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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.
Audiences appear 2 to want shows with characters that look like them. If this is true, which data suggests, then the inclusion of diverse characters necessarily makes shows less enjoyable for the majority. There are obvious exceptions to this rule like Squid Game, which many people found enjoyable despite featuring mostly mono-ethnic protagonists (and stereotypical, poorly written white villains who appear for ~20 minutes). There’s also K-Dramas, which many white women adore.
In general racial groups express ingroup preference, with one major exception.
I can give you an uncharitable reading of that chart where there's a straightforward connection to how they react to any casting decision that is "whitewashed" compared to any casting decision that removes white people. Even comes complete with the requisite "good ones" who are okay as long as they don't step out of line a la Gina Carano or Chris Pratt, but I don't believe that is an accurate summary of the situation. We know these people and we see how they express their opinions.
Their ingroup preference is for cosmopolitanism. They genuinely loved Hamilton. It's not that they think a black actress playing Anne Boleyn was a sensible casting decision. They cheer it because they want to live in a world where Meghan Markle can be the Queen of England and where the Obama's being King and Queen of America was very important. This is where they depart from the agnostics and the people who used to argue for colorblind casting decisions and why enjoying Bollywood or Korean media or anime doesn't track the same - those latter examples can be enjoyed by anyone who doesn't rate extremely in the negative in openness to experience. Those are expressions and a product of a different society, not ours.
This is explicitly about seeing the world they want ours to be, which is why it doesn't actually track America's current demographics and even why that link has "Latinx" in it. The political discourse in America is very black and white and as a reflection of their values they want an overrepresentation of black people in casting for the same reason I want Ana de Armas in casting.
I think this is where you see the overreaches that are causing this friction, too. Most of these shows are bad and the existence of this type of casting is almost like a shit test that people, myself included, will use to tell us if the showrunner respects the work. Was Wheel of Time bad because they rainbow casted a remote village in the countryside? Not exclusively, even if I thought the actor for Perrin was terrible. It was bad because they made a bunch of nonsensical choices and that one was the most obvious tell before watching it. But The Witcher Season 1 wasn't bad, it was mediocre. How did it achieve this with the casting of Triss being much worse than Perrin? Henry Cavill actually cared about it.
And that's where it's awry. These shows would work if the people making them cared about the artwork more than the art as a representation of their politics. The people making whatever Gina Carano is doing now have the same problem.
You can go back and see how this worked before. Here's Killswitch Engage covering Dio's fantasy setting video of Holy Diver where they added a dude in a dress and some diversity. Why did this work? Because it was reflective of the people making it who clearly loved and respected the source material and had joy in what they were doing. The big new anime in Japan right baits a lesbian relationship between its two main characters and an important story element involves one of their gay dads' interracial relationship. This sounds like an enormous red flag of a descriptor for something new out of Hollywood but no one really cares even in the places on the English side of the internet where you might expect they would because that's not the entire point of the show.
Au contraire the problem is when the show baits but doesn't deliver, like with the Euphonium anime. It even has a name as it has become a trope: "Yuri Baiting".
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