History is grand and strange and true periods of isolationism and ethnic hemogyny are rare.
Who are you even talking about I’ve never heard people complaining about this, do you have anyone in specific who does this?
I don’t know if you’re being purposely ignorant, but this shit happens all the time. Also applies to those who complain about “forced diversity” in fantasy films
Congrats you found one tweet about some random fucker complaining. Also were there any black romans? I don’t know.
You said you have NEVER heard people complain about this. They provided an example of someone complaining about it. Don’t shift goal posts.
And yes, there were Black Romans. The Roman Empire included, like, parts of Africa.
You found one twitter post that doesn’t constitute it happening “all the time” as they call it. I actually read that wiki link they gave me and Africans were slaves in the Roman Empire not free citizens.
On Africans being slaves in the Roman Empire: First of all, you’re just factually wrong. Second of all, your fundamental assumption–that the categories of “slave” and “free citizen” in Rome were unchanging and tied to our modern conception of race–is also wrong. Your sentence itself simply makes no sense in the Roman context.
On the first point, Africans born free Roman citizens:
Septimius Severus, born in modern-day Libya to a father of Punic and maybe Berber ancestry and an Italian mother, rose to Emperor of Rome. He is one of at least six African Roman emperors. Is that distinguished enough for you? Free citizen enough?
Marcus Cornelius Fronto, also a Libyan, was a Roman citizen from birth and a prominent scholar and rhetorician, said to be second only to Cicero.
Lusius Quietus was a Berber prince whose family gained Roman citizenship for his father’s service to Rome. He became a Roman general and governor of Judea.
On the second point, Africans who were slaves but became free, showing the falseness of your assumption that you can only be one or the other:
Publius Terentius Afer, a slave of Berber descent, was freed for his considerable talents and became a celebrated playwright.
Marcus Tullius Tiro was a slave and personal secretary of Cicero who was later freed. He invented a method of shorthand and wrote and edited a number of books.
Reylo’s “We’re not racist. we just don’t like Finnrey”
Also Reylos: Finnrey’s interactions aren’t good enough for them to see how a friendship between them can become romantic. They say that Finn will remain in the friendzone. Yet Finnrey’s scenes are enough for them to whitewash Finn to replace him with Kylo. And suddenly maniped, faked Reylo scenes taken from canon Finnrey scenes are good enough to prop it as romantic Reylo.
If Adam Driver was casted as Finn instead of John.
1. They wouldn’t be erasing his character for someone else in the gifs/edits that they make.
2. They would not be saying “Finn got friendzoned” the way that they do with John’s Finn
I may be wrong, but i haven’t seen any manip of a scene replacing Finn with kylo
You might be wrong about not seeing such manips or about such manips not existing? Because you seem to be conflating the two. But if you want to see for yourself there are examples here, here, and here.
Weirdos: lol people actually think that Rey and Finn have any romantic chemistry with each other??? LAME
Rey: *gives Finn a once over while smirking* I’ve never seen a Resistance fighter before
Finn: you gotta boyfriend????
Me: I have already named their children
Weirdos: [take that shot of Rey and edit it so she’s giving Kylo the once over instead] OMG this is PERFECT! That look is so REYLO!! They’re so going to have babies, all of them played by Finn Wolfhard!!!
The author of the story, Kevin Kwan, reportedly felt pressure to whitewash his characters. EW writes that “during one early meeting with one potential producer who wanted to adapt the novel, Kwan says he was even asked to reimagine his protagonist as a white woman. “I was like, ‘Well, you’ve missed the point completely,’ ” he recalls. “I said, ‘No, thank you.’
”Ultimately, the movie may be about Asian people, but its themes are universal. [ Jon M.] Chu says that “it’s just such a beautiful story, to show an Asian-American immigrant going back to Asia and finding the things that overlap and connect us all, things like family, things like love.”
why does he NEED to defend his all ASIAN cast for a movie called crazy rich ASIANS. What idiot was like “ok I know it says asian but how about Scandinavians?”
Given they managed to whitewash a movie (Ghost in the Shell) in which all the characters were literally Japanese and the entire story took place in JAPAN???? I’m not surprised folks are actually asking about this lol
I hope they keep shaming those producers. Even without naming them publicly, just cultivating the understanding is a power move
People of color are expected to empathize with white characters in every medium. Hollywood doesn’t want to cast us, but they want our money. But man, put the shoe on the other foot-let the hero of a story be a Chinese woman? And they can’t manage.
