Linkspam: #WhitewashedOut

[davidgillon]

By the time I was three tweets into #WhitewashedOUT I wanted to beat my head against a wall.

The initial focus was Hollywood's whitewashing of several recent prominent Asian roles, Scarlett Johanssen as Major Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell, Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One in Doctor Strange, as a symptom of a wider problem within the movie industry, but it turned into an outpouring of experience of racism. @BethPhelan, who just organised #DVpit,  tweeted about her experiences as a child, and that really struck home because of the parallels with disability related bullying I experienced as a kid. Different otherness, identical hate.

The number of people tweeting about trying not to appear Asian as a kid was heartbreaking.

And the number of writers/screenwriters tweeting about being told to white out asian characters was truly disturbing.

There were the usual handful of idiots railing against it. and proving its point, but two things about them disturbed me. (I looked at a bunch of profiles, you usually find about half are blank, pointing at professional bigots running pure attack accounts, but half weren't). First, the number identifying as Trump supporters, second, the number who seemed to have some link to fandom. That 'social justice warrior' tag beloved of the Puppies was very prominent.
 

George Takei has a good take on Marvel's defence of their Doctor Strange casting: They must think we're idiots

Comments

[maramcreates]

The George Takei article you linked has this quote from the Marvel folks saying that they have a very strong record of diversity in its casting of films and regularly departs from stereotypes and source material to bring its MCU to life.

I laughed, and laughed. Oh how I laughed. It was not bitter, nor tearful, nor so very full of sarcasm.

Here's my tally of the diversity Marvel claims to have in it's MCU film lineup:

Released MCU Films With White Cis-Male (presumably) Straight Lead(s):
- Iron Man
- The Incredible Hulk
- Iron Man 2
- Thor
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Iron Man 3
- Thor: The Dark World
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Ant-Man
- Captain America: Civil War
- Doctor Strange

Yet-To-Be-Released MCU Films With White Cis-Male (presumably) Straight Lead(s):
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Captain Marvel

Ensemble MCU Films With MOSTLY White Cis-Male (presumably) Straight Lead(s):
- Marvel's The Avengers (1 out of 6 exception: The Black Widow)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2 out of 8 exception: The Black Widow, The Scarlet Witch)
- Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 (2 out of 7/8/9? exception: The Black Widow, The Scarlet Witch)
- Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2 (2 out of 7/8/9? exception: The Black Widow, The Scarlet Witch)

MCU Films WITHOUT a White Cis-Male (presumably) Straight Lead(s):
- Black Panther (a Black Cis-Male (presumably) Straight Lead)

ETA: This list doesn't even get into any of the other identities and experiences that the MCU films have left by the wayside (disability is a big one). The Netflix/TV series are exceptions, of course (though Daredevil is dubious), as are the actual rebooted comics. Not the very big money making and very prominent public face though -- the films themselves.

[the_rck]

Isn't Captain Marvel female in the Marvel universe? I know that name goes with a white guy in the DC universe, but I had the impression that Marvel's Captain Marvel was a woman named Carol Danvers. She's white, presumably cis and het, but she's not male.

Not that that undermines your point in the least. The numbers are still overwhelming white, cis, het, and male. The TV series are falling down horribly when it comes to Iron Fist, for example. The character is a white guy in the comics, but why on earth should he be that in the show? His powers come from mysterious Asian martial arts, and well, giving those to a white guy...

[maramcreates]

Thanks for clarifying that :)!

I didn't realize that it was a Ms. Marvel film (since they've consistently kept the titles separate in the comics), but hearing that they both are using her as the lead, and have rightfully retitled her as Captain, is a good step.

[the_rck]

Ms Marvel and Captain Marvel are two separate characters. Right now, in the comics, Captain Marvel is Carol Danvers (who used to be Ms Marvel), and Ms Marvel is a teenager named Kamala Khan who greatly admires Captain Marvel. So far as I know, Ms Marvel isn't going to be in the movie. I would love it if she was, but nobody's said she will be.

[maramcreates]

Yeah, I was aware of the Khan as Ms. Marvel bit of the lore, but I didn't realize that Danvers had taken on the Captain mantle.