Gamora is green -> a black woman was cast to play her
Maz Kanata is orange -> a black woman was cast to play her
Mantis has antennae -> an asian woman was cast to play her
Starfire is orange -> a black woman was cast to play her
And I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting now. Can you see the problem? White women get leading roles playing themselves, but woc are not even allowed to play humans.
Mod A.
This has been going on for so long, I’m always surprised when people don’t see it. People of color – if we’re cast at all – are always cast as animal sidekicks,
(shrek became human and was a white dude under all that green so – this movie counts for my purposes) elves, orcs, monsters, robots, rarely anything human and usually under makeup.
We’re referred to as monkeys and robots and elves in speculative fiction,
and our struggles are used to make allegories about racism and oppression in a fantastical setting. But even those roles are given to white people.
We can’t exist in white stories except as the exotic other: purple aliens, monkeys, robots. Because that’s how we’re seen in real life.
But most of the time, we aren’t even cast at all. Often in fiction, white faces wear oppression to the tell the stories of brown people.
We either aren’t cast at all or we’re asked to play something non-human.
It’s nothing new.
Exactly and this is also true for other pieces of animated media such as Brother Bear, The Princess and the Frog, or Emperor’s New Groove where the protagonists are people of color who spend most of the movie as animals.
Mod A.
There is an entire industry of books about PoC being cast as “the other” in SFF media, and it’s been happening as far back as The sixties.
L.J.'s Obsessions 