before. I mean, The Princess and The Frog is perhaps the most awesome retelling of rhat story I've seen. Wheres the creativity any more, and the respect for the actors/actresses
I agree. It just comes off a bit lazy to me to just re use old stories and not give POCs their own meaningful stories that they deserve, not some lackluster variations. I mean look at other franchises even with mostly white actors like James Bond or Pirates of the Carribbean. Who isn't tired of it at this point because it just is the same formula over and over again? I don't think it is a race issue but if you recast characters as POCs people will automatically drag racism into the argument which sucks greatly, but this is the indicator that for both cases we shouldn't milk certain franchises or movies that have been done over and over again and give new stories a chance. Look at Princess and the frog. Everybody loved that movie, regardless of race,. I also wouldn't be interested in a remake of Mulan or Arielle if they recast them as white women tbh, wouldn't be interesting to me all the same. We just need new original stuff that doesn't reuse old stories. Take Encanto. People loved it and it was POC, a Disney movie all could relate to and enjoyed regardless of race despite having great POC representation. And now we just need to transfer that mindset to life action, and I promise that great things and representation but also movies everyone will be able to identify with will arise. I really do believe these remakes wouldn't be hated so much if they weren't remakes of pre existing stuff but original stories with POC characters Disney for example gave the chance to grow and be loved by the audience like with Encanto. But I also think Disney's movies have become less interesting in general as have many big blockbuster and a list movies in general, and I think people don't focus on the general boringness and decline of quality if there are POC characters in remakes and instead start being racist which sucks. I have heard people say "yeah but white people won't watch these original POC stories they demand". Look at Encanto, Coco, Princess and the frog again. If we now had this creativity for original live action movies I think more white people would be interested in watching them than some life action remake of a movie that has been watched over and over again, regardless of race. And I also think more black people would want to see it. We should strive for creativity. Unfortunately remakes are more easily marketable and producible than to come up with new stories... Which is why I think there needs to be a change in these big companie's writing management. Let through young and ambitious people with their creative ideas, and soon we will have movies with representation of POCs which are simultaneously good movies.
exactly. their original stories of POC like princess and the frog and encanto are beloved by audiences. princess and the frog took a european story and gave it a new cultural setting, and encanto was an original story that remained faithful to colombian culture. when they want to, they can. but they just want to push out remakes so they can renew their IP under copyright law.
40:41 for everything everywhere all at once, I remember watching it in theatres with my family INCLUDING my pretty racist mother, and by the end everyone was crying, ESPECIALLY my mom!!! And it’s now one of her favorite movies of all time! People just don’t understand that good art can really break that barrier for people and that representation matters so much not only because of the POC groups they represent, but because of the way it can change people’s perception of POC.
havent finished yet and ik youre not a gamer but this same shit is happening rn with a video game that dared to place a historically accurate black man in a era he was present in, ppl are genuinely insane
To be fair, that's not really why so many people are mad. Japanese fans had pointed out that they could've used any one of many Japanese samurai and they chose Yasuke, who lost one fight and ran away in the second one. Not an inspirative protagonist to play, when there's much better to pick from
@@almamater489I promise you it's antiBlack racism. Look at a much bigger and more visible industry like Hollywood. It has casted many many many many white men as samurai in countless productions before. They even invented 2 white men to put on the fucking Great Wall of China for no reason. Did either the Chinese or the Japanese ever cry about inaccurate racial representation in those many instances? Not a peep. Similarly with many wonky games based in Japan over the years, all white protagonists, no noise. But a Black one? Suddenly it's a problem. Besides, what's wrong with a Western gaming studio choosing a Black samurai to make a game about anyway? I often hear that contemporary game makers tend to make their games much more like a nuanced, realistic story for their players to experience. Ubisoft, is an Western (French) institution still (who has and is still doing a lot of fucked up colonial shit in the many African countries it colonised). Yasuke is a Black man, and while his true origin is unknown, I bet they wanted to play with that queasy gut feeling most people would have, that he somehow enslavement and got to Japan. To borrow the racists' own defense lmao, a random Japanese samurai that no Westerners know even existed just wouldn't draw in any audience. Yasuke is also not a stranger to Japanese people by any means, he has appeared in many pop culture products in Japan a bunch of times over the years, including children's books. While he's technically not Japanese, the only reason that we know about his existence at all is because of the Japanese's own fascination with him over the years. So if anything, they should be proud, because they at least did a good thing by being home to Yasuke even if for only a short while, and for keeping his story alive. I wonder what changed in the years leading up to 2024? Certainly not the rise of right wing of extremism in Japan, of which racism is a strong pillar, which also take a lot of hints from its biggest Western ally, who also happens to have a huge issue with Black people, or anything.
one of the most egregious examples of whitewashing I've seen, which hasn't much been commented on is Fiero in Wicked. In the books, he's explicitly black, and his exclusion due to racism is a characteristic Elphaba connects with him over, his race plays an integral role in the story. Yet when the musical debuted, he was just some white dude, and it felt like the adaptation of the musical into a film could have corrected this, but chose not to.
It feels like such wasted potential for the film adaptation, especially when they cast a black Elphaba. It totally aligns if film!Glinda is portrayed as well-intentioned but white and privileged (and despite how Ariana Grande might alter her own appearance she can't change that)
@@mstr293 Elphaba isn't white in the book. The fact that she doesn't have the same skin colour as other people around her is the most important part of the story, and the fact that Fiero doesn't is a key aspect of the book's allegory. She wasn't 'recast' as anything, the character was never white.
Something that this discussion always makes me think of is just like: "Ya'll racist." White myself, adopted into mexican family, most of my social circle mexican/1st generation american. I had...zero issue identifying with people who look differently than myself as family. In media, so many people get hung up on "I don't feel represented" or "I can't relate". I think of when Turning Red or Everything Everywhere All At Once came out and a bunch of people were like "I can't relate to this culture/character" and I'm just like...skill issue? Empathy issue? I feel like blackwashing or whitewashing or whateverwashing, people being dependent on someone looking like them to relate to them is the core issue at the heart of this. Because in most of our movies, it's purely cosmetic. Ariel being black doesn't matter because she's not representing a character who is shaped by a racialized world. People depending on her being black feels silly to me, and people being MAD that she's black is even more silly. She's a freakin' mermaid and the important parts of her character are all independent of race. Changing the race of Harriet Tubman, in contrast, is atrocious, because her race had a significant bearing on who she is because she lived in a racialized world. Even IF the culture represented is different than ours, the human experience at the core remains the same. Everything Everywhere All At Once (will die on the hill of this being a god-tier movie) had family dynamics that many of asian descent could relate to, but the feelings of worrying about not being good enough, getting lost amidst all the little crap, feeling overwhelmed, those all transcend race. If you can't connect with those because you're a different shade than them, check yourself. Rant aside, don't racebend real life people or people's characters. The real people lived as they are in a racialized world, respect that. The fictional ones, if the author went out of their way to go so far as to specify a characters ethnicity, changing the character's ethnicity is just tacky come on guys.
I was 12yo when I saw a real life Black person for the first time. Growing up in Ukraine in the 90s wasn't exactly a multicultural experience. When my mom and I moved to Spain because she remarried, I went to a public school and had classmates of different ethnicities and religions for the first time too. 20 years later I can say for sure, Spain is an equally xenophobic and racist country, no matter how many centuries of intermingled cultural background there are in their history. So, the Black Colombian girl that was my bestie for a couple of years (until she moved away) and I had public discrimination in common. The only difference was that people discriminated her overtly and me covertly, like she was once blamed for stealing in the classroom when there was no evidence for it and I was just treated like I was dumb by the teachers because I was barely speaking Spanish when guess what, I had to learn Catalan from scratch too and it was messing with my head big time. Most of my family is racist as heck, my gen Z siblings and I band together against the ignorance every day and it's still an uphill battle.
kay I'm only at 9 minute mark so forgive me if this is talked about later in the vid, but this mindset isn't even exclusive to POC (especially black women) actors playing traditionally white roles. Yhara Zayd has a video called "The Day Rue "Became" Black" that documents this well, but I remember when the first hunger games movie's cast was announced there were people upset and angry that Rue was "made black" when in the text she was always described as black alongside her district partner, Thresh. These people read Katniss say Rue, an innocent 12 year old girl, reminded her of her own 12 year old sister and decided to just ignore the description of her skin and hair and made her a carbon copy of Primrose (pale, blonde and blue eyed) then got mad when the movie production took the literal text's description of Rue instead of their own incorrect one. They even tried to argue that Amandla Stenberg didn't look innocent! It was INSANE, and the worst part is they reacted this way to a mixed-race girl playing Rue when in the books Rue was dark-skinned like Thresh! Racism and Colourism truly rots the mind.
I don't understand why Disney or other company's just doesn't make more original movies or series with black actors. Tiana from Princess and the Frog is one of my favorite princesses, it would be so much cooler if there were more original black characters.
the part about plastic diversity is exactly what I've been trying to express. it's insulting when the representation is fake and racists are STILL fucking mad about it. It's insulting and makes me feel like I don't even want to see any of those movies in the first place.
I’m sure they will be EQUALLY outraged to find out that Mandy Moore, the original voice actor of Rapunzel, is not of German descent. Obviously. Because they’re making the “authenticity” argument out of good faith right?… Right?
I wonder if these same people were mad when Naomi Scott a half white half indian played Jasmine a canonically Arabian princess because if that's fine than what exactly is wrong with an Indian actress playing Rapunzel
@@impossiblewolf2371 Lol that's one of the things I've been arguing for a while. There's literally a plotline in the movie where you see that when her hair is cut, the enchantment disappears and it goes back to its *default* brunette
I think I have another perspective on this as someone who's both an artist and in anime and video game spaces. I cannot begin to tell you how many times a character has been drawn as dark skinned or black, and the artist has recieved a metric fuck ton of backlash in response. A few years ago, a black artist drew themselves as Kiki from Kiki's delivery service, and she got backlash for "appropriating Japanese culture" (nevermind that blasian people do exist, even in Japan, and Kiki is white in the movie). People were sending her racist caricatures of her drawings. I see it all the time, way before Halle was cast for the Little Mermaid, and way after that.
Christ that's godawful. In a cynical sense it's kinda funny that they'd say "black folks can relate to characters of other races fine lol they don't need representation" and then get angry when black people imagine themselves as their favorite non-black characters. Almost like the feelings of black people doesn't actually matter to their position, huh...
There's a play I've done a few years ago about an amateur theatre company performing the Three Musketeers. The playwright, TJ Young (black man), made a clear note that there are no physical characteristics (gender, sexuality, physical abilities, or race) applied to any of the characters. I wonder how the industry and the world today would say about this play right now. Also, you made some very good points. Excellent video!
@@monbub there was a wonderful video about it done by an Erik here on TH-cam but yeah a bunch of marvel fan cam accounts were actively being racist to us and our community over us pointing it out !
i’m a white girl. my favorite barbies and american girl dolls growing up were black. it BOGGLES my mind that ppl can’t empathize or relate to a character simply because they aren’t white, yet it’s something that CHILDREN are able to do. kids dgaf if they’re fave disney princess is a diff race bc they see those characters as relatable in other ways. if ur mad about it that much, don’t see the movie and let little girls enjoy their fantasy princess stories. plain and simple.
