This is just a space I created for aspiring Black filmmakers or media enthusiasts where we can all interact and learn from one another. Even if you aren’t an aspiring filmmaker, you can still learn more about the field and hold discussions here
The purpose for this blog is to provide a space for Black people to share insight in the movie/tv industry, vent out frustrations with how media handles the image of the Black people, and share some filmmaking tips for those who may be interested to start out
Rules:
You don’t need to be Black as a requirement to interact with this blog but if I see any nonBlack people clown around I will call you out and block
No hate speech of marginalized groups(I shouldn’t have to point this out but a lot of y’all are bold)
Don't go derailing some of these posts made by Black people talking specifically about Black-related issues. I'll call that out too
“nb ppl don’t interact”=non black ppl don’t interact. Sometimes I’ll forget to include this in the tags, but generally if a post contains slurs pertaining to Black people, or if it’s a serious discussion only for Black people to talk about amongst each other, don’t interact with the post if you aren’t Black
Extra Notes:
My main blog is @afrophunk so if I do reply to your comment under a post, it may be through this account
I might also make a separate post all together just to display and reply to your comment
Yes, we discuss about fandom spaces here as well. If it’s a way to interact with media, we’ll most likely cover it
Expect there to be arguments and hate thrown at this blog(yall know why)
Expect me to clown on White folks a lot here
Expect me to call out antiblackness from any group in general
No, you being Black/Black-mixed will not stop me from calling out the antiblackness and bigotry you set out(you know who you are)
Now if I mess up on something myself, feel free to correct me but don't be rude about it
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One of these guys lied about their race, and the other one is a zionist i don't care about, but if we are looking at the movie, he's very much white in that
Much longer answer: Yknow how princesses in Disney's case are meant to represent things like youthfulness, beauty, kindness, romance, passion, and a free-spirited nature?
It's relatively the same formula for Disney princes. They are youthful, charming, passionate, free-spirited, romantic, light-hearted, you get the idea
Disney seems to struggle associating those characteristics with Black boys. To them, Black boys make for great kings, but never princes
Kings and Queens in Disney are either righteous and responsible rulers who are also loving parents who have to care for their energetic children in an uptight manner. Or they are evil, vain dictators that want to control everything and everyone through the power of...evil. Whichever depiction it is, both roles serve as the "adulthood" counterpart to the princess and prince formula
So to Disney, Black boys just can't be princes. They are too serious, brutal, and not charming in the slightest to be a prince and appease to audiences. They are masculine, sure, but they are toxic masculine. Disney princes need to have a romantic and sweet and sensitive nature they show to their partners, which I guess Black boys aren't capable of. This is scarcasm btw 🙄
Even outside of the lineup, the closest you get are TChalla or Simba(Broadway Musical). But then their stories revolve around becoming a proper king after their fathers died. Their youthful nature is seen as a childish hindrance they need to get over to become proper adults even if they are still kids
I just hate how Disney had plenty of opportunities to create a Black prince as part of the lineup, but never go through with it.
Prince Naveen
Prince Naveen could have been Black in a story about a Black woman and Black culture. But again, they can't see a Black boy as charasimatic as Naveen, as he lives his youthful lifestyle. Even Naveen's bratty privileged nature has a witty charm to it they can't apply to Black boys.
That said, it would have been too on the nose this is what they were avoiding had they made Naveen white as they originally planned. Yeah, your boy was originally gonna be a white British royal named Henry. They changed it, but like gestures
So Naveen ends up as this ambiguous Brown man. Like he could be hypothetically part African, but also he doesn't have afro-textured hair, or a broad nose(its big but more so in a "boys have bigger noses naturally" way🙄) or big lips. Interestingly enough, Naveen is played by a Black actor in the Once Upon a Time series, yknow, a mature darker take on fairy tales(and Disney). This is the voice actor for the animated movie btw
Yeah they were doing a lot just to avoid making Naveen Black. Which sucks cuz some of his concept art does make it seem he would be Black. It's just especially irritating that Tiana just does not seem to get support from other Black people aside from the mom figures. In fact, Tiana is lowkey written like she's a "queen" character in a sense she is super serious and mature and before Elsa, was the eldest of the princess line-up. Very peculiar choice to write your first Black princess as a no-nonsense grown woman. And then killing 2D animation with her just to start off the 3D trend with a quirky white girl with long blonde hair?
