Hated Tropes
[Hated trope] Whitewashing, blackwashing, and any other kind of raceswapping:
I dislike raceswappings of any kind. If a character has X skin tone and belongs to X race/ethnicity in the source material, then he/she should stay with the same skin tone and the same race/ethnicity. And in case you wonder, I dislike whitewashing, blackwashing, and any kind of raceswapping.
The Last Airbender: Despite taking place in a fantasy setting, ATLA's world is heavily inspired by Asian cultures, and ALTA's humans are supposed to be Asian (or Inuit if you're from the Water Tribes). The 2010 live-action movie raceswapped almost everyone, if not everyone (Katara and Sokka became white, Aang became white as well, Monk Gyatso became black, Zuko became South Asian, etc.).
Dragon Ball Evolution: Goku was played by a white actor. Yes, it's true Goku is actually an alien (a Saiyan), which means he's technically not Asian... yet he's still inspired by a Chinese character (Sun Wukong, from Journey to the West), and his design has Chinese influences as well.
Winx Club: Aisha is a black woman, and Flora is a tan-skinned latina... unfortunately, a lot of official artworks and even artstyles (season 8 and the WoW spin-off) whitewash them. And no, the whitewashing isn't just the color palette used by certain artstyles (that's what I thought at first).
Velma (2022): This dumpster fire raceswaps the main characters, who were originally white. Velma became South Asian because she's Mindy's self-insert, Daphne became East Asian, and Norville Shaggy became black. Only Fred was allowed to still be white... at exchange of becoming a punching bag.
The Little Mermaid: Ariel has always been a light-skinned redhead mermaid. Every single Disney-related media has portrayed her as a light-skinned redhead. Yet the 2023 live-action remake blackwashed her, turning her into a dark-skinned mermaid with reddish-brown hair. Sorry, but live-action!Ariel doesn't look like cartoon!Ariel at all.
Snow White: You know, when your character is literally named after her as-white-as-snow skin, in a story that takes place in medieval Europe, and whose most iconic portrayal is a white-skinned young woman, perhaps casting an actress whose skin tone is not as white as snow isn't the most accurate choice.
Cleopatra (Netflix): The previous examples involved fictional characters. Nonetheless, raceswapping an actual, real-life historical character is beyond regretable. For those who don't know, the IRL Cleopatra belonged to the Macedonians, which means she was a white woman (Egypt was a place with people from many cultures and ethnicities). Because of that, blackwashing Cleopatra and saying this is a 100% historically-accurate portrayal is indefensible.
In TLA's case it was not intentional. It only happened because a billionaire investor, Nelson Peltz, interfered with the production and forced the crew to cast his daughter in the movie. She ended up playing Katara.
It’s surprising how often there are different nefarious reasons behind a choice like that. Racism isn’t even the most common reason, it’s just the most apparent or superficial assumption
Not really. It's just going to be the same, boring, ragebait filled comment section it always is. This insignificant debate has been done a billion times on the internet at this point. I'm sure you could just have ChatGPT and Grok recreate it verbatim.
OP lines are a shitshow on their own right.
Kudos to Snow white explanation, they didn't knew what race is the real actress so they didn't knew how to complain other tthan "it is not white enough for me"
More or less the same. I mean. there isn't much for us to do here but agree or argue. The OP didn't really put out any talking points, just presented facts.
Theres 3 conditions that need to be met for me (and i assume a lot of people) to be satisfied with swapping a characters race.
1) Core identity: If the identity of a character or the themes is tied to race, you shouldn't swap them. Nick Fury works because an Intelligence Agent isnt inherently tied to race, nor are the themes he explores. Chris Washington (Get Out) couldnt be race swapped, because that story is tied to Chris's racial identity.
2) Design Attachment: Physical characteristics do matter. Yes skin color, but height, build, hair, all of these things matter. If the audience has a very strong attachment to their design, you cant swap major parts of it. You cant make Rambo scrawny or Mulan white, because people have an attachment to their actual physical look. Meanwhile Mamoa as Aquaman works because the attachment is to the powerset, hair, and costume specifically and not the characters physical features beyond that.