Hi Shanspeare! I first saw you this year when I watched your video on daddy issues, misogyny, and male privilege. I love your video essays, there so creative and engaging; and I appreciate how much time and research you put into them! You teach me new things everyday and I love your take in this video💖 I wanted you to know we value your hard work🫶🏾
Watching Dunkirk and seeing the endless seas of brown haired white guys made me realize how valuable diversity is just for the sake of making characters easy to distinguish in cases where their race doesn't really matter (For the record yes in Dunkirk there's an argument in favor of historical accuracy it just made me realize how nice it is to have different characters with different physical characteristics)
That's the way I felt seeing multiple princesses from Disney - Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan. As a kid it really helped distinguish these girls through their different looks. Too many people underestimate how samey characters can look if they're ALL one kind (white 😶)
Fr, I struggled so much keeping up with Dunkirk because everyone looked the same and the anachronistic timeframe wasn't made clear. I couldn't understand why Cillian Murphy was on a boat, and then on another boat, and then back on the first boat again 😅 let alone any of the other guys
@magical-soap5359 fr, of course it's possible and not too hard to make characters of the same race look different, and it can in fact be racist to imply otherwise (see "all Asians look the same!!") but having varieties in stuff like skin color and hair texture can make it so much easier to build an easily distinguishable lineup and it just makes sense to do so
LoL same, that's why I like the racial diversity in Regency-themed movies like Mr. Malcolm's List. So much easier to keep the minor characters straight.
the only problem i honestly have with disney (or other companies for that matter) making their live-action remakes more diverse is that they never defend these actresses, it just feels like they send these woc actresses who are often early in their careers to the slaughter of conservative outrage
like personally, as someone creating a skam remake and planning to diversify the original material A LOT, i will stand by my actors and actresses and plan on hiring many BAME writers and editors to do their stories justice and i literally cannot fathom doing any different
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Yes, Disney needs to be put on a shelf. For multiple reasons.
I wish Babel offered Arabic (someone please correct me if that changed!)
@@katherinealvarez9216bro what
@@TeddySaxbang5690same
@@chrissyswifey I'm not liking their business practices. I know it's complicated, but it's how I feel.
Let’s not forget the Hunger Games drama with that little girl who was litteraly described as to have darker skin in the books and people still complain.
It was Rue, people were so balls deep in their made up white version of Rue, they ignored any and all descriptions of her in the text.
And they still casted a half white actress 💀💀 she was actually described as very dark skinned in the books
Yeah Suzanne very clearly described her as a black girl.
no way people complained about Rue??? she was literally the best!
It’s crazy cause she is mixed race and lighter than Rue was described (dark brown skin) and they still attacked her. They just hate Black girls.
the avantika situation was HIGHLY upsetting because people really didn't fact check because they wanted the opportunity to harass an indian woman. she did not deserve that AT ALL.
And that's how you know something is truly wrong with these people. All that over nothing.
And then there were rumors that she would play as Gothel and suddenly people are happy and fine with it??? She looks nothing like her and she’s too young. It’s just icky because they’re basically saying they can only envision a POC girl as a villain and not a sweet and kind princess.
@@parkchimmin7913 ooo that does sound icky af ugh
Yes! It was literally a fancast, why was she being harrassed online? The movie isn't even confirmed to exist and racists decided a great Indian actress needed to "be humbled". It was so sad to see, yet sadly nothing new.
@@parkchimmin7913 Literally!!! I just searched up her age and she is 19??literally my age and she is so is so talented. She was a very sweet, bubbly Karen in Mean Girls, so I can definitely envision her as Rapunzel. And Rapunzel is also 18-19 as well. These racists are delusional and blind.
I saw a cosplayer cosplay as Hatsune Miku and someone in the comments said
“Oh great. So they’re making Miku black. 😒”
Like- it’s a f*cling cosplayer- what do you want her to do? Paint her skin? Society is doomed.
That's unfortunate.
Wow 🙄
miku is literally an instrument and also it's common knowledge miku can be anything you want from a tired wage slave to a tadpole or what now they're going to complain the guitar isn't white 💀
WHAT…? i’m sorry but people can’t control there skin..?
Same it a cosplay meanwhile they don't complain over a white person when their cosplay look like something out of spirit or a dollar store a cheap low effort outift they won't say a thing
I remember when Amandla was bullied and harrassed for being casted as a black book character because READERS saw her (Rue, the character) as white DESPITE the book saying she was black over and over, DESPITE district 11(? Or 13) being a representation of segregated and marginalized neighborhoods and communities, the projects, basically, but ✨aesthetic✨(which primarily target black people) for their white readers. I cannot keep having this discussion online when I talk about headcanoning a character as a POC or a reimagining of a typically white character.
I didn't know that until recently, but good lord, people really are that hateful.
Amandla uses they/them pronouns iirc btw /nm
@@muwuriel8231Oh I did not know this! Thanks for correcting me ✨
yeah someone said they saw Rue as an "innocent white girl" and another said now that she was black they didn't feel sad she died, theres a video on the whole thing actually, "The day Rue 'became' black" by Yhara zayd
Was literally about to comment this too!!!! There's a really good video called "The Day Rue Became Black" that goes over it, I forget the creator but they did an amazing job. It's sad. I don't understand why it matters so much to people
I can't imagine sending hate to a literal child because of a tv show/movie.
@UTTP-142Your ignorance will kill you
Like these assholes have nothing else to do? Seriously
@UTTP-142boo loser
@UTTP-142basement dweller
@UTTP-142 no one loves you, stay miserable
As a black woman myself I personally like seeing black people and other poc getting more representation but what I can’t stand is seeing the lack and disregard for original storytelling. As a minority we deserve to have authentic representation just like anyone else where we are explored as multidimensional characters rather than be reduced to the token exception. A lot of these race changing films feels like performative activism at most and falls flat to me as it essentially just uses every hashtag and pop culture reference instead of actively addressing issues through the story itself
Hopefully though it can help in starting to tell more original stories with bipoc protagonists, and centered around bipoc experiences etc. this reminds me of the time we saw a few genderbending remakes with female protagonists instead, they were mostly pretty lazy films but i think they did help somewhat in making more original stories with female protagonists.
❤
original instead of scraps
Seriously, Avantika Vandanapu was a fancast choice. There isn't even a movie, it was a rumor and people were saying that she would be a cool choice and a bunch of racists harassed her over it.
it was legit so sad to see cuz even if she was, what did she do to deserve harassment??
@@AmiMonev exist, apparently.
Showing their putrid true beings. OMG, how can people be so fucking braindead?
@ville__imagine begging for attention with the lowest tier click-bait in the comment section of the more popular creator that’s the subject of your insult bait. Pathetic 😭
I loved her playing Karen in mean girls
they really are bashing avantika for an UNOFFICIAL CASTING. true jobless behavior.
Fr People in the real world are going about their days and stuff
They’re literally trying to kick an invisible soccer ball 😭
And then rumors came out saying she would be casted as Gothel and suddenly all the comments are positive. “Wow, that suits her” or “I can see her as Gothel.” Even though Avantika is like 19 or 20 and Gothel is in her 30s-40s (at least, in her “younger” form). Aside from her hair, she looks NOTHING like Gothel. Like she has Disney princess doe eyes ffs 🤦♀️. These people can’t imagine casting a POC girl as princess, but are perfectly fine with having her as a villain.
@ville__ 100+ comments on this channel you need a job too 😭
Hey im a ficking useless piece of shit what does "jobless behavior" mean
I am indian, when I was a kid, every Sunday they will show a Hollywood action dubbed movie and next day we kids will talk about the action and explosion in it and play and pick characters as who is who. So, mostly the characters where white so a light color kid will argue I look lighter so I will be that character. And, then came Independence day where 1st time we saw will Smith a black guy play as a lead. Something I cannot explain as a 10 year old child I felt the joy and excitement seeing a guy similar to my color was the lead. The next day I played as him. I am now 30,but I can still exactly remembered that day of joy.
Just want to say that's a fantastic story! Glad you got the chance to play the hero too ❤
❤❤❤
The harassment towards Leah playing Annabeth is extra absurd in my brain because RICK (the author) HAND PICKED THE CAST. He has outright said her appearance not matching the book’s description doesn’t matter to him and that he loves how her energy matches annabeth’s, but racists are going to be racist regardless ig-
she was brilliant honestly, looking forward to seeing her in future seasons of the show (i think it was renewed?)
I just don’t get it. race/general appearance really isn’t that important for the characters in that series (as long as they look the right age). I agree that Leah was perfect as Annabeth - though appearance wise I do wish they could have made her eyes gray for the sake of lore accuracy, since canonically all of Athena’s children have gray eyes.
Yeah to attack a 12-13 year old child is absolutely nuts but they did the same to the girl that played Annie in the remake
her tiktok is still being banned to this DAY, racists are so weird and persistent.
For me, I actually appreciated the change. The idea that Greek gods would primarily have white kids is silly.
She was one of several non-white kids, not just in the background, but of main characters. It feels natural, not forced. Great casting throughout, honestly.
Can you also talk about how Disney movies also rely on accents to signify who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist?? Aladdin, finding Nemo, etc, rely on having the good characters have American accents and the antagonists have native accents of the places they’re supposed to be in it really annoys me.
Damn I actually never noticed that, it's crazy how in depth racism is in pop culture
I can barely watch new movies anymore because the subconscious propaganda brainwashing is everywhere.
Wait, where is that in Nemo? Aladdin I get, but Nemo?
@@strawberryfox8819 the dentist who steals nemo is Australian and darla is Australian and bruce and all the other sharks are Australian. It’s weird. All of the “good” characters are American. Even though they’re all fish on the GBR. They should all have Australian accents realistically.
@@strawberryfox8819 like don’t get me wrong obviously white Australians are not victims of racism however I think that it is relatively othering and xenophobic. Only Americans are good and everyone else is evil.
my main problem with disney's 'blackwashing' is how it's essentially just a marketing strategy for their lazy remakes, using poc actors as scapegoats for controversy. if they actually cared about diversity, they would transform the stories in a way that reflects the leading actresses' culture (e.g., princess tiana) or pick up stories written by and for poc. it's just upsetting that diversity is only (just barely) tolerated when it's through the white lens. and even then, it triggers a fucking witch hunt ://
Frr exactly what i was thinking
Yes they deliberately throw those young actors to the wolves for publicity, it’s so gross
Yeah, Disney have really went about it in the laziest way possible just to appear progressive! I'd love more PoC stories, especially if it involves more mythology, I might scream if I have to see another Greek mythos story done in the exact same way as it's been done for decades.
Not just that but why is it always the women? Why are they so scared to replace their white boy with brown hair and blue eyes with a POC in these remakes? Until they diversify more of their casts (and, equally important, the people behind the scenes like writers and directors), it's performative.
That's neglecting to mention that the scrutiny always falls onto the actress and not the studio, interesting how that works in their favour.
@@lizzieperlizzielaughs for Kingpin in Daredevil movie to Nick Fury in Avengers and Himdell in Thor ....to how Miles has two Spiderverse film.
It's sad that Disney remakes are failing so badly for multiple reasons e.g. bad writting, lack of great songs, uncanny valley CGI, but, because they are failing with POC actors in lead roles, it just gives more ammunition for people who are complaining about blackwashing
The most harassed princess, ariel, her movie isnt even bad. It had great songs, great writing, and an amazing cast enough to get a limited edition princess character in disneyland so its so odd too. I watched it a lot last year and the songs are so recognisable and really well written, people just want excuses.
I been saying this. Samething happened with Velma, the show was bad because it buthered the character's personalities not because races were changed yet guess what people complain about
@@espeon871 I agree. TLM imo had the best soundtrack from front to back by far of any live action. Was it a perfect film? No, but most movies, whether by disney or not, aren't either. Majority of movies that come out are decent to good, very few are great, and even fewer are "perfect"...and even that's subjective. However, for what it was: the acting/portrayal of the characters, music, *singing*, story, leads' chemistry, updates & flushing out of the characters & certain plotlines, the world brought to life, etc. I thought it was overall rather enjoyable despite its issues (like cgi at certain times). But people still rejoiced claiming it bombed, saying it bombed because it was bad although they didn't see it. Like I recall someone saying in the comments under a youtube video that they didn't like the change at the end of Ariel and Eric only hugging bc it was anti-climatic and like they were only friends and the movie was trying to be too innocent or something, as to another reason why it was "bad" and the original was way better. And people were like 🤔🥴 Clearly you didn't watch the movie (and only watched this clip that someone recorded in a movie theater in which it cuts off early) bc they do kiss AFTER the hug, bc more than lovers they're also friends which was important to the plot/characters' archs.
