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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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What is the BBC media you are referring to? A cursory search does not tell me.

As for fictional characters, I don't think it has been conclusively shown that there is any obligation for them to claim they aren't adhering to the original depictions.

Google "history is a whitewash"

But this discussion has happened before, and will happen again. And people will pretend not to remember to score points.

Fair enough, that example does seem to be a case of social commentary, in which case, I would agree that there is an obligation to get things right. But not all media is trying to do social commentary.

In cases where characters are raceswapped, it seems like most of it these days is trying social commentary, even if on a meta level. To my eyes, at least.

Turning a character that was long considered white in the original text and all of its adaptations may not have have anything in-universe turn on it. But you can just go ahead and read the press release or the creator's Twitter page to figure out why this is happening. They may even say something like "I only did this because I thought this was novel and interesting!", but then quickly reveal that what makes it novel/interesting is pushing back against white male patriarchy or whatever.