Is Race Swapping in Fiction Wrong? My Official Position

On this video I'll address the controversial topic of blackwashing and whitewashing in fiction. I have already discussed these practices when it comes to both, historical documentaries and historical fiction. Today we'll address Pure Fiction.
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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is an American fantasy television series developed by J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay for the streaming service Amazon Prime Video. Based on the novel The Lord of the Rings and its appendices by J. R. R. Tolkien, the series is set thousands of years before Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and depicts the major events of Middle-earth's Second Age. It is produced by Amazon Studios in association with New Line Cinema and in consultation with the Tolkien Estate.
Amazon bought the television rights for The Lord of the Rings from the Tolkien Estate in November 2017, making a five-season production commitment worth at least US$1 billion. This would make it the most expensive television series ever made. Payne and McKay were hired in July 2018. The series is primarily based on the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, which include discussion of the Second Age. Tolkien's grandson Simon Tolkien was consulted on the development of the series. Per the requirements of Amazon's deal with the Tolkien Estate, it is not a continuation of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. Despite this, the production intended to evoke the films using similar production design, younger versions of characters from the films, and a main theme by Howard Shore who composed the music for both trilogies. Bear McCreary composed the series' score.
A large international cast was hired, and filming for the eight-episode first season took place in New Zealand, where the films were produced, from February 2020 to August 2021 (with a production break of several months during that time due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Amazon moved production for future seasons to the United Kingdom, where filming for the second season took place from October 2022 to June 2023 (finishing during the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike).
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premiered on September 1, 2022, with its first two episodes. The rest of the eight-episode first season ran until October 14. Amazon said the season was the most-watched of any Prime Video original series, and it received generally positive reviews from critics. The second season is expected to be released in 2024.
The Little Mermaid is a 2023 American musical fantasy film directed by Rob Marshall from a screenplay written by David Magee. Co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures, Lucamar Productions, and Marc Platt Productions, it is a live-action adaptation of Disney's 1989 animated film of the same name, itself loosely based on the 1837 fairy tale of the same title by Hans Christian Andersen. The film stars Halle Bailey in the titular role, alongside Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay, Noma Dumezweni, Art Malik, Javier Bardem and Melissa McCarthy. The Little Mermaid follows a mermaid princess Ariel who is fascinated with the human world and makes a deal with a treacherous sea witch Ursula to trade her voice for human legs to impress Prince Eric, who she saved from a shipwreck before time runs out.
Plans for a remake of 1989's The Little Mermaid were confirmed in May 2016. In December 2017, Disney announced Marshall was being courted to direct the film. Bailey, Hauer-King, McCarthy, Bardem, Diggs, Tremblay, Awkwafina, and the rest of the cast signed on between July to November 2019. Production was expected to begin in London between late March and early April 2020 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The beautiful and kindhearted princess Snow White charms every creature in the kingdom except one -- her jealous stepmother, the Queen. When the Magic Mirror proclaims Snow White is the fairest one of all, she must flee into the forest, where she befriends the lovable seven dwarfs -- Doc, Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy and Dopey. But when the Queen tricks Snow White with an enchanted apple, only the magic of true love's kiss can save her!
#metatron #blackwashing #woke

[@raudrauga]

Kinda weird how in Snowwhite, a story set in medieval Germany has such a diverse cast, while Mulan, a story set in a chinese dynasty, has a strictly chinese cast

[@ComposedSage75]

Precisely.

[@metatronyt]

Double standards

[@Player-re9mo]

The Chinese don't accept bullshit. That's the difference

[@Jiko-ryu]

Yeah, EXACTLY!

[@insertnamehere8121]

@@Player-re9mo

[@Dragonfan39]

The word "fidelity" is EXACTLY the word I've been looking for for years!! I couldn't quite put my finger on it... All well said, sir.

[@johnsarkissian5519]

I read Tolstoy’s War and Peace when I was 14 years old (I’m 60 now). One of the book’s characters which captivated me most was Countess Helen Bezukhova. On the whole, she was one of the negative characters in the book. But she was also described as a great beauty with “plump white shoulders” and “luscious black hair”. You cannot imagine my disappointment when some years later I saw both the Hollywood and Soviet movie versions of War and Peace! In both cases, Helen was portrayed by a “blond” woman and who was also decidedly “un-plump” (to adhere to the beauty standards of the 50’s and 60’s when the two movies were made). 45 years later, I have not changed my opinion, I still believe that the directors had no right to make such changes.

[@MirZee]

Same with Anna Karenina. She is supposed to be on the round, plump side - definitely not the extremely thin build of Keira Knightly. There is nothing wrong with Keira's body. But she is not Karenina.

[@Izka3gChupaChups]

there's a mini series out about war and peace with Lily James now too. check it out, it inspired me to buy the book and read it

[@johnsarkissian5519]

@@amandak.4246 Plump does not mean fat. It’s only in today’s politically correct English that in order to avoid saying fat we say plump. Tolstoy did not have that problem.

[@BlacksmithTWD]

I've had a similar dissappointment when I read a book in which the best friend of the main protagonist was consistently referred to as "the guy with the red beard" and then saw the movie adaptation where the friend was cleanly shaven. I mean, how hard would it have been to just glue a red beard onto him? Even a minor red goaty would have sufficed.

[@BlacksmithTWD]

@@johnsarkissian5519 When referring to shoulders, then what do you suppose Tolstoy meant with the word 'plump'? And did Tolstoy even write in English? if not, then what was the word he used and how does that translate into english? If you can't come up with a better idea, then don't dismiss the existing idea.

[@michaelbenn4912]

Fun how the people who made John Wayne Genghis Khan, Black Face people in Tarzan movies, Red Face Native Americans in Western Movies and Black Face Othello. Have a problem with Race Swapping? 😂🤣

[@jakepistolero]

to me, as a brown mexican man, there is one more problem: by black or brown swapping these characters, we are told that the best we can do is be a generic colored placeholder for an actually interesting white character. how about producing original black and brown stories??

[@Isabelb]

This is the best point IMO, there are so many new stories and tales just waiting to be brought forth, to be watched. Old and new stories, and characters just begging to be given a chance, to be known! But no, we have to re make over and over again the same "10 tales," no chance for the new writer, or the old one, forgotten.

[@sophiemoconnell]

Couldn't agree more! What we need isn't forced diversity in casting, natural diversity through storytelling. This is how we truly move forward, because storytelling is how we have learnt about and understood the world for centuries.

[@iamtheiconoclast3]

As a white dude, I totally agree, but I think it's mostly laziness on Hollywood's part: why invest in an original story when you can make an old one for the 19th time? They of course do this serially, whether they're race-swapping or not, and I find it annoying anyway. Did we really need a remake of The Manchurian Candidate? How many Three Musketeers films will finally be enough? And aside from the debate everyone had about The Little Mermaid... did they even need to make that film again in the first place? Even when they go part way, they always seem to screw it up somehow. Message from the King was a pretty badass film with a black male lead - an original fictional story specifically about a black character. But the black character was from South Africa and they still cast a black American guy to play him, and probably hired a dialect coach to help him fake the accent. Which still left me wondering... are there no good African actors? I feel like there probably are. There's also just the Anglocentric and Eurocentric bias which I find annoying. Not because there's anything wrong with a culture like Europe or America making films about its own context or history (the Indian, Nigerian, Korean film industries of course do the same), but because they seem to be saying, with all of these remakes, that they're out of stories to tell, and meanwhile there is a wealth of stories to be told all over the world which they seem not to want to explore.

[@zekeolopwi6642]

That would require talent or skill. Something modern writers lack.

[@sanjivjhangiani3243]

Actually, Disney pulled this off some years ago with "How the Emperor got his Groove Back. " It was a magical story set in the Andes in the time of the Inca. It was pretty good.

[@dnaseb9214]

Yes, because it is done ONLY to erase, insult and remove a group of people. Those works of fiction are also part of that groups culture, heritage and history.

[@cocobunitacobuni8738]

The world seems to forget that we even have a culture or traditions. In fact, I've heard someone say Europeans have no culture.

[@danivanbuskirkbeil2557]

@@cocobunitacobuni8738 Have you any idea the "reasons" for these thoughts, that there is no white/euro culture..What drives this so hard? There has got to be a reason but I am at a loss.

[@cocobunitacobuni8738]

@@danivanbuskirkbeil2557 I have a hypothesis (totally disputable) that it has to do with Christianity. I once told my father "If it were up to you, the whole world would look like this town" he said "yes" There is this idea or feeling that the Christianised European/British/American culture is somehow the norm and that everything else is exotic (that's what attracts us to these cultures to begin with). I hypothesize that this homogenic idea of European culture is sometimes seen as a blank slate. Our culture is "every day" What they don't realize is that we might not have totem poles or ghost dances or didgeridoos or hieroglyphics but we have music, architecture, folk tales, philosophy and so on, those are our totems. Excuse my clumsiness hopefully you get the idea.

[@MW_Asura]

@@cocobunitacobuni8738 Saying Europeans have no culture is a whole new level of stupid. Europe is a continent full of countries with incredible histories and cultures, it's not a monolith that these idiots can generalise like that. Btw ask them which language they're using

[@juanjoseleonvarea2495]

@@cocobunitacobuni8738 In my opinion it is simpler than that: It is another tool to destroy the cultural identity of the West, making us doubt our shared cultural identity.

[@sanguicidas]

I once dressed as Blade for Halloween for school. Principle and Resource Officer checked my locker because instead of looking like a vampire hunter, I looked like the Uni Bomber. The world isnt ready for White Blade I guess.

[@HeathenDance]

Dexter, the Serial Killer, makes an hilarious joke saying that same thing: "He looks like the Uni Bomber." I think I'm finally searching and get to know who that dude actually is.

[@HexenStar]

@@HeathenDance Clive Owen made a uni-bomber joke too, in the "Shoot Em Up" movie.

[@momsnoteatingbugs1919]

It goes deeper than just contemporary nostalgia. Ariel is a Danish folklore icon that goes back over 100 years and snow white is a prominent German fairytale princess that also goes back a couple of hundred years. These two have prominent positions in their communities that have been entrenched for generations and for a studio to come along and simply snap their fingers and make a change based on politics is infuriating.

[@AlexandraM689]

Exactly, those stories are tied to German/ Danish culture

[@cocobunitacobuni8738]

correct and stealing from the German or Danish culture is as bad as stealing from the Indian culture or the Chinese culture. We have culture too and we like it's appropriation just as much as the Greeks and Egyptians like theirs being appropriated etc.

[@kaltaron1284]

@@cocobunitacobuni8738 I mean the animated versions took their fair share of liberties but at least it was in the name of entertainment and the results were good movies. The life action ones... less so.

[@kaltaron1284]

IIRC she had no name in the original version. If any it should have been Undine. Also the sea witch was no antagonist in that one and the prince married the wrong person in the end.

[@collencal4662]

@@cocobunitacobuni8738well Egyptians had no choice but to adopt Hellenic culture tbh

[@lexievv]

Cosplay is the perfect example for the argument "you don't need to look exactly like a character to be able to imagine yourself as the character".

[@Ironica82]

Ya mean I don't have to have a high IQ and are great with riddles to be able to dress up as The Riddler? Whew, glad no one looked down on me when I did that at work ;)

[@lytsedraak]

Agreed. Cosplay, dressing up for birthday parties or halloween, go for it! Be the character you love and enjoy yourself! There is no need to look exactly like the character to dress up like them.

[@JarlBorg93]

N's are a dirty species of lesser humans, they need to be eradicated.

[@EpikStorm101]

Cosplay is different from professional casting.

[@lexievv]

@@EpikStorm101 I get that. But a big argument used for the casting is that this way people can see themselves in a character based on skin color. The fact that many cosplayers cosplay their favorite characters regardless of skin color shows that this is not necessary for a lot, if not most people.

[@FancyHatching]

Part of the irony for me is that there is a very good example of fictional race swapping done right. Princess and the Frog. The reason for that being that they in fact did not fixate on the color of their skin but instead put the whole story in a completely different setting (New Orleans in the 20s) and made the visual changes ACCORDINGLY. They did not fixate on skin, they concentrated on actual culture and telling a compelling story in a believable, unique setting. They made every necessary change to tell the story in an interesting, entertaining and believable way. NOT A SINGLE PERSON COMPLAINED ABOUT THAT. WHERE WAS THE "RACIST BACKLASH" WHEN THAT MOVIE CAME OUT??

[@qwmx]

That's not race swapping. That's an adaptation. Race swapping is when the context is set in a specific demograph, culture and they outright swapped out the character. It's like Aladdin suddenly being Italian, and all the events are still set in Arabia and arabic culture. Princess and the Frog follows that plotline at it's most basic foundation, but it's still an entirely different story. It's much like saying "Another cinderella story", starring Selena Gomez is race swapped.

[@chidmania8485]

I made this same point with Little mermaid. It would have been understandable if they'd changed EVERYTHING: Make everybody black, set the story either in the carribeans or West Africa and in the local culture. That would have been a very interesting tale to tell.

[@Draxynnic]

@@chidmania8485 Would be hard to do, since while they were downplayed in the Disney movie, some of the themes in the original were based on Christian assumptions - for instance, in the original, the reason why the mermaid getting the prince to fall in love with her would stabilise the transformation is that it would give her a human soul. So transferring The Little Mermaid into another cultural background would lose that aspect. Unless they really did their research and found a non-European culture that has a similar concept.

[@twincast2005]

That was before widespread use of social media, thus less opportunity to whip up a visible hate mob, and there very much was considerable whining on Fox Noose etc. about Tiana. And Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid did make according changes to the setting. Not all of them well, but they did at least put actual thought into it. (And the bigger problems with the writing stem from their notions that a sixteen-year-old falling in love at first sight is "problematic" and that Eric also getting a heroic moment saving Ariel is "antifeminist".) The real problem is that "Disney's The Little Mermaid" is already an established brand, and therefore people at best feel a disconnect and at worst fear that the version they have an emotional attachment to is being taking away (in promo material, theme parks, etc.). Had any other studio made this adaptation (minus the few elements that the original Disney version added - basically the animal sidekicks and the songs), it would have gotten far less complaints (but on the flip side also far less attention of any sort and thus less hype).

