this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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I'm not looking forward to hearing how Snow White isn't "white enough" from shitheads.
I mean, even all the way back in Grimm, she's described with "skin as white as snow, lips as red asΒ bloodΒ and hair as black asΒ ebony". Like I get what you're saying, but having very, very white skin is literally(literally literally) a central detail of the character. Hence the name.
I feel like maybe the answer isn't to keep remaking European fairy tales. Maybe the focus should be on, I dunno, folk tales from anywhere else? Or, God forbid, an original story?
Counterpoint: it doesn't matter as long as the movie is good. Literally who cares, take whatever parts of whatever old story, name whoever whatever, if the movie is good then great, if it isn't, it wouldn't be because it's not a faithful adaptation of half-remembered hudnreds years old story that was in turn half-remembered adaptation of a folk horror
It's a regional story. If it was an African, or Asian, or Latin American, or American Indian story, would it be okay to make the characters European so long as the story is good?
If your answer is "Yes", then okay at least you're consistent, but a lot of people would disagree.
If your answer is "No, because white people are disproportionately represented in media", that's exactly why we should prefer making media based on other cultures and regions, rather than endlessly remaking the same European stories so Disney can protect their IP.
But many people of Asian and African descend grow up with fairytales of European origin. Some of them don't have any relationship to the local stories from the distant places their families once came from. It's not ok that they can adopt European culture but are not allowed to participate.
While you're not wrong here, the race-swapping is still weird.
I am gonna say this as respectfully as I can.
But nah, fuck all that.
Skin color is absolutely NOT a central detail to the story, or to even most stories. What Grimm wrote in the original text has no bearing on movie being released today for new audiences. No one needs to beholden to fairytales as some sort of holy text that can't be altered because they are fiction, and old fiction at that. Death of an author is a concept worth debating about living authors, not ones that died 2 centuries ago. Fictional characters are whatever we say they are. Make her black, make her trans, make her tall, make her Indianian, make her a a him as a gay man, none of it would change the core story about a poison apple and a jealous sorcerer. Disney has already altered countless details from their original text, so to get precious about skin color in a movie with witches, spells and magic kingdom is just ludicrous and highlights your flawed priorities.
So respectfully, her skin color makes zero difference to the important parts of the story and if that's a problem for you, then it's strictly a you problem.
But ... she is literally called "SnowWhite"
Next you gonna tell me Cleopatra was not African American, shitlord...
you disgust me!
... /s?
What do you mean? She was born and raised in Georgia to a mixed family.
(/s)
Would that logic apply to traditional stories from all cultures around the world?
I sounds to me like you're trying to bait a discussion on the ethics of whether people "should" change the race/orientation/gender of characters in stories. It reads more like a statement of fact to me. Humans just tend to model characters in stories on themselves, regardless of the origin of the story. There's a million examples, here's one you're probably familiar with. https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2020/07/conversation_white_jesus.php What role does the color of Jesus's skin play in Christianity? What role does Snow White's skin color play in the story? Why or when would it be immoral to change those details?
Yes it is a fact. It happens all the time, every culture does it. It's never really a problem. I agree.
But I'm asking if @inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world feels that way when American adaptations of Japanese stories, have a white star cast in the lead. That's all.
Are you asking this because you feel strongly about it?
Feel strongly about what? I haven't heard how widely inb4 applies this idea?
At this point I'm just curious.
About time hollywood cast liz Warren as Pocahontas.
Break that glass ceiling!
I don't care about her color but can we then just change the name? The entire point was that her skin was white.
Also, if skin color was the only thing then only a few racists would balk. This movie, however, is just a shit show. So yeah, you'll have a lotmor ooeope complaining, including about her skin color which is just dumb
It doesn't have to be skin in this version. How about teeth - and you can leave the name.
I could not disagree more, truly at my maximum. The point was a fairy tale with magic poison apple, nature friendly dwarves taking a runaway in and then true love breaking a spell with a kiss.
Like, srsly. Her skin color could not matter less, y'all too hung up on the name and ignoring the actual plot.
... Her name is Snow White BECAUSE her skin is white as snow.
You get too hung up on the LITERAL NAME.
It's like buying a red Ferrari and you get a white Volkswagen beetle, and then the car dealer telling you that it's a car, you're getting too hung up on a name.
And that ignores the part that all this is just virtue signalling on the part of Disney. Who cares that the story is shit, who cares that the acting, the CGI, that it's all horrible? The main actress.... IS BLACK! YOU MUST LOVE THIS NOW GIVE US YOUR MONEY!
I don't mind watching a good movie about one armed black transexual women kicking some ass, as long as the story is good and realistic, as long as the acting is good, as long as the end product actually looks like someone gave a damn.
THIS product shows that nobody gave a damn, then they put in an actress who very much does not match the description, knowing the backlash that would follow which they figured, bad talk about this is still talking about this, yay. The actress herself didn't help her case when she started bitching about the previous movie and how she would show us... Then the seven dwarfs became... Seven growth unstunted beings? I don't even know how to describe it, but now dwarfs are out too, even though afaik, they are mythical dwarfs but whatever, BUT LETS NOT GET STUCK ON WORDS, RIGHT?
If we go like that then I have a bridge to sell to you. You give me a million dollars and I will give you my worn out 20 year old washing machine with a note that mentions something somehow about not getting hung up on words...
I just want a good movie. This is not a good movie and it's just trying really hard to fool people into thinking it's good, using very very low and cheap tricks.... And it worked on you.
I regret my original comment because all it did was self select you turds to come tell me how weird you are.
Look, I don't care about the movie, I'm never going to see it and couldn't care less if it's good or bad. But this impotent racist outrage is just so goddamn predictable. I have no love for Disney or any of their crappy live action adaptions, it's a cash grab that isn't worth thinking about.
Yet here you angry dorks are. All worked up about a black woman in movie you don't have to see. It's frankly pathetic and I am entirely done with giving this topic a second more of my time. You should do the same.
Already has been since the first casting notes.
These types of live-action remakes have been failing so I wonder if Disney does race-swapping like this just to grab attention they wouldn't otherwise get.
They can't do that for Mufasa, unfortunately.
The problem is the story was written by shitheads. Her name is a reference to how "fair" her skin was, being white as snow with lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony. This was a standard of beauty in 19th century Germany. That characterization is problematic in a global market with various standards of beauty.
So the racist shitheads have a quasi-valid point that the modern reimagining of a racist (and misogynist) source fairy tale isn't quite as racist as the previous reimagining.
But the real question is why we're reimagining old, racist fairy tales?
I think I'm lost, can you elaborate on how is Snowwhite a racist fairytale?
It's based on the 19th century Northern European standard of beauty that paler (fair) skin is more beautiful. The source of the Evil Queen's jealousy is that Snow White is whitest and therefore most beautiful of them all. The Queen hires a murderer to cut out Snow White's heart because the Queen is only the second most whitest woman in all the land.
Yes because fair skin implied that you were rich or upper class. White/pale skin = not working the fields or as a maid cleaning and getting dirty.
That notion got turned on its head relatively recently, when in the 1920 Coco Chanel got a sun tan whilst in the French Rivera. Being tanned no longer meant that you were "low class".
A lot of old fairy tails are about paths to becoming rich. When Snow White was written it had little to do with race, if anything, and everything to do with classism. There was virtually no social mobility, if you were born poor you stayed poor! These are not aspirational stories designed to motivate you to better yourself, they are there to remind you of your place in the world.
racist in what sense?
Apparently being white is racist or something idk I'm not a lefty.
I think it's a marketing thing. They want to provoke culture war bullshit. It's a bold strategy cotton, let's see how it works out for them.