So to have Tiana be the first Black Princess and really one of the only ones in the lineup to be with a partner outside of her race is a choice. Technically, Pocahontas and Kida did it too and would you look at that? They are both sexualized women of color for a white colonizer to romance 🤔
Not that it matters how Tiana and Naveen are presented, because both are frogs for the majority of the movie, which there's that 😔
Prince Eric
Specifically from the live action movie. Eric's kingdom was transformed into this Carribean Islands setting ruled by a Black queen, and yet Eric still has to be white?
I remember as news of this movie was coming out, a lot of us suspected Eric to be played by a pale East Asian man, which I understand part of it was to make a callback to Brandy's Cinderella. I was one of those people, too. But I did stop and think, "Why couldn't Eric be Black too?" The setting was Black, Ariel was Black. It's like they took that concept of having Naveen originally be a white man who would seem out of place in a Black-centered movie, but just went through with that decision for this movie
Is there a reason Prince Eric couldn't be Black? Was it that hard to imagine a Black boy who was adventurous and wanted to run away from princely duties but always knew to follow his heart? Was that not something Black boys would do? Also notice how Paolo is an Asian man who is visibly brown? I think those of us that wanted a pale Asian man to play as Eric, or specifically a "kpop idol" should probably look into some internalized colorism at play here
Star Boy
If you haven't seen the movie youre probably thinking: the marketable plushie?
And no, I'm more so referring to the concept art where he was originally this whole star person with the personality of Peter Pan. He was also originally going to be Asha's love interest
Now honestly, even though they ended up writing him out, Asha and this movie needed serious revamping before throwing in a love interest
But aside from that, even had they done so, he would have just been another white prince for a character that could have been Black. Or yknow, Black Amazigh-like Asha. They barely get into her Amazigh heritage, as you could imagine, despite how much they advertised themselves of looking deep into that group and their beliefs
What makes this worst is that in some drafts, Star boy was meant to be Asha's grandfather(who is white) just younger. Which....that's just weird
The movie obviously didn't do well, leaving fans making rewrites and fan works based off of the concept material. And oh boy, do they love that white boy. From what comes across my dash, or what I've seen on Pinterest for a good few months, I've only seen 1 or 2 Black Star Boys. Everyone else was just a pale white boy paired with the occasional whitewashing of Asha
Whew, that's a lot of info thrown at ya for a single question. But it is frustrating the more you think about this stuff and how not only Disney, but most stories adultify Black boys and girls
I only imagine Disney makes the occasional Black princess only because the princess line-up is margeted towards girls. And even then you one or two decades apart. The Black boys though? What do they need to see Black princes for?
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Wait, I get the issues with Juniper's design but what about the line up of the other interests made you suspect anti-blackness, misogyny, etc? Because when I saw them I honestly thought the opposite? I was psyched to see a variety of skin tones as opposed to the usual 1 brown love interest amongst several others that are all the same shade of white. And the fact that there are older love interests, especially an older woman, isn't something I've seen from any other popular games were romance is a main feature.
Maybe I'm missing something but Mistria's character designs for the whole town just felt like a breath of fresh air, especially when you look at other games in the genre.
The dev's do have a feedback form to fill out too and plan on updating the game further. It might be a good idea to leave a note about Juniper's design. Who knows, if more people bring it up maybe they'll make a change.
First off, let me say that I have no doubt that the developers had only the best of intentions when designing their characters of color. However, as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
With that said, I'm not sure how to word this but a lot of it is that having Black and Brown characters present with (for the most part) decent designs tells me pretty much nothing about the actual content. Sure, the designs look good, but how is race discussed in the game, if at all? Is the visual diversity just visual? I'd even go so far as to say the aesthetic diversity in a genre essentially built around Hollow White Escapism is what made me suspicious of it.
It's a game explicitly marketed as being "cute cozy wholesome," which is usually shorthand for "we're choosing to ignore any discussion of themes we find problematic." The development team (as far as I could see) has zero Black members, and is a majority White and East Asian. So then, do these characters actually feel authentic, or is the visual diversity of the game just identity-marketing?
I think it's @creatingblackcharacters (sorry if you don't wanna be involved here feel free to ignore me) that I saw call a non-black creator (it might have been the author of Gachiakuta?) a "Barbie-Doll Wielder," or something along those lines, for using visually convincing Black characters while not actually putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to committing to anti-racism. THAT is my concern going into Fields of Mistria.