[@masontoy1976]

Also latina wonder woman o7 it just makes sense she's from the amazons

[@Crimea_River]

The irony of making the seven dwarves more "inclusive" is that in actuality, the film is less inclusive. There isn't a high demand for dwarf casting in Hollywood so if you're taking away one of the few roles that actually demands their presence then you're committing a form of tyranny against an underrepresented community. Hollywood is a very stupid place.

[@shanillaabdul9896]

Dinklage is very keen on preventing any new talents being found that can compete.

[@Cosmopavone]

Imagine a movie about Gengis Khan but korean otherwise "mongols" may get offended

[@3nertia]

@@shanillaabdul9896 Based on what?

[@wandpj]

@@Cosmopavone What about the real depiction of Genghis Khan by John Wayne?

[@data_abort]

The underground belongs to the dwarves!

[@Will_Parker]

"Why do you even care" is the most disgusting response. They KNOW why anybody cares, because they care enough to change it in the first place.

[@scarlett19b]

*Because they're the ones who actually ARE RACIST!* *It's basically like a thief accusing a lawyer for noticing what the thief has been doing all along!*

[@ArrakisHeir88]

I care that my race is seen as a character flaw by popular culture.

[@InqvisitorMagnvs]

⁠​⁠@@ArrakisHeir88 I care that the existence of my race is seen as a problem to be solved-starting with White Erasure in film, media, advertising designed to condition populations for real-world erasure. The same disingenuous two-faced lies are used in the real world discussing subjects such as race and immigration in White countries. Michael Anton termed it _celebration parallax_ -those who see it as a good thing are free to proudly boast of growing “diversity” (nonwhites replacing Whites), whether celebrating how “diverse” (how few Whites) in the cast of a new movie, or celebrating how a country is demographically becoming more “diverse” (less White) due to deliberate govt immigration policies. However anyone who might not be excited about such “diversity”, or even just someone neutral who happens to ask questions about it, will immediately be attacked demanding to know ‘why do you even care? why would you even notice that? you must be a crazy conspiracy theorist to think that since it’s not happening; just coincidence that all classic Disney films are being remade with nonwhite actors replacing Whites-they all just happened to be best qualified for the job…’

[@Squeaky245]

It's super disingenuous hypocrisy. They're the ones that insist on shoehorning 'race consciousness' into everything, yet will immediately resort to "why does it even matter" the second anyone else has an ethnicity-related grievance.

[@dudefrombelgium]

@@ArrakisHeir88 what race are you talking about?

[@ProwlingTiger1]

Along with race swapping, the other thing i hate in fiction or historical fiction (as well as in history in general) is the changing of characters view points and actions to suit 21st century values, simply because they want the characters to still be likeable and relatable. I think we learn more from showing things - right or wrong - for what they were at the time- Many authors of fantasy and fiction often still put a lot of their own views and thoughts and beliefs, or general prevailing view points of society in general at the time, - into their written works - and for me that actually gives a fascinating insight into life during their time period- how people functioned during that time, what kind of thoughts and beliefs people had- whether right or wrong, liked or disliked- much can still be learned even from fiction and just like real history thats why people who are passionate about such things- hate it being changed or messed with.

[@vksasdgaming9472]

Do you know what kills any story? Audience saying "I don't care what happens to these characters" kills every story. Being true to norms of era depicted (even when completely true) has big risk of causing that happening.

[@7stringst3r]

We live in a time of great hypocrisy, where the guilty accuse the innocent of that which they themselves are guilty.

[@KevinUchihaOG]

@@vksasdgaming9472 i disagree. Look at the tv show Vikings. The main characters pillage, rape, kill civilians, etc, and its the second most watched history show. My own mother had Rollo has her favorite character, he raped multiple women in that show. So i think people are capable of understanding that times where different back then. Not to mention Game of Thrones.

[@vksasdgaming9472]

@@KevinUchihaOG It depends on writing and characterization. Certain values resonate through the ages. Nobody wants to watch a story of quarrel between Ulf the Kindergarten-burner and Hank the Kindergarten-poison gasser who disagree on proper method of killing everyone in kindergarten. Unknown third party breaking the stalemate is Larry the Kindergarten-Shooter who has novel method.

[@HexenStar]

It's hard to say which one is worse, but both are surely spokes on the same wheel of corruption and cultural eradication.

[@pauloariente]

I am a writer and the protagonist of my books has brown skin (more akin to Brazilian indigenous people, a homage to my mother and my family), and if they made her white or even african black, I'd be pissed. Keep my character as I wrote it (and thus keeping the lore intact - yes, I wrote her like that for a reason) or don't portray her at all.

[@TropicalPriest]

As a fellow writer, you lyin.

[@deivytrajan]

Stop being racist. How does colour change of your main character ruin the story? There would be 0 difference?

[@grawman67]

​@@deivytrajanDo you have proof of that? The character was written to be that ethnicity and could have a big part of their character. And even if it doesn't? Doesn't make them racist. It means they want their character to be exactly as they wrote them.

[@Melodyofthesea78]

​@@deivytrajanFor one the person you're calling a "racist" is the author and you don't know the story or where the story takes place or the place in history the story takes place in.For example if Black Panther was remade and Disney decided that there was too many black people in Wakanda and decided to make it more diverse by adding Asians and hypanics that would be weird. They could remake Mulan change the country make the character black etc etc....then there's the problematic thing they're doing to historical characters....I'm still waiting for MLK the movie staring Mel Gibson. Lol

[@Melodyofthesea78]

​​@@deivytrajanBesides the word racist means nothing it has no sting to it and everyone has been called racist at this point.

[@Yasemin_KS]

As a German who grew up near the black forest (where many of the Grimm's tales originate), Snow White was quite culturally significant to me. I would say she's more of a remnant of old European beauty standards (when fair skin was the ideal) than an actual heroine. So in her case I would argue that her looks are integral to the story. Being really pale myself, I never fit in with the 2000's standard of super tan skin and was even bullied for being "white as cheese", so having a fairytale princess look similar to me was kind of comforting as a child tbh. It's not like there weren't/aren't enough beautifully tan Latinas shown in most other media. Also, the dwarves are apparently a fantasy representation of miners in the black forest region, hence being short and wearing the typical pointy hats lol

[@TheRogueJedii]

Your skin is beautiful. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[@Vee_of_the_Weald]

From what I understand, the dwarves were actually children miners as the mines tunnels were too small for adults and would have collapsed if made bigger. Aaaaah the past!

[@danaos4120]

Lmao you arent German.

[@bladerunner3314]

She has the name because of her white skin, so making her a latina is insensitive AND racist. So sehe ich das.

[@bladerunner3314]

@@danaos4120 You're an intelligence reject.

[@VitriolicThunder]

The way I see it, if you can't empathize and identify with a character (or an actual real life human being) through our shared humanity but instead need them to be exactly like you in every possible way, you've got to be a near psychopathic narcissist. Of course, most of Hollywood falls into that category, so I guess that makes sense.

[@edgarbm6407]

The idea that someone cannot relate to a character of a difference race is a completely made up. Those people are liars.

[@timriehl1500]

Excellent point. We are one race, not 4 or 5. I'm afraid people are losing sight of that.

[@Steven9567]

@@timriehl1500 no we aren't one race

[@qwmx]

​@@EliasAngelo2047We're really all like dogs. Just different breeds if the same species.

[@m.aj11]

When I was a kid I unearthed a collection of several anthology books: Stories of Asian/African/North American/South American/European/ Peoples from Australia and Oceania that belonged to my uncle and that contained stories from every corner of the planet. It was the most wonderful treasure cove that I could have imagined and I grew up reading these wonderful fables and fairy tales told by native people of Indonesia, Sudan, Hawaii, Rapa Nui etc. (fun fact: the Italian Three Oranges was one of my absolute favourites!). I cried, empathized and cheered for all the characters, them being so vastly different from me. People nowadays have almost no imagination and even less understanding for what is different from their own experience then in the past. Which is just absurd given how available information about other cultures and their trials and tribulations is... Pathetic. Even more pathetic is the laziness of today's entertainment industry.

[@sarawinardi6745]

No they don’t, hence all the race swapping, gender bending, reboots and remakes

[@TutosViolet]

Raceswapping is wrong both ways. If you want diversity create new characters.

[@YvonneWilson312]

This!!!!

[@Unpainted_Huffhines]

They know deep down that they aren't talented or creative enough to come up with compelling original characters that people will like. That's why they're so keen on appropriating existing, popular characters and shoehorning a race swap onto it.

[@OverlordParadox]

@@Unpainted_Huffhines Basically: Evil cannot create anything new they can only corrupt and ruin good forces have invented or made

[@ComposedSage75]

🎯🎯🎯

[@jamesjeager129]

Exactly, but most of them are not talented by taking the hard work of time and effort. They rather do the easy copy cat

[@Meg_88]

As a little girl, I never felt the need to "relate" to any of the princesses. I loved them all, and I pretended to be every single one of them, regardless of their skin tone. I never even registered the fact that they were a different color or race or whatever. They were just pretty, and I loved their stories, so I pretended to be them when playing with my cousins, lol. The whole "I need/want to feel represented" is bullshit, and I think people need to get over themselves. Also, race-swapping has to be the most blatant slap to the face to minorities, because these studios are basically saying "sorry, your culture and your people don't have interesting stories to tell, so we will just give you a rehash with a different color, and you better eat it up!" instead of actually creating interesting new characters. To those that say "hur dur you're just racist" I say stfu. Moana is a brown girl and it was a huge hit. Milo from Spiderman as well. Tiana from Princess and the Frog. The general public doesn't hate colored characters. They hate rehashed ones that are swapped for no real reason. Make new characters. Make new stories. Stop rehashing the same old stories with the only "new" twist being "the token colored protagonist" because THAT is racist.

[@ArrakisHeir88]

You feel that way all you want. They see your race as a flaw that can be improved upon.

[@Spookatz.]

@@ArrakisHeir88 who?

[@ArrakisHeir88]

@@Spookatz. The Disney execs, for one. And most of the third world for another.

[@Spookatz.]

@@ArrakisHeir88 "the third world"? what do you mean by that?

[@ArrakisHeir88]

@Spookatz1 I mean that a large portion of the less privileged parts of the world view it as their cultural duty (a plurality even have a religious reason) to replace and displace the indigenous peoples of various foreign places, and the higher on the social totem pole the victim group is, the greater a victory is perceived.

[@foxman8882]

I’m just tired of every Ginger getting replaced in every single character role. The list just keeps growing.

[@gaetanhillion8342]

The ginger swaping conspiracy... I observed that, thank the world Karen Gillian should be safe ^^. But i fear for the remake of buffy the vampire slayer... Willow is doomed ^^.

[@aligmal5031]

@@gaetanhillion8342 when 20+ ginger character get replaced with black ppl it's not a conspiracy no more

[@utrock5067]

Let's call it as it is: it's GINGERPHOBIA. They wanna throw all phobias at us? So we have full right to respond in kind.

[@swissmilitischristilxxii3691]

In every ad today, it's mandatory to have blks in Europe. 🤢🤮 Like in the movie about queen Mary Stuart, suddenly out of nowhere you have blk lords. So fookn ridiculous.

[@NinjaFlibble]

@@gaetanhillion8342 nah, Willow was a lesbian. She'll be fine.

[@hansvonhochtann2739]

Also, remembering that the little Mermaid was written by Hans Christian Andersen, who is danish, it is most likeley, that this story is taking part near the danish Country or at least the north Sea. Therefore Arielle is propably not black, but has charackteristics of scandinavian people. That would be the historical aproach to this charackter in my opinion. Thank you metatron for sanding against nonsense and remaining on a logical, objective path.

[@HexenStar]

It's way more than "most likely". Andersen often limited the stories to his home town, even cited actual historical landmarks in them. So to him, these things were just as obvious as the fact that humans have arms and not tentacles. Nevertheless, all writers took an effort to describe their characters well enough to dispel any doubt. Hans Christian included. Although, i must also mention that over the many years since his stories were published, there were numerous edits, abridges and other unnecessary modifications. If we don't intervene, then one day all that will remain - is just Andersen's name, insolently slapped on a boorish amalgamation of some revisionist rubbish aimed to spread lies and promote dictatorship. His family haven't had the luxury to copyright-protect with enough legal barriers to avoid this kind of travesty. So it falls to us, if we care about cultural legacy of the world.

[@hansvonhochtann2739]

100% agree

[@LonnieBhi]

You do realize there are black and half-black people who are Danish right??

[@jonoxes8662]

A few points. HC Andersen was supposedly inspired by Undine which is a greek myth. So based on that it could be set in and around Greece. Otherwise the actual story is likely set in and around a fictional land. And last but not least, the Little Mermaid is a Disney production, loosely based on HC Andersens work. But seeing as Triton is based on Poseidon, (only called "the Sea King" in the work by HC Andersen) that also could be greek, although I think officially this version is set in the caribbean. In conclusion, this is completely fine. She does not have to look Danish. The only time where race should matter this much, is where it can strenghten the world building to have them come from different regions of your world, like LOTR or GoT. Never the less it's not bad, it just could be better.

[@lytsedraak]

As a writer, if I take the time to describe what someone looks like I wouldn't appreciate it being changed by someone else. Writers tend to have reasons for what they write. If I didn't mention anything about skin colour or place of origin, by my guest, imagine my characters with any skin-colour you wish, it's not important for the story. When I do mention skin colour or place of origin, please keep them as I intended as there was a good reason to mention this.

[@holdencross5904]

THIS THIS THIS! I too am a writer. I want my characters to be respected. I go out of my way to commission artists to draw them up so there is a CONCRETE visual medium of what they look like! I have Japanese and other ethnic group characters. They should be respected as such! Obviously there are certain details like wings and her heterochromatic eyes that need coloured lenses but for the most part you will try and get the best visual comparison to her or you go for an animated. If I was an author and was approached for a movie. I want SOME control over casting and decisions.

[@TGPDrunknHick]

I'd say it depends on the emphasis and in certain cases how possible it would be to get a casting as well. Like harry potter is mostly right except the eyes. having the same colour eyes as his mother was important moreso than the colour itself though. whereas if you have an entire race of people who have ashen skin and red eyes that descriptor becomes more important.

