A lot of “fantasy” series are based on european history. Ex, “berserk” is set in medieval europe, and has accuracies down to royal court systems, seige weapon types, etc. Lord of the Rings is heavily based on Nordic mythology and is intended to be a sort of european history. Later bits even incorporate elves with arthurian times.
Yeah, there were non-white people in medieval europe. But the majority was white.
Fantasies like star wars…which are not supposed to be real-life culture based, have no excuse for not being incredibly diverse. However, old european culture was mostly white. Just like it would be weird to write about old chinese culture and have only 1/6th of the characters be chinese. Just like there is european-based fantasy, there are fantasies for other culture. Marvel is fantasy. Black Panther, and Wakanda, are completely fictional. However, it is fantasy that is rooted in African culture and, thus, this is the cast:
I might get some flac for this, but I think representing cultures in their accurate demographic is not inherently racist.
Making an entire planet, with no clear historical placement? Might be a little weird if everyone is a white man.
Making a book about your home irish culture and mythology? You can make it historically pertain to old irish populations.
Making a book about your home nigerian culture and mythology?
You can make it historically pertain to old nigerian populations.
Making a book about your home japanese culture and mythology? You can make it historically pertain to old japanese populations.
Cultures existing and being loved is not racist.
When your “cultural accurate” fantasy involves painting dark-skinned people as evil, as Tolkein does with the orcs and with the humans who serve Sauron, then it sure as hell fucking is racist.
If you want your fantasy old European world to be historically inaccurately 100% white, you know what fine, but then at least fucking stick to it. If everyones white there’s no need to make the evil orcs, or evil dark evils dark-skinned, is there? Outside, of course, of unconscious racial biases.
Also, i’m going to need racist white folks like verymaedhros to stop pulling up black panther whenever they wanna silence us or pull a “i got u. now you black ppl can just shut up u have your rep.” Bcs i cannot count how many times i’ve had to run into white people who think that now because black panther exists, we should be quiet and ignore racism. It’s annoying and if anything, shit like this just shows white people are getting even more racist.
and basically yes to @dntfitthenarrative. There’s a huge problem when white authors are portraying poc as the bad guys. And the think about Tolkien is that he rips from many cultures of color, yet still paints those very people as evil, that is wrong.
That isn’t “cultures existing and being loved”. That is taking a culture and the people belonging to it and disrespecting them. It literally takes a racist white person to see that an assume that it’s “cultures existing and being loved”…
@verymaedhros the all Blackness of Wakanda is based off an alternate timeline of ours where they stopped British Imperialism and any other outsiders. There’s a story reason.
Now find the story reason in all the European based fantasies to be devoid of PoC ESPECIALLY when there have been PoC throughout the history of Europe.
mod v
One film out of thousands does not even the playing field. Not even in the slightest.
People of color always need “a reason” ™ to appear in some fictional work, but we’ve been taught to just accept that white folks exist everywhere through all of time… when, in reality, the perceived ubiquitousness of whiteness is due to imperialism and colonialism.
The sole “reason” people of color should be able to appear in fantasy, sci-fi, etc. is because we exist in real life.
-ren
I love how @verymaedhros mentions there were POC, more specifically black people in ye olde englande then goes on to make the ridiculous comparison of making a Chinese story only have 1/6th Chinese people in it. White fantasy stories have NO POC in, let alone 1/6th. Like, you missed your own point. And majority does not mean the only representative. Majority does not mean 99%.
Also, Tolkien specifically mentions brown hobbits, as the most numerous kind, so the movies were white as heck for 0 reasons. I’m not defending him, the above points are very much valid too, but even Tolkien knew brown skin existed and put it in his fantasy novel (but he did make the whiter ones the leaders sooooooooo)
If a story has dragons, then it is no longer based in truth. If it has magic, it is no longer a historical novel. It is a fantasy, and therefore has no historical excuse to be super white, regardless of the region it is based in.
funeral-biscuit 