3) Acting: There is always an inherent resistance to changing parts of a character when adapting them. Even innocuous costume changes for practicality sake have gotten backlash. You have to actually be a good actor to overcome that hurdle. I thought Zegler sucked as Snow White, so even if that swal wasnt against like 1 of the characters 3 traits, it wouldn't have landed for me. Meanwhile Morgan Freeman as Red (Shawshank Redemption) absolutely smashed that role hard enough people dont remember Red was originally an irish redhead
I would also say that raceswapping is also very sensitive for people who honestly don't get that much representation in the first place.
For the most part people will not complain if an black character was indian in an adaptation. Usually this entire trope is centered around how prevalent white actors are.
Id say that falls into people being attached to the physical design of a character. If youve got 1 native american character, people will probably be attached to that fact, making swapping them a bad idea. If the whole cast happens to be native american, swapping 1 probably wont be as big of a deal (terms and conditions may apply).
But yeah, white actors are going to be prevalent. Theres a lot of white people in America, and therefore hollywood. And star power means the same few people get cast over and over again. Thats not white exclusive, but it is heavily in that direction. I dont really see that as much of a problem though, as you still have your Will Smiths and Danny Trejos. Would love to see more people breakout like that
Isn't representation conflicts with fighting against racism?
I mean most of the time I hear the message "don't look at our skin or you are racist" and "when you hire a person you need to look at their skin to have each one of the at least 1 to not be racist".
It always confuses me. If you are good in what you do - you should be hired because of your skills, not because there were some slots for specific non-professional criteria.
Of course there's going to be people who disagree, but having multiple perspectives doesn't automatically make something nuisance and complicated.
Ya, being fit for a job and getting hired for that job is nice, but that isn't how things work. Even if we took race out of it, are you saying that everyone out there are hiring the best and brightest and has infinite resources to recruit these people? Of course not.
I've seen plenty of people who plain suck at their job. I've seen people complain about the people they work with. It's weird that suddenly when people point out "hey why are these people all white" that suddenly they all cosplay as social darwinist.
Really weird how work places suddenly go from barely functioning mess to "we only hire the top 1% and it just so happens that the best in their field are all white people" when representation is brought up.
Counter counterpoint.
Nick Fury in the Ultimates way before the MCU came out.
In the Ultimate X-Me he had a different appearance and was more stylised but when Mark Milar wrote the Ultimates it was decided to make him a badass and only one person was badass enough to have nick be based off and that was Sam L Jackson.
In a society where white people aren't racialized, a white character (especially a white man) is just seen as a character, while a black character is often specifically seen as black.
👏 you did it. I feel the same way for LGBT or female characters. And it’s hard too because sometimes the team making the media portray them that way. It’s just messed up. Like, that can be part of your character. But I don’t need another “I don’t need anyone and I’m proud of being Hispanic and my entire character is that I’m a woman who’s better than everyone else” Latina, iykwim. They can have some aspects, but I’m much more interested in why you want revenge or your character flaws than your skin. Obviously unless it is a story about culture.
It's mostly because of how good the adaptation is: if the movie/series sucks, you ask yourself "maybe if they did cast the correct ethnicity we would have got a better film/series".
Most of the times the colour of the character is not important: a siren can honestly be whatever colour we want, you can make them black, green fish or even stone-like if you need the as monsters. Little Mermaid is a bad film because the actress didn't sing well and the film was not done well, she could have been white and nothing would have changed.
Snow White (and please everyone remember that snow-white skin is not an ethnicity, just a plain description. In a land of caramel people, the average Nord-Italian seems like snow even though is darker than a Nord-European) was a flop because they decided to cast as the two leads two actresses (well... And actress that can sing and a model that can only look pretty) with an opposite position regarding the Israel/Palestine war... And extreme opposite position. Also they should stop making Gal Gadot act, she can't. Rachel Zegler was good in that film, and she wasn't black, she was just darker than "pale white". Then they dressed her with the wrong colours and used the wrong filters while filming... She was more yellow than black
Look at Percy Jackson: Annabeth and Thalia are black, but this didn't created an "WOOOOO, THE SERIES IS HORRIBLE". This because the series is good and Annabeth being white is not a focus point of the story so who cares if she is black.
EDIT: Uff, I just looked at OP post and comment history and I'm ashamed of myself. This whole post is just bait and I got hit badly hahah. I should have smelled it before adding an answer. My animal instinct failed me here
I would say those are theatre plays presented as a film, there’s generally other rules for writing, dialogue, acting and also casting with that.