[@verhalenvrouwe]

Oh yes, I agree. Take Snow White, the author wrote very specifically about why she was born with black hair, white skin and red lips, something like that shouldn't be changed. I don't mind any child of any colour cosplaying as Snow White and not look like she was described, but if you are making a movie based on a story, try to get the details right.

[@lytsedraak]

@@TGPDrunknHick coloured lenses are a possibility, but I get your point. The green eyes in this case weren't important to the plot, just that he has her eyes, so that's a change of detail I can get behind.

[@TheDarkWiiPlayer]

Fwiw, iirc the obsession with white skin at the time was because of an association with nobility and not having to do any work out in the sun. So the reason why she was described that way probably comes down to "peasants ugly, nobles pretty", which is not an ideology I necessarily need Disney to endorse. But just changing the skin tone of the character and calling it a day is definitely not a good way of addressing this.

[@Gliese380]

Sing your own song, write your own story. No need to remake everything in your own image.

[@albertoftw]

White people have been appropriating other cultures works for years and literally nobody had a problem ... and when the people in power won't invest on anything that isn't a sequel/already stablish work we get shit like Puerto Rican aragon and black elves

[@jbownik]

Like Jesus as a blue eyed euorpean?

[@TheDarkWiiPlayer]

​@@jbownik There's also black Jesus, Han Jesus, and probably a whole lot more Jesuses.

[@Ironica82]

@@jbownik Meh. I'm against all images of Jesus so I'm with ya there :)

[@xavi_6767]

You think they have the braincells to be creative?

[@siyabongasithole6884]

As an African I would to say that I find this discussion insulting to us as black people. We have our own stories, our own mythology and it's just so easy and lazy to just change a characters race. Companies like Disney and Netflix have enough resources to hire writers and consultants from Africa or any other black group of writers to write new stories. There is a lot of data that shows that it can still be lucrative, e.g blackpanther, Scandal as well as other south african series that are doing well on Netflix internationally. We just don't need to have elves!

[@admirekashiri9879]

There are stories already written that are popular. it's just that Hollywood isn't interested. And tbh I'm fine with that. With the crap they've been releasing its best, they leave our stories to our indie studios. Like in SA they've produced a Shaka Zulu TV series recently called Shaka Ilembe, in Nigeria a small indie studio called Komotions Studios is working on a 3D motion capture film called Dawn of Thunder about the Orisha Sango. In my home country of Zimbabwe, there are indie comic and animation studios growing. We, as Afticans, can't trust Hollywood with our stories.

[@motixdiabolic8792]

They already screwed a originally black story and completely changed the roles of the characters "the woman king" (metatrons made a video about it) its just awful how they twist everything just for attention and money

[@VarunKumar-ek3kr]

They will never do a story on anansi

[@marlenehibiskus]

I would love to watch your folktales and mythology come to life in series and movies.

[@NLTops]

Even dark elves wouldn't in and of itself be unpopular. But it all depends on which fictional universe it is set in. In Tolkien's universe, orcs for example are a corrupted form of elves. But in many other fictional universes they are a separate species, with varying degrees of sentience. Warhammer, World of Warcraft, D&D. In some they're a tribal society, in others they're just violent monsters closer to animals. I agree with the sentiment that fiction should stay true to the original author. What they wrote resonated with people so that it became so widely known. It's so arrogant to change a successful story and assuming the changes are an improvement. If someone is a great author, they can write an original story on par with the story they lazily adapted. If they're not a great author, then they have no right to change the works of one.

[@roxanne4746]

What we need is original black characters, not replacing others with black. I'm talking about different African countries, not a southern princess. Same with Middle Eastern and Asian varieties. It would also be nice to see representation for more south American countries. The fact that people argue so aggressively about having to replace characters instead is very telling.

[@Undedproduction]

THANK YOU. I once had a girl tell me about how horrible it was to whitewash historically black characters and 30 seconds later was praising blackwashing historically white characters. Also as you pointed out with fidelity to source material: sometimes these stories have roots in cultural legends, folklore, and stories that go back hundreds of years. If it would be silly to have white dudes acting out traditional African myths and legends, then it should be equally silly to cast a bunch of African dudes to act out traditional European myths and legends.

[@bluetooth2677]

Year's ago I had Hispanic girl tell me how fansty or Science fiction have no excuse for having mostly white poeple in there movies. Saying it was racist. I ask her one question. Isn't it's racist to be upset over a movie having white people in it. She stop talking to me after that.

[@bluetooth2677]

Just wanted to add, this girl wanted to be in politics.

[@EyeSeeThruYou]

And yet, the latter is now being done habitually under the guise of "diversity," which is meaningless. The pushy blacktivists even presume to blackwash African history when it suits them, claiming Africa is "black," a predictable assumption by people who've never set foot there, think the continent and it's people are monolithic, and are intent to engage in revisionist history to appropriate that which they covet but don't understand. The "Rules for thee but not for me!" mentality so prevalent among the blacktivist set and their white leftist enablers is meeting with resistance now. Finally.

[@ealan3694]

@@bluetooth2677 LOL, go figure. And we wonder how Politics got so screwed up. All the normal, sane people opted out of going into Politics! smh

[@bluetooth2677]

@@ealan3694 Yup, I had another admit she was pushing teenagers to vote Democrat. It's crazy how people are nowadays.

[@SpasticSpelunker]

I think also black washing for inclusivity is just a lazy alternative. Rather than create a new, cool original character, they pull something off the shelf paint the character black and go “that’ll save us lots of money”. They hardly actually care about the fans or even the woke people they’re trying to get the support for. It’s just money. Good luck Metatron, You are our last sane hope

[@Polyphemus47]

Case in point: Johnny Storm in The Fantastic Four.

[@HeathenDance]

@@Polyphemus47 Love that character from the comics.

[@BigfoxN-A-chiccenhouse]

What does woke mean?

[@d.wayneharbison8691]

The ONLY time that has ever worked was Nick Fury.

[@michelewood925]

Not the best actor for the role just make it diverse even if it’s a medieval movie. 😊

[@supersueca1]

YES, please make a video about Tolkien. In my opinion, I believe that the cultural environment that a work of art was made in is important, even when talking about a basically fictional work. Although Tolkien´s universe is of his own creation, it is impossible to separate it from its more than obvious Medieval European inspiration. In the same way, any dramatisation about for ex a legend like Iemanjá or Kianda being "white" - curiously enough in the wake of the last "mermaid debate", the lesser known Angolan Kianda being a "river genius", if not right out a mermaid - would make me fume.. As you Metatron has said in other videos, Hollywood and the entertainment business in general, stop being lazy! In stead of shabby badly written revampings of classical formulas, i do you homework and give us new storys. There are thousands out there as good as the same old same old.

[@byrnhard]

I second this motion. :) Please give us a Tolkien analysis, Metratron. (Also THX supersueca for bringing it up).

[@manricobianchini5276]

If the characters were written one way, then they should be kept one way. And yes, even in comics, fantasy and superhero movies are included! Period!

[@kevwhufc8640]

Parents ( both black) videoed their daughter's reaction to the new little mermaid video ( guessing shes about 6/7 , she loved the characters, she had her bedroom wallpapered with LM , she had duvet LM , curtains, books etc . So when she saw new Ariel she was horrified , she turns to her parents "what's this , Ariel isn't black Ariel is white " this cute lil girl had proper rant about new Ariel , Even though its fiction , it's a character everyone knows , I'm sure that little girl wasn't the only child to feel the same way.

[@roygbiv8226]

I've never seen a bigger cope in my life. There are thousands of videos with little girls not no concerned with her color. Old white people seem to have an issue.

[@malacostracus3663]

Yet, there have also been a couple of reaction videos showing little black girls being amazed with this new Ariel that is (in their words) " like me!". I understand Metatrons argument that kids can project themselfs into every character no matter how similar or not - I think it definitely holds truth. But on the other end of the spectrum there's also truth in "representation matters". Of course you can always create a new cool representative character. But the same argument about nostalgia (at least similarly) applies here as well. Changing a well known and beloved character into a version more representative of yourself can (as shown by those reaction videos) be amazing, too. So I think there's truth to both perspectives and as Metatron very well said both are fine and can be liked or not by various individuals. We don't need to fight about which new version is right or wrong. Because none is either. Its just a new version of a fictional character and based on one's background and personal preferences and biases one may well like one version more than another. And in the end "your" original version is still out there. It's not "erased" (the only big mistake I could find in Metatrons wording). So let's just give people with a historical background of oppression and underrepresentation the joy of this new versions.

[@virikn]

@@malacostracus3663 No.

[@roddo1955]

the child will get over it.

[@kevwhufc8640]

Of course she will

[@viktortunevi]

Casting a black actress to play Snow White seems just as reasonable as casting a white actor as Black Panther.

[@cocobunitacobuni8738]

for me it's even worse because Snow White belongs to the culture of Germany and was gathered as a folk tale by the brothers Grimm. It was a collation of probably many variants of a folk tale passed on from parents to children for generations. I am as unhappy as the Greeks and Egyptians were with the Cleopatra nonsense. It makes me feel that somehow our culture is cheap and anyone can help them to it whereas other cultures are somehow sacred. As you and many others have pointed out, if I were to make a Krishna movie or a Mulan movie and European actors the world would burn. We also have culture and traditions and it is also not for sale.

[@KamikazeKatze666]

The actress is not Black but a white half-Latina.

[@exoboi6974]

​@@cocobunitacobuni8738that's how I felt when I saw black angroboda in gow Ragnarok my culture is not a costume

[@kaltaron1284]

@@cocobunitacobuni8738 Their versions of many fairy tales also changed over time. For example in the first release it was Snow White's actual mother who wanted her dead. But that was probably too morally wrong. Wanting to eat her organs was still fine.

[@KamikazeKatze666]

@@cocobunitacobuni8738The original German fairy tale is incredibly gruesome, with body parts being cut off and the stepmother having to dance in red-hot iron shoes. I guess you wouldn't insist on not changing these details in a remake.

[@MirZee]

I'm a Northern European, I'm as white as it gets. Out of all Disney characters, I identified myself the most was Mulan. Why? Because of the qualities of her character. I admired her loyalty and her perseverence, her bravery, and the way she got her ass handed to her in the beginning but overcame that (re: perseverence). I saw a lot of myself in her (and a lot of what I wanted to be in her), and she even inspired me in some hard spots in my life. To think that I "shouldn't" be able to relate to this character because of the differences in our ethnicity or cultural backgrounds is... mind-hobbling. The woke bigots are really erasing everything Mulan is and represents and stripping it down to her race, the way her skin and features look - and they don't even realise that they're doing it. How vapid must be the life of a person who can only relate to a shell, rather than what truly makes a person the person they are.

[@Trish.Norman]

Me too!!! I wanted to be Mulan! (I’m blond, blue eyed, the sun hates me) I also wanted to be Batman! Looks and gender had nothing to do with my ideal. It was the character.

[@MirZee]

@@Trish.Norman Precisely!

[@sweethistortea]

I’m Czech/Italian, and I love Mulan as well. Same with Tiana. They were hard working, caring, brave, and worked to get what they wanted.

[@wambokodavid7109]

Look am a stone from mars so I always saw my self as a fish

[@hammer1794]

And that's why, things are falling apart.whites are their own worst enemy, just ushering in their own demise.

[@leegaul2161]

The irony is that the people deep into identity politics hate identifying terms. I once made an example of changing every ingredient in a recipe, ultimately making it an entirely different recipe, but still use the same name, and the person I was discussing his with was adamant that you could still use the same name and it would be fine. I had to point out that if two people use the same term, then - for language to have any purpose for communication - we should be imagining the relatively same thing. Instead, in his scenario, both people can be thinking of two entirely different recipes, be confused as two why they are thinking of two different recipes, and this would be completely okay. This person was ironically and genuinely advocating for the collapse of communication, because they they needed the agenda of "swapping" to be prioritized over efficacy of language. It applies to this video. They see it as totally okay to change absolutely everything about a character down to the very plot itself, and still use the same name, even though it would invoke multiple responses from different people and create confusion. All in the name of inclusivity.

[@zappasmoustache23]

This causes many arguments between my daughter and I. She will use words that have no relation to her point then gets upset when I misinterpret what she is saying. She seems to literally think that words are interchangeable and she can use whatever word she wants to mean whatever she wants. Apparently it’s my fault for being old and out of touch.

[@brianwaithe5618]

I have been wondering why Disney does not just get the old stories from Africa if they want to be inclusive. Africa is a whole continent with loads of stories of its own that Disney or any entertainment company can use. In my opinion this race swapping just making things worst, while using African stories would be more inclusive. Just my opinion, love your work Metatron.

[@aleisterlavey9716]

Yeah, you are right. I am sick of Shakespeare played by blacks. I want true African Stories played by African Actors recorded in Africa. For God's sake, Africa is a Continent as big as Russia, China, India and the USA combined. Give me Authenticity and I am even willing to pay for it.

[@VarenRoth]

Cause they need to renew their IP by using it, otherwise they have issues with losing it.

[@SyamDaRos-EndoManno]

​​@@aleisterlavey9716to be fair, there are some black characters in Shakespeare's stories. But probably not as black as sub-Saharian ones, more likely North African or Arabian

[@kittehgo]

It is to much work to make original stuff, it's way easier to just rehash stuff and just make small changes.

[@irena4545]

Because don't actually care about black people or black culture, all they do is just empty and lazy lip service.

[@WifeMadeThaStew]

Thank you Metatron for being willing to say out loud what 90% of us are all thinking.

[@metatronyt]

My pleasure. I’ll be your voice

[@zsoltbocsi7546]

@@metatronyt i think you dont understand how companies like Disney work. Companies are immoral. They don't care about who is black or white. All they care about is profit. Currently inclusivity is the hip. If something else was rad now, like being rascist, they would jump on that bandwagon to please the audience.

[@jayloncollins9681]

@@metatronytdude your just a racist who dog whistles. You said Spider-Man as if miles isn’t a separate character from Peter Parker.

[@Buddy-Dale]

I ain't afraid to say it

[@jayloncollins9681]

@@Buddy-Dale if you complained about Spider-Man being black in real life you’d get smacked

[@wyzasukitan]

The saddest thing I’ve ever seen is the furious hatred and the vile, vitriolic online attacks directed at little white boy dressing up as Black Panther for his birthday party not long after the first movie came out several years ago. T’Challa was a HERO, he was strong and noble and ANY child - boys in particular who are seeking these role models - should be allowed to love, partake in and embody these characteristics by dressing up as their idols

[@SeasideDetective2]

Since T'Challa wears a mask, how did they even know?

