Immediately grabbing the racism buzzword with both hands and their mouths
heroichollywood.com/titans-ann…
www.syfy.com/syfywire/titans-a…
================
Why is it that the exact moment I'm critical about something the hatedom immediately becomes toxic? Then again this does provide more validation for how the Teen Titans fandom is the worst one ever.
Once, I gave a brief piece on the upcoming Titans TV series, and I took the time to talk about how Starfire was portrayed by a black actress. The actress is another brick in an Instagram closure following numerous heated comments, and since this is 2018, they pin it on racism. I'm in between on this one, and naturally, I'm going to give my piece and I might be all over the place.
Why using a black actress was a mistake.
Do note that this has nothing to do with the actor's chops or competence. They could have it, but it's all down to being in the wrong place at the right time.
Let's go over the character. Almost all of the time, Starfire was portrayed not as white, but generally orange. Whatever the case, it's certainly not close to what Titans has in mind. It just doesn't feel right and feels like a far cry from what's been firmly established (though I will say Anna Diop looks a hell of a lot better than the Starfire in the 2003 anime.
Along with that, my issue with this is that it just feels like a forced entry. Again, referring to the 2015 Fantastic Four movie, there was no purpose in casting Johnny Storm as black, in spite of every other entry doing it differently, and the director only did it to base it on his family. These days they do it for the sake of progressivism, but honestly, it just feels like another form of racism. They treat black people like objects, a means to an end, and throw them into roles not suited for them just so the creators could look woke and progressive.
If I were to be so bold and suggest a way to be progressive, why not make one of the characters gay? How about Beast Boy? He's no man's man and he seems like he could veer into any territory and an episode focusing on sexuality could make for some interesting internal drama that could be exploited by the villain. Or, they could revive Jinx and she could form a rapidly developing friendship with Raven. If they bring her back and they decide to return her to her roots in evil, it could lead to a character arc where Jinx gains some serious development and veers closer to the side of good, and again, an interesting way to explore sexuality. That makes more sense than just turning a character black and then calling it a day.
Same sexuality: Exploration.
Turning characters black for no reason: Exploitation.
If you want to include a black person in your show, just make it into a new character. Do what you want with it, your sick means of progressivism and her(im) being able to do everything flawlessly would surface nicely I could tell.
================
Now for the elephant in the room. How bad was the apparent racism toward Diop? Well, the articles I've seen didn't provide any screenshots of comments displaying the supposed racial remarks, so, people are talking out their ass and continue the racist ideology that black people can't hold their own when it comes to stuff like this.
While we're at it, if we're so hellbent on turning characters black in order to promote diversity, that upcoming Roseanne spin-off would do fine if they replaced every actor with a new roster of black and muslim actors, that way nobody could say shit about it unless they want to be called racist.
==============
My point is, don't let diversity or racial qualms get in the way of a bad casting choice.
 |
| In more positive news, I'm looking forward to the new Invader Zim movie. |
No comments:
Post a Comment