#perspective 1

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William Joyce made or approved changes to Toothiana’s character, including removing her cultural context, likely because he didn’t see the importance of her heritage while making the film. Moreover, taking away her background is a form of cultural erasure, as detaching her from race fits within Western culture. When film adaptations fall short of the source material, many authors may claim they had no hand in the film. For Rise of the Guardians, it could be easy to explain away Toothiana’s Eurocentricity by claiming Joyce had not made the character changes. However, in his interview with MediaMikes, he explained that he “also worked as the executive producer, so [he] collaborated on all aspects of the film[, including d]esign, story, and casting” (Joyce). His emphasis on “all aspects of the film” shows that he made a lot of the choices, especially the ones that were changed for Toothiana of “[d]esign” and “story.” Of course, his use of “collaborate” shows that he was not the only one making decisions, but he still had the final say. Authors may also claim that it may be very challenging to cut down a book series to fit an adaptation, but this only explains the erasure of Toothiana’s background, and not the changes to her design. Making her easier to animate does not make the run time shorter, and there are ways to make her animator-friendly without desecrating her cultural heritage. Because her lore had also been cut, her physical differences were completely erased, leaving the last aspect of her heritage. This distance from her South Asian race reflects a greater distance from race as a whole, which is strengthened by her separation from humanity in the films. Authors may also claim that it is very challenging to condense a book series for an adaptation, but this only explains the erasure of her background, not the changes to her design. Her physical design differences are deeper than just a change in animation, as cutting her lore completely erases the last aspect of her heritage. Furthermore, removing “the characters’ contexts reveal a lot about how the cultural imperatives of whiteness as it is wedded with neutrality provide a mechanism for readers to ignore elements that do not reflect and affirm their lived experiences” (Nasara 240). So, removing her cultural history aligns with and teaches white readers that cultures that are not their own are irrelevant. The word “imperatives” means ‘duties’, which implies that continuing whiteness is seen as a duty for white authors. Additionally, using “wedded” shows that whiteness is combined with neutrality to the point where they become synonymous.

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Though Eurocentric authors may want to shield kids from learning or experiencing racial discrimination, this often means not writing about race, which is counterproductive, as kids are bound to be introduced to such topics. Additionally, when not writing about race, whiteness as a default becomes even clearer and more problematic when rooted in history. Many authors, especially those who are parents like Joyce, may believe in not talking about race or racism in children’s literature to protect kids from deep topics. However, all children will encounter race and culture at some point in their lives. Children of colour may also encounter racism earlier, whereas white children will first encounter white privilege, which the author Nasara is reviewing attests to (Nasara 241). Because of this nature of society, it’s clear that “encountering painful situations [around race] is inevitable” and even if ““[r]acist texts can inflict real psychic damage on children of all races,… the child who is a member of the targeted group sustains deeper wounds than the child who is not”” (Nasara 242-3). The phrase “of all races” ties back to the testament earlier from Philip Nel, who Nasara is analysing, that even white children will encounter the unpleasant side of race. The decision to use “targeted” shows that eliminating culture “targets” people instead of being some blameless, harmless act. Using “targets” also creates a victim and perpetrator narrative, where those that hid race are "targeting" those whose race is hidden. So, by eliminating race, authors are not erasing racism, but in fact, reinstating it in a new way. This subtle racism may also persist in the erasure of a community’s history. Joyce’s story, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, is set in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and centres on a white character witnessing the restoration of New Orleans (Nasara 243). Because of this white main character, “the story of how black people experienced the hurricane is absent, and the story is changed to one that suggests New Orleans has always been a predominantly white community. This distortion in the retelling of history is one way that black characters are rendered invisible or whitewashed in children’s books” (Nasara 244). The issue with this book is not as simple as choosing to highlight how white people experienced the hurricane or how black people were completely “absent” from experiencing the hurricane. By making the white character the main or only example, it implies the reason black people were “absent” was because they didn’t experience the hurricane enough to become the representative example. This “retell[s],” or frames the narrative of the hurricane differently, thus implying that the community that experienced this hurricane was a “predominantly white community.” The use of the word “absent” is also meaningful due to its double meaning of missing from a place and non-existent everywhere. Though this word may seem to only be used in the first way, I argue that using “absent” to mean non-existent ties back to how not mentioning race explicitly erases the representation of racial minorities. Additionally, this equivocation of “New Orleans” and “predominantly white community” is so starkly untrue that it points out how unusual it is that The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is centred on a white character.