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My facebook has been ablaze with the War of the Rings of Power, and by that I mean Amazon putting out tons of propaganda to indicate that everyone is racist for not liking the the Rings of Power, followed by half of the people saying no that doesn't make us racist, and the other half saying they just don't like it because it's a bad show. A similar thing is going on for the Little Mermaid, too. Alas, that these evil days should be mine.
The thing that strikes me is that no one is saying the obvious. To me, and I'll guess to many others, I really don't mind diversification of media. Or, that is to say, I wouldn't mind it, if it weren't for the fact that it's now the norm, it's practically mandatory for any show that doesn't want to be cancelled by internet SJWs, it's crammed down my throat everywhere, and it's turned into a major moral issue where half the audience browbeats the other. I feel like I'm being subjected to someone else's religion.
But that woke audience always comes back to "Why are you against black people playing roles? What are you, racist?" Well, no, I honestly don't think I'm racist. But in the position I'm put in, I get that I am taking actions that a racist would. The only difference is that a true racist would be against black people being cast no matter what, and I am only against it being mandatory and moralized. But since we live in this world, where it is mandatory and moralized, does that mean that there's nothing that would really satisfy me short of black people not being cast?
I don't quite think so. Another point that the woke audience comes to is "They clearly just thought that Halle Berry was the best person to play Ariel". And really, I think the answer to that is, no, they clearly prioritize diversity casting. She is black and they want to cast lots of black people because it scores them points with the woke crowd (and possibly also because it drums up controversy, which may be good for business). And then on top of that, they thought she'd be fine for the part. I don't know how I can prove that, but it just seems evident to me that diversity casting for its own sake is something that is being given high priority. In some limited cases, it's possible to prove it, such as with Ryan Condal, the showrunner for House of the Dragon who indicated that they cast black people to play Valerians explicitly for the purpose of diversity-washing. However, I'm guessing that Condal regrets saying that outright, because it's not a good look. It gives the other side ammo and also casts doubt as to whether the people hired really would have earned the spot on merit alone.
At this point. I don't really know what it would take to convince me that most castings of black people are not just to fill a quota. But this puts me in a tough spot, because I don't really want to be racist in action, even if I know I'm not in thought.
Much has been said on that in the past. Me recently on exploiting the story to convey a different message, Pageau making basically the same point exactly 25 months ago, my first post here on the purpose of storytelling (and other discussions around those posts of course), that's just what's comes to mind on the spot.
What I want to know is, do black people even like this sort of diversity&representation?
Pandering to black people (and other minorities) is a legitimate tactic. There's over a billion of them globally, more than whites in fact, and over 40 million in the US. If they act like a classical self-interested minority with Talebian skin in the game, i.e. sleep on a yet another movie with a pretty white girl MC, whereas white people won't boycott black Ariel (white people are, as often shown, the only group with an almost-nonexistent general ingroup preference and have no skin in the game), then it's only prudent to give them what they want.
Do they want it? Clearly they were crazy about Black Panther. Black Panther is, aside from being a better-than-average and more imaginative capeshit title, a coherent movie inherently valorizing black people. Not something with random canonically white characters that got race-swapped to make a political point. I don't expect any mass demographic to have discerning tastes, but surely they ought to feel somewhat more connection to a story about their people than to a story featuring their phenotypes.
Same for other demographics. The Chinese were, if memory serves, turned off by Shang Chi and thought it's stereotyping them as ugly, and not too happy with Mulan either. On the other hand, there was some angry noise about Scarlett Johansson and whitewashing in that unfortunate GiTS adaptation, but maybe that was just woke journalists. Did «Pacific Islanders» appreciate Jason Momoa in Aquaman? (For what it's worth, I did. A superhero movie, it seems, can only be interesting when it's unapologetic silly kitsch on steroids, or a deconstruction/an almost classical movie loosely inspired by source franchise, like Nolan stuff or Joker.)
Did «Hispanics» love Alita? Did South Asians appreciate Raya?
It has nothing to do with pandering to Africans, who are disproportionately poor and, frankly, have a variety of cultures very different from Americans. When Black Panther was released the international premier was in Korea (vastly richer) not anywhere in Africa.
It is all about pandering to black people and "allied" whites especially, who are themselves a large bloc who want to signal progressive views on race via media consumption.
Actual African culture can be pretty incredible. For example, there's a huge country and bluegrass scene in anglophone Subsaharan Africa (sorry about the paywall: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/whats-behind-africas-love-affair-with-country-music). Other western musical genres have caught on too in odd places; there's a death metal scene in Angola, for example.
Yeah, that was too strong and even contradicts my more ambivalent take on the relationship here
I think it's fair to say that Africans consume American culture like most people in the world, even if, on certain matters, they are very opposed to progressive American mores. But, just as Disney still sells movies to Arab nations cause people will watch it if these things aren't rubbed in their face, Africans will also watch.
But they're still a relatively very small market and, imo, don't really influence Disney and co. that much besides being a place to be mined. IMO you can see this throughout Black Panther; the themes, the casting, even facts about Wakanda (e.g. religion based on ancient Egypt which seems to be more about African-American fascinations with that country rather than the actual religions Africans follow) all give priority to African-American concerns.
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