screenshot because this was a submission and tumblr hates working properly. fwiw+disclaimer i am white, but honestly this is something i think about a lot Especially in relation to lovelace. i think a major problem with this theme+related discussion is the "no characters have a set race or anything do whatever you want guys!!!" precedent set in place by the fact that this is a Podcast and technically if you don't watch the liveshow or look up the va's at all, you would theoretically never know that lovelace is voiced by a Black woman + the creators (incl. cecilia lynn-jacobs) also supported the "it's up toooo you all! have fun fans!!" notion (i believe this was in AMA #3). which leaves people in a really awkward place of "Well Technically" even if you never really see lovelace art that doesn't portray her as Black/this is the general fandom consensus, and on that note cutter (and pryce!) as white. (this is not to say i think lovelace is white. of course.)
similarly there's also the case of... it's just not something people Think about. it's a podcast. you could, if you're ignoring it, go the entire time without thinking about the race of the characters at all (which is arguably something you can do when you're watching a Show, too, but it's a lot easier when you're Listening and not Seeing anything). it's not something a lot of fans think of (although this may be part of tumblr's userbase being overwhelmingly white+i haven't looked at other sites for wolf 359 fandom except for the unfortunate few times i've GLANCED at reddit posts while looking for other things, and really reddit is no better with actual. analysis. of these topics).
this is unfortunately i think the case for a lot of podcasts and does lead to fandom/community being really... uncomfortable at best and outright racist at worst at times (ex. you could argue entirely different readings/thematic implications of tma based on whether you headcanon jonathan sims/the archivist as white or a person of color, and even if the majority of art i see of him is the latter, it's usually Ambigiously Brown which is a whole beast of its own+i don't generally see analysis of racialization in tma (except for some basira+daisy stuff and how racialization is often ignored in analysis of their characterization and relationship (even nonromantic) and one post about this wrt jon) but i'm also not super involved in tma fandom atm). intentionally or unintentionally.
ex. the implications that come with kepler and lovelace's entire dynamic is changed whether the artist/person portraying them is interpreting kepler as Black or not (or honestly most often. Just White. i've never seen kepler be portrayed in fanart as anything else, i think, other than occasional Ambigious Brown). this opens up another can of worms in which people nod and smile and go "yay they're both people of color/Black! the drawing lineup i've just made isn't all white, nor does it have just one Black person (lovelace)!" and then maybe don't necessarily realize they've just made the man who is arguably the most outwardly violent+cruel and has everyone afraid of him the only man of color in their drawing lineup. which i think kind of leans into the part about certain interpretations in fan spaces being thematically loaded without fans really considering the implications OF those interpretations. i see this a lot in the tma fandom too, but again. different fandom different(ish) topic
anyway. that was tangentially off topic. i do think racialization is a really key part of analysis that people don't talk about often Especially in lovelace's case as i mentioned above. the entire goddard eugenicist thing (their whole thing is We want to make Better People. Who are Perfect. And we will do this by manipulating the technologically superior aliens into giving us what we want (which is to make Humanity Perfect). Or we will kill all humans) is very present of course. but i think there's also cutter+pryce as individuals and how they interact with lovelace/the way they treat her in late s4: she's not a person, she's just something they're using to get what they want. cutter even points out that he's being soooo so so nice to lovelace (by forcing her into uncomfortable romantic situations (dinners/games) with him to try and earn her favor despite her making it clear that she's not interested, this won't work, this is gross and she hates him, also, having eiffel stand around as a weird mindless puppet isn't making her feel better either!) because the alternative is pryce performing experiments on her and cutting her up and putting her into jars to see if she can regenerate.
hell, when he's controlling lovelace to shoot minkowski in the finale, he says that what they've been working for is, quote, "A new kind of human, ones who are exactly what we need them to be, and do exactly what we tell them to do.". combined with the control bolt stuff of "we're going to work these people to their limits, and then past those limits, because they're not people anymore and they can't feel it because we've literally turned off their ability to feel pain" too it's not very subtle i feel. dehumanization is such a major theme in wolf 359, especially in terms of "what makes you a person, what makes you a person". i feel like when i see it analyzed for lovelace it's more on the "who am i, am i still lovelace, who even is lovelace" side of it than it is the way goddard treats her, and really i feel like i see 10x more of that kind of dehumanization theme analysis done with hera than i do with lovelace (which tbf it is, i'd argue, hera's Main Theme while lovelace does have other themes/things to focus on. doesn't change the fact that they're foils though)
anyway^2. i'm not sure if this really answers your question at all. the tldr of it is i agree that racialization is a very useful and very interesting lense of analysis for wolf 359, but it's hard to do when there's "Technically" no canon races for characters/the VAs themselves shy away from that aspect (and honestly the negative sterotypes/tropes this ends up feeding to could be its own post. it's been talked to death but there really is something to be said about "the only main Black character is an otherworldly alien and has superpowers But like in a good way!! it's a good way" and similar things that happen with lovelace's plotline (even if it is explicitly acknowledged "hey she's still a person" by the Good Guys) and i think it is important to acknowledge those faults/flaws/etc of the writing.) for clarification again i do think of/imagine/etc. lovelace as a Black woman but other than that (afaik) all of the VAs are white and everything else is really left up to headcanon in every way
there's probably more i could say (dehumanization and how it relates to themes of misogyny, xenophobia, ableism, etc etc.. with some of these being more intentional and others being moreso harmful stereotypes slipping through the cracks), however this ask is *glances* almost 2 months old and i. forgot. about it. but i want to post this. again i'm not sure if this is necessarily what you were asking ^_^"