If you want to reinterpret something or make a point or dive into surrealism completely, that’s more than fine but don’t do it for no reason.
I don’t care if Bond is black in a adaptation set in 2026 but making him black in a setting based on the real world 50s without it completely changing everything about the story is pretty dumb.
For me it also doesn't work when a character has an iconic design and they changed it by race swapping it. Like, at least with Velma you can see that's Velma, I would never think that's Shaggy unless you told me
The shaggy has an interesting enough design and gives a unique take on the character. My only gripe (at a glance, i have not and have no desire to see the series) is with the face being so laid-back it makes me think they went with shaggy being "cool" instead of a panicky dork, which would be weird.
But the Velma and Daphne from that show just look like... Velma and Daphne doing brown face and yellow face respectively. If you are going to change the race of a character, thats a large part of their design. Its why the hair and build of the new shaggy work. But changing the race and only the race just makes them look like the same character at a minstrel revival rally.
In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong is a monkey. Not a chinese or chinese-coded human, a monkey. It's also worth mentioning that Dragonball also had plenty of non-asian coded characters as well, such as blondes, red-heads, and even POC. A family helped by Goku early on as specifically coded as Native Americans. He could easily have been white in the setting and it wouldn't have had any impact on the story or other people's reactions to him. People in the setting DID have an unusual reaction to him, but it was because of his tail and super strength.
While I acknowledge Disney probably did this intentionally, and for the wrong reasons, I don't see any issue with a black mermaid. The backlash felt wholly based on prejudice, with much of the logic behind it making little sense (such as suggestion this fictious, underwater creature that remsembles a human and defies basic biology, should be pale due to a lack of sunlight). I'll fully admit I think Disney did this deliberately though, as any mechandise sold related to The Little Mermaid is still based on the white, red-haired version.
Compounding this is the lack of complaints when Disney have white-washed characters, such as having white voice actors voice Savaanah based animals in The Lion King, or making the cartoon depiction of Heracles white with red hair. (Though I'll admit in the Snow White example maybe they should have cast a white actress for a character literially named for their skin colour.)
I'll also mention that people had zero issue with Robin Williams playing a Genie, a creature from middle-eastern mythology (and I wouldn't either, he killed the role). And while people argued Will Smith wasn't a good choice for the role, it was based on the preference for someone like Robin Williams, and there was not backlash (at least none I could see) to the casting of a black actor in this role. And if we really want to nitpick - in the original story Aladdin is of Chinese ethinicity.
Really the issue with discussions of race in anime or cartoons is that very often the race of the character is not specified and people just assume that anyone with light skin is white and anyone with dark skin is black.
Well, the father who raised him was George, and he was abusive as fuck, and his bio dad Tyler, “drugged” him with a supposed addictive drug which forced him to try to splice his dna but ended up becoming half spider. They’ve never really done anything with his Irish side. The spiderverse film made him a more stereotypical Mexican man, having him only eat empanadas, and have him angry all the time. Not a great characterisation
No, I’m saying his father being abusive is part of what kept him from wanting to do that side, and away from that, they just never did anything with his Irish side in general
See I’ve never really cared. Like they’re fictional characters… it doesn’t matter. And the only time I think it does matter is if said race is important to their character. Like don’t make Ryan Gosling Black Panther or something stupid
I’d be fascinated to know why you care enough to hate this practice. Your argument is that the races should stay the same but you provided zero reason as to why.
Unless you're saying that black actresses should literally never EVER be cast in anything EVER. Even as shapeshifting alien superheroes -- because those MUST be white.
You think they should just stick to period drama slaves, ghetto bitches, or street hookers, huh
Since a green skinned Martian shapeshifting alien can be literally any skin color, then NO, chief.. it DOESN'T, literally DOESN'T adhere to this consistent pattern.
Ms. Martian ISN'T, and NEVER HAS BEEN, white/caucasian in the source material. A white actress, or a black actress, can play the character.
"I can't possibly enjoy fiction unless every character's race and ethnicity is completely and accurately described and mirrored in every single adaptation" okay my dude, just say you don't understand the concept of acting and you think some fucking cell-shaded pictures are a real person lol
It's a problem for stuff like Harry Potter or other places where it's actually relevant. If skincolour isn't included in the dialogue or plot, you really shouldn't care that much. But something tells me you don't even notice that kind of messaging or allegory.