@@hadrianhexe9603yes! You had people saying that the show was bad because "woke", when it was bad because, it was bad, lol. Racists and conservatives will look for any excuse to pin the blame on people of color instead
the concept itself is bad… people are tired of remakes
the whole thing with Rapunzel being South Asian literally started from a joke where it was like has long hair? strict mom? artistic AND can't go outside? sounds like your average Desi girl. From there artists would make renditions of a brown Rapunzel that people loved it's not like this came out of nowhere now it's in a more mainstream space
Now I'm angry because those jokes resonate with me so much and the art seems like it'd be amazing. Racist people managed to twist a beautiful thing into something filled with so much hate and anger. They always f*cking do this and I'm so sick of it.
RE. The Little Mermaid: I'm fluent in danish, I have read the original fairy tales many times, & Andersen describes the prince's kingdom as having both palm trees & white beaches. Palm trees don't grow in the wild in any nordic country. Andersen travelled quite a lot around the mediterranean before he wrote Mermaid, so the story's setting is most likely inspired by those warmer places. So now y'all know! (Great video as always Shan!)
I feel it is supposed to be a more universal story.
@@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396and even if it wasnt intended to be, now that the american version of the story is the one everyone knows and loves, it certainly has become so. The Little Mermaid as i know it in Disney is the American story, so any American would be just as reasonable a casting choice from my experience with the story
@@FalconFern-e6r But I don’t think either of The Little Mermaid films take place in America, right?
@@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396the original disney animated version distinctly looks like it's set in the caribbean. The easy explanation is that it makes the sea more visually appealing, but that's the result. Sebastian having a Jamaican accent plays into it. Honestly Ariel should have been black the whole time
One thing I never understood in this whole Disney discussion - they aren't actually replacing anything. The old movies are not going anywhere. If you prefer little-white-mermaid-Rapunzel - she's still there for you to watch. I really disliked the Beauty and the Beast version with Hermione Granger ... didn't ruin the animate movie for me.
True no one seems to have thought of that
@@neigeepierrot4694right! They act like all dominant merch, cartoons, and basically non live action merch and items of the princesses aka the mainstream disney characters suddenly just get poofed off, but, theyre still there! Theyre the main ones everyone's familiar with and know, so theyll be there for a longg time
The problem is consistency. In Mulan live action they wouldn't dare change race of any characters for the sake of so called diversity, for obvious reasons. Yet, somehow Snow White is no longer white.
Also what was very sus and weird to me is how in Lion King remake they called back James Earl Jones to voice Mufasa, yet they recasted the iconic voice of Scar - Jeremy Irons, who happens to be white. Now suddenly the character is voiced by a black guy, who sounds nothing like og Scar
Also so many popular movies get remade constantly. Freaky Friday. The Parent Trap. Seventeen Again. Little Women. Cinderella (a billion times over)
Remakes and re-casts are not unheard of. But I feel like people are specifically using the idea of Disney remakes to push their political ideology on a bigger platform. And it's not only disingenuous (because I know half those people don't even care about the original versions of the movies they're criticizing) but also because it's a nonissue. There are no poc people "replacing" white people in anything. It's a red herring to sweep up moderates and low-key conservatives by using scare tactics about a problem that literally doesn't exist.
It's fr just a movie. Sit ur ass back down.
@@almamater489 I’ll point out the clear differences in your examples. The animated and live action Mulan movies are set in Northern China based off real wars in the Wei Dynasty. Mulan's culture and race are relevant to her story, it wouldn't make a lot of sense with a non-Chinese character unless you changed its entire setting, replaced the film's main antagonist, got rid of the mythology around ancestor worship and guardian spirits, and replaced the used of fireworks and explosives.
Snow White’s race isn’t a factor in her story, she can still meet a prince singing in the woods, be beautiful and threaten her stepmother, eat an apple, be kissed in a coffin, etc and she lives in a fictional kingdom.
Last summer I was working overtime defending Halle for playing Ariel, and now it’s happening all over again. Will we ever learn?😭
I was clocking INNNNNNN
And most of the people raging and losing their minds about Halle playing Ariel just forgot about it after the movie came out lol
@@LolaHaze Maybe they found out it was a story about a girl changing her race all along.
The answer is probably no, but fuck it we ball
Literally me with Francesca for playing juliet
“i want to live un a colorless world but i will NOT stand for a Black Annie” cool so by “colorless” you mean “white” got it
i'm white af and growing up i really connected to tiana from princess and the frog bc i thought she was funny and kickass; i think white people that NEED a character to be white to be relatable to them simply have a skill issue when it comes to enjoying things
Is empathy a skill?
@@FunkyLittlePoptartit is when you’re in a position not to experience it (from someone who doesn’t look like you)
This is exactly the issue. White people are seen as the default so it’s rare that they’ve had to “imagine” themselves in someone else’s shoes in media - most POC have had to exercise that empathy to see themselves reflected even in fictional things
Fr, like growing up Tiana was one of the few Disney princesses who I really understood. I don’t get why some white people need a character to look exactly like them to relate
@@FunkyLittlePoptart It absolutely is. It's far too often taken for granted as just an innate thing, and while there's an element of that, one's capacity for empathy will remain very stunted if it isn't actively nurtured. It's a bit like critical thinking, or comprehension - we're born with the tools, but we need to be trained to use them.
Okay, it makes me so sad when people say "this should be called [stereotypical black name]." Most of those names are beautiful and that's clearly meant to be derogatory. Like so what if it WAS that name, why are you disrespecting a lovely young woman's name? It's so hurtful dude. Shaniqua is the canonical example. That's such a nice name and now it's like the scarlet freakin' letter.
@ville__(You)
it’s maddening that white people will dismiss beautiful names like that for not being the white norm or “traditional” and yet call their kids McBraelynn or something so they can be unique. just say you hate those names because of their blackness and cut that crap!
Like names like Shaquanda actually sound nice. Shaquantae is one Black name I really like for example. It's also interesting to see which combinations with the La and Sha prefixes for example
I love our names too! They're really sacred once you start looking into them. Many times they are a combination of the mother and father's name. Or they are named after an elder. Or a daughter is named after her father and vice versa. Names are sacred to our people.
Those who mock our names are only doing their best to dehumanize us. Their desperation to make us unseen and unheard is extremely odd and that they do it as a group is even more suspect that something really diabolical is going on.
I know! Shaniqua is a gorgeous name and it has been ruined by bigots.
As a black woman myself - my greatest issue with race swapping is the fact that it feels like a lazy hand-me-down. What happened to original stories? Or even more-all of the folklore and fairytales that come from the diverse “black” culture?
Edit: the reason that I say it feels like a hand-me-down, isn’t because I feel race/ethnicity matters even if it isn’t necessary to the character/ plot- I’m talking about culture mattering. I’m saying it’s a hand-me-down because the little mermaid was written in 1836 by a danish man and has always been “a white character” in the media. Romeo and Juliet was written in 1616 by an Englishman, and again Juliet is usually played by a fair skinned actress. . .
1. You can give those roles to talented actresses who’s performances can enrapture you but you can’t change the history of the role or how the role is perceived - or the fact that the roles are overdone, remakes are tired
2. We’ve yet to see more culturally diverse Disney princesses let alone culturally diverse fairytale stories in the media - I prefer the standalone originals like Moana or Raya (even if they have their flaws) and characters like the Black Panther - because they were created with the culture and history in mind. I just think it’s more interesting.
I’m not saying actors and actresses shouldn’t be able to do their jobs - which is to pull us in and immerse us irregardless of gender or race. . . I’m saying that the roles aren’t really good enough for them, and it’s not genuine “diversity”
America is a melting pot of culture - I don’t care about skin tone, I just want diversity of culture and history
sure nice story lady
True, I am still here waiting for some sort of adaptation of Anansi the spider. We need to see all the shenanigans she got into in order to help humanity.
It’s mentioned in the video that Hollywood won’t fund those films because the producers (mostly white men) claim they won’t make money. As if Hollywood doesn’t intentionally make white “bad films” for tax purposes. I agree with you, though. I would love to see something else. But Hollywood is led by cowards who wouldn’t know a good story if it bit them in the arse.
@@terejosh13”yOu GoInG aGaInSt NaRrAtIvE, sO yOu NoT rEaLly BlAcK!.!”
@@untunedguitar45
Shut up what they’re trying to say is that race doesn’t affect the narrative it’s not that she’s not really black she’s a pick me. If the character is good and the actress or actor is good it shouldn’t matter and she knows this. Like I said she’s just a pick me.
If you are uncomfortable with the inclusion of POC because you feel replaced, you are wayyyyy to attached to your position of privilege
Exactly, like you couldn’t PAY me to care that much about an actresses skin tone. Imagine how unproblematic your life must be to get so worked up over something as stupid as the casting for a children’s film.
This!
@ville__keep dreamin it never will be
You misspelled too
@@mitski8374 Its a troll, just report them for spam.
Let's never forget how Candice Patton was bullied and harassed by fandom.The producers of the Flash later acknowledged that they should have done more for her. It's frankly disgusting that the higher-ups and co-stars see it and choose to ignore it.
It also doesn't help that the character was poorly written
I never heard about this at all. I didn’t like her character, but mainly for the fact that her character and Barry are shown as *siblings* and I found that gross. Never knew people were attacking her specifically. I think. She actually did a pretty decent job for what she was given. She’s also one of only 3-4 black mostly main characters that was in the arrow verse, which is sad, because there aliens and meta humans and race doesn’t have to play a part in this shit so there definitely could have been more representation (and not supergirls hamfisted political topic of the week stuff that even as a very liberal lgbtq teen found cringy)
@RandomSkyeRoses how is that her fault? Bad writing is the writers fault. At least she can act unlike some of the other cast members.
@@Moon17ob I love the actress and the character was enjoyable up until a certain point. Because then instead of it being a team effort it was more like Iris and Co. Idk I just feel choosing her as a leader over the other two experienced scientists was a "Hmm choice." Loved the romance arc tho.
@Moon17ob you never heard about it, but use Snowbarry siblings take to undermine her role in show i ain't reading all that
I don’t want to call myself a “fairy tale expert” but it pisssssses me off so much when people say “In the original fairy tale!” Because… there’s almost no such thing. As you correctly said- these are originally oral traditions with roots that span all over the globe and time. We just know the Disney version and maybe some edgelord told you “the dark twisted version of the REAL story!!!” And that’s it. But yes of course Rapunzel does not need to be German because there was nothing German about Mandy Moore singing soft pop rock with a guitar alongside her chameleon sidekick.
But something that did break my heart a little about the Avantika fan cast (and I need to be loud about that- it’s a fan cast! This is not a real movie that’s had a real cast announced!) is I saw one person on twitter say please give in to the thugs. It’s painful to see what online racists did to Halle and to Rachel for their Disney princesses and it felt painful to see it happen again. I don’t want that to be the case and it shouldn’t be- factually a mixed race girl has played a film adaptation of Snow White before, we had Brandy as Cinderella in the 90s there’s been a none white girl play Rapunzel in the show once upon a time (and there was annoying racism about that too, but it just wasn’t as loud).
I would love to see constantly reinvented fairy tales with new versions of characters because that’s the most authentic thing a fairy tale could do.