Plainly put, regardless of the visual designs being (mostly) respectful and well-put-together, the characters of color feel very much like set-dressing for what is fundamentally a White narrative made by White People. My first hour of gameplay has not challenged this perception at all. In fact, I'm losing what little optimism I had about this game in the first place. It does just kinda feel like another Hollow Escapism Fantasy. It feels like a "colorblind" narrative at best.
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All right y'all... The day has finally come... Where I must ask for help, myself 😭🙏🏾
This is NOT mandatory, and of course there are causes that need much more help. So don't feel pressured! But if you happen to have a little to spare, I am getting tooth surgery this Friday and they charged me 2k upfront 😭 and then when I asked if it could be split, they told me I ran the risk of my jaw shifting if so 😭 but I have been in pain with these back molars for months and I've been stalling to pay for other things, so... I gotta just take the L but. Anything helps 🙏🏾 Much appreciated if you do 🙏🏾
Look, I'm glad to see more Asian representation in media, but this hype over the Wasians (mixed white-Asians) is making this Asian borderline uncomfortable 😬
Firstly, Blasians (mixed Black-Asians) don't get this much hype for being mixed and we all know why 🤡
Secondly, media and the public almost always put on a pedestal a very specific type of mixed Wasians, those of East Asian descent. I don't see as much hype for the Wasians of South Asian, Southeast Asian or West Asian descent. And of course, we all know why 🤡
Like I thought we had this discourse back in the early 2010s criticising how Asian representation in YA fiction tended to be Wasians?
Bring this back cos no one talks up the Asian heritage of the Blasians like Anderson Paak, H.E.R and Saweetie or the Latinasians like Bruno Mars. No one raises this much hype for the mixed white-South Asian actors. No one includes Olivia Rodrigo (white-Filipino) in the "Republic of Wasia"
Precisely. We need to kill this phenomenon of the Wasian nation memes dead. Wasians are literally being used as a trend, at the expense of dehumanising themselves and erasing/ignoring mixed race Asians who don't pass the paperbag test.
God forbid non-white mixed Asians and monoracial Asians criticise the recent hype around Wasians and talk about proximity to whiteness, antiblackness and colorism, or butthurt Wasians will flood their comments sections accusing them of being divisive or complaining about how they are excluded by the Asian community. Babes, Blasians actully get excluded a lot from the Asian community becos of antiblackness, these feelings of not belonging and alienation aren't exclusive to Wasians 🙄
The Wasian meet-ups are just boba liberal bs. Becos yall were so annoyingly loud with your damn meet-ups during AAPI month and acting like victims when yall get called out by other mixed Asians and monoracial Asians for centering your whiteness. Nolan Wells is literally mixed Asian with a Blasian mother who's grieving him, they're from your community as well, but yall are staying mad quiet about his murder and the harassment his mother is receiving 🤡
I'm well aware at this point that one of the guys is Korean/White
I still need yall to understand that:
1) He is lightskinned
2) In fandom spaces, fans will associate pale East Asian people to whiteness. Also he is still part white
Yall are the same people that have questioned my Korean heritage only because I am unapologetically Black, which this site likes to attack, which should be the main takeaway here
Number 1 on trending rn is some omegaverse show that has something to do with knotting between 2 pale Asian guys, and you've guessed it, they aren't getting flagged despite showing to have sex
Meanwhile I can't post my Strawberry Shortcake OC without getting hit with a mature content label for some damn reason
having anon off is so peaceful. like imagine getting mad at someone then clicking on the ask button, only for you to see that you can’t message them without exposing yourself
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having anon off is so peaceful. like imagine getting mad at someone then clicking on the ask button, only for you to see that you can’t message them without exposing yourself
“I think white gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, into a society in which they were supposed to be safe. The anomaly of their sexuality puts them in danger, unexpectedly. Their reaction seems to me in direct proportion to the sense of feeling cheated of the advantages which accrue to white people in a white society. There’s an element, it has always seemed to me, of bewilderment and complaint. Now that may sound very harsh, but the gay world as such is no more prepared to accept black people than anywhere else in society. It’s a very hermetically sealed world with very unattractive features, including racism.”
— James Baldwin, from a 1984 interview given with Richard Goldstein, in the Village Voice