[@wyzasukitan]

@@SeasideDetective2 the costume did not cover his neck, hands or ankles

[@scarlett19b]

@@SeasideDetective2 *Because of the Comics and the Movie.. and well the actor who played/portrayed Him was a guest at several Talk shows such as The Graham Norton Show on the BBC!*

[@nerysghemor5781]

As a kid, I identified as a military brat with the character of Jake Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and thought Benjamin Sisko reminded me of my dad. As a white kid, my relating to the Siskos had nothing to do with skin color in any way but with personality characteristics and backstories that resonated strongly with my own personal experience. (It's been said, in fact, that military culture itself is its own identity, and that shows how STRONG it was with me!)

[@scarlett19b]

@@nerysghemor5781 *I am not British🇬🇧 or Blonde or "what is considered as White" but I have always loved Alice in Wonderland!*

[@Aine197]

You can‘t race-swap Snowwhite. She got her name because „her skin was white as snow“. In this case it doesn‘t make sense

[@JoeBlowUK]

Snow White: "The fairest in the land, with lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow." Yes, sounds like it's describing a brown person. 👀 Personally, I think Metatron is a closer match to Snow White than Rachel Zegler. 🤣

[@z2ei]

My view is "if you can't stick to the source material, do something else." I accept changes for the sake of medium, but not characters. Fellowship of the Ring cut the Old Forest and Barrow Downs because there's just too much stuff to fit in a two hour movie. But making Aragorn black not at all, because we know what he looks like, and we know his entire genealogy and it sure isn't sub-Saharan African.

[@Soulwhistle]

To be fair PJ did change Aragorns, Faramirs, Frodos and a bunch of others in smaller or larger ways. Which is also bad in its own way. Personally really hate how he changed Faramir

[@z2ei]

@@Soulwhistle Oh I have my complaints there, but at least he can explain them. Faramir, in particular, was changed to throw some drama into Frodo's story, which he felt needed some conflict. I don't like it but I can at least understand his mentality.

[@peaceonmars]

By that logic it's not English/European/whatever real life equivalent, either. I agree race-swapping is silly, but at least use a decent argument.

[@bigguy7353]

​@peaceonmars9163 But you're being disingenuous in bad faith because you know exactly what he means and you are being pedantic to prove what exactly? Get off your high horse, please.

[@bigguy7353]

​@@peaceonmarsAlso Aragorn, and all other men in the book, was EXPRESSLY, by the author, inspired by Caucasian and Caucasian-only mythology. So yes, English/European/whatever, as you say.

[@lapisinfernalis9052]

I'm a woman. One of my early teenage heroes was Athos from the Three Musketeers novels. Yes, my favourite character was a severe alcoholic with a troubled past of betrayal and guilt. And I definitely had more characters who I could identify with even if they weren't a woman nor white (or even not human): Tabaluga (a Dragon from a german cartoon), Ahsoka, Mulan, Pochahontas, Winnetou & Old Shatterhand, Richard Sharpe, Hornblower and more.

[@TheWatch85]

Same! For me is it more the charakter and behavior and not the ethnicity or gender. If it a interessting charakter, i am on XD Do you know the mole (Henk de Mol) from Alfred J. Kwak? XD

[@lapisinfernalis9052]

@@TheWatch85 Same. With Athos it has always been his strong believe in friendship, staying strong against all odds and his very own way of portraying nobility. Sadly I do not know who you speak of.

[@roboparks]

Three Musketeers should always be French period. Either a Black Frenchmen or WHite Frenchmen Because the story is a French story .

[@JoJo-vg8dz]

The woke have no arguments. It's just excuses. They are just cultural terrorists. They want to piss off 80% of Americans. That's their main goal.

[@brotherandythesage]

Sean Bean is a little small to be Sharpe and yet now I can't picture Sharpe as anyone else!

[@thecascade1440]

I’ve used the same defense where I said I would be upset if Morpheus was made white just the same as I am about Aragorn being made black. They will still call you racist and tell you it’s a fallacy without any explanation.

[@vksasdgaming9472]

007 can be black woman as that is codename of one British agent. James Bond is white male.

[@SirAtesh]

LOTR is a bit different in this context imo, it isn't just "fantasy", Tolkien's work is imagined and written as a mythology of creation, as if the events told has happened in far past. Also characters in LOTR are usually described very thoroughly, for example we know Aragorn is taller than Boromir yet Boromir has stronger stature. Edit: i would love to watch anything from you that is related to Tolkien's world.

[@edgarbm6407]

And Merry was the tallest hobbit, being a Brandybuck.

[@Apollo1989V]

The part of Arda that we see in the stories is Europe in a fictional mythology. Harad is North Africa. Far Harad is subsaharan Africa. The lands to the east are the steppe.

[@magister343]

We get fairly through descriptions of significant characters, and we know how the Vanyar, Noldor, and Sindarin elves, the Longbeard (Durin's Folk) dwarves, and different kinds of Hobbits usually looked, but Tolkien never describes any Avari elves or the dwarves of the other 6 clans. There is plenty of room for racial diversity if telling stories set further to the south or to the east of the areas on which the tales were focused.

[@SirAtesh]

@@magister343 was there any significant stories about avari elves? I can't recall any.

[@IMBlakeley]

There was a kerfuffle as I recall with the recent TV bore-off that some hobbits were dark skinned, whereas Tolkien described one branch of hobbits as nut brown in colour.

I fully agree with your position on this matter; I just want historical and fictional characters to be respected as they are described in their respective literary sources, I just want to see things that are as close as possible to how they really were (if it can be supported by reliable archaeological evidence, better) or how they were written by the authors who created their worlds. As a Hispanic American, I'm not interested in the characters I admire look like how I see myself, I don't care because skin color has nothing to do with what they represent to me, stop changing things for cheap excuses, it's what I and most rational people want. =/

[@D.v1dL33]

Sure, but, how else will Hollywood make a quick buck?

@@D.v1dL33 You say it like it's impossible to make movies that are halfway inspired by reality, they've done it before, why can't they do it now? They don't have to make perfect movies, but as long as they strive to keep the characters the way they should be, it's great.

[@annabellethepitty]

​@ because that takes effort and risk.

@@annabellethepitty And do you think that's why what I think should be discredited? Or do you see that as an excuse for not doing something fairly well? you make it look as if there have been no profitable historical films in the two centuries of existence of that industry, cheap excuses.

[@MalloonTarka]

There's nothing inherently rational about that, that's just a personal preference. Historical, sure, for the sake of accurate history. But fictional? Are you really arguing that people aren't allowed to put their own spins on stories? That the only versions of stories people should retell are the ones most faithful to the first version of that story back when it was first invented? Or is that faithfulness only important for skin colour?

[@TheChooseAName123]

"Defeat us with your intellect!.. if you can" - Metatron, 2023 That one goes into my collection.

[@zelts]

"I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you came unarmed."

[@standingbear998]

if you want a certain skin color for your hero, write your own story for them don't change some else's. It isn't the color that bothers people it is the reason they do it.

[@CheddarGetter]

The gingercide of Hollywood is unacceptable Its not just the characters, the stories are changed as well. They eliminate all of the purpose of the stories. Look at little mermaid.

[@MorinehtarTheBlue]

I tend to tread carefully with the Little Mermaid. Her hair colour isn't mentioned by Hans Christian Andersen in the story. However some of his books were illustrated and the artist depicts her as blonde. That being said it's quite cool that the classic Disney red hair is such a deal breaker for fans. And I absolutely agree with you regarding the gingercide. It's as if they target the characters with the most strong characteristics that they are trying to erase. And that falls hard on gingers who usually have blue eyes and fair skin (albeit with freckles in less northern climates). Being a superhero fan my poster child for this is Wally West.

[@missanne2908]

The confusion that the little mermaid had green skin comes from her description as having a 'rose leaf' complexion. That is an old fashioned term that denotes white skin with pink cheeks, not green skin. The literal translation from the Danish would be 'rose petal' complexion.

[@SombreroPharoah]

The fact that likely referred to wild roses, not domestic cultivars too. Wild roses are very white (extremely light pink) with a tinged pink end th petals. Literally white with rosey glow.

[@adambielen8996]

Who thinks rose petals are green? The most common types of rose are red or white.

[@victoriazero8869]

@@adambielen8996 The confusion is mistranslation from petal to leaf. Petal is correct, leaf is not.

[@simonspacek3670]

"Little mermaid" is described as having green skin, but in Witcher.

[@daybertimagni4841]

You are 100% correct. Much of the world has gone crazy, hopefully common sense will prevail. Love your videos.

[@metatronyt]

Thank you for your support

[@AntiwhitismIsJealousy]

Not enough people who know of Jason Köhne's lexicon and arguments yet

[@s0515033]

I think the problem is that people get made and excited about the wrong things. Things that don't really matter. THey take minor non-issues and blow them out of proportion. Like, they don't get mad about real problems. Just these fake cultural issues.

[@TheMythologyGuy1]

Very well said once again. I honestly wish I could make my points as well as this. The only part I’m not sure about is showcasing content from The Mythology Guy. That dude always rubbed me the wrong way.

[@TheMythologyGuy1]

But seriously I was very happy to see that. Thank you

[@metatronyt]

😂 thanks man I appreciate 🙏🏻 you do a great job yourself.

[@emanymton713]

In a lot of cases swapping the characters race or gender shouldn’t impact the story to a great degree. However in Snow White’s case she is literally named for her physical appearance. She has to be fair skinned, it is integral to her character.

[@NemisCassander]

For the Aragorn controversy, he isn't named for his physical appearance, but there is a cultural element that suggests that you should avoid possible confusion by depicting Aragorn as Black. In the Legendarium, the Corsair city of Umbar is ruled by Black Numenoreans: ethnically white, but they were so-called (at least by Gondor) because they represented, at least ultimately, the other side of the Numenorean divide from the Second Age (the King's Men). They also served Sauron. (The Mouth of Sauron is, I believe, a Black Numenorian.)

[@paulinequinton1478]

Have you read the original versions of these tales? They are very different from the ones we were brought up with.

[@icecell]

Or maybe just stop swapping and respect the material you're adapting since its audience already has expectations. If you don't want to, you're free to create your own.

[@Armoless]

​@@NemisCassander the term "Dark" was used for Aragorn and people assume it could be for skin... like idiots. Not "dark in nature" or grim, a brooding soul.

[@felderup]

@@Armoless dark is also used for grumpy, dark mooded. cranky, angry all the time, very unlike the welsh.

[@Fucoc]

I must say when I see the costume they have put live action snow white in, and the "dwarfs".... it looks like my local theatre group who has put together their own little play, and everybody in the group participates, and the mothers and aunts have made the costumes themselves. It looks like craft-hour and home-made. And the reason WHY i say that is because I belonged to a local theatre group when i was a kid. I 50% African, and i look nothing like white snow, but I played Snow White. I was the only girl with hair as black as ebony, and there was no room in the budget to but a black wig for any of the other blonde girls. I remember I wore a 30$ snow white costume from the toy store, and it looks like the live action snow white is doing the same.

[@FormattedWill]

This actually does bring up one more aspect to race swapped tales, being plays. Which as far as I'm concerned isn't a problem because it's generally local, and the theatre stage is a place that often fiddles about with classics to breathe new life or tell alternate tales. So stage folk, make whatever weird fanfic variants of stories you want, only a select few will likely ever see it anyway, and if no one is interested in your "new story" then sucks to be you, your writing sucks

[@dougkleen9917]

the pics are of stand ins not the actual actors

[@k0lpA]

Imagine if all this ends up having them create actual new characters with original stories ! We can dream right ?

[@marcogenovesi8570]

haha that's hard they are not going to do that

[@Anjiiq]

Yes dream

[@louisxii3482]

as seen by Super Drag and Q-Force, its absolutely not a guarantee of seeing any quality

[@LaNoir.]

With all the changes they did to The Little Mermaid, they should just have done that. Most movies weren't a big franchise until they became one through good writing and acting, so the "we need a big name" shit doesn't really count. Also lets not forget that The Little Mermaid is a danish story - how much danish representation do you see in media? Oh wait white is a race, every white person in Europe is basically the same (someone should've told Putin) I didn't mind the skin tone of the actress but the lore is simply not theirs, it felt disconnected and forced. At least I did have a good laugh when they tried to make it kids-friendly by explaining that King Triton only had one wife yet a dozen of daughters from different ethnicities - I wish I would've met that mother, she must've been a rainbow fish

[@ArisEmriis]

It's a beautiful dream, I agree. But doing that would require hard work and higher intelligence levels, and creativity.

[@elwinbrake2695]

Tolkien video yes please, from a huge Tolkien fan who truly enjoys the nature of the balance of your approach.

[@sicnic666]

We should respect the authors who created these characters and leave them the way they wrote them

[@colinharbinson8284]

very well put.

[@swagromancer]

Yeah, but folktales don't have an author. They grow and change through generations of retelling.

[@ronald3836]

Someone mentioned Morgan Freeman playing the role of an originally white character in The Shawshank Redemption. I think that falls well within the normal liberties that a movie adaptation should be allowed to take. It is a minor change that does not impact the story, and it is entirely believable. Also, there was probably no widespread "attachment" of a portion of the target audience to the originally white character. But in the end it is a decision for the entertainment company to make. If the public does not like it, the movie or tv series will probably not do too well, and the company will either learn or go bankrupt.

[@minime7375]

@@swagromancerFolktales are set in a certain space and time, even if they don’t have a known author. The screens are full of race swapping for characters from Norse or Celtic mythology and folktale. Moreso when the author IS known, look at TV series like The Last Kingdom and then explain please why do they have a black bishop with a Jamaican accent and Chinese defenders of Northumbria.

[@Lucivius27]

Tom Cruise replaced the Japanese main character in Edge of Tomorrow and no one complain about it.

[@leohalivan861]

The question that I always pose to this is, "If representation is the issue, then why don't these production companies make movies from African and other black heritage stories?" The answer is that they don't really care about representation. They are blackwashing these characters because it's easy and it shuts up the woke with minimal effort on their part.

