this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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I won't dispute that there are some genuinely awful people masquerading as media critics on YouTube nowadays (coughcoughcriticaldrinkercoughnerdrotic), or that there is a chunk of the population who simply tune into their ragebait in search of opinions to plug into their brains. Those "media critics" could be comic book fans. I wouldn't know, I don't watch their channels. But if that were the sole driving force, why wasn't there a conservative outcry when Nick Fury, who was white in some comics and black in others, was portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson in the MCU? I find it difficult to believe conservative talking heads would ever pass up an excuse to complain about something like that if there was any kernel of truth to it.
More importantly, why was there backlash against Ariel from people on the left who did not object to Miles Morales?
There absolutely was a conservative freak out over black Nick Fury. It happened when super hero comics were not full blown mainstream yet. Also before hyper centralized social media. So it wasn't really a talking point outside of niche spaces. Like any specific anger, over a single character, it was drowned in the flood of the next outrages. After so many years it is now just who Nick Fury is, because he was black when super hero media truly broke into the mainstream. It is easier to get people mad about things they are used to, changing, rather than try to get them mad that Nick was made black before gen z really became the primary consumer of marvel media.
However, in 2001, it was a hot button issue at the comic book store. I heared many racist rants about it.
Okay. I'll concede that first point, and that conservatives fit the meme perfectly. I'm pretty sure the meme isn't exclusively talking about conservatives, though. What about the second point?
More than conservatives are racist. A LOT of people fall into racist practices without even understanding that they are. Just because you aren't being intentional, doesn't mean what you are doing isn't racist. This is why systemic racism exists. People default to recognizing when something is happening to them, but not so much others. They do what is best for them, assuming it works best for everyone, and are unaware of the harm it does. They see that white characters get changed, because they notice things that affect white their own. Then they get mad, because their surface level understanding of whitewashing, isn't enough to grasp that these are not the same thing. So they go "hey, why when make non-white white, bad, but when white made non-white, not bad?" They then don't have the information, and critical thinking tools, on the subject, to understand eliminating representation of minority populations, in their society, does a lot of harm to those communities, that changing the odd majority figure out, does not.
If being mad about Ariel being a different race in the remake is solely attributable to racism, why weren't they mad about Miles Morales?
I'm not mad because Ariel is black now. I'm mad because they changed her race rather than create a new character. I'd be more mad if a black character became white in a remake.
With Aeriel they made it VERY clear that race was the reason so many people were mad. Literally said it was because they race swapped her. The complaints about the actress completely drowned out the, continued, complaints of yet another remake. There were a lot of people mad about Morales. It wasn't as hammered home, but it was there. Then it did well, so the grift dropped it, and moved on. It also doesn't matter if there weren't. Just because you can cherry pick a handful of instances where it wasn't the case, does not dismiss the long, consistent, history of there being far more outrage, amonst white people, over white/male characters being race/gender swapped, than there is about whitewashing.
If the key reason people are mad about a movie, is because it is bad, then the bad script/acting/directing/etc will be the forefront of the conversation. Not the race/gender swap, and other reasons brought up as a reaction to being called bigots.
"The reason not as many people got mad at Spiderverse is not because they created a new character with his own story that isn't tied to Peter Parker's in any way, instead of just painting Peter Parker black and leaving everything else the same, but because the racism machine malfunctioned that day."
Oh my god, fuck you.
Sure, some conservative grifters are going to get mad when they see a black person no matter what. But the fact that a lot more people, including many self-professed libs, got mad at Ariel should probably tell you that the fact that those grifters exist doesn't mean that everyone who dislikes it when characters are race swapped is a conservative who just flies into a rage whenever they see a black person.
I'm not sure whether you're trolling or not, and at this point I don't care. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.
If what you wrote is actually what you think I said, there is no purpose in continuing, because you are just making up shit, and ascribing it to me. No where did I say that literally everyone who didn't like a thing was a conservative, racist. The meme shows very plain examples where the fore-front rage was the swap. While literally ignorinf whitewashing. I made my argument on that. You had to cherry pick from a minority of options to make your comment. Then You fabricated something I did not say, to claim the "win", and leave, in righteous indignation.
I feel like this is a thing. I feel like this might be a very well known type of bad argument. Like some sort of fallacious logic, or something. Go ahead an continue to tell yourself, whatever you need to, to claim that the race swapping anger isn't rooted racism. Have fun.
You don't think everyone who gets mad at race swapping is racist, but when I point out examples of people liking one thing that was race swapped white to black but not another, and present an argument for why, and another argument regarding why no one got mad at the first three items in the meme, you don't even address them. You simply refuse to accept any explanation besides racism and accuse me of cherry-picking.
Is racism present? Sure. Is it the primary driving force you're making it out to be? Fuck no.
If all you want is to be mad, then just say that. No one's stopping you.
If the reason people were mad about aeriel had more to do with it being a bad movie, just another example of disney remaking shit, then why was the dialogue so far on the side of the race swap, that it drowned out all other possible complaints, to the point that they were rarely brought up, except as a reaction to being called racist?
Yes, pointing to one example, where the thing didn't happen, is cherry picking. There will always be exceptions. You need to establish a strong pattern of behavior, over time, one common enough to be a counter weight. There very much is a long history, with a strong pattern, of whitewashing being shrugged off by the same general crowd whining about race/gender swaps away from the white normative. However the opposite is far less common.
I didn't address the first three items in the meme because the community that does, in fact, know better, was the community most angry about the race swap away from white/male characters, and largely silent about these example. From the local comic/gaming shop, to the online fora, to the indy media focused on the subject, there was a barrage of hate towards things being shifted away from white, near silence on whitewashing, and lots of bad faith arguments like "but what if panther white?" to the point where it made valid criticism of these media a distant second, at best, talking point, and, as I previously stated, became the major talking point, in any given conversation, when people pointed to the racism in the reaction. I had already touched on that.
Also, as a side note, I find it weird that you point to liberals, also doing things, as some defense against it being racist. There are plenty of liberal minded people, with BLM signs in their yards, that call the police the moment they see a black guy, they don't know, walking in their neighborhood.
No I don't think everyone who has lodged a complaint about making a charater another race/gender/sexuality is a bigot for it. There is a discussion to be had about the negative impacts of things like rainbow capitalism. However, outside of predominently leftist spaces, that is rarely the conversation. When a movie comes out, that has a minority swap, in general spaces, for the communities of fans of the material, the zeitgeist of those topics is large reactionary, racist, anger.
Are there reasons to be critical of this type of thing, that isn't bigoted at the roots? Sure. Are non-bigoted arguments against it, the primary ones being brought forth by the fan communities? Fuck no.
If all you want is to not think about the bad aspects of the things you like, just say that. No one is stopping you.