“-because the interrogation scene was soooo sexy and the bridal carry? True love! Kyle O. wanted to beat up whathisface because he was standing next to Rey tee hee! *sigh* Also the gay boy (I love him!!) and Rey don’t have any chemistry whatsoever but crop him out of his scenes with Rey to add Kale and it’s instant sexay. Kal Rogo did nothing wrong in his life uwu it was a war and he was abused from the womb so everything’s ok and he’ll come back for his little Rey of sunshine! Disney would be crazy to pass on those cash cow Rey/o babies anyway so suck on that antis right Rey/o fam? And that’s the Tea.”
I like the part where it says they were “scared of backlash” if they casted a white guy, as if the only two options were make the movie with a white guy or don’t make it at all. There are plenty of noteworthy Asian American actors and, even if there weren’t, movies sell because they have an entertaining concept more than who is in them, as if the recent box office didn’t already tell us this.
In response to someone saying every female character in Star Wars is an uninspiring white woman, I made this
Sorry, but this is a pretty bad example. It only proves our point. I can’t believe you actually added Oola (1st column, 6th row). I remember her from Return of The Jedi because she was the first woc I recognized as black from the films, BUT she was a slave, had no lines and dies almost immediately. Most of the women on this list either have: unnatural skin tones, no screen-time, few lines, or are extras. The woman in the 3rd column, 3rd row doesn’t even do anything in The Force Awakens. She’s fearing for her life in that picture because she’s about to die—none of that’s inspiring?
Also, its important to know that people have called SW out for casting woc, especially with dark skin, and painting them (e.g. Mary Oyaya who plays Liminara, Femi Tayor who plays Oola, etc.) or having them use cgi (Lupita Nyong’o who plays Maz Kanata). Michael K. Williams getting recast in the Han Solo film is evidence of this. It’s a thing that goes on in other sci-fi genres too if you pay close attention (except Star Trek). White women like Padme (Natalie Portman), Leia (Carrie Fisher, RIP), Rey (Daisy Ridley), Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) and Kira (Emilia Clarke)…are all main roles. You can’t counter an argument about race and the majority of white [passing] women in SW and then proceed to include a list of aliens with unnatural skin colors. Adding the the aliens with unnatural skin doesn’t help because it shows without them, the list would be a lot smaller and you’d finally see that the remaining woc with natural skin tones aren’t significant roles.
Another thing about using a selection of variously non-white aliens (or even the assumption that the aliens are “POC”) is that the non-humans are the oppressed races under the Empire and FO. They’re human supremacists. When non-humans are cast (or read) as POC, it’s saying poc fit the narrative as non-humans more than as humans.
Of course, the bigotry of the Empire and FO is bad and the Rebellion/Resistance is more accepting of other races. But it’s lazy to code the aliens as POC (except of course for “hot” aliens like Kit Fisto). It’s not challenging the audience, because most otherize the other races.
If the humans in the SW universe don’t discriminate by human skin color, why are so many “poc” characters not human?
Yeah you tried op but failed. It’s been known for decades that sw and scifi in general has issues with race and gender and its intersections
Of course these women are all great and inspiring. No one’s contesting that. As others above me have said, though, the problem is that the franchise doesn’t recognize their awesomeness beyond small roles and nonhuman cgi. Padme is essentially a whitewashed role, too, with an Indian name and a lot of Asian traditional dress, erasing both Indian women and Natalie Portman’s Jewish culture.
“But we don’t erase Finn from his own scenes!”
Yeah. Bull-fucking-shit. Here’s a random example I found like within seconds:
I think you can tell where Rey’s smile comes from, but here’s a reminder:
Why hello there Finn! I mean blurring him out and pretending Kill a Ram is in his place doesn’t even make sense because, in case you haven’t noticed, Adumbrate Screwdriver who plays him is a fucking giant and no way could Daisy look him eye to eye so close up unless she were standing on a conveniently placed crate.
But thanks for confirming Rey looks at Finn lovingly, I guess. It’s funny how in EVERY SINGLE SHIP whose shippers regularly shit on Finn and Rey’s chemistry, those same shippers also take Finnrey moments and “repurpose” them for their own ship.
And no, when I took the screenshot this post had over 200 notes and no one had said a damned thing. A sizeable number of shippers don’t know or don’t care about the whitewashing.
L.J.'s Obsessions 