[@nessi777]

Exactly! I would love to see more original African stories and myths, but because I don’t like black Anne Boylein I will be called a racist.

[@holdencross5904]

THIS! I even said I would not have complained if the new TLM was a NEW PRINCESS and no one else would’ve really complained! We would’ve LOVED a new black princess. Tiana became one of the most beloved characters of all the princesses.

[@Ironica82]

It's all about the ESG score. I wonder how many black washing would never have happened if the academy didn't push the ESG score as well as made rules that you must have a diverse cast.

[@TheDarkWiiPlayer]

My whole internet friend-group is essentially one big woke bubble and we all agree that these companies will do anything for money and would just as well throw POC under the bus and make movies about how good the KKK is if they thought it would make them richer. So I really don't know what "woke mob" they're even trying to shut up here; everyone hates them anyway and will watch their stuff regardless. I think they're really just farming outrage at the race-swapping, more than actually trying to honestly appeal to anyone. From what I can tell, the plan looks somewhat like this: 1. Make some dumb changes that nobody asked for that conservatives will be butthurt about 2. Make a big deal about how progressive they are being, and make sure everyone hears about how they're doing this for the woke mob 3. Hope that at least a bunch of dumb 14yos on twitter will defend their bullshit simply because the evil right is complaining about it 4. Wait for yet another cycle of "they are erasing our culture" - "if you think that you're literally hitler" that gives them free exposure Disney wins, online content creators feast on the scrapes and POC and other minorities get hate for stuff they never asked for.

[@simianlife5949]

It would be very cool to see a movie about Mansa Musa and his pilgrimage to Mecca.

[@petrmaly9087]

I'm a man of Slav ethnicity and my ancestors were Slavs as far back into the past as I could trace them (several centuries at least). Yet I never had any problem, not even as a kid, seeing myself represented by fictional characters like Blade (black) or Daria (woman). Because these characters did represent me, my morals, my worldview, my beliefs. All the important things. Their skin color or sex were irrelevant compared to that. Only an extremist racist and sexist can say "you are not represented because that character doesn't share your skin shade or genitals". I guess modern Hollywood writers are such racists and sexists.

[@nerysghemor5781]

Bingo!

[@Sandwich13455]

Yahoos

[@HusZat]

100 % agree!

[@genzi78514]

It's more about narcissistic behavior. Because these characters don't only need to look like them (by race, sex, sexual orientation...) they need to be ideal versions of them. Flawless and perfect characters that can't do no wrong and are always right, for their egos! Funny thing, I remember identified with Ikari Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion and Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. I'm Latina woman. No one would say these characters are their favourites because they are terrible in many ways, but they were good call outs of my own behavior and I appreciate them for that. That's another problem I have with diversity and representation. They don't allow minorities being human.

[@simonspacek3670]

Same here. Blade? Great, I want to be like him (just different sword). And one of my most beloved characters is Red from Shawshank. Portrayed by Morgan Freeman. When I was... 15? I realized that there are no vampires, but being "the one that can get anything" is great position in the life.

[@theycallmejodamo]

I don’t think either camp is inherently good. I think it all depends on the writers/directors/cast. Like using The Little Mermaid as an example, I enjoyed the movie in both iterations. I grew up with the first and I thought the new one did some interesting things, like making each of the seven sisters represent and look like a different sea. I thought that was neat. I think Halle Bailey in this new iteration is spot on, being so beautiful and having such a lovely voice that even though it’s a kid’s movie, I could definitely see why fishermen would ground their ships to be closer to her (because that’s what mermaids are supposed to do) However, most of the underwater scenes were way too dark for me with the lighting, which was realistic, but doesn’t really work if I can’t see anything. (Think Deathly Hallows) Then we’ve got things like the live action Ghost in the Shell where she’s played by a white lady when the character is supposed to be Japanese. I think it’s all up to interpretation if it’s done well and not just for the sake of it basically 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[@SyamDaRos-EndoManno]

They want *equality* by having more black characters? No problem, there are a lot of stories to adapt. My aunt gifted me a book during childhood, "Nelson Mandela - Le mie fiabe africane" (My African folktales). A lot of these tales were fascinating and inspiring, I loved that book! Disney should adapt those, instead of overwriting already popular white characters. Oh, and should have a "diverse and inclusive" cast as well, like the hero with red hair, the tribe chief from Iceland and the love interest from Indonesia. Otherwise I may start to think Disney has double standards 😂

[@TheDarkWiiPlayer]

Yea, he said it in one of his previous videos on the topic as well. And personally, I'd love to hear more stories from around the world, as long as they're adapted well. Problem is, I don't trust Disney to adapt those stories; they will probably attempt to change details to appeal more to a western audience, in ways that just offend everyone at the same time.

[@Ironica82]

@@TheDarkWiiPlayer Considering how terrible and inaccurate The Woman King was, I wouldn't trust any big studio with African stories.

[@theredheadwiththread1275]

My biggest gripe with Snow White (besides the dwarves) is that she is described as "lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, and skin WHITE as snow". Though to be fair, if my memory is correct, in the Grimm brothers version of the fairy tale (the one most people in the US probably know), her mother wished for a child "as red as blood, as white as snow, and as black as the wood of the window". For context, the queen pricked her finger while sewing and some of her blood fell onto the snow on the window frame (which was made of ebony wood) and she thought it looked beautiful so wished for a child as beautiful as that.

[@Gabi_Citterio]

Ummm, so they could actually make her black and color her hair white, and it would be correct. A bit creepy, but correct.

[@mandowarrior123]

​@@Gabi_Citterionot in the spirit of it, no. Black skin was so rare that hair was the assumed colour descriptor. Black/raven, blonde, ginger, brunette, etc. When I was a lad I can still remember the switchover.

[@ravanpee1325]

It's a German fairy tale, so please no cultural appropriation from othe cultures

[@Gabi_Citterio]

@@mandowarrior123 I know I know, it was a joke. I do not support in any way race swapping

[@Schnittertm1]

@@Gabi_Citterio The snow is framed by the window frame, just as the face is framed by the hair, at least when you have long hair. The red is the blush on the cheeks or at least a healthy color of those that are active. Besides, it was a German queen. Last I looked, people here in Germany back then weren't really black. I also don't think a German queen would have born a black child, at best a mixed race. But knowing the intermarriage of noble houses up to fairly recently and looking at the skin color of all European noble houses, there isn't much black in there either. So, yes, the Grimm brothers and everyone else in Germany reading this folk tale would have gotten no wrong ideas and Snow White would be white and Germanic.

[@praevasc4299]

Even the changing of fictional characters has many different layers and ways to do it. There are many stories which can be retold in a completely different setting. You take the character archetypes, the main themes of the plot, and put it in a different culture and historical era, and it's fine. Romeo an Juliet's story can be used for a completely different story, where instead of being children of rival medieval noble families, they can be children of rival Japanese Samurai clans, or children of rival Mexican drug cartels, etc. That would be completely fine. It would be a new story, in a new culture, it would merely use some universal character archetypes and themes. There have been many widely accepted adaptations (yes, ADAPTATIONS, not remakes) of the Romeo and Juliet story. And the reason behind these adaptations were not "I find it problematic that they're white, let's change their skin, to be able to virtue signal", the reason was to tell a compelling story in a different setting. There are many great cases of valuable adaptations. Hey, even the Lion King is basically an adaptation of Hamlet. There are movies which took a medieval tale and put it in a wild west setting, or a modern setting. They are fine. The problem with remakes like The Little Mermaid and Snow White is that they don't explore or create anything. They don't even use the race-swap to explore new cultural themes, the characters stay the same just with a different look. They don't start with "let's use these character archetypes to explore them in a new setting". It's "I find their race problematic, so let's change it, and accuse anyone who doesn't like it as a racist". Isn't the difference obvious?

[@Enki1013]

I had mentioned "Black Orpheus" in another post. They did not do any mindless race swapping and keep with ancient Greece. Instead they did a marvelous retelling set in 20th century Brazil. Another I should have mentioned and forgot was "Carmen Jones," with the setting in WWII era United States instead of doing race swapping in 19th century Spain. (I still love the song "Stand Up and Fight" remake, from bull fighter to boxer.) Years ago, when I was online obsessive Phantom fan, I had stumbled on a Bollywood musical "Rangeela" while channel surfing and loved it. It had me crying at the end and the first thing I blurted out was, "This is like Phantom of the Opera except without any of that heavy handed horror stuff!"

[@Nonamearisto]

LARPing is a bit different because it's not pretending to make a canon claim to what a character is or isn't, and a group of LARPers usually has a much more limited racial pool than the general population of the world. In other words, if a white guy is pretending to be Goku, it's not the same as a company which is authorized to say what is official lore making him white.

[@Lothiril]

I'm always down for a dedicated Tolkien video! 😌 Hope you'll make one in the future! Although when it comes to Tolkien's Elves, I have my own answer already. Tolkien crafted his world very carefully, so to me fidelity to his work is important. And in Tolkien's created universe there simply aren't any black Elves. Tolkien's "Dark Elves" aren't called dark because of the colour of their skin, rather they have never lived in the light of Valinor and that's why they're called "dark". Based on the descriptions that we have, none of the Elves were anything but white/pale.

[@magister343]

We cannot actually say for sure whether or not there are any dark-skinned elves. We know that the Sindar, Noldor, and especially Vanyar elves were extremely fair skinned, but Tolkien never gives any physical description of Avari elves. In the published Silmarillion version, there were originally only 3 lineages of elves. In that version all the Avari were originally of the same race as the ancestors of the Noldor and Telerin elves, and would presumably be similarly pale. However, Tolkien did write alternate versions were there were originally 5 clans of elves, two of which never had any members go to Valinor. One of those was led by an elf named Morwe, which literally means "Black Person." That is probably figurative, as the root "mor" is often used to describe things as evil, but he could also have just had dark skin. Tolkien often describes Orcs as having either black or sallow yellowish skin and mongoloid facial features, and he says (in most versions) that the Orcs are descended from corrupted Avari elves, so it is possible that those traits were phenotypes inherited from some lineages of elves who never made it to Valinor. The Nandor Wood Elves are described as a mixed race, as they descend from Telerin elves who turned back and then interbred with some Avari elves. The rulers of Mirkwood were pale Sindar elves, but the people they ruled over could have a range of skin tones like the people of the Mediterranean or Latin America for all we know.

[@margaretmaynard7]

He was an English writer where native people are white.

[@scarlett19b]

@@magister343 *Morish people wether they are Fictional or not are Dark skinned!*

[@teleriferchnyfain]

I would have NO problems with a certain type (the Avari as you mentioned, say) being actually Black. Problem is the ridiculous way RoP did the casting. Just random 🤬. Same with Wheels of Time - the books were extremely diverse with well-thought out cultures & races - & the idiotic casting just ignored that 🤬

[@Lothiril]

@@magister343 You are doing a lot of guesswork here. Whenever Tolkien described the Elves, they were white. If they had been black, he would have mentioned such a remarkable difference. You can say "we cannot know because he didn't describe this one thought that he had for a time", but that's your headcanon, not what Tolkien wrote. I'm going based on what Tolkien wrote, not what I may hope he could have written but which is unlikely. The argument for Morwë is useless, because it uses the same root as Moriquendi, which we already have established to NOT mean that it meant the dark elves where black. Same goes for a name likr Morwen, we know Morwen didn't have black skin. That's twice the word môr used for people, and both times it's not refering to skin colour. Why pretend it's an indicator when it's clearly not? Using the Orcs is also useless, because the decent from corrupted Avari is not "most versions" - there are just as many if not more instances where Orcs are corrupted Men. Nor would it matter, because the Orcs are different enough to the Elves in their description that something like skin colour wouldn't necessarily be an inherited trait. Again, you are filling small corners with your wishes. Which is fine, but if we go by Tolkien's words there is no indication for the fulfilment of your wishes, nor is it very likely based on everything else he wrote.

[@Dalthos2]

If a fictional character is written as Chinese and he is turned white in a later adaptation, there is an implication that the Chinese features needed to be "corrected." The same principle applies if he roles are reversed. The argument "your reluctance to accept the new portrayal of the character implies bigotry" also implies that the change in portrayal was rooted in bigotry.

[@jmgonzales7701]

true, Thou i think more people need to actually know that despite the overwhelming majority of the han Chinese, china in itself is home to 56 ethnic groups which would have varying attires, cultures and honestly even Facial features. But yes if the character is written to be Chinese the character should at least be one of the 56 ethnic groups.

[@jameshamaker9321]

I would totally watch a video talking about the subject of Tolkien, because of the fact that the show rings of power is totally going outside the source material.

[@vksasdgaming9472]

Tolkien does mention Haradrim that live south of Gondor and often are allied with Mordor and they are dark-skinned. They are also courageous fighters that held their ground when their orcish allies broke and fled.

[@locmari]

@@vksasdgaming9472 There is no Haradrim depicted in Rings of Power so your comment is irrelevant? Noone is saying that there isn't black people in Middle-Earth, it is that there are no black elves in Middle-Earth. As you said, Haradrim have been established as being dark skinned, similar to Sub Sahara Africa/Middle Eastern people. Yet instead of using them as a means to add diversity to the show they instead choose to raceswap an elf that makes no canonical sense.

[@RuthT90]

This is why I won't watch it, as a lover of Tolkien's work I think I'd find it far too frustrating to watch such an incredible and intricate story changed.