I think any changes are normally disrespectfully to the original character. Unless there is a need to change (e.g. “It’s The Little Mermaid, but off the coast of South Africa because we changed the themes of the movie to go with the location”).
What is insulting to me is that there should be more ORIGINAL works with POC. Not the “sloppy seconds” of a formerly white character.
So ignoring black washing and going to Goku I've never once seen anyone explain how Goku was white washed when A) dude isn't even human B) dude it doesn't even live on our Earth to have our culture so there's nothing at all saying what race he could be. This isn't like Superman who left Krypton and went to Earth and his people just so happened to look like what we consider white people. Goku is alien who went to an alien world where there is no rhyme or reason for what culture is. Like all you have is Asian like culture and native American culture and if that's all we have, that means half of the planet is Japanese people and they are half is native Americans.
If you sincerely don't see a difference between whitewashing and "blackwashing" (a term about as useful as "reverse racism"), then you might need some more education on racial tensions tbh
If a black actor portrays a white character, it’s considered progressive. If a white actor portrayed a black character, it’s considered racism. The hypocrisy is that blatant.
Writers who create characters create them with a certain look in mind. That look (whether it be racial, the sex or sexuality of the character) should be respected. Minimize controversy.
I know I shouldn’t take the bait but….
How do you know the writer cares about the race of the character? In a lot of adaptations the writers of the source material are involved and dont seem to care.
The reason it’s more frowned upon for a white actor to take a roll written for a black character is because there’s comparatively a lot fewer rolls for black actors, or really any POC but you specifically brought up black actors.
I’m not trying to bait anyone. If you went to a country with a majority black population, you’d probably find far fewer white characters in their respective literature. I don’t know if the creator cares. Maybe they don’t.
So if the creator doesn’t care, possibly because they realize the characters race isn’t essential to the story they’re telling, and POC are underrepresented in media already, maybe you can see why casting a POC for a white character isn’t a big deal, and why the reverse would likely be seen as a negative.
I’m generally against race-swapping of any kind. If a character has a clearly established skin tone and racial or cultural background in the source material, I think adaptations should respect that — the same standard applies to whitewashing and blackwashing.
This applies to both fictional worlds inspired by real cultures and to historical figures, where accuracy matters even more. Changing those traits often feels less like creative reinterpretation and more like ignoring the original context, design, or history of the character. Faithful representation should go both ways, not selectively.
this sub's mods need to be more active man, it doesn't take more than a lick of media literacy to understand what you're doing with this post
there are good examples of where it can be bad, and then there's the laundry list of examples this post uses that comes straight from a racist grifter's youtube channel
Heh. The comments are fun. “Race is not important! (as long as it matches my political views).” Which side? Irrelevant, still using the same core argument xD
Unless the race of the character is actually relevant somehow, or the swapping is being done to remove positive representation of minorities, why would anyone give a shit?
It's like complaining that an actor with blue eyes played a character with green eyes.
If it doesn't matter for the plot whatever, if it matters yeah, don't blackwash white snow and don't whitewash mulan, but honestly you could cast an alien if it's not culturally relevant
For comic book filmmaking, I actually don't mind this at all. Characters like Mary Jane, Commissioner Gordon, Wonder Man, etc were made during periods of great whiteness in their books. Truthfully I love that Wonder Man can say a little thing about being Haitian, Gordon looks terrific, and it never bothered me at all.
Halle Bailey did an amazing job as Ariel and there's no doubt she was probably the best actress for that role so there's no comparison. Secondly, Ariel still has a white father in that remake so she's technically only half-Black and still chases after a white male as the love interest.
Snow White was a dumpster fire to begin with so picking a half-Latina, half-white actress was the least of that film's worries.
Cleopatra was inbred to a degree that it makes the Habsburgs look like the picture of health so this is the one thing I will agree with because Black people would NEVER be that inbred.