As a Brazilian, I grew up watching Everybody Hates Chris, That’s so Raven, and My Wife and Kids every day. And I never had a problem with not seeing myself in some of those characters and stories. I always loved them ,and never once in my childhood it bothered me that there weren’t enough “white” people in those casts. Makes absolutely no sense to complain about cast diversity, and I cannot find another reason for people to be against it besides racism.
Yeah, as a white person, my favourite Disney movies were Mulan and Atlantis (which did have white people but my fave characters were Kida and Audrey), and I grew up watching The Proud Family and That's So Raven like you, and it never occurred to me that there even was a lack of white people. It's so weird seeing adults cry over children's media....
I dont know how the greater psychology community feels about in-group favoritism at young ages and how kids recognize race very early on. But I do think it proves how important it is to see diverse characters in children’s media
Goated picks, me too!
Carl Winslow in the house--- Family Matters was the only show on 90s TGIF!
@ville__ no one is watching your shitty channel no matter how many comments you leave lol
I want more stories created by POC, written and made for POC by POC! Give us more opportunities to prove ourselves with our Own Work!!!! I’ll always support diversity no matter what. I just want to be able to HOPE our creative sides can be shown!!! Let us be Directors AND Disney princesses 👸🏿👸🏾👸🏽🎥⭐️
But there already is ample chance to do just that. People should write good stories and produce high quality media. Let's move past race and work together for a better tomorrow
Avantika will actually be playing a South Asian princess in a disney plus show, adapted from a book by Roshini Chokshi. So yeah, while people are harassing her over a Rapunzel fancast, she’s out here already repping the brown girlies, written by a successful brown author 💅
@@llIlIlllII Dude, Bee isn't the person you should be preaching to, the reason there's an issue in the first place is because there's a bunch of loud angry racist white people who get pissy whenever non white people are cast in anything, god forbid if they "stain" one of their white characters by being allowed to portray the same role. Representation matters anyway, but it matters especially so when racists froth at the mouth and make it everyone's problem whenever anyone who isn't white has the audacity to get some.
@@llIlIlllII within current society it is impossible to ignore race, though it is a concept made for the express purpose of discrimination race is still not over as a concept we are not past race. It is not a good idea to ignore, instead we must acknowledge the existence of race in modern society and write our stories understanding it, black representation is important because of this, because we make a distinction between black and white and we too often see white as normal. We can'r just "move past" race, but we can fight against the current norms created by race and since there are too little movies with black actors and black authors made specifically for black people, that in my, and many others' minds would be truly subversive, something sorely needed and asked for for decades. "But there is already ample chance to do just that" then why hasn't it happened, why is there still so many movies with a nearly all-white casts while the "opposite" is nearly never true.
@@llIlIlllII Oh, you sweet summer child, if that were the case it'd be done already. Furthermore, whether or not you meant to, your comment implies that Black (and other POC for that matter) don't ALREADY "write good stories" to be made or "produced" into "high quality media". Idk maybe you're new here, but the US us not a meritocracy where the best always succeed. You're implying that media is and has been majority white since it's inception over a century ago because white ppl inherently write better stories worth telling, rather than our reality: white ppl initially purposely, expressly gatekept Black and brown ppl from those spaces and roles. And when they did allow them, they were background, non-speaking, often server/servant roles. Fast-forward to today, changes have been made but the constant is, you need money to "produce high quality media", which Black and POC creators tend to receive the short end of the stick on. And those actors are often not chosen for or given the opportunity to audition for. Overall, there are limited roles written for them to be able to audition for if it isn't colorblind casting going in. If 75% of casting roles for film and TV are white, it immediately axes all non-white actors the opportunity to even have a shot. So, it's not as simple as 'just forget how race impacts you unfairly compared to white ppl and simply do/be better' as if we live in a post-racial society where everything is equal all the sudden. Did you not watch the video, hun?
It feels like Disney casts POC actors in their trashy remakes as a shield from criticism.
Yeah casting a Black woman as Ariel was the only really bold and creative choice they did in the movie. I am convinced that if it had a White woman playing Ariel, in the exact same crappy CGI- fest, reviewers would dunk it just as mercilessly as those other dumb remakes. Most of the reviews focus on her performance, and not the the world and story that's crumbling around her (Disney meatpuppets don't @ me)
@@Tail_sez Yes, because 'meatpuppets' isn't a dehumanising term. How arrogant.
@@sophiepooks2174 I think that word sounds kinda funny. I mean, just imagine a puppet made of meat, just rawly globbing on about things a corporation wants them to say.
But I suppose the more scientific, and widespread term for such corporate drones would be 'astroturfers'.
@@Tail_sez was it also bold and creative to cast Christian Bale as Moses? must have been?
White people saying BIPOC representation is “cultural genocide” is crazy especially when these same yt ppl outwardly support the genocide that we are seeing happen globally around the world to Palestinians, Congolese, Darfuri, West Papuans , etc. amazing video Shanspeare❤️
Funny how you think it’s just white people who are contributing towards events in Gaza. Shows how disgustingly ignorant you are, you just want to be considered the “better” group for some reason, weird behavior
Especially crazy if the white people in question come from settler colonial states, like Canada, the U.S, Australia, and Israel, that are still comitting genocide against the respective indigenous peoples.
@@user-ve5hr4pi7e I have seen many poc, not only in the American context, but outside of the Western world supporting the people of Gaza and Palestine.
@user-ve5hr4pi7e the majority of people i've seen defending palestinians are palestinians themselves or OTHER POC, myself INCLUDED. your "facts" are absolute rubbish.
@@user-ve5hr4pi7e anti Zionism is present in the whole world, made of poc, by your logic only white countries are against Israel and that’s so stupid it’s hilarious
Having a one-sided online beef on Twitter with a nine-year-old is crazy, Christine. SMFH 😔
And like why her name being Quvenzhane be a big deal? It really shouldn't
@@devonmunn5728 IIRC, she was assertive about correcting people who mispronounced her name. That's it. That's the whole reason they were swearing at a 9-year-old on Twitter.
@@Eloraurora Yeah like who cares if it's "conventional" or not. A name is a name. Her parents made her name out of the first 2 syllables of their names and the Swahili word for fairy or sprite
@@devonmunn5728 I didn't know that! That's a lovely origin for a name.
Two recent Disney Marvel projects were pretty revelatory about the arguments people make about racebending. People whined “make original POC characters” over racebending, so Marvel made Kahhori in their What If cartoon series in late December, a Mohawk superhero in an alternate Marvel Universe. So then they said “why make a new Native American character when you have other Native American characters who are being ignored.” Cool. So in early January they released a live action miniseries called Echo, about a Native American superhero from the comics, who’s Native in the comics too. Then the same people who said we should give attention to existing Native American Marvel Superheroes said “who asked for this?” The fact is that they just don’t want non-white characters leading shows they’d otherwise want to watch. They think they own culture, and they hate us. That’s it.
I've mostly heard of "blackwashing" in fandom, specifically fanart spaces. It's often used against people who draw typically "white" (or characters with no set ethnicity) as black. People cry "just make your own black characters" but proceed to act racist towards these new characters still
I see your Xueyi pfp, did you see the whip comment someone made about Jade coming for Arlan? The only black character in the game and they still can’t be normal in fandom.
Yup. The same people who say "JuSt MaKe NeW cHaRaCtErS" also cry woke and get mad when a new character shows up and gets popular, then try to gaslight everyone into thinking they have no issues with poc characters and it's actually just about e̶t̶h̶i̶c̶s̶ i̶n̶ g̶a̶m̶e̶s̶ j̶o̶u̶r̶n̶a̶l̶i̶s̶m̶ good writing and characters.
@@muwuriel8231 i was so disappointed and pissed at the fandom when i heard about that. jade's whip is cool character design by itself, but people just had to be disgusting about it. 😑
@@gregvs.theworld451 CLOCK IT
YES THANK YOU. That was so so annoying, draw what you want for the most part. Who cares if you draw like a mlp character as black? This was a genuine discussion and it always felt so weird to me
36:35 quick note: the Charolletesville protesters are not chanting "you will not replace us" but "Jews will not replace us." Antisemitism and racism often go hand in hand, though I understand this is outside the scope of this video
Just when I thought that clip could not get any scarier...
And then you find out what was written in those burnt books….
Jews obviously don't matter to her, she referred to Moses as an Egyptian when Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Mormons all believe he was Jewish.
The far left hates Jews just as much as the far right
Nobody knew or cared if the Little Mermaid took place in Denmark until it was a convenient argument. If the movie took place in Italy with an all white cast, people wouldn’t question it because the setting never mattered to them.
The thing is it didn't take place in Denmark even in the book. It's set in a fantasy kingdom in both versions and that makes the outrage even worse.
The thing is that the original story does not state an actual place, or a name for the main character, because the story was not meant to be taken literally. The Little Mermaid is a metaphor for Hans Christian Andersen's personal feelings about his own sexuality and the man he loved rejecting him.
From that, a gay tragedy made by a gay man, Disney made a straight rom-com with a happy ending, so accuracy was not in the game ever.
@@LettiKiss literally. Like did the story ever open with "in a little town on Denmark" lol, no, it's obviously a fantasy fiction book. Just because it was written there doesn't mean it takes place there? Authors aren't fixed to the countries they live in?? People just get literal in order to justify their racism 🙄
European fictional stories: it’s not real, quit ya whining you YT babies
African fictional stories: iT is aBsOlUtElY eSsEnTiAl ThAt ThEy Be BlAcK, wHo CaReS aBoUt MoRrOcCo Or EgYpT oR sOuTh AfRiCa, iTs ImPoRtAnT tHaT tHeY bE bLaCk!.!.!
@@sapphic.flower Exactly, authors can place their story wherever they want to!
anyone who says "I love diversity... but" does not in fact love diversity
exactly. if your "allyship" only exists under specific conditions you are not by any means an ally.
It’s the progeny of “I’m not racist, but…”
@@foolishlyfoolhardy6004 Guess what, you can advocate for that in addition to not complaining when they do get cast in something.
@hadrianhexe9603 where are you thinking I do complain?
I'm saying, we should be demanding better of these studios than something like the Little Mermaid remake, which was not visually interesting, had no "character" in the CGI animals, and just about missed every beat that made the animated movie enjoyable (such as with the musical scenes). I don't care about the casting, but I do care that they keep making lazy, soulless movies and using a diverse cast as a prop to get people to support that movie.
And they aren't getting it wrong all the time, there are movies and shows where they've tried to add diversity quite successfully (one piece for instance), and others where they've at least tried - but you can't argue that some of these unnecessary remake are just using diversity to foster both outrage (and thus attention) and blind support (because people do want to support this diversity) of otherwise lazy cash grabs.
You can like diversity without supporting cultural appropiation.
As someone who makes art and sometimes writes shit, the conversations around "blackwashing" are so disheartening because if someone made fanart of some character I made but as their race I'd consider that to be a compliment personally, like someone identifying with your work is like one of the better parts of actually publishing art, right?
Idk this conversation it makes me think back to that story of a young black boy seeing a Miles Morales Spiderman comic for the first time and beaming with joy because "Spiderman looks like me!" and it's like as an artist or creator, isn't that the most heartening experience one can have, to see your work mean something to someone?
Personally I love people putting their own spin on their fan art, and I think most people do! I’d get why people would object to turning a BIPOC character into a white one; white colonizers co-opting art forms is atrocious very real issue, but if they’re adding their work *in addition to* the BIPOC versions it feels harmless enough.
Unfortunately the majority of characters altered to be white tend to be people who will insist their version is objectively better in some way. Not because of their skin tone, obviously that would be racist, but because of some other made up reason. It’s gross and I think other white artists who feel how I do just avoid altering existing characters to be white so we don’t get lumped in with them. I’m honestly *not* sure I’ve ever come across someone who’s made a white version of a character who did it in good faith.
