Yes that too. Good call. Reading text formatted like that on a computer is difficult, and given my propensity to get headaches, I'd rather not deal with a sea of text like that. I need ponds.

Re: How do all of you feel when they race swap characters?
 

Plus, "race-swap" is not really accurate as to what movies do. The don't "swap" anything - they just turn caucazoid characters to minority ethnicities, but never do the reverse. To do the reverse would be seen as "racist".

Counterpoint:

"They are real. It's all real. Think about it. Haven't Luke Skywalker and Santa Claus affected your lives more than most real people in this room? I mean, whether Jesus is real or not, he... he's had a bigger impact on the world than any of us have. And the same could be said of Bugs Bunny and, a-and Superman and Harry Potter. They've changed my life, changed the way I act on the Earth. Doesn't that make them kind of "real." They might be imaginary, but, but they're more important than most of us here. And they're all gonna be around long after we're dead. So in a way, those things are more realer than any of us."

They aren’t actually real though, no matter how much influence or impact they may have on us. And it really doesn’t make a difference if Luke Skywalker or Santa or Superman or Wonder Woman or James Bond are white or black or whatever. The movie can be just as good and I can enjoy the movie just as well.

Re: How do all of you feel when they race swap characters?
 

I'm not sure "they're real because they influence us" is much of a counterpoint, because the ways in which they influence us presumably don't have a lot to do with their race.

It is a counterpoint to the notion that their "unreality" is what gives license. We may not agree with the idea as a refutation of the claim, however, it does apply pressure to the warrant that Allaby uses to support the claim.

And to anyone who contends that it doesn't matter, I invite you to take the Pepsi challenge. You either have to agree that whitewashing does not matter, or you have to agree that the ways film influence do intersect with race (i.e., which is why we criticize whitewashing).


Moreover, the crucial premise upon which "updating" franchises depends is the notion that yes, race does matter in film--that if you are a black person and don't see yourself on the screen that that hurts deeply and is marginalizing and amounts to erasure and so on. The whole idea of race swapping to increase diversity is premised on the idea that we need diversity, that racial representation matters--and not just those other ways that allegedly have nothing to do with race.

Re: How do all of you feel when they race swap characters?
 

The comparison to Santa Claus doesn't work. He's a mythical figure who can take on pretty much any form, not a character specifically created for a movie or a TV show. He's not even one character, his backstory or look varies depending on which part of the world you live in. Therefore complaining about him looking black instead of white is automatically useless and petty since there's no rigid set standard for how he "should" look like. Not to mention Santas often are from someone's own family, for example if you grow up in an Asian household it's highly unlikely that Santa will be white.

I agree it is sort of a counterpoint to the overly broad phrasing employed, and I generally find policing overly broad rhetoric to be valuable (though a lot of people find it pedantic). But in this case I think it's easy for Allaby to tweak that rhetoric and leave the underlying point.

I agree that it poses a challenge to the idea that it matters at all, though I think, like the above, it's less a rebuttal and more just something that forces the person to further explain or develop their position.

In this case the contradiction would be mostly avoided by suggesting that minorities benefit more from seeing representation in media than majorities do. I find that a little pat (and the kind of thing that becomes self-fulfilling the more we choose to focus on it), personally, but it's internally consistent.

Agreed, and you saying this has made me think about each character's creator. There's a tricky ethical thing involved there, since characters are enduring works of art and it's not entirely clear what we owe to the people who conceived them after they're gone.

Sure, if you're in China, then a Chinese Santa Claus makes sense. If you're in Africa, a black Jesus makes sense, right? Is there a reason, however, that we might need to systematically "update" Santa Claus in America? Not that this is happening - there are so many depictions of Santa (film, TV, toys, cards, cartoons, figurines, books, mall Santas, parents in red pajamas) that everyone can get the Santa they want. However, if you woke up tomorrow and our cultural depictions of Santa were systematically flipped to say... ...Asian Santa that would be a bit odd, wouldn't it?

Re: How do all of you feel when they race swap characters?
 

It would, but you know that never could happen, and that hypothetical scenario still makes no sense.

(On another note, Jesus is logically much closer to black than white since the usual depiction of him as Caucasian is a revionist image)

But this just amounts to accepting one of the horns of the dilemma; "Yes, race does matter in terms of representation." And this amounts to a contradiction of the original claim, "No, race does not matter."



The claim that it does not matter has been replaced by a new claim: Asymmetry of racial representation is justified because minorities need it more. However, doesn't this logic seem to validate the obnoxious complaint that "diversity" just translates to the demand "be less white"?


Audiences are generally fine with creating new characters that are diverse, but resistant to established properties being altered (especially if the justification is that race matters). There is always room at the top, but the systemic swapping of redheads, for example, with African Americans does not suggest room at the top, but rather a contest over who will top a hierarchy--exclusion wearing the mask of inclusion, a writing over, a palimpsest of cultural alteration (e.g., not unlike the Christian church appropriating a pagan holiday and making it Christ's B-Day). And if our only answer in light of historical re-writing is "turnabout is fair play," this is a little too close to "might makes right."



The pendulum is always swinging. History is rife with over-corrections. I don't think that there has ever been a time when art has truly been fair. Someone is always getting the short end of the stick. The challenge is not be complacent (fatalism, giving up) and not be chronocentric (that prejudice for the "now" which assumes that we finally have the balance right, unlike our foolish ancestors), but to keep working to get the balance right.

I think it's more of a clarification than a contradiction, because I think "race does not matter" is not the core claim, but an argument in service of the core claim, which is actually "it's okay/good to swap races of characters so more minorities are depicted."

I agree with this.

Actually, Coca-Cola set the standard (for the U.S. anyway). ;)

Thought this comment might go nice with the previously mentioned "Pepsi challenge"!

I think "olive-skinned" is closer to it. However, I am fine with "White Jesus" for white people in the same way that I am fine with "Black Jesus" for black people and I wouldn't take the appropriated image away from either group. Culture is appropriation. It's really a question of how we appropriate and why. If, for example, you want a racialized Jesus because you're praying to an ethno-nationalist God, that's not good at all. Identity, especially racial identity, is a dangerous game. We don't want to make villains of "others," but is there not also danger in habitually making "heroes" of ourselves?

Re: How do all of you feel when they race swap characters?
 

Referring back to the OP - there was a reference made to Halle Berry.
I think they were talking about Zoe Kravitz playing Catwoman in the recent The Batman (2022) film.

However, Halle Berry did play "Catwoman" in an eponymously titled film from 2004, but that was not an issue of race changing as Berry did not portray "Selina Kyle" (the identity of the traditional Catwoman), but was a different character altogether.

In any case, both actresses are mixed race: Halle Berry has one black & one white parent, Zoe Kravitz's parents are both half black & half white.

I don't think there is any question that there are some advocates for diversity who maybe go too far, or whose arguments may be hypocritical. Like anything, not everyone is a great ambassador for every cause. So you can argue these things on a case by case basis....but probably not very well with anyone who goes around calling this race swapping. Something weird and paranoid about such a term. Especially since, the vast majority of the time, the change has no substantive difference whatsoever and so why anyone cares is well beyond me. Well, maybe not entirely beyond me. I can always theorize in private

Despite depictions, I always imagined Jesus looking nothing like me (or Jeffrey Hunter, Max von Sydow, or Willem Dafoe), but like a middle-eastern, Semitic man based on his heritage as the son of before-common-era Jews.

Ertha Kitt did play Selena Kyle/Catwoman on the TV show, right?