[@david_walker_esq]

What about cultural "ownership?" To me, The Little Mermaid is a Danish story. My first introduction to it was Disney's 1989 adaptation (of course). As a child, I didn't know what a Dane looked like. I don't even recall associating them with Vikings. But, as a child, I imagined them being fair skinned like Ariel and Prince Eric. I eventually read the works of and learned about Hans Christian Andersen in high school and university. As an adult, in my mind, "the Little Mermaid" is Danish. It's not so much Ariel, the Disney character, but a character and a story of Danish culture. She is so significant to the Danish people that there is a statue of Den lille Havfrue in the harbour of Copenhagen. I think Disney took a good approach to her depiction in their 1989 adaptation. There are stories that her hair colour was made red to differentiate her from the blonde mermaid depicted by Daryl Hannah in the Touchstone (Disney) 1984 film, Splash. In my mind, I also associate Vikings with red hair. I'm sure the Disney animators had that in mind. I think what confuses audiences the most about the location of "the Kingdom of Atlantica" is Sabastian the crab. He's obviously meant to represent a Caribbean character. But, he is the only "Caribbean" character in the film. I imagine Atlantica being in the middle of the Atlantic, halfway between the Caribbean and Europe. It seems plausible that King Triton's court would consist of sea creatures from all over the Atlantic ocean, including the Caribbean, but not exclusive to the Caribbean. And being centrally located, Ariel could easily come ashore along the coast of Denmark, Bermuda, Jamaica, the Bay of Biscay, Dover, Cap-Vert, or even Newfoundland or Brasil. But, if I had to guess I would place "Prince Eric's castle" in a port city like La Rochelle and not actually Copenhagen. The Chef is obviously "French" and has an appreciation for seafood. But, Eric doesn't appear to be French. Nor does his guardian/advisor, Grimsby who is obviously English. Disney's inspiration for Eric's seaside castle was Chateau de Chillon on Lake Geneva in Switzerland (far from the Atlantic). Clearly, Disney intended for the setting to be ambiguous to appeal to a global (predominantly US) audience. (We all know that American viewers can't associate with characters living in Toronto, so a TV show or movie has to be set in Chicago or even Minneapolis over Toronto, even if it's filmed in Toronto.) But, in my mind, Eric is likely a prince of the Kingdom of Denmark. And while "his castle" isn't in Copenhagen, he probably resided in a French chateau on the Bay of Biscay for the duration of the 1989 film (even though the Danish royal family owns Chateau de Cayx in the South of France, far from the coast). On cultural ownership, though. I'm Anishinabe. The Anishinabek are one of those "underrepresented visible ethnic/racial minorities" in Hollywood. I don't particularly identify with Pocahontas, but Aladdin and The Little Mermaid were my two favourites in my childhood. I eventually came to appreciate Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, The Jungle Book, Treasure Planet and Atlantis: The Lost Empire as well. None of them feature Indigenous characters, but that's not why I'd like a film or story. In more recent years, I identified with the deity of Maui in Moana because of his similarity to Nanibijou in my culture, the ofrenda practice in Coco and even the vaguely "Sami" folklore and politics in Frozen II. I appreciate seeing Indigenous characters and actors in TV and film, but I don't seek them out. I don't need to see "Anishinabe" Ariel to identify with The Little Mermaid. I would only want an Indigenous actress to portray Ariel if she resembled Ariel or at least passed for Danish (Anishinabek aren't especially dark in complexion). A few years ago, Stumptown was adapted for TV and was broadcasted on ABC for one season. I immediately loved the series. Half of the cast consisted of Indigenous characters in and around Portland, Oregon. The entire first season revolved around a lost character, Benjamin Blackbird. Blackbird was Indigenous and when he was finally depicted on screen at the end of the season, he was depicted by an Italian-Korean actor. I was disappointed. Sure, the actor was handsome. Hot, even. But, all of the other Indigenous characters were played by Indigenous actors, including Tantoo Cardinal, as Sue Lyn Blackbird. Based on my opinion of an Indigenous actress playing Ariel, I obviously have a double standard when it comes to the depiction of Indigenous characters. Is it racist? Or is it a desire for greater, "authentic" representation? An Italian-Korean actor depicting an Indigenous character in a contemporary TV drama is one thing, but if Indigenous folklore (like Nanibijou or Haiwatha) were depicted by non-Indigenous actors or if the stories were "reimagined" as black or white, I'd be likely be quite bitter, angry even. So, if can feel so strongly about my own culture and folklore, shouldn't I have empathy for Danish and other creators of fiction and folklore? I think The Wizard of Oz and The Wiz is a good example of a racialised adaption done well. The Wizard of Oz, as originally written and then adapted to film in 1939 by MGM featured a "white" Dorothy from rural Kansas. And in the 1978 film The Wiz, the characters were black in an urban setting. They didn't set it in rural Kansas. They didn't set it in the past. They made it contemporary and most importantly, they named it The Wiz. Unlike Disney, with their 2023 adaptation, the makers of The Wiz didn't "blackwash" the story. They racially adapted it and further differentiated it from the source material by giving it a new name. Why can't Disney take a similar approach? And if Disney truly wanted to be "diverse" and "inclusive" they would have adapted the African folklore of Mami Wata to film and cast Halle Bailey as the titular African mermaid character.

[@brandotheone]

We really needed this video. I was called racist multiple times on Reddit when I was questioning the Aragorn race swap in mtg. Thank you.

[@marthabenner6528]

He's definitely implied as a white person.

[@jinxhead4182]

Reddit is a cesspool, so hardly surprising.

[@thisgoddamusernamestoodamnlong]

@@jinxhead4182It's actually amazing how: no matter where you are on the political compass. Redditors will fucking hate you.

[@brandotheone]

@@jinxhead4182 To be fair, it depends on the subred, there are a few smaller ones in which you can have honest conversations. The bigger ones are run by nazi mods that will ban you if you express an opinion that slightly go against the woke ideology.

[@Lora_Beolab]

@@thisgoddamusernamestoodamnlong nah, reddit is almost entierly left nowadays. All right subreddits have been banned, and neutral political subreddits are always under threat

[@MFC343]

If race wasn't important - they wouldnt of changed it in the first place.

[@Player-re9mo]

Nailed it!

[@bigguy7353]

It's very important to race hustlers.

[@edgarbm6407]

Exactly

[@doctorsketch7476]

IMPOSSIBLE! (im jk)

[@oyoo3323]

*wouldn't've

[@akiamendoza8859]

A good 'blackwashed' fictional story imo would be Disney's The Princess and the Frog because it does not copy paste the original princess and the frog, but instead took inspiration from it and wrote its own story with different characters and in a different setting. If they made a live action version with everything else unchanged except that Tiana and Navi are white then of course I would get mad because that's not how they were in the animated film.

[@NothingXemnas]

The film is so much deeper as well! Tiana and Charlotte are both well developed, Charlotte in particular CANNOT see Tiana for her color. Sure she grew up in a rich family and is spoiled, but she has a great heart. Growing up WITH Tiana meant she saw Tiana for who she is and defends her REGARDLESS of how much less income she has. The interactions themselves dont feel artificial or forced. Charlotte is the person we should strive to be, and Tiana is the proper representation we needed.

[@gustaftheone9279]

Or Tarzan - they should do that one 😂

[@Natalie66796]

I'm not a fan of race swapping at all. I can deal with it and even like it if it is done with reason and I like the movie or work. However, a lot of it isn't done for any reason. I'm Autistic and I hate big changes but I can handle it sometimes. But I'm not gonna sit here and be called a racist for disliking you changing something I'm accustomed to. Also, Snow White's skin colour is apart of her name and apart of her story, SKIN AS WHITE AS SNOW Edit: I adored Tiana from the Princess and the Frog while growing up because she was so hard working. I'm a white woman. We look nothing alike but I adore her

[@musingsof1guy934]

"Snow White and the seven genders" I sprayed coffee everywhere when you dropped that one 😂

[@shweshwa9202]

Maybe black flower, she was called Snow White because of her very light skin

[@raskolnikov6443]

@@shweshwa9202it’s a German fairy tale. As a German I can’t stand Hollywood taking our culture and bastardizing it.

[@canemcave]

Careful, it's not a good thing to give them ideas, they will even do it :S

[@shweshwa9202]

​@@canemcaveI wouldn't mind if Disney created a new African character who lives in Africa for their cartoons. If the character development is done well and makes sense, I would watch it and relate to it. You can empathize with anyone and anything if you care about the story instead of their skin color or origin. That's the power of storytelling and cinema, but Americans forgot about that and now it's just politics, agenda and ideology. I related to WALL-E, Buscapé (in the City of God, Brazilian movie), Nemo, etc., despite not being a robot, a child, black, Brazilian, or a fish.

[@scarofmanleavethembehind]

I call them off white and the seven creatures.

[@thesisypheanjournal1271]

It's not even the "But I always pictured her as a Caucasian!" factor. It's erasing Danish culture. A non-Caucasian Snow White is erasing German culture. Changing races of Tolkien characters is erasing British culture. It's also dissing other ethnicities by implying that they don't have any interesting stories to be told.

[@ominous-omnipresent-they]

Are there no black British people?

[@Taiko206]

Agreed, the whole "Black Cleopatra " thing is a good example of that. Okay , the director already admitted that she made a "political statement " with that one, but fact is that there's plenty of African queens worthy of having a documentary or even a movie made of them. One good example might be the Nigerian queen Amina who waged a 34 year long campaign to expand her territory. Would definitely be interested to watch something like that.

[@nikoc8968]

@@ominous-omnipresent-they they are less than 4% of the modern British population, so it would actually make more sense(nearly 4x more sense) to make the characters Asian, since they represent about 14% of the modern British population. but thats all beside the point: yes, there were virtually no black people living in Britain during the middle ages, or any time similar to whats depicted in Tolkiens universe. leave British culture alone.

[@weberman173]

im a german, and no a non caucasian snow hite is not "erasing german culture". Snowwhite has the special situation where her Skincolor actually matters to the degree she is NAMED BECAUSE HER SKIN WAS WHITE AS SNOW. Thats the only reasson why a non caucasian snow white would not work. her story does not inherently have to be about a caucasian outside of her skin being described as such.

[@informationgatherer4970]

​@@ominous-omnipresent-they it was based on HIS experience in life and WW1 so just maybe he didn't have enough experience to add. 🤷 Books tent to be written by said person, just like if I was to pick up books from different cultures I'm not sitting there excepting to see my culture in someone else's experience.

[@mjphyil]

brilliantly said. We are watching definitions be redefined before our eyes - some claim tolerance yet they are bigots, some claim they are not racist yet their actions demonstrate the opposite, some claim they seek freedom to be themselves yet deny others that same right... strange days we live in.

[@JoJo-vg8dz]

The woke are the most racist, sexist and intolerant.

[@marthabenner6528]

Just so.

[@LairdJ56]

Fortunately just because a group claim a change in a definition, doesnt make it so. It is ridiculous and they are delusional. Hold the line.

[@JoJo-vg8dz]

@LairdJ56 Exactly. They arbitrarily change the definition of words according to their ideology and think we must comply. They are demented weasels.

[@bidenhasdementia8657]

It's only going to get worse. The persecution the native European population will face in the near future will make previous atrocities look like childsplay

[@ismaelbauman2156]

In any case you are correct that it is unfair that whitewashing is rightfully called out. But the reverse is not only okay but also good. That said I do not think we should just say. “Race swapping is always wrong never do it ever!” Because that is too limiting. And simply would not work for modern retellings. Rather what writers should do is justify the changes if they are insistent. For instance Marvel Heimdall being black works because he’s not actually Scandinavian but rather an extradimentional god who merely resembles a human.

[@SEB1991SEB]

I wouldn't mind the Little Mermaid character being black if this was a brand new interpretation of the story, one with a new version of the character and that diverged from the original story (and from the 1989 film) in many different ways. That's why I didn't mind Princess Tiana in the Princess and the Frog being black, because it was a whole new interpretation of the original story with a different version of the main character. But this was a direct remake of the 1989 film, with the exact same story and the exact same character, Ariel. So literally one of the only things they changed about it was Ariel's skin colour, so they just blackwashed her.

[@Divig]

They could *dramatic pause* use the real storyline for the little mermaid instead of the happy-go-lucky Disney version.

[@terryr7622]

Never thought of it that way. Very good point

[@captainvanisher988]

The problem is also that in one case, Ariel aka Little Mermaid was a widely watched movie which is still watched by millions of kids but the folk story that the princess and the frog was based on was not as widely known hence why they could somewhat change the character and they definitely deviated from the original folk story a lot so no one really minded that.

[@chriswest8389]

I have an idea I really like, in keeping with your notion of changing the setting time and place, thus the ethnicity. We had An Xmas Carol, in jolly old England. Next we had an American Xmas Carol. Why can't we have An African American Xmas Carol?In addition to socio, economic commentary, add race to the mix. A new element. This Scrooge is even worse as he's exploiting an exploited people. His own . This worked for the Wiz anyway. Less of a reboot, though more fantasy , lending itself to a different treatment too

[@man-yp1gb]

They made a Cinderella movie back in the 90s with Toni Braxton. And now you complain because you're conservative snowflakes want you to....

[@BHSRugby1999]

Here is a point. “The Shawshank Redemption” film the character Red was originally of Irish decent with red hair in the book. There is even a joke in the film where he is asked while they call him Red, and he responds with a joke, “It’s because I’m Irish.” Or along those lines. Most people have likely not read the original story including myself. I can’t imagine Red not being Morgan Freeman.

[@Lillith.]

Ford Prefect from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy also had red hair in the books. I honestly can't imagine him as anything other than a black guy and I've read the books more often than I've seen the movie.

[@Mitsu2040]

I think when translating characters from a book it's way easier to go by unnoticed because they didn't visually exist before an adaptation. But characters that were created with a certain look and have been that way for decades it's more jarring to see someone that doesn't look the same.

[@mattshuey1]

Thank you for being brave enough to state your mind when so many are trying to silence people. Metatron can't be cancelled, that implies someone else is holding the keys to the kingdom. Definitely want an upload on the Tolkien elves situation. Eol from the Silmarillion was "the dark elf" and it's explained that his people never saw the light of Aman. The same parallel with darkness being a lack of divinity is in the Eddas for the dark elves as well. They bound gods with artifice, they weren't divine beings the way those that honor the gods do. Woke people warped this to be about dark skin, but it was never about skin.

[@skp8748]

Well people said it forever now its happening to white people they're upset

[@pedrokantor7972]

cope

[@mattshuey1]

@@pedrokantor7972 About what?

[@rednaskela4830]

Another point to make is how fiction is often not supposed to reflect the real world or the human race to begin with, turning elves in Lord of the Rings universe black would be like turning the aliens from the Alien franchise white.