Maybe I’m biased because LGBTQ+ representation is part of the push for diversity and inclusion in media, but I genuinely adore seeing non-white and non-straight actors getting more and more leading roles in big productions.
@@caketality I think you might have misunderstood me here? I wasn't talking about someone making a white version of a BIPOC character. But that I think if someone makes a BIPOC version of a white character that it's actually a good thing, because people often do so because they identify with the character in question which is itself a good and even wholesome thing.
@@aflockofconnivingmagpies3490 tbh I’m gonna have to chalk it up to me forgetting to take my adderall and flying off on a tangent. I think mentally I was chewing on the idea of shifting characters to *any* colour and it just sort of… spilled over. So my apologies on that one.
If it’s any consolation you and I definitely agree on BIPOC versions of characters being awesome to see. People resonating with a piece of work is nice, but seeing multiple different groups of people relate to something you’ve made feels especially successful!
This is where i get kinda sad that so many people are not artists and have no clue about art direction, style, influence and inspiration, reimaginings, etc. My favourite headcanon ever is Harry Potter as Hari, the Indian boy with a lightning scar that grows across his face as Voldy gets more powerful. Beautiful art but also the headcanon it came from was so in-depth and lovely, containing many cultural references and imagery that the original series would have been improved by in terms of its depth as a piece of literature and social commentary about wizard/muggle racism. Success in art is having your work adapted and changed and repurposed to last, not having its preserved corpse sealed away in the back of a museum never to be interacted with or challenged again
One of my oldest friends is a pretty well known fan-artist that's mostly known for her Percy Jackson fanart. The absolutely unhinged vitriol she got when she started depicting Annabeth as black is still something that shocks me.
one of the most infuriating things i've encountered in trying to talk movies with certain white people is that they see white-led films as universal stories, while black-led films, especially those that aren't otherwise centered on white people and white society, are "beyond their scope of understanding". they consistently balk at the idea of consuming media not tailored to their own image and experience, even if it's fantastical make-believe. they are are deeply uncomfortable imagining a world that isn't exclusively about them. when white people tell black actors and creators to stick to black characters and black stories, it's because they want the out-of-sight, out-of-mind insular comfort of cultural segregation. it's disgusting and i'm tired of it being downplayed as anything other than blatant racism.
Really well said.
“Beyond their scope of understanding” meanwhile if I sit down and watch such media I gain a little more understanding!!! Gosh! Make it make sense 🙃 as per usual racism of course is never logical.
The way they behave about this reminds me of Stormfront's speech. They hold a good chunk (if not all) of the beliefs held by racists of times past, but they don't like the word racist.
Reminds me of the 'Turning Red' situation
Pop Culture Detective put out a video essay recently about the Barbie movie and made the same sorta point about male centered stories being seen as universal vs women centered stories being about the experiences of being a woman specifically. Your comment is very well said dude!!
With starfire I expected people to complain that she's not orange-
Lmao
same XD but i loved her casting
Yeah, the original artist (George Perez) definitely based her on a BIPoC appearance - he thought of her as looking like a mixed-race Brazilian bikini model, basically. Casual comics sexism aside, my only complaint was in fact that they didn't find a way to make her more orange - and also, they didn't let her fly.
Also also? Tamaraneans are cat-people. Starfire is a catgirl. 😁
As a Dane who grew up with the fairytale of the little mermaid, instead of the Disney movie, I would like to say that I think casting a black Ariel is amazing. It is a very common theory that H.C Andersen wrote the fairytale, about being in love of another man and knowing that they could never be together. So, to me at least using the relationship between a black woman and a white man works really well, as it is a relationship that the same kind of people who hates gay relationships would also hate. To me it works more in parallel with the original fairytale, than the earlier Disney movie did.
That's a cool read of the movie! Many also read The Little Mermaid as a trans allegory. Imagine if we got a Black transfem actor 🥰
@@celisewillis That would have been so cool!!!! :D
as someone from eastern europe and interested in our history and myths from before christianization, it PISSES ME OFF, when people talk about "historical accuracy" to mean "every race was separated and all of europe was white until """"globalization""", IT WASNT LIKE THAT AT ALL!!!! If you look back youll find turks and arabs having great influence on slav culture as they shared lands, youll find black vikings as they travelled all around the seas, youll find roma people exchanging stories and fairytales, markets filled with all different races and cultures in the mediterranian and slav territories, hell a lot of eastern europe was very diverse until world war 2!!! If anything, to portray europe as all white IS HISTORICALLY INNACURATE, but they dont want to see this, they want to call back to a past that doesnt exist where the only people in a continent were somehow fair, blonde and blue eyed, its just fas /cism but they dont want to admit it.
I'm convinced that all the people who whine about "historical accuracy" when it comes to how characters look, only use the Disney versions as references. Because they assume that Disney did completely accurate adaptations, I guess.
Black pirates? Yes of course. Black Vikings? That sounds highly unlikely as ‘Viking’ denotes a Norse pirate. Where did you read that?
@@thetwelfth9987 "norse pirate" that sailed all across seas and interacted with various cultures which interacted with cultures of different races, its not weird at all or unrealistic if one was to make a game or story about a viking whos black
Omg hello fellow slav, im so happy to see you because god, these conversations are so painful where i live… Also it infuriates me when Slavs fall for white supremacy myths - as if we were white the same way as westerners. We are not equals in their eyes, but because of the history of oppression, we keep idealising the western world and demonising POC and their countries of origin. It hurts to watch…
@@thetwelfth9987Vikings were an occupational choice, not a race. Whilst rare, people from the lands they went to would sometimes join them, sometimes were taken. They were some of the most well-traveled people of their time period.
I remember a black TH-camr saying she doesn't like racebending. It's because that character would be remembered by "Black such-and-such." There might be an occasional race permanent race change, but typically, the character would return to status-quo. So characters are only temporarily black.
There was a push for Donald Glover to be the next Spider-man. Andrew Garfield ended up getting the role in the end. But this inspired the character Miles Morales. While the comic wasn't the greatest, Miles in the Spider-verse movies is amazing. This was much more interesting than yet another Peter Parker movie.
But if there is going to be a remake, let the race swapping happen. They are probably the only movies with the marketing and budget. You can go to the original source material if you want your white lead.
id like the argue though that as these racebended movies get older, people get more used to them. the first time i ever watched annie was the 2014 version when i was about 8 and i didn’t realise that annie wasn’t always black. when i realised that the original annie was white, i didn’t see 2014 annie as ‘black annie’, i just thought ‘oh okay, there are two versions of annie’ in the same way that there are 3 versions of spider-man. if lots of ‘racebended’ movies are coming out now i think that young children will have the same thing that i did with annie, they’ll just think there are multiple versions of the characters rather than ‘poc such and such’ and ‘white such and such’
@@hollysmilyface
I remember John Stewart's Green Lantern and how I thought he was *the* Green Lantern because of the Justice League cartoon. But Hal Jordan seems to take back the spotlight every so often.
I would like to see other black super heroes take up the spotlight and not be a cameo or side character. Static Shock was one of my favourites growing up.
The other problem with Donald Glover as Spider-Man is that Stan Lee firmly believed that's not how representation works. He thought, as you can see in how they handle MM, a Black Spider man would have a different story and different experiences
@@PrincessNinja007Ultimately the story of Peter Parker is a geek gets bit by a radioactive spider, then gains all the abilities of a spider, while also being so poor he has to work on the side to help provide for him and his aunt because his father figure got shot in cold blood. And also, his real parents may have been spies, buy we don't really talk about that much.
There's nothing there that tells me that Peter Parker couldn't have been black. Miles is different because he was written into a story that already had Peter Parker as a character, but ultimately his story isn't that much different from Peter's.
It’s like making a female director the “female Spike Lee” or something like that. Women don’t really want to be attached to a male director that came before them.:/
I went with my white female friend to watch the little mermaid. She left in tears. I remember asking her what she thought of Halle and she said felt resistent at first but when Halle started speaking (not even singing) she got shivers by how much it reminded her of Ariel.
I was happy that she was honest with me and it's sad to think of the people around the world that didn't give Halle a chance due to the colour of her skin.
I went to see the new Little Mermaid with Halle Bailey on the big screen with my BFF. We often watch movies with a Black cast together. It's one way I support her and my friends who are people of color. I will always support diversity in the arts. ❤
Why can’t Disney make new ideas in films that include POC? With actual POC producers, writers and directors? I just think taking a male cast and making a female version like Ghostbusters or changing the race of Ariel seems lazy compared to making a new Princess. Ariel is a character though. From a folktale. So, it isn’t a certain girl. It could be any girl as a mermaid. That’s her power. Like Starfire, she is a mythological character.
@@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396because new ideas are scary to studios
@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396, Why so ppl can call it "Woke"? Finn from Star wars and Rue from hunger games got hate and they're original blk characters.
@@naturallyspiritual7256 Indie films and billion dollar franchises are completely different things.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the gaming community but now anytime a black video game character or game exists, there’s outrage. It doesn’t matter the context, they’ll find reasons to cancel the game and will claim anything but racism. Doesn’t matter if it’s an original character or an actual historical figure. The sight of black people in their games makes them foam at the mouth. And the comment sections are always flooded with the misuse of the word “woke.”
I adore video games as a medium which makes it unfortunate that a lot of online game spaces are bigoted shitholes. And I'm not experiencing *near* the worst of it as a cishet white guy. If it makes it feel like a hostile environment for *me*, bro I can't imagine
The outrage over Assassin's Creed featuring Black man is so outrageous. Gamers are so unserious suddenly caring about historical accuracy when AC (as an outsider) use historical setting and figures for totally fictionalized storyline. There are a lot of historical figures with which we have less information due to very limited historical documents, but that to me how Yasuke being featured as protagonist even more compelling to explore. But ofc people dont want to explore it because he's black.
@@hankboog462 definitely, there's so sexism, racism, anti-queer sentiments, colorism, etc.,) When videogame tries to be more inclusive and expand beyond typically white man protagonist (for japanese videogames, as long as they are white colored, they are okay. but when they are dark skinned suddenly "negative" traits were magnified eg. Tidus from FFX and Sazh from FFXII)
Black and other divers characters have been in video games for many years, both as protagonists and antagonists.
To hear about the outrage in recent years makes little sense to me as these are fantasy characters in a fantasy world where sometimes the other races (protag / NPC) are aliens, monsters or other fictional creatures you can connect with.
I love VGs but for the longest time I’ve stayed clear of other (male) gamers and the gaming community and with good reason ☹️ trust me when I say the hate isn’t just limited to online… its in real life too….😢
@@414caramelI agree. It was pretty fun, though, watching their brains melt trying to reconcile the success of BG3 with their worldview. Black people existing in a fantasy world, a black person in the main caste, all the female companions are physically stronger than the male companions and most of all everyone is gay. Everyone. I watched two of them talking to each other trying to figure out how they could like a game with some much gay in it and they weirdly decided it was because everyone in the world was gay so it didn’t seem out of place. Aside from that, though, I make sure I reduce my exposure to gaming channels where those people gravitate. I get nervous every time I get a new gaming channel in my YT feed. I read the comments before I listen to the video to see what kind of audience they attract. I’m not interested in their weird conspiracy theories and general bigotry.
The fake outrage from non theatre fans over a single production of Romeo and Juliet they were never going to bother to go out of their way to see having a black lead has to be the most caucacious thing to happen this year.