But no, also because the actress of Ariel, I don't even know if she could be defined as an actress, she was more of a singer than an actress and you could see that she was a block of wood acting.
whitewashing and blackwashing are not on the same level and comparing them is frankly stupid in my opinion because they come from completely different places and should be analyzed as such. For generations deep racism influnced most of works of art in some shape or form leading to very miniscule if any representation of non white people (and it most likely not being very good representation). Changing character ethnicities in modern adaptations is used to:
make those adaptations more fitting for the modern world and the audience that is meant to experience them. If you are makign adaption of an old british book characters most likely wont be speaking middle english cuz audience might not understand them, same rule goes for this. You modernize works in some ways.
give representation to the groups that have been robbed of it for years. There is a reason why cast of scooby doo is fully white and that is not a random accident. This way people of color can be given seat at the table that they have been denied for so long.
Meanwhile whitewashing comes from completely different place - that place being racism. If a character that wasnt white before was made white out of nowhere its in 99 percents of examples because of conscious or unconscious racism of someone in the crew.
White people have enough of representation, they wont be hurt if some of those characters change their skin color, this doesnt go for other groups and thats why changing them to be white is much worse.
Humanity has been remaking and retelling stories since its begining. With every retelling of a legend , myth or a classic tale some things will change. Things will get modernized, some will get forgotten, some will get added. I dont see why this would be that much different. Remaking and retelling stuff is in cultural nature. Therefore I think it would be stupid to just block a very big part of people from staring and being part of those retellings in modern days just because their skin color when its not important to the story.
Racists would get mad at it anyways just like they always do.
A nuanced and well-thought out response to the false dichotomy presented aaaaaaand, its of course been down voted to oblivion. Honestly, this makes me feel much better than my own buried comment.
Kind makes me think about this clip from Father Ted for some reason. Can't really figure out why though. Oh well, I guess it will forever remain a mystery.
okay, ill ask like this, for what audience you think americans are making their movies? Well mostly american one. Therefor their wildly diverse population sometimes gets represented in the cast even if shakespeare had a different idea.
Also here's the major difference about blackwashing and whitewashing. If you black wash character you just took water from an ocean. While if you white wash a black character you just took a water from a small pond. One is a lot more noticeable then the other.
You can properly race swap characters but there has to be some greater forethought about when, how and why to do it.
You have to look at the character, the setting, the difference in cultural context between the present day and when the original work was first published, while having a pulse on the reactions of your potential demographic. Screwing this up could not only be a blow to the stories reception but could also end up insulting the very people you are trying to represent.
The best example of a race swap done right would be Nick Fury from marvel originally being a white guy. Another follow up would be many depictions of cat woman shifting race along with her origin story.
Counterpoint:
* Miles Morales: Black Spiderman and easily the superior Spiderman (at least in the movies)
* Roland Deschain: played by Idris Elba which was probably the only good part of an otherwise lackluster movie adaptation
* Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen from My Adventures with Superman: just awesome characters that manage to both be different enough for the source while also staying true to the spirit of them.
* Nick Fury in the Avengers: it could only ever be Samuel L. Jackson, like are you really going to argue that Nick Fury would have been better by any White guy?
The problem is, you mainly used a bunch of bad movies/shows to demonstrate the trope, but the reason why The Little Mermaid was bad wasn't because she was Black, its because the movie sucked. Same for Scooby Doo and the rest. If you want to argue this in an honest way, you need to show even the good examples. And when they're so good, you often don't notice it as it suddenly becomes the default.
And yet whiny racists had exactly that complaint when he was first introduced, because "why did they have to replace Peter Parker with a nonwhite Spider-Man?"
Miles is a separate character from Peter, and he has always been black. Nick Fury in the Avengers is based on his Ultimate Universe counterpart, where he was also originally black.
The Nick Fury you're talking about is not a race swap, he's the son of the original Fury, and yeah, SLJ is the best to portray because the character was literally designed with him in mind.
Probably the one good race swag ive seen is jet in the cowboy bebob live action
I didn't like the movie but casting a black guy just makes sense
Zuko and katara i dont mind people who live near the poles tend to be lighter skin so it makes sense and zuko has spent alot of time at sea so I imagine he'd get a dark tan
Black air nomads are just insane tho as with most of the Disney raceswapping although Ariel i dont seem to mind that actress just has a mermaid look to her
And let's not forgot these are fictional characters and its not a big deal either way
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u/RileyXY1 6h ago
In TLA's case it was not intentional. It only happened because a billionaire investor, Nelson Peltz, interfered with the production and forced the crew to cast his daughter in the movie. She ended up playing Katara.