[@M.Norton]

The swap in the little mermaid really got to me. I grew up 40 minutes from where the book was written and grew up reading the original story long before I saw the Disney version. I remember being so disappointed in the shift of tone in the movie compared to the book, but I could UNDERSTAND that the book is quite dark for some children. I was gutted when I heard about the live action race swap. I had been hoping for sooooo many years for Disney to make the story justice. Denmark, where the book was written, has a majority of white people. I grew up KNOWING that the little mermaid was definitely white - there was no other possibility. But sure, let's erase my childhood hopes to pacify some i****s in the USA. (And btw, I'm still hoping and waiting for stories from Africa to be made into movies, I grew up reading some of those as well and have yet to hear anything about it)

[@jasongarcia2140]

Everything that could be said, you have said it. At least it seems like many more of us agree about this than disagree. There still is no way to tell because these people don't engage in fair conversation.

[@42ZaphodB42]

You're not getting why they race swap. It's not to pacify someone. It's to make viewers of minorities identify with figures of majorities to make more money, because they stories of majorities attract more viewers in general. Really this shouldn't get to you in the way that it does. Be mad at the companies, led by mighty managers pushing these woke agendas to make more money.

[@dragonstooth4223]

Yeah it's sad eh ... to me it says to the race swapped race "your stories aren't good enough to make an original movie we believe will make money so here's one from another culture for you." That's pretty disgusting if you ask me. It's saying those stories aren't important... only European ones

[@joshmoonXY]

" stories from Africa" such as....?

[@catherinearangie2311]

​@@joshmoonXYcontact the South African department of Arts and Culture. There are whole storybooks. You speak as though Africans did not know what a story was until an American corporation enlightened them.

[@sagethegreat4680]

There is absolutely no real need for swapping because you can always just make a new story . Snow white is a perfect example too , snow white isn't snow white , the dwarves aren't dwarves, there is no prince charming. Everything is changed so they could easily make a brand new princess , with a new story. The problem is the studios have gotten seriously lazy and greedy

[@VitalVampyr]

@jackjones4824 The point of Veggie Tales is that all the characters are vegetables (because that's cheaper to animate than humans). The variety of vegetable they are also has no correlation to ethnicity. If it did and the Biblical characters weren't represented as Middle Eastern coded vegetables you might have a point.

[@Ironica82]

@jackjones4824 WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!! Ya telling me...Goliath was not a giant cucumber?!?! My life is a lie!!!

[@VitalVampyr]

@jackjones4824 How you could your point about race-swapping characters not being a problem because it's done in Veggie Tales possibly "still stand" when you yourself would concede that the vegetables the characters were portrayed as do not correspond to race?

[@VitalVampyr]

@jackjones4824 I see. You seem to have overlooked an important reason why people wouldn’t care in the case of changing to non-human characters though. Non-humans do not have human ethnicities. So a tomato (or whatever, I haven’t watched Veggie Tales) portraying Jesus *isn’t* portraying Jesus as not being a Levantine Jew. However a Latina portraying Snow White *is* portraying Snow White as not being a Northern European.

[@sagethegreat4680]

@jackjones4824 you have no clue what a race swap is my friend is what the problem is. Your examples are allegories not race swaps . In the lion the the witch and wardrobe is an allegory for Jesus . That doesn't mean they swapped a human for a lion . A race swap would be if they took aslan and made him a fly instead of a lion . Race swaps can mess with the stories it depends on the world they are based in . Veggie tales is in based in a world where veggies are sentient so it makes sense. Take rings of power Arondir, all other elves are written as being fair skin and long hair and ethereal glow . Arondir doesn't have fair skin and he actually has short hair ( don't know where he plugged in the electric clippers to get that hair in a time with no electricity) and he isn't ethereal. So it is no where near anything Tolkien wrote about . Now Amazon could have easily made it's own unique fantasy and made all the elves black wouldn't have mattered because you create the rules when you create the world . Veggie tales when the creators created it they created a world where veggies are sentient. It isn't a race swapped anything it is it's own thing it may be based on something else but it isn't that something else.

[@christianbjorck816]

The cultural aspect is important too. Many of these stories are European, for the European people, reflecting a specific time in history. By race-swapping and putting in every other ethnicity under the sun, you falisfy the stories origin. It’s just like they just want to erase European heritage completly because ”white man bad”.

[@cryptic1999]

That's why I don't really like raceswapping. I don't outright hate but I do find it ironic that people are preaching about representing different cultures and ethnicities but instead of I don't know, taking characters and stories from the native folklore and mythologies, they just do a raceswap of a preexisting story and call it a day. And it's insulting to both parties by trying to rewrite another's culture to appease some twisted diverse narrative.

[@nikolaykaradzhiev1889]

They are not just falsifying the stories origin, it's plain bad storytelling and world building which ironically serves to create negative sentiment towards that "race" because people will now associate it with ruining their favorite story. It's not actually the race that is the problem, it's that it's out of place in that story, but very few people have studied storytelling and they just make the surface association.

[@j.a4196]

You know, they do want to erase Europeans' heritage. I think it's pretty obvious at this point, I can't deny it anymore. Nowadays even ballet and classical music is considered RaCisT.

[@PhattyBolger]

I remember learning that Angrboda in God of War: Ragnarok is a black girl. I searched online to see if there were any mods to change her character model to a more appropriate depiction, but all I saw was woke outrage that someone dare depict a Scandinavian mythological character as Scandinavian.

[@Smokey348]

@@PhattyBolger oh no don't remind me of that, that just reminds of what the writer of GOWR tweeted lol. That guy is so delusional, basically saying it doesn't matter what the Jotnar look like because they can shapeshift into anything.

[@warangelcloud]

As an "African American" I don't relate to African things. African Kings traded us as slaves to be slaves again in Europe and America. So we need our own stories. Yet, there's something odd, about Selena Kyle/Catwoman. In the Batman 60's/70's show, was she black washed? Of course, she was black washed. Why is it a problem now? I just think it's funny that now more equal rights have been given, the less we want it. The Disney's Little Mermaid from the 90s is a watered down version of the original Little Mermaid. So, why are we arguing over a race swap to an already retelling of the Little Mermaid. Since Mermaids are fictional almost everywhere, maybe every culture needs their own Mermaid story told from that culture. Commissioner Gordon was black washed in the New Batman Movie, nobody complained. The new Superman Cartoon Black washed Jimmy Olsen, nobody complained. The last Spider-man movies race swapped MJ(but this MJ is mixed, sarcasm) The inconsistencies of out cries with Black/race washing is very troublesome. Even I'm inconsistent and that's not good.

[@someguy2393]

Can't wait to see them cast Michael Cera as the next Black Panther

[@Sound557]

Nah man Ryan Gosling. He's LITERALLY MEEeeee!!

[@markhorton3994]

More like Michael Dorn. ( from Star Trek).

[@kenlieck7756]

@@Sound557 Ryan Gosling should be Howard the Duck. (Sorry, that was a fowl pun. I was almost too chicken to pullet...)

[@lopolik]

lol Michael Cera

[@SkylarTrahan]

I’d watch that, still haven’t watched either black panther movie

[@tirandeshibaraki743]

In the case of Harry from Harad, Tolkien very much so told a translator who was translating The Lord of the Rings that he would not allow any changes be made because he had spent years detailing the story and creating the world as he wanted it to be and he would not allow a translator who'd spent a few months at most translating the work to make changes so his carefully crafted mythos. As such, changing Aragorn into a Haradrim raider (Haradrim being Southrons coming in that skintone) would have lead to Tolkien prompty telling the object trying to alter his world to either make it as he wrote it or not make it at all. It's not a racist argument to reiterate the author's own stance on how he wants his work, his legacy to be portrayed. So yeah personally I have taken an extremely hardline stance against Lawd o da Rangz (I refuse to call this abomination Lord of the Rings) because it goes against what Tolkien would have wanted, it shows the hubris of a morally deficient American company. LotR Elves are 'fair skinned', if they want darker skinned elves they'd have to resort to D&D or even World of Warcraft (Night Elves are purple) as examples. But the wretches who change the skintones of these characters don't care about the established lore and setting of such things. They just see the setting as vehicle to spew their vile propaganda about their ideology. And in my honest opinion, such things should be denounced, shunned and reviled. The Lord of the Rings is not some sports car brand that you can spray paint to suit your tastes, it is a story, a mythos, a world created by one man's passion for his homeland of England. The closest thing I can equate this to is the Anne Boleyn fiasco, while one is fiction and the other is historical both change the fact remains that both were changed to suit the propaganda spewed forth by the Woke death cult. People call my view racist, but tbh in this day and age when everything is racist or "German WOII guys" that has no weight anymore. If anything, taking flak means I'm over the target. Feel free to critique my stance; I welcome fair discourse on the topic.

[@bonefetcherbrimley7740]

Night elves are cool. I like them.

[@robertandersson3417]

I agree with your stance. I wouldn't mind the slightest if they created a new movie in another universe, there can be countless black elves then.

[@motixdiabolic8792]

Night elves have their name cause of their colour so thats fine The problem is that normal elves like in lotr are described as white and pure beings (not to be racist but you cannot accociate the colour black wth purity that just doesnt work) and making elves black would defy what they are supposed to be. So if you made the ninja turtles Knights that would be bullsh*t because theyre meant to be ninja

[@motixdiabolic8792]

@bonefetcherbrimley7740

[@bonefetcherbrimley7740]

@@motixdiabolic8792 Makes sense to me, black elves just don't work within Tolkien's world. Where as they would work within Azeroth, because its different. Also, night elves are called night elves because they are largely nocturnal. Fun fact:D

[@xmusic1331]

Respectfully, the Aquaman segment was a bit weak. While its a reach to say it's a major swap, he's a pretty significant part of comic culture. Certainly more popular than Blade, for example. Also, while any kid can identify with any character, we cannot deny that racial representation does matter. Black Panther's success already demonstrates this. So many Black characters are not portrayed as elegantly or respectfully as Black Panther, for example. As an African, it was inspiring to see Black Panther. Otherwise, I generally agree or at least can respect with the overall sentiment of the video.

[@gecko6872]

Well said. What additionally bothers me in regard to blatant race (and gender) swapping in fiction, is the disrespect it shows towards the authors and how they imagined their characters.

[@gecko6872]

​@@jackjones4824 No, because it is not done for the sake of turning them into vegetables, but to make the life lessons taught in biblical stories more digestible for children... it also does not try to shoehorn in personal or political ideologies by doing so. Do you know a reason to make Aragorn, Belle, or Snow White black? Do you apply that reason equally to argue for making Blade, or Black Panther, or Joe Gardner (Soul), white?

[@gecko6872]

@@jackjones4824 In my response, I clearly stated that Veggie Tales does have a sensible a reason to turn biblical characters into vegetables -- to make it appropriate, and the lessons it teaches digestible, for its target audience of young children. Nonetheless, I do mostly agree with your second paragraph. As a counter-example to what many modern remakes do (especially live-action ones), I'd like to also point out "The Princess and the Frog" (the Disney movie). I personally find that to be a brilliant, romanticized, re-imagining of the original. They changed premise of the story with a fun twist, modified the story, pulled it into Orleans, gave it soul, and made the entire thing match in style, while reflecting the time and location it is set in. That is what I consider a brilliant re-imagining of a classic fairytale, not just a re-make. However, they've announced a Snow White live action re-make. If we're re-telling an original story, why can't we stay true to that original imagining of it? As you said, the changes we've seen so far don't appear to have any bearing on the story itself. So why spit on the author's imagining of it? And even if there is a brilliant twist in this particular plot to justify deviating from the well-known original, what could it possibly bring to even that modified story to represent the dwarves as a variety of ethnicities and genders? To be very clear, the reason this change troubles me is not because they swapped out the classic European dwarf in this particular movie, but because it has become a trend across movies in general, and is now spilling into re-tellings of popular fairytales. For no apparent reason, every story HAS to have a strong woman with incredible combat skills, at least three different ethnicities in leading roles, ideally a homosexual couple, etc. regardless of whether or not it makes sense in the setting (including the era) of the story. That, combined with the current political and social climate I observe in western nations, leads me to believe that this trend is motivated by personal and political ideologies, or maybe a fear of harassment over not bowing to those ideologies, rather than a genuine desire to tell a good story. Furthermore, the problem with intentionally and continuously putting emphasis on changing popular characters to the "right" skin color (in your opinion), is that you're implying that there are "wrong" skin colors, and demonstrating your own personal bias to be acceptable and superior to how the author imagined it. And the above is what makes me react adversely to this movie, among others, and choose to not show my support. I never argued that any movie in itself would or could not be good as a result of changing key elements.

[@werrkowalski2985]

@@jackjones4824 You don't understand, Bible is different. Let's take the example of Mary, Mary has been portrayed as white, as black, as Chinese, you can portray her as whatever ethnicity you want, why? Because the believers are supposed to relate to these characters and see them as the race they are used to seeing. Such Biblical characters like Jesus or Mary, or possibly also some other characters are supposed to be the everyman. The characters in Snow White are not the same, they are not the everyman, they are a concrete vision some author had. Also, is your point some kind of deluded "Race doesn't matter at all"? Races are not fungible to people, people very much notice race, it's one of the first things they notice. Case in point my Biblical example above. Therefore that means that swapping races is one of the most jarring changes you can make to some story, compared to how it was envisioned by the author.

[@gecko6872]

"What additionally bothers me in regard to [blatant] race [and gender] swapping in fiction, is the disrespect it shows towards the authors and how they imagined their characters." That is my original statement, with a few clarifying words, which I will promptly amend. I am not going around, pointing my finger at every movie, and condemning it for any little change. As in both my previous responses, re-imagining or re-telling or any changes in themselves do not bother me. A well-told story is a well-told story. I am bothered by the current trend of [blatant] race (and gender) swapping, which does very often lie in dissonance with the time and setting and action of the story being told, and which is usually done without any apparent justification within the storyline, and which cannot be attributed to limitations in the production of the movie, becoming a requirement for publication. That, and I stand to my opinion until convinced otherwise, is disrespectful first and foremost to the author. I, as a potential viewer, also feel disrespected by what I perceive as a pandering and often lazy approach to storytelling, but have the choice simply not to support a movie I suspect of such behavior.

[@lytsedraak]

@@anni.68 That's not the only change. Her goal in the fairy tale is to gain a soul because mermaids don't have that and she'll need to marry the human she loves to get one. When she dies after refusing to kill her prince and his bride, she turns into seafoam, but the story doesn't end there. She joins the daughters of the air and gets the opportunity to still get her soul by providing the service of providing cooling breezes. When she comes across children who are good, it will take one year of the time she has to serve to get her soul. While the fairy tale teaches us about doing the right thing (like not killing the man you love), chasing your dreams (although they may fail), another moral of the original fairy tale is "be good kids, you'll help the lovely mermaid get her soul".