And it would spread outwards if not contained
Yeah because as a...you know..averagely theatre fan, isn't theatre supposed to be more open to diversity? Even the fans knows and acknowledging that
Idk why they are so surprise by juliet is played by a black women
No bc this literally goes for all these movies and films. For years nobody gives a shit about these movies but the second they find out the new version is being portrayed by a black women? "Noo she was an icon for me growing up🥺 " or "lets make Tiana white!!😋 " like bro these people are such bums 😭and then second the movie loses popularity watch them like never talk or care about it again 💀
@@ilmanmufiydhaagustadia_1346 literally theatre is the most diverse creative medium out there. Unless a characters feature plays a significant part of the story (I.e: legally blonde - Elle needs to be blonde) race, sexuality, gender even does not matter in the showbiz. I’ve seen gay men play sharpay in hsm and consistently play women and fem presenting people in theatre, I’ve seen butches play men in Shakespeare, I’ve seen black Hamiltons and he/they elsas (they did amazing) and guess what. No one cared. Conservative or liberal, no one threw a hissy fit, bc at the end of the day, if you put on a good show, people will come and watch, and nothing else matters.
I remember when I learned about the casting for the little mermaid remake. I thought "I wasn't expecting that, but that's cool! She'll make a cute Ariel!" And then I heard that everyone was freaking out about it, and I was super confused. Like.... why?
Im only 10 minutes in and I'm already getting mad 😭😭 why can't we ever catch a BREAK there's always someone blaming black folks for SOMETHING
exactly
Literally there cld be no black people in something and if a racist gets mad at something it got to somehow involve black people and other minorities they despise 🥴
fr like I'm tireddddd😭
It is called anti Blackness and anti Black racism. A lot of non-Black POC’s and White people hold some anti Black views due to white supremacy, white nationalism, post colonialism, imperialism, and colonial beauty standards.
I’m Black and you can blame the transatlantic slave trade to the enslavement of Africans and West Africans dealing with racial hierarchy and racial oppression from their European male enslavers and European slave trader🙄👎🏾
You do realize white people are constantly shamed in today’s society for being “rascist” by default
The anti woke rhetoric is going to age terribely, you won't be able to tell the difference between early 2000s and 1930s - to 70s rhetoric on diversity.
…What?
@@fearoffrying the anti woke rhetoric
Honestly they're all similar because they come from the same place
People in the future are gonna be so confused when they realize the all racist white colonizers with their white supremacist ideologies never really disappeared and just bled into more modern cultures, despite not really having colonizers anymore.
@@fearoffrying I don't get what you're struggling to understand here tbh
MINE MINE MINE! People seem so scared to lose their current privilege over others and having to share this multi-cultural world. It's already extremely uneven and we need to work to fix it for ourselves and those coming after us! Thank you for this video and calling out the bullshit and hypocrisy! You are totally right - they are using ignorance as a weapon. New subscriber!!
Halle has the perfect face and aura of Arial. The big doe eyes and smile exude the sweet naivete we remember. Not only could she sing (unlike Emma Watson) but she could sing in the same way. I DON'T UNDERSTAND! These are all the right things to care about. Sometimes people just have "IT"
Yes-yes-yes like she was literally perfect and the best disney princess so far I'll happily die on that hill 😂
honestly the live action should of never happened nobody wanted one but i’d honestly take halle over emma nothing against emma love her but really as ariel?
i just realised your talking about the beauty and the beast live action i low-key thought you meant ppl wanted emma watson to play ariel🤦♀️
Sadly due to the fetishization of black women, for some people the only thing they see when looking at halle is that she’s “grown” or “too sexy”
@@dumbtch-lk5yr Emma Watson can't sing without autotune!
I have two things to say:
One I am actually angry at disney/big movie companies for casting young bipoc actress for big roles because it feels like they are using them to gain "good points" in the eyes of the public while doing NOTHING to protect these babies/teens/young women. I find it just discusting and unfair.
Second, i do feel like being too attached to stories and "accuracy" to the source material to be dangerous creatively. Literature and the art in general have always been influencing and "copying" each other. In theatre, the act of transposing a play which is 300 years old can be so powerful as you can add to the original theme and make it more contemporaineous (dont know if it is an english word sorry. English is not my first language) and this is why literature is so great! Like maybe les mis was written with white characters but transpose the story in 2024 with a diverse cast and you would have such a powerful and rewriting of the story! Plus it would be way more interesting than just the same old adaptation that everybody knows. I dont know if it makes sense. 🤔
Wonderful comment. The points about theater are extremely relevant
This is my EXACT problem I have with this whole thing
Conservatives: Anyone can be anything in America, we're the land of the free!
A small black child: I want to portray (insert traditionally white character here) on screen.
Conservatives: *ear splitting scream, uncontrollably sobbing, face as red as a beet*
It's not consistent with the original character. This is coming from a half-African person.
Boo hoo
This has to be the most insecure comment I've read so far today. I feel sorry for you.
A lot of these diversity complaints also highlight one of the most important reasons for diversity: empathy. A lot of people, clearly, cannot relate or sympathize or feel compassion for someone different from them. Which is the real reason why they are complaining.
Sadly so, that can be true on the other side of the coin also. And why a lot of heterosexual people of all races also have that attitude towards queer characters.
They don't truly love yourself and need constant confirmation that they are the best (incl. in media), those people don't have empathy in their glossary.
Its replaced with "I am the main character and world revolves around me"
@@sophiepooks2174 yet as a gay guy I never complained about hetero characters, seems like entitlement.
as someone who bangladeshi/indian american, my sister, who grew up in the 2000s, always remarked that people in bangladesh would say someone looked ”american” in reference to them looking white American. this was only 10 years ago and reflected the deep ignorance and lack of representation in American media. growing up, my first piece of representation in media was Ravi from Jessie, and his role was so stereotypical and inaccurate that my memory blocked him out. i’m SO happy that American media is diversifying, and I feel so bad for these black and brown women who have to face the vitreal of racists. I will ALWAYS support these actors (avantika, halle, and rachel zegler) and I truly hope they get the best career as possible and an apology in the near future from the media. 👏
I agree. As a desi living in the west myself, im still waiting for good indian/south asian representation from characters and stories other than brigerton tbh… i dont think i’ve seen any other good desi rep in western media (that i can name from the top of my head which says a lot here)
@@nushi6730 I personally really liked never have I ever
@@nushi6730 same!! I’m really hoping and praying for a desi rapunzel!! Especially cause I related to her so much
@@sophiabalounsi7832 SAMEE NHIE IS ONE OF MY FAVS
@@sophiabalounsi7832 me either I couldn't sit through that goddamn show 😭 nor heartbreak high
My issue is just that instead of making more great shows like Raising Dion or Abbott Elementary, these big corporations just want to remake old IP's and race swap characters as a cash grab because whether the reaction to the character is good or bad they still profit from the publicity no matter what. I just hate corporate greed and am still mad Raising Dion got canceled.
these people cry about “acCurAcY” and “rewriting history before our very eyes!!” they do know that Romeo and Juliet are fictional people, right? right?????
None of those people have seen the play nor have they ever set foot in a theater, let’s be real here.
Not to mention they always compare it to movie adaptations and forget that they used to have men play female roles 😭😭
If it was more accurate, Romeo would be 16 and Juliette would be 13.
@@BelugaGuy-ks5mp THIS!! The public doesn't want a fully accurate Romeo and Juliet, and yet they don't even realize that. They'll use literally any argument if it means excluding POC from their beloved tales.
30:12 I'm of German ancestry (specifically Prussia), and I'm rather ... uncomfortable when people start talking about "purifying" German culture 😳
Fun fact about Starfire; The original design was based on Naomi Campbell, a black model. Which means the casting was the closest thing to the character creators' original idea. Unfortunately racists can't read lmao.
I thought she was based on the creator's ex wife, Red Sonja and Iris Chacón. Because Starfire's first appearance came out in 1980 and Naomi Campell would have been 10 years old at the time.
@@katiemurray4901 starfire was based on multiple women, he even talk about a girl from a bar and a sec worker, but it still don’t change the fact that she is an orange alien and that white people are not the default human and that she has been so white wash on like every of her adaptation that people don’t even remember that she is an orange alien. (it was for Pocahontas that they use Naomi Campbell as a reference)
See, these race-swappers can’t even get their history right
Actually though, many comic Fans didn't hated Starfire being playes by a black actress, they thought it made sense, but they should have made her more Orange with special effects or something. That's what many wanted. Plus that Pink Hair and Outfit at the start was geniunly awfull, and didn't help her case. Many think of Ana Diop as a beautifull woman but they did her dirty at the beggining of Titans.
Those who talked about "White Starfire" were only Teen Titans wacthers who don't know Comic Starfire.
@@amiser2900 Pocahontas was based on the voice actress, Tia Carrere. Who is in fact a PoC as well.
this topic has been on my mind since ive seen people make fanart of people of colour who got white washed in gacha games (to, you know, sell better, because you can have brown culture as long as you dont have brown skin). every single comment on those posts was harassing the poor artist who just drew the character as brown/black, so full of vitriol and hatred. "oh so now racism is ok if its done to white people" type shit. this gave me a lot of insight into how to respond to those comments
i genuinely hate the art community for its unchecked racial biases
Not naming names,,, Genshin Impact 👀
i am SO tired of people being mad that black actors and actresses are doing ANYTHING in the industry it's Exhausting. i am just happy every time i see a black person on the cast (be it actors or voice actors) and that's it. i just don't engage in drama anymore 🙏
Like even when there's a mere presence of a interracial couple some rando is going to complain about it. Ok several different reviews of the miniseries Echoes some randos were complaining about the mere presence of a interracial couple among the main cast. Some person even brought up a statistic of the percentage of interracial couples in the US that was last accurate when my mother was a baby (the person claimed it was 3% and the study citing this specific statistic that I could find was from 1967, when my mom was a baby. Just absolute foolishness)
@@devonmunn5728 that's just racism that they're trying to rationalise
@@devonmunn5728because commercials make it seem like they are the only couples in existence, and this was within only the past decade which makes it clear when it was artificially increased
Another creator phrased my idea of this perfectly
"Give African people their own stories instead of your garbage second hand europian stories."
In other words why are we wasting talent retelling the same eurosentric stories instead of exploring stories from other cultures?
One of my favorite books is a fantasy book written by a Nigerian author. She was so tired of reading European based fantasies that she decided to make a fantasy story based in her own cultures mythos and histories.
It was an amazing story (The title is Raybearer) and its one of my favorite books to date.
Why can't we do this with films? Im tired of reboots and remakes i would love to see more diverse stories with more diverse and interesting people in the mainstream
As someone that’s planning on majoring in theater and communications, I’m going to need the people complaining about the recent Juliet casting to step away from their phones because her RACE DOES NOT AFFECT THE STORY!!!! I looked up the actress and she looks so beautiful and was perfectly cast as Juliet and I hope she’s surrounded by a good inner circle of friends.
EDIT: I also find it weird that people clutch their pearls at Avantika being fan casted as Rapunzel which is not confirmed but they seem to be okay with characters like Nightwing, Doctor doom, Damian Wayne, Esmeralda, Scarlet witch, and Sunspot (Roberto da costa) being whitewashed. 🤔 I saw some comments saying that Avantika should play Pocahontas, Tiana, and Moana when Avantika is neither Native American, black, or Polynesian which is clear that most people can’t tell brown people apart. 🤦🏽♀️
Men used to play all the female roles in Shakespeare so…
@@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396 yep
I remember when that live action winx show came out people were complaining about whitewashing 2 characters. No joke I heard someone defend it saying, “Well this actor is actually 1/16 Filipino, so it’s ok.”
Right and they got rid of Flora too and claimed she was (I forgot her name)‘s cousin or some crap? I don’t think they even had Techna as well (which sucks because she was my favorite growing up and I loved her tomboy aesthetic).
