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Saying "black characters are written too broadly in New Who, making them resemble stereotypes" rather ignores the fact that white characters are treated the same way.
Look. This is the problem with trying to raise white people on Sesame Street in order to cure racism: you get a generation of white people who think it's to their credit that they hold everyone to the same standard, and run around operating like the world is one big, happy block party -- people who think they're complementing themselves when they say they're "colorblind."
BLIND is not a moral positive. BLIND is an inability to perceive what the non-blind people around you can clearly fucking see. My grandfather was red/green colorblind. His family also had a strawberry farm. His father used to beat him for not obeying instructions to pick only the RED strawberries and leave the GREEN ones on the bush.
Now, I'm not recommending regular beatings for the colorblind. That wasn't a nice thing to do (my great-grandfather was not a nice person in general, for oh so many reasons). But the thing is, my grandfather's colorblindness? Was a problem, because there is actually such a thing as color when it comes to strawberries, and it's easier to work on a strawberry farm when you can see it.
And there is actually such a thing as race. If you can't see it, you're not doing yourself or anyone else any favors. There are cases where you can give the EXACT SAME script/character arc/iconography/etc. to a white performer and to a performer of color, and the overall effect WILL BE DIFFERENT. Race is real. People respond to it, often on levels they aren't entirely aware of. So it actually misses the whole entire point of discussing race and racism if your sole defense is "but we're just treating them the exact same way we treat white characters!" It may be true, or it may not be true, but either way it's singularly useless.
Some fans seem to find gender easier to understand than race, so think of it this way: if there's a character that isn't very bright but always uses sexuality to manipulate other people, does it make a difference if that character is a man or a woman? Isn't it more of a stereotype in one case than in the other? And if some writer or producer said, "Oh, it's not sexist -- this is just what we were going to do, and we thought we might hire a male actor, but we went with a woman instead, so we kept the same stuff!" that doesn't magically make her not a sexist cliche, does it? If they'd cast a man, the character would read one way; when they do cast a woman, it reads differently. Same character. Different, because of the baggage we bring surrounding gender. If you were somehow magically oblivious to any and all gender issues, you might not notice that. But you wouldn't thereby be a better person than the rest of us. You'd just be oblivious.
Unfortunately, in our culture, we are conditioned to see white people as Real People, and black people as sort of thin slices of people, operating in one of a very few available modes and with only a very few emotions and interests. Therefore it's just different to write a white character "broadly" versus a black character. It's not enough to write the black character "just like" all your white characters, because race is not invisible to most of us and it doesn't have no consequences. In order to challenge people's already racist assumptions about black characters, writers have to work that much harder, and they have to work not blind. They have to work with their eyes open and their brains engaged and with the awareness of subtle signals and context and connotation that anyone who writes for a living should damn well be conversant with. To do less than that is to write lazily, to write foolishly, to write contemptuously of one's characters and one's craft, and to do all that because you can't or won't go the extra mile to bring race into the universe of stuff that factors into your writing does, in fact, have racist implications.
"Colorblindness" may be one's reason for making all of those mistakes, but it isn't an excuse, and it doesn't magically make the product impervious from criticism. Be less blind.
Comments
Oh god, SO MUCH agreed.
The trouble with "colorblind casting" (or genderblind, for that matter) is that it doesn't apply to the leads. It just doesn't. How delusional do you have to be to think that there was *ever* a chance that they would have cast an Asian or Hispanic guy as John Sheppard, or Doctor Who, or Dean Winchester? Most shows *automatically* cast white male leads, which-- shock, surprise-- leaves women and minorities to play expendable one-shot victims, monsters or funny sidekicks.
And, interestingly, you don't see this emphasis on "we must be colorblind! be more colorblind!" when discussing *leads*. I don't see these same people insisting that we *must* cast the best actor for the part when that means less Cute White Guys.
No, it's only when you point out that the minor characters, babes of the week or extras fall into an unfortunate pattern-- that's when you get told to hush up, because considering someone's race is racist, or considering someone's gender is sexist, and so on and so forth.
But like you said: if you don't want to perpetuate stupid, offensive patterns you *have to* think about this stuff. You can't just say "well, it's totally a coincidence that we repeatedly cast black men as thuggish rapists." You know, it may in fact be a total coincidence! But being colorblind when it comes to specific instances-- if you do it enough, it means you're blind to the *pattern* that your individual instances are creating-- blind to the fact that your choices exist in a *context*-- a historical context, a social context-- that there are stereotypes that *already exist* in the world. And you can choose to either reinforce or reject them.
It's like, ok, suppose you have a 22-episode season and just *coincidentally*, whenever there's a need for an admirable, kickass, brave, self-sacrificing, heroic character, the best actor for the part is a blue-eyed blond, and also completely randomly, there are three or four parts for "thuggish animalistic rapist" and the best actor for the part in each case is black.
I was arguing with a guy recently who was basically saying "well, if you take the context into account, then you're letting race influence your thinking, which is racist!!!omg, and besides, it would Hurt the Show if we didn't cast the best actor for the part."
And I'm thinking-- but it doesn't hurt the show to perpetuate racist stereotypes? You *have to think* about this stuff. You can't just focus on the details and ignore the bigger picture that *you are creating with your choices*.
Race is real. People respond to it, often on levels they aren't entirely aware of. So it actually misses the whole entire point of discussing race and racism if your sole defense is "but we're just treating them the exact same way we treat white characters!" It may be true, or it may not be true, but either way it's singularly useless.
Just...yes. Exactly.
