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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   30842 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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No. You are still missing the point I was trying to make. By all means, perhaps it matters that the characters are white. My argument is that (the pro-race-blind-casting position is that) it shouldn't matter if a character who is theoretically white within the story is played by an actor who is visibly black. This is precisely what I meant about Hobbit genetics being neither here nor there to the debate: I am not denying that the Hobbits are meant to be white. I am saying that you can cast a bunch of black actors as white Hobbits.

Are you saying that when we see black actors on the screen or the stage, we should imagine they are actually white (if the characters are supposedly white)?

I am not sure if you're trolling or serious.

Like, first of all, are you proposing that this is actually the intent of casting black women as Viking leaders and black people as elves and hobbits? Like, the director was thinking "This black actress is actually playing a white Swedish man, but she really nailed the role and the audience will get that she's actually supposed to be a white man? And the audience watching black elves and hobbits will just imagine them being white?"

I think that is extraordinarily unlikely. I don't think anyone from the director to the actors were actually thinking that, and they certainly didn't intend the audience to think that, and imagine if anyone did say "Actually, their characters are really white." That would... not be accepted. It would be black erasure. It would be white fragility for being unable to imagine characters as anything but white. It would #hollywoodsowhite and white supremacy. Come on.

There is a thin argument to be made for affirmative action in casting, and likewise a thin argument based on historical inequity to say "It's okay to cast a black actor as a historically white character but not okay to cast a white character as a historically black character." I don't really agree with this (I think some roles don't matter much - a black James Bond, sure. A black King Arthur? Please. Hamilton was a special case where casting everyone as black was intentional to make a point) but I get why the one provokes outrage and the other we're just supposed to accept.

But when you go all-in on detaching race and physical appearance from any kind of historical or fictional verisimilitude, but only ever in one direction, that doesn't seem like affirmative action, that seems like a fuck you that they are basically daring you to object to. I am not fond of the frequent alt-right claims of "humiliation rituals," but goddamn if this doesn't feel like it.

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