@@parkchimmin7913They brought her back the second season and pretended that was the plan all along and that Terra wasn't blatantly replacing her and they also unsurprisingly ruined Flora like they did everyone else, although apparently the actress who played Terra fought to bring Terra into the show once she found out her character was a whitewashed version of Flora so that's nice but I wish everyone involved in F*te had watched the original show or Netflix let someone who actually liked Winx Club to write the show because both the showrunner and most of the cast treated the og show with contempt or mocked the actor playing Sky for reading the wiki page for his character (which was the bare minimum)
@@awhimsyreader9015 Gosh that’s horrible! I hate it when live adaptations disrespect the original source material. Like it’s so different from the original, it might as well be a whole separate show!
Dont forget about people who get mad if someone draws a colorful horse as a black girl! :D
Yall know who you are
i hate that i know what youre on about
Just kind of giving and ironic amused snort at "Juliet should be played by a WHITE Italian woman," said by Americans whose grandparents and great-grandparents considered Italians black...
They're still not black, though! If anything, Mediterranean.
@@mstr293 That's not the point, in history Italians were always seen as inferior to the "actual" white citizens who originated from Britain. So basically, they were treated in a similar way to how black citizens were treated in America. It obviously wasn't as horrific, but still worth mentioning.
@@mstr293 We were still called "the dirty people" through the 1980s as far as I'm aware, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. I think the point is that a lot of people groups even from Europe were not the "right" kind of European, and it's only fairly recently (in the history of the world) that Europeans are considered all one white group.
@@eusebius2319 No Irish need apply
How does someone's opinion in the past matter ?
i was waiting for your take on this!!! as a desi (& more specifically indian) femme presenting person, the racism against us is so fucking ghoulish and uniquely awful bc no one ever really inspects it? the fact that the racism jumped out over a FANCAST is insane to me.
avantika is so stunning & talented but people will see her first and foremost as an indian woman and not white + blonde and then do mental gymnastics to justify to themselves why it makes them uncomfortable. it's strange to me that we've successfully made 'racist' a bad thing to be only in name and there isn't much of a widespread push to deconstruct those internal workings. it's exactly like you pointed out! people truly think racism is over after a black man took office!!
anyway that was a lot of yapping LOL love your videos !!! keep it up!!
It’s crazy because but i don’t get how still don’t know that “IT tech support” or “scam caller” stereotypes are racist. Like they’ll always say “Indian scammers” but not “white scammers.” White scammers are just scammers because “their race doesn’t matter.” And then they’re like “who cares, they’re evil scammers,” without realizing the legacy of colonialism leading India to have a high amount of call centers thanks to English skills from colonialism and shitty companies wanting to offshore their call labor for cheap.
I bet most of those people who were upset/harassing avantika never heard of her prior to that fancast
@@Krusty_bot63 exactly! that's the part that's most upsetting to me
desi racism is so normalized its sad
I just want to highlight the general success of the new Interview with the Vampire show which reformatted the story to utilize black talent to face the source materials racist nature.
The choice and commitment to have Louis be black and have an immense amount of black creatives off screen elevated the story to a whole new level.
There was some push back but the overwhelming majority embraced, celebrated and has created a lot of fan art.
BIBLICALLY ACCURATE ROMEO AND JUILET 😂😂😂 I AM SCREAMING
I love how that implies that Romeo and Juliet is a bible story lol
i LOVED (and still do) the new annie over the old one. i was eight when it came out, and i never understood why people were so pissed that annie was black.
another reason white people shouldn’t play characters of color is that characters of color often have ties to their culture. for example, the only disney movie that really ties into my culture is aladdin (which has a lot of issues, but that’s for another day LOL). if a white actress were to play jasmine, it would erase the core of her character.
jasmine, tiana, mulan, and pocahontas’ races are tied into their characters and their stories (disney did pocahontas so dirty btw). even if the character doesn’t have cultural ties, you’d be erasing the limited representation that poc have.
I haven't seen the Annie remake, but my only concern is that it had better still be a musical, and they better not have effed up the songs! I don't see what difference race makes to the story- orphans come in all varieties.
@@FunkyLittlePoptartcan confirm indeed still a musical and at least I like the songs enough to listen to them from time to time
I liked the older one more, but the new one was fine. It's been a while since I saw either of those movies, and I saw the older one first, which I think I remember having better set design.
I'm a fair bit older than you. I watched to old Annie when I was a kid. I definitely prefer the new one. It's a better production- in my opinion.
Not in the US, I didn't see the controversy at the time and didn't think twice about the choice of actors. I felt they were all cast well.
In my opinion. I did not like the new Annie. Not because she was Black. The music production was terrible. They left out my favorite song and had Sia sing it instead. The new songs sucked. The girl was cute though. I prefer it being around the 1920s. The plot made more sense if it was on the great depression ever.
The most hilarious irony to me is that Emma Watson being cast as Belle ruined the BATB remake, while Halle Bailey's Ariel ended up being the best part of the TLM remake. But in all seriousness it's so fucking frustrating to see this cycle play out over and over again because god forbid people be exposed to stories featuring someone not like them as a complex human being with their own thoughts and feelings and dreams.
28:32 idk if this is mentioned but juliet is also like 13-14 in shakespeares original romeo and juliet soo... i dont see people whining about that being "inaccurate"
dude seriously i didnt even think about this but youre so fucking right
The Nurse has a line where she says “I’ll bet fourteen of my teeth she is not yet fourteen.” So yeah, canonically 13 in the play. IIRC the stories Shakespeare drew from has her and Romeo at more 16-18 but he aged it down either so there’d be less suspension of disbelief with a male child playing her, or to make a statement opposing child marriage at the time, considering the narrative is p clear that Paris is a weirdo for trying to marry her.
For the people who claim oh how abt the 5 poc princesses?? The poc character's stories are tied with their race and culture, the white princesses, arent. Their cultural bg doesnt inform or shape their stories, they just happen to be white, except merida, but everyone else, is very acultural. To act dense and not understand why its erasure to erase the few poc princesses whos cultures inform their stories, just cuz one is deep in their feelings about perceived unfairness is really the crutch of this. The racism that stops one from thinking beyond themselves, even fancasts got people bullied.
@UTTP-142thanks for saying what we have all been suspecting about your views on this 😒
It’s so hard! The amount of Latine actors in roles have also gone waaaaay down lately. There’s such a fear of diversity and a need of change. Great video
“Juliet is white! Italian!” West Side Story 🧍
It's also funny because some Italians don't consider themselves white. And as mentioned in the video, there's already Gnomeo & Juliet. I guess that was fine because they were voiced by white actors...
@@mhawang8204 It's infuriating. Italian-Americans really like to hang on to the marginalization we suffered before we were given White status in the 1940s. Nothing says White privilege like the kind of space so many of us take up without a second thought.
And they act like WOC havent played juliet for YEARS. (The production starring orlando bloom for example)
If they want to stay faithful, they should’ve made Juliet (and all the female characters) a man LOL
You’d think we as a group would have more empathy when there’s still elders alive who saw how their adult family were treated, but nope! My father looked “Mediterranean” enough that some thought he was Latin or even a light-skinned Black person and treated accordingly :/
The more educated I become about racism and more messed up and ridiculous bigots become
My problem with remakes is that they are remakes. First of all, they are bad. Second of all, POC shouldn't have to settle for exact copies of movies that already exist.
Here's what I mean;
Cinderella has been done a million times by a million different companies. Black women have played Cinderella. But it was not an exact copy of the animated movie, and thats kinda what makes it better.
I think people are just tired of seeing the same thing over and over. And then it feels "forced" to them because, hey, you're quite literally filling a role to a script you already had and thats the only thing of obvious note that is changing. It feels forced because nothing else is being done, but if you were to do a new version of all these movies, you wouldn't hear anything about diversity again.
it all comes down to the issue that Disney refuses to make new things, so they are quite literally trying to compensate by making actors and actresses fill in stories that everyone already knows. Its not hard to retell a story. They've done it a million times before. I mean, The Princess and The Frog is perhaps the most awesome retelling of rhat story I've seen. Wheres the creativity any more, and the respect for the actors/actresses
I agree. It just comes off a bit lazy to me to just re use old stories and not give POCs their own meaningful stories that they deserve, not some lackluster variations. I mean look at other franchises even with mostly white actors like James Bond or Pirates of the Carribbean. Who isn't tired of it at this point because it just is the same formula over and over again? I don't think it is a race issue but if you recast characters as POCs people will automatically drag racism into the argument which sucks greatly, but this is the indicator that for both cases we shouldn't milk certain franchises or movies that have been done over and over again and give new stories a chance. Look at Princess and the frog. Everybody loved that movie, regardless of race,. I also wouldn't be interested in a remake of Mulan or Arielle if they recast them as white women tbh, wouldn't be interesting to me all the same. We just need new original stuff that doesn't reuse old stories. Take Encanto. People loved it and it was POC, a Disney movie all could relate to and enjoyed regardless of race despite having great POC representation. And now we just need to transfer that mindset to life action, and I promise that great things and representation but also movies everyone will be able to identify with will arise. I really do believe these remakes wouldn't be hated so much if they weren't remakes of pre existing stuff but original stories with POC characters Disney for example gave the chance to grow and be loved by the audience like with Encanto. But I also think Disney's movies have become less interesting in general as have many big blockbuster and a list movies in general, and I think people don't focus on the general boringness and decline of quality if there are POC characters in remakes and instead start being racist which sucks.
I have heard people say "yeah but white people won't watch these original POC stories they demand". Look at Encanto, Coco, Princess and the frog again. If we now had this creativity for original live action movies I think more white people would be interested in watching them than some life action remake of a movie that has been watched over and over again, regardless of race. And I also think more black people would want to see it.
We should strive for creativity. Unfortunately remakes are more easily marketable and producible than to come up with new stories... Which is why I think there needs to be a change in these big companie's writing management. Let through young and ambitious people with their creative ideas, and soon we will have movies with representation of POCs which are simultaneously good movies.
exactly. their original stories of POC like princess and the frog and encanto are beloved by audiences. princess and the frog took a european story and gave it a new cultural setting, and encanto was an original story that remained faithful to colombian culture. when they want to, they can. but they just want to push out remakes so they can renew their IP under copyright law.
I just don't want these amazing BIPOC actor/actresses to get the heat from bad writing because Disney is notorious for their bad remakes
Exactly. We don't want to be cast in European stories. We have our amazing tales too.
40:41 for everything everywhere all at once, I remember watching it in theatres with my family INCLUDING my pretty racist mother, and by the end everyone was crying, ESPECIALLY my mom!!! And it’s now one of her favorite movies of all time! People just don’t understand that good art can really break that barrier for people and that representation matters so much not only because of the POC groups they represent, but because of the way it can change people’s perception of POC.
havent finished yet and ik youre not a gamer but this same shit is happening rn with a video game that dared to place a historically accurate black man in a era he was present in, ppl are genuinely insane
@K.C-2049gamers are so racist they’re doing everything in their power to discredit his history too
To be fair, that's not really why so many people are mad. Japanese fans had pointed out that they could've used any one of many Japanese samurai and they chose Yasuke, who lost one fight and ran away in the second one. Not an inspirative protagonist to play, when there's much better to pick from
Japanese ppl think Yasuke's dope too
@@almamater489I promise you it's antiBlack racism. Look at a much bigger and more visible industry like Hollywood. It has casted many many many many white men as samurai in countless productions before. They even invented 2 white men to put on the fucking Great Wall of China for no reason. Did either the Chinese or the Japanese ever cry about inaccurate racial representation in those many instances? Not a peep. Similarly with many wonky games based in Japan over the years, all white protagonists, no noise. But a Black one? Suddenly it's a problem.