This extends far beyond writing and into the realm of basic human interaction and human understanding. Your words here are appreciated. I hope you don't mind if I link to this post in my own journal.
And it's so creepy when it comes to fanfic, because if authors were just willing to do the critical thinking about individual characters that's necessary to write convincingly about background, motivations, interrelationships, etc., then just about all the unintentionally racially-charged portrayls wouldn't crop up. I mean, I've seen people argue along the lines that, hey, in an AU where, say, Atlantis is a major metropolitan newspaper, of course it'd make sense that Ronon was some guy in a street gang while everyone else was a reporter--Ronon keeps *knives in his hair*. How could someone like that to work in a professional setting? And I just think, What the hell, man? Stopping to examine that kneejerk assessment of Ronon's character would remind us that, on SGA, a large proportion of the characters go around with guns strapped to their legs. The fact that Ronon has knives in addition to a gun just means he's better-prepared than his colleagues. Thus, in an AU where everyone works in a newsroom, it'd make a lot more sense for him to be the reporter with pencils and tiny recording devices and cameras in his hair.
Now, I get that not everyone wants to think critically when it comes to writing fanfic. Hey, that's fair enough; when it comes to my hobbies and leisure time, I don't like to practice mathematical reasoning. But if fanfic authors just want to pour out their ids unfiltered and reproduce tropes uncritically, then I really wish they'd go on leaving out characters of color and women from their stories. Because the anti-color, anti-women stuff is so pervasive in the culture that shapes our ids and tropes, writing about characters of color and women without engaging critically will just lead to repeating the racist, misogynistic crap, and I just don't want to see that in fandom. A pile-up of shallow whitebread stories can get boring, but at least it's not *actively* offensive to me.
In season two, we were introduced to hunter Gordon Walker, FBI Agent Henricksen, and the young soldier Jake, all played by black actors.
Was the casting insensitive? Racist? I don't think so, because the characters aren't simplistic; they are not "bad guys."
We cannot judge Gordon yet. Gordon could be right about Sam. Yeah, Gordon might be a little too fond of his work, but so is Dean (and probably the hunter majority).
Henricksen being black is a stroke of casting genius. When we learn he believes the Winchesters are backwoods survivalist types, possibly white supremacists, his pursuit of them takes on an extra dimension. His zeal makes total sense. His expression and voice when he finds a young black man he believes Sam and Dean killed says it all.
When Jake is threatened with a bleak economic future, it's far more of a threat because he's black. What chance does a young black man with a dishonorable discharge have of making a living? His choice to protect his family makes sense for his character; it's not "evil."
There is nothing innately villainous about any of the three characters. Their conflict with the Winchesters is brought about by circumstances, not evil intentions. They have depth because they have valid reasons, completely independent of the Winchesters, for what they do. So I think the casting decisions were good ones.
Also: I heartily hope Gordon Walker escapes from prison soon. :D
....::sigh::
Thank you. This is a fantastic exposition of many of the issues involved.
Judging from my many conversations with Clueless White People (and my past as a CWP), this is the sticking point for lots of folks. A great number of us grew up believing that dividing people up based on color is badwrongevil, and saw lots and lots of very persuasive evidence that biological race is mostly or totally fictional. We were taught that a person is not stupider or smarter or more or less valuable based on skin color and heritage. And somewhere along the line, we started understanding that to mean, "Only bad, stupid people believe that race means anything." And, "Good, smart people view everyone exactly the same regardless of their supposed race."
I optimistically believe, then, that a lot of Clueless Colorblindism is rooted in a misunderstanding about what we mean when we say that race exists and affects people's lives. This post does a great job of chipping away at that misunderstanding. Thanks!
Is a black token that acts white better than a racist cliche? Of course. The real question is if a black token is better than no racial diversity at all?
Ultimately it comes down to the same old conflict of individuality versus equality. The communists always hated the idea that people are born with talents. For them it was always nurture over nature. Meanwhile every sci-fi story written in the West is about the freedom of individual choices. The heroes of sci-fi are always claiming the right to be unhappy, to "grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind" the right to be an individual.
Because the more you distance yourself,from the societal average, the more of an individual you are, the more likely you're are to be poor, helpless and miserable. An individual is, in the end, a minority of one.
Race is still a factor to define an individual as aberrant of the societal norm (the non-vacuum you're talking about), so the problem here is one that I consider unsolveable. It's easier to eliminate race as a defining factor of societal norms than to solve the problem here.
If a black actor should be given special consideration during the casting process, aren't we denying him the equality he deserves? And if we treat him colorblind, casting him as servant, minion, evildoer, villain, just we would cast a white actor aren't we ignorant, if not hurtful, of his special, individual circumstances?
And are we taking into account that Doctor Who (which I guess inspired this post) is British and has a less pronounced history with colored people in subservient roles? Has an entire non-American history where slavery was something that Britain profitted from but that never seemed to have happened on their own soil? Segragation never happened. No one ever sat on any backseats in any buses in Britain.
So is it possible that your sensibilities and Russell Whatshisface's are just continentally divided. So perhaps, the problem is that Russell can afford to be colorblind, because his country never needed to have thousands of black people marching for their capital to claim their equal rights.
Who is ultimately an underserving topic because you're splitting hairs from an American and very subjective perspective. If you want to find some real racism you should pick on American shows and their unfortunate tendency to cast Latinos as servants. When even a million dollar Latina like La Lopez at the height of her fame had to play the eponymous Maid in Manhattan you know you're looking at racism at its finest.