[@theguileraven7014]

I find it kind of interesting, that Princess and the Frog seems to have avoided this sort of discussion in it’s entirety. I think part of the reason, is that the race swap wasn’t just something they lazily threw in for woke points, but rather something that served as genuinely new take on the story. They moved the setting and time period to accommodate the change in race, and then further utilized that to combine the story with mythology and folklore elements from a completely different culture.

[@Lycaon1765]

It's also probably because that story doesn't "belong" to any one culture. Many cultures have had a similar "woman falls in love/weds with a beast/creature that then turns into a hot guy/prince" story. Also the movie didn't do so hot numbers-wise.

[@lytsedraak]

That's true, they changed the setting, the time period, so their story was clearly an adaptation inspired by a fairy tale, not telling that fairy tale.

[@unoriginalcomment7502]

That movie did the race swaping right. they not only changed the characters race and kept everything else the same. They changed the setting and motivations of the characters and make them unique from their original work counterparts while keeping the core details of the story to make it recognizable. It's an "adaptation" so it has more freedom for changes. The problem is that this new movies aren't being sold out as new adaptations of the story. They are copies of the animated originals with baseless changes made for cookie points that actively attacks their own fanbase. If you do what they did with Ariel with a known black character it would be the end of the world for these people, but doing it to any other is just fine.

[@4.1132]

Honestly I don’t think there’s ever been a truly faithful adaptation of the Frog King. Most adaptations just very loosely follow the story. The golden ball, her breaking the promise and the frog turning into a prince not because of a kiss but because the princess refusing to sleep in the same bed, violently throws the poor guy against a wall (the throwing is changed to a kiss in children’s versions, but as with a lot of them the original Grimm’s fairytale is a lot darker) are usually either absent or completely changed.

[@TheCombatWombat0]

I'll never get the "the character NEEDS to be or look like my race in order for kids to identify with them" When I, as a American of German/Italian heritage, identified with Mulan most of all put of all the Disney princesses. I remember watching the Justice League cartoon as a young kid and I liked batman and the green lantern (John Stewart) character most. I liked them for who they were, I liked them as they were, Asian, black, male, female, didn't bother me, I accepted them as they were. Also, how is recasting a beloved historical work of fiction not "cultural appropriation" ?

[@BatsAndBadgers]

Because you had others to identify with it didn't matter, and Mulan was American coded for you. For every one else around the world...yes it matters. You forget how it feels to be an Arab portrayed as a violent barbarian for all your childhood would make you feel.

[@raskolnikov6443]

@@BatsAndBadgersthat’s nothing compared to how Germans and Russias were portrayed. Always the ultimate villain lol. That partly explains the insanity we see today with Russia and how people act like Russians don’t deserve national Interests and national security. No they have to be monsters.

[@howtoappearincompletely9739]

@@BatsAndBadgers Aladdin?

[@TheTristar3]

Anyone ever see the HBO’s animated show Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales For Every Child? To me, that show was the perfect example of of changing the race of traditional fairy tale characters. The difference was, they kept the story the same they just changed the settings entirely. Etc, Hansel and Gretel -> Hanselito and Gretalita (Latin), Snow White -> White Snow (Native American), Little Red Riding Hood (German) -> (Chinese)

[@workingmothercatlover6699]

One time on Facebook, I was called a bigot for trying to be heard. So I looked up what the word even meant. Basically, a bigot is a person who insists on being heard who silences anyone with a different opinion. I replied to my accuser that they should really look up a word before throwing it around. As usual, well said, Metatron.

[@SplotPublishing]

big·ot noun a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group. "don't let a few small-minded bigots destroy the good image of the city" Are you seriously rewriting definitions just so you can tell a "everyone clapped" story?

[@renehuff6524]

As a place-skinned redhead growing up in the 80s and 90s, bullied for skin and red hair it was awesome that Ariel was pale-skinned with red hair! It was very underrepresented before Julia Roberts became famous!

[@NotThisShipSister1]

Well your opinion just perpetuates the problem- although ❤ I understand it and agree with it- but now you understand the black persons problem with all white casts. And, according to your comment, at least you SHOULD. Nothing to see here folks, no opinions either way, just stating facts.😊

[@LockerHider]

​@@NotThisShipSister1So all redheads should be replaced by black people? Black people already have way more characters than redheads do

[@OvalRock]

When the new Ariel was being revealed, Black girls were shown the character and encouraged to celebrate. My thought was, what about the red-haired, pale-skinned, blue-eyed girls? What are they meant to think or feel?

[@HeathenDance]

@@OvalRock Those poor red-haired, pale-skinned blue eyed girls! They are now traumatized for life! Ahah. As a 39 year old man, I think it's disturbing how people, particularly ADULTS, are susceptible to shit like "how the modern little fucking mermaid looks like." LOL. But it's hilarious through a computer screen. Just don't want those decadent freaks near me.

[@privateinformation2960]

Same issue. By that measure some moron in the UK about 12 years ago decided redhead jokes on greeting cards were offensive and tried to have them banned. It didn't work (thankfully) Seems to be a thing where liberals pick and choose which minority is offended and which isn't based on their own feelings or usually racist tendencies rather than any reality based offense. It's racist progressives that believe in the fragility of black people to the point of bending rules and pandering to them rather than conservatives who regard a hard working non white person as just as worthy of their achievements than anyone else.

[@Enki1013]

A comment I recall about the real person Cleopatra can apply here. In your video, you had said that there is not a "need" for her to be white, but instead a desire for her to "look Greek" because she was Greek. With Aragorn, and other LoTR characters, Tolkien wrote a mythology for England, with some of it inspired by Nordic mythology (especially the Finnish Kalevala). Hobbits and the Shire were inspired by his nostalgia of English gardens. So I would prefer to see characters such as Aragorn and Hobbits look English, and Elves to look Nordic. Gandalf has inspiration from Merlin (British) and Odin when he disguised himself as a traveler or wanderer (Nordic). So I expect Gandalf to look either English or Nordic, maybe even a little of both. If characters are described as different from the norm, such as Esmeralda in Hunchback of Notre Dame, then I would expect them to look accordingly. So for example, it would be equally silly to make Esmeralda look Finnish, Chinese, Greek, or sub-Saharan. She is described as "French Roma" so I would expect her to look French, Romani, or a combo of both. A similar "race swap" was done with Orpheus in one of the Greek mythology movies. I was not bothered by it, but thought it a bit odd because Orpheus was Thracian. I enjoyed a retelling of the myth in the movie "Black Orpheus" set in 20th century Brazil in fairness. In context of being one of the Argonauts in ancient Greece, it just seemed out of place to me. Also Ariel was a big step for its time, because before her, there were no Disney Princesses or Disney heroines with red hair. As someone who comes from a family tree loaded with red-haired people (and now a husband who had red-brown hair when he was young), I notice these things.

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

Don't bother trying to suggest to anyone that positive ginger representation is actually kind of rare. They'll just tell you that you get represented all the time and brush their hands of it. So, maybe red-heads get locked into leprechaun, fool, sex object, or marketing tool? Somebody else doesn't get any rep at all! After all, when someone breaks an arm, we tell them to suck it up because there are other people who have had limbs amputated, right? That's how it works? The worst time one person can have erases every other form of hurt leading up to that, right? That's why anytime someone gets a terrible cold, we aggressively remind them it's not cancer and it aaaaaaalllll makes sense and suddenly that person with a bad cold is, in fact, no longer suffering at all! (This point does not go over well, you'll still be racist somehow because they think all ginger people are white. Which is racist. Because they're really not, lmao.)

[@skyintatters]

Book Esmeralda (spoiler) was not Roma by birth.

[@Enki1013]

@@skyintatters Yeah I read the book and it says that her mother is French. The father is unknown though. The book just says her mother became a prostitute after an affair with a nobleman. Esmeralda is still considered a Gypsy in the story because of how she was raised and there are light-skinned Romani people, but it would still be silly to try to make her look like anything beyond French or (light-skinned) Romani.

[@Enki1013]

@@YourWaywardDestiny I forgot to mention Quasimodo is red-haired in the original novel so I do scratch my noggin trying to figure out how a Romani baby got red hair. Or maybe he is not Romani any more than Esmeralda is a blonde Swede. I don't know. That one is a mystery on how and why a Gypsy tribe had him in the first place when they did the infamous baby switch.

[@YourWaywardDestiny]

@@Enki1013 Well, I did say it's racist to assume all red heads are white. It's really not out of the realm of possible that this French Romani would come out with ginger hair.

[@ismaelbauman2156]

I would probably say that when it comes to fictional characters what matters if is the race swapping still makes sense within the context of the story. In the past, casts for many stories were overwhelmingly white. So a retelling a story in a modern setting would almost necessitate increasing diversity. But for historical fiction it should still make sense within the context of the story. Race swapping should not feel out place. Another problem is that the character that many viewers are used to is not necessarily the original. So in summary for documentaries, be authentic. For historical fiction, either justify the change or change it to a modern setting.

[@dauphinkivol5555]

"I'm surprised they didn't call it "Snow White and the seven genders"" What a punchline XD I'm a bit sad a chill youtuber like you has to get its hands dirty because of the current mass hysteria, but I'm also glad you do it. Respect and support from France

[@sotakoira1390]

It's a choice to address these things, he could have just walked away after Cleopatra. Now we have a guy who used to make interesting history content talking about race and gender politics.

[@mikkelstergaard6218]

My main gripe with race swapping in fiction definitely stems from a creative view, because it's fiction, why race swap? Just write a new character instead of changing one people already know and love!

[@theblackknight5716]

I'm mroe insulted by the laziness of race swapping instead of doing your job as a writer so we don't have to steal characters for representation.

[@metatronyt]

I get that too

[@AntiwhitismIsJealousy]

So you're making it about yourself

[@Wolf-ln1ml]

@@AntiwhitismIsJealousy So you're a troll

[@AntiwhitismIsJealousy]

@@Wolf-ln1ml Project moar

[@AntiwhitismIsJealousy]

@@Wolf-ln1ml Imagine seeing clear AWism and one's response is some novelty take

[@Wizardbane-ev9zk]

Marvel and DC Comics have alot of different Race characters. Why can they not start using those characters? DC Jimmy Olson is white and a red head. Batwoman is white and a red head. .. You race switched them. Disney you are SO DAMN guilty all over for race switching so dang much it is sickening. Marvel has major awesome black characters. Why are you not using them? Stop race switching. Race switched the scooby-do gang. STOP INSULTING peoples races by switching races of original characters. That makes that Company Racist. Stop pitting people agents each other for your company making money from racism. If you want to put a different race in to make a movie then STOP Swapping and use one that already is there or create a new character. It is so dang simple ..If a character started out as white it should stay that way, same thing applies to black characters, how are people supposed to care if theirs characters can't stay consistent, what happens to the actual black characters, do we just forget about them? If they want diversity so badly, just make good stories around pre existing black characters, I mean why race swap when you could just make a new character the way you want. I totally agree with you on this, race swapping is just the laziest way to deal with the problem of non-white roles in film and tv.

[@jasonjordan8376]

The funny thing about the “I can’t identify with a character that doesn’t look like me,” is that they don’t care that by their logic, I can no longer a identity with the characters they’re race swapping.

[@jonsnowight9510]

They do care that you can't. That's the point. They want to take something from you and make it for themselves.

[@daraG17]

Well, most people can’t identify with Ariel because she’s a mermaid and we simply are not. 🫢😆🙃❤️ I love Ariel.

[@4igw5d9]

Race swapping is bullshit

[@Prussia_]

I just want to say thank you for your content.

[@metatronyt]

My pleasure

[@jbertucci]

​@@metatronytwhen do we get to watch you play the whole pathethique 3rd movement? 😁

[@shadbakht]

And by the way! Even if Ariel was played by some white actor, and she looked nothing like Ariel from the cartoon, I'd also be disappointed. The whole point of the live-action is to see the cartoon I remember come to LIFE!

[@unoriginalcomment7502]

@@anni.68 In the books she doesn't have a name to begin with. Ariel is a popular character and people like their popular character to look like they allways have. You don't see a chinese leprachoun or a white guije for a reason.

[@unoriginalcomment7502]

@@anni.68 That's the tea. It's not an "adaptation". It's a copy of their own movie with changes made exclusively for cookie points. An adaptation woudn't have included the same side characters and scenes that were exclusive to the animated movie. The original animation is an adaptation, The new one is a mockery to the fans of that same movie.

[@unoriginalcomment7502]

@@anni.68 It's way more complex that just one or the other. But I can tell you don't want to discuss that, you just want to be right. If you can't understand the issue that your problem.

[@unoriginalcomment7502]

@@anni.68 No one sayed the color is more important. The thing is that it is no longer the same character. Ariel's skin isn't the only thing they changed, her personality and her story changed too.

[@unoriginalcomment7502]

@@anni.68 I'm complaning about it. It's not only the color swap that bothers people, is the reason behind the changes. The reason color is the main focus is becouse that's what these people use to shut you up from criticizing them calling you racist and drowning any other complaint you may have. You know they're doing it to avoid any critique and it's gross.

[@Vaternal]

I can respect people that don’t care that much about race swapping. The thing is though that they’ve taken it too far as I knew they would. People always made the argument “the characters aren’t real” then they made Cleopatra & a bunch of other Egyptians black & calling it history. That was so wrong on so many levels. That’s equivalent to making MLK white. My opinion in general has always been leave the characters the same race. It’s not the character if you change their appearance looks are integral to the character. Just like if Darth vader was pink & used rainbows as the force. Would that be Darth vader? Same with Triss from the Witcher TV show. She’s white for a reason just like Snow White. I don’t understand why they don’t add new characters. The only race swapped that worked was Miles Morales because he isn’t Peter Parker. If they made Miles white I would say the same thing about every race swapped character. I also think it’s funny how their being so “diverse” but are removing every red head in media & only adding black characters. What about Latinos, Japense, etc. why is it always white to black. It’s also just super offensive to both sides.