Besides, what's wrong with a Western gaming studio choosing a Black samurai to make a game about anyway? I often hear that contemporary game makers tend to make their games much more like a nuanced, realistic story for their players to experience. Ubisoft, is an Western (French) institution still (who has and is still doing a lot of fucked up colonial shit in the many African countries it colonised). Yasuke is a Black man, and while his true origin is unknown, I bet they wanted to play with that queasy gut feeling most people would have, that he somehow enslavement and got to Japan. To borrow the racists' own defense lmao, a random Japanese samurai that no Westerners know even existed just wouldn't draw in any audience. Yasuke is also not a stranger to Japanese people by any means, he has appeared in many pop culture products in Japan a bunch of times over the years, including children's books. While he's technically not Japanese, the only reason that we know about his existence at all is because of the Japanese's own fascination with him over the years. So if anything, they should be proud, because they at least did a good thing by being home to Yasuke even if for only a short while, and for keeping his story alive. I wonder what changed in the years leading up to 2024? Certainly not the rise of right wing of extremism in Japan, of which racism is a strong pillar, which also take a lot of hints from its biggest Western ally, who also happens to have a huge issue with Black people, or anything.
When the topic of racism in gaming comes up, Witcher 3 is the first thing that comes to mind. Same shit, different decade.
one of the most egregious examples of whitewashing I've seen, which hasn't much been commented on is Fiero in Wicked. In the books, he's explicitly black, and his exclusion due to racism is a characteristic Elphaba connects with him over, his race plays an integral role in the story. Yet when the musical debuted, he was just some white dude, and it felt like the adaptation of the musical into a film could have corrected this, but chose not to.
Jon Chu is a colorist clown.
Yes, I was shocked when I read the book
It feels like such wasted potential for the film adaptation, especially when they cast a black Elphaba. It totally aligns if film!Glinda is portrayed as well-intentioned but white and privileged (and despite how Ariana Grande might alter her own appearance she can't change that)
Is Elphaba recasted as black now? Well?
@@mstr293 Elphaba isn't white in the book. The fact that she doesn't have the same skin colour as other people around her is the most important part of the story, and the fact that Fiero doesn't is a key aspect of the book's allegory. She wasn't 'recast' as anything, the character was never white.
Something that this discussion always makes me think of is just like: "Ya'll racist."
White myself, adopted into mexican family, most of my social circle mexican/1st generation american. I had...zero issue identifying with people who look differently than myself as family.
In media, so many people get hung up on "I don't feel represented" or "I can't relate". I think of when Turning Red or Everything Everywhere All At Once came out and a bunch of people were like "I can't relate to this culture/character" and I'm just like...skill issue? Empathy issue?
I feel like blackwashing or whitewashing or whateverwashing, people being dependent on someone looking like them to relate to them is the core issue at the heart of this. Because in most of our movies, it's purely cosmetic. Ariel being black doesn't matter because she's not representing a character who is shaped by a racialized world. People depending on her being black feels silly to me, and people being MAD that she's black is even more silly. She's a freakin' mermaid and the important parts of her character are all independent of race. Changing the race of Harriet Tubman, in contrast, is atrocious, because her race had a significant bearing on who she is because she lived in a racialized world.
Even IF the culture represented is different than ours, the human experience at the core remains the same. Everything Everywhere All At Once (will die on the hill of this being a god-tier movie) had family dynamics that many of asian descent could relate to, but the feelings of worrying about not being good enough, getting lost amidst all the little crap, feeling overwhelmed, those all transcend race. If you can't connect with those because you're a different shade than them, check yourself.
Rant aside, don't racebend real life people or people's characters. The real people lived as they are in a racialized world, respect that. The fictional ones, if the author went out of their way to go so far as to specify a characters ethnicity, changing the character's ethnicity is just tacky come on guys.
I was 12yo when I saw a real life Black person for the first time. Growing up in Ukraine in the 90s wasn't exactly a multicultural experience. When my mom and I moved to Spain because she remarried, I went to a public school and had classmates of different ethnicities and religions for the first time too. 20 years later I can say for sure, Spain is an equally xenophobic and racist country, no matter how many centuries of intermingled cultural background there are in their history. So, the Black Colombian girl that was my bestie for a couple of years (until she moved away) and I had public discrimination in common. The only difference was that people discriminated her overtly and me covertly, like she was once blamed for stealing in the classroom when there was no evidence for it and I was just treated like I was dumb by the teachers because I was barely speaking Spanish when guess what, I had to learn Catalan from scratch too and it was messing with my head big time. Most of my family is racist as heck, my gen Z siblings and I band together against the ignorance every day and it's still an uphill battle.
Bless you, glad you're not an asshole, and I agree that racism seems to be rampant in Spain, unfortunately
kay I'm only at 9 minute mark so forgive me if this is talked about later in the vid, but this mindset isn't even exclusive to POC (especially black women) actors playing traditionally white roles. Yhara Zayd has a video called "The Day Rue "Became" Black" that documents this well, but I remember when the first hunger games movie's cast was announced there were people upset and angry that Rue was "made black" when in the text she was always described as black alongside her district partner, Thresh. These people read Katniss say Rue, an innocent 12 year old girl, reminded her of her own 12 year old sister and decided to just ignore the description of her skin and hair and made her a carbon copy of Primrose (pale, blonde and blue eyed) then got mad when the movie production took the literal text's description of Rue instead of their own incorrect one. They even tried to argue that Amandla Stenberg didn't look innocent! It was INSANE, and the worst part is they reacted this way to a mixed-race girl playing Rue when in the books Rue was dark-skinned like Thresh! Racism and Colourism truly rots the mind.
So true - i rember there was a video (i think from yara zhad) that talked about how whiteness is considered the default
I don't understand why Disney or other company's just doesn't make more original movies or series with black actors. Tiana from Princess and the Frog is one of my favorite princesses, it would be so much cooler if there were more original black characters.
the part about plastic diversity is exactly what I've been trying to express. it's insulting when the representation is fake and racists are STILL fucking mad about it. It's insulting and makes me feel like I don't even want to see any of those movies in the first place.
Plastic diversity is a solid term.
4:38 i am fucking CACKLING at the youthforia shade 😭
Their name shall live in infamyyy
lol omg i laughed out loud
They’re gonna have a hard time living that down 😮
Loved that you brought back the old opening image and added a bibliography in the ending section.
You're brilliant and your content is unmatched.
I’m sure they will be EQUALLY outraged to find out that Mandy Moore, the original voice actor of Rapunzel, is not of German descent. Obviously. Because they’re making the “authenticity” argument out of good faith right?… Right?
I wonder if these same people were mad when Naomi Scott a half white half indian played Jasmine a canonically Arabian princess because if that's fine than what exactly is wrong with an Indian actress playing Rapunzel
@@awhimsyreader9015 Broooo exactly! It's the selective outrage over "accuracy"
The people who are mad that Avantika!Rapunzel wouldnt be blonde….. as if Disney’s Rapunzel is a natural blonde………..
@@impossiblewolf2371 Lol that's one of the things I've been arguing for a while. There's literally a plotline in the movie where you see that when her hair is cut, the enchantment disappears and it goes back to its *default* brunette
@@impossiblewolf2371fr- Rapunzel’s a brunette😭
I think I have another perspective on this as someone who's both an artist and in anime and video game spaces. I cannot begin to tell you how many times a character has been drawn as dark skinned or black, and the artist has recieved a metric fuck ton of backlash in response. A few years ago, a black artist drew themselves as Kiki from Kiki's delivery service, and she got backlash for "appropriating Japanese culture" (nevermind that blasian people do exist, even in Japan, and Kiki is white in the movie). People were sending her racist caricatures of her drawings. I see it all the time, way before Halle was cast for the Little Mermaid, and way after that.
Christ that's godawful. In a cynical sense it's kinda funny that they'd say "black folks can relate to characters of other races fine lol they don't need representation" and then get angry when black people imagine themselves as their favorite non-black characters. Almost like the feelings of black people doesn't actually matter to their position, huh...
Thumin herself did a video on the incident. It's heartbreaking how much backlash she got over her Kiki fanart.
There's a play I've done a few years ago about an amateur theatre company performing the Three Musketeers. The playwright, TJ Young (black man), made a clear note that there are no physical characteristics (gender, sexuality, physical abilities, or race) applied to any of the characters. I wonder how the industry and the world today would say about this play right now. Also, you made some very good points. Excellent video!
*God bless you, mother. Thank you for blessing my Sunday with another video essay.*
They wanna talk about this and that but they will always forget about how Wanda and Pietro are whitewashed too, marvel “ fans “ are so funny that way.
This also goes for nightwing, robin and other Romani characters
Wanda being whitewashed has always rubbed me the wrong way, but no one has ever cared to talk about it.
@@monbub there was a wonderful video about it done by an Erik here on TH-cam but yeah a bunch of marvel fan cam accounts were actively being racist to us and our community over us pointing it out !
i’m a white girl. my favorite barbies and american girl dolls growing up were black. it BOGGLES my mind that ppl can’t empathize or relate to a character simply because they aren’t white, yet it’s something that CHILDREN are able to do. kids dgaf if they’re fave disney princess is a diff race bc they see those characters as relatable in other ways. if ur mad about it that much, don’t see the movie and let little girls enjoy their fantasy princess stories. plain and simple.
Relating to a person’s qualities, outlook or feelings? Crazy.
words can’t describe how excited i get when shanspeare posts a video over 40 minutes‼️
Girl ignoring the incredible video essay you put out as always, your hair was AMAZING today good job to you or whoever helped you
Hi Shanspeare! I first saw you this year when I watched your video on daddy issues, misogyny, and male privilege. I love your video essays, there so creative and engaging; and I appreciate how much time and research you put into them! You teach me new things everyday and I love your take in this video💖 I wanted you to know we value your hard work🫶🏾
As a german-indian I actually would‘ve been really happy about a brown rapunzel :)
Being this unhinged towards these POC actors is abhorrent. Ffs
Seriously! And they’re actually great actors and actresses it’s ridiculous
Many examples were children, that broke my heart especially
0:10 MY TEACHER IS OBSESSED WITH SHAKESPEARE… if he heard that he would go crazy and commit a crime to prove Shakespeare didnt do that
Watching Dunkirk and seeing the endless seas of brown haired white guys made me realize how valuable diversity is just for the sake of making characters easy to distinguish in cases where their race doesn't really matter
(For the record yes in Dunkirk there's an argument in favor of historical accuracy it just made me realize how nice it is to have different characters with different physical characteristics)
That's the way I felt seeing multiple princesses from Disney - Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan. As a kid it really helped distinguish these girls through their different looks. Too many people underestimate how samey characters can look if they're ALL one kind (white 😶)
Fr, I struggled so much keeping up with Dunkirk because everyone looked the same and the anachronistic timeframe wasn't made clear. I couldn't understand why Cillian Murphy was on a boat, and then on another boat, and then back on the first boat again 😅 let alone any of the other guys
@magical-soap5359 fr, of course it's possible and not too hard to make characters of the same race look different, and it can in fact be racist to imply otherwise (see "all Asians look the same!!") but having varieties in stuff like skin color and hair texture can make it so much easier to build an easily distinguishable lineup and it just makes sense to do so
LoL same, that's why I like the racial diversity in Regency-themed movies like Mr. Malcolm's List. So much easier to keep the minor characters straight.
@@magical-soap5359 when I was little, I thought Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty were the same movie 😅 could NOT tell those two apart!
i’m ab to eat so well!!
the only problem i honestly have with disney (or other companies for that matter) making their live-action remakes more diverse is that they never defend these actresses, it just feels like they send these woc actresses who are often early in their careers to the slaughter of conservative outrage
like personally, as someone creating a skam remake and planning to diversify the original material A LOT, i will stand by my actors and actresses and plan on hiring many BAME writers and editors to do their stories justice and i literally cannot fathom doing any different
@ville__ bro wtf are you talking about
@ville__ and? i'm named after a goddess lmfao what do you have
@ville__ wdym? you wanna make fun of my name on insta or what?
@ville__ sure you won't....