I just now noticed that JournalPress now allows users to choose which LJ icon they want to use. Yay! So now you won’t always see my fan icon (though mostly you still will) and posts from the tech blog will have a different icon so they’re easier to identify/skip if you want.
Now if only someone would update/rewrite the plugin that allows comment syncing between LJ and WordPress, we’d be in business.
I know that pointing out RoF Fail is a little like kicking a puppy, but you know how it is when Nick Mamatas sends you a link clearly meant to induce blog-worthy rage — you just have to accommodate him.
So, LJ user torrain was reading the latest issue of Realms of Fantasy and didn’t get far before the facepalm reached epic proportions. Inside the magazine’s movie review of The Last Airbender ze found this awesomeness:
However, The Last Airbender has already caught flak for “whitewashing,” meaning, the casting of white actors (or actors who appear to be white) to play non-white characters, especially when those characters are heroic. It’s a hot-button issue that dredges up memories of images like Al Jolsen wearing black-face makeup. Of course, there are two sides to this coin. On one hand, whitewashing can feel insulting, disrespectful, and disappointing to movie-goers. Many may label it as politically incorrect. On the other hand, anyone who has run a casting call will tell you that when you find the right person for the role, something magical happens. Time seems to stop, and you feel as if the character comes to life right in front of your eyes. The character is no longer ink on paper; the character begins to live and breathe. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the individual human being reading for the part. Adding to the mix is the fact that some roles written for white people have been won by actors of color, and some roles written for men have been played by women. In other words, whitewashing isn’t a one-way street. It’s a difficult situation that places filmmakers between the goal of finding magic and not offending audiences. At the end of the day, most directors simply want to tell a good story.
There’s a lot of obvious fail going on here, and it’s hard to know where to begin, but I’ll start with this notion that “something magical happens” when the right person comes along for the role, even if that person is white and the character is not. Even if this was ever true somewhere in the world, it’s not true in this movie. Let’s quote Roger Ebert talking about the casting, specifically:
Shyamalan has failed. His first inexplicable mistake was to change the races of the leading characters; on television Aang was clearly Asian, and so were Katara and Sokka, with perhaps Mongolian and Inuit genes. Here they’re all whites. This casting makes no sense because (1) It’s a distraction for fans of the hugely popular TV series, and (2) all three actors are pretty bad. I don’t say they’re untalented, I say they’ve been poorly served by Shyamalan and the script. They are bland, stiff, awkward and unconvincing.
The trouble with The Last Airbender is that Aang, as a character, is a saintly abstraction (Noah Ringer plays him with a sensitive pout that grows cloying), and he’s surrounded by generic young actors who are like place holders for real stars.
Shyamalan has worked wonders with child actors before, but Ringer is no Haley Joel Osment, delivering some fancy footwork but zero charisma in the pic’s key role. Most dialogue scenes are framed in tight Sergio Leone-style closeup, emphasizing the actors’ wooden nature. At that proximity, we notice that Rathbone never blinks; nor can he be counted on to deliver any of the comic relief of his animated counterpart.
I could go on. The issue here is not that M. Night just happened to find these amazing kids to play these roles who just happened to be white. This is what he or the producers or the studio set out to do from the beginning because, even though millions of people love the cartoon and its clearly Asian characters, they felt that audiences just can’t handle brown and yellow people as the heroes. As the evil villains, sure. But protagonists must be white, right?
Whitewashing, no matter how much you pretty it up with the magical casting feeling of amazingness, is still just damn wrong.
The second half of that paragraph, which you probably didn’t even read because the first part was so rage-inducing with its faily wrongness, I shall paste again, because it also needs addressing:
Adding to the mix is the fact that some roles written for white people have been won by actors of color, and some roles written for men have been played by women. In other words, whitewashing isn’t a one-way street. It’s a difficult situation that places filmmakers between the goal of finding magic and not offending audiences. At the end of the day, most directors simply want to tell a good story.
Jesus. Okay, deep breath. First of all, the conceit of having women play roles written for men is usually about deconstruction more than it’s about some magical audition process or someone being “right” for a role. And I can’t come up with any examples of people of color playing roles “written for white people” unless you’re talking about classical theater or something. Maybe they mean Sam Jackson as Nick Fury? But again, when POC play, uh “white” roles, that actually has a different weight and purpose behind it than whitewashing. The power differentials there are NOT equal. Are POC overrepresented in Hollywood movies and American television? No. Are white people? Yes. So when whitewashing occurs, do you know who it hurts and disrespects and diminishes? POC.
The fact that this Realms columnist doesn’t understand any of this is already major fail. The fact that his or her editor doesn’t understand any of this is even bigger fail. And it’s leading many people to question why they would even bother to save such a magazine from its impending cancellation when all they have to look forward to is a bunch of racefail in the non-fiction section.
I’m just going to bottom line it for you: Whitewashing is never okay no matter what. If you don’t agree, then you’re really too far gone to exist in polite and cultured society and perhaps you should do us all a favor and go back to the cave you most certainly crawled out of.
Is that too harsh?
Readercon*
* Actually, we all had a really lovely con.
| July 9, 2010 4:00 pm | to | July 11, 2010 12:00 pm |
Looks like I will be on four panels/discussions at Readercon this weekend. In addition to that we’re having the eBooks and SF Magazines discussion on Saturday night. Here’s my schedule for those who are interested:
Talk / Discussion: How Electrons have Changed Writing and Reading — Friday 4:00 PM, ME/CT
Cecilia Tan with discussion by Inanna Arthen, Leah Bobet, K. Tempest Bradford, Barbara Krasnoff, K. A. Laity
eBooks, the Internet, social media networks, PayPal — have these really changed the writer/reader relationship forever? Not surprisingly, SF readers are early adopters of new tech and sf publishers are leading the way in new content delivery. Is it really possible with new tech for a writer to cut out the publisher and still make a living? Is the writer who wants to “just write” doomed to obscurity now? Writers, what forays into the new frontier of electronic publishing have you made and what did you find out there in the wild lands? Readers, what have you enjoyed and sought out, what would you welcome?
Panel: The New and Improved Future of Magazines – Friday 8:00 PM, Salon G
K. Tempest Bradford, Neil Clarke, Liz Gorinsky (L), Gavin J. Grant, Matthew Kressel.
After last year’s “The Future of Magazines” panels, participant K. Tempest Bradford wrote: “The magazines and anthologies that I love tend to have editors who have taken the time to examine themselves or their culture, to expend their knowledge of other people and ways of being, to open their minds. These magazines and anthologies contain far more stories I want to read by authors of many varied backgrounds. As I said, it’s not fully about print vs. online, it’s about better magazines and books.” This time, creators and proponents of both print and online magazines collaborate on determining ways that any genre magazine can create a brighter and better-read future for itself, using Bradford’s comment as a launching point[1].
eBooks and Magazines Planning Discussion — Saturday 6:00 PM, Meet in the lobby
Those of you interested in discussing the Magazine/eBook open source project, we’re going to meet at Readercon during the dinner break since this is the time that’s none of us are likely to have something else scheduled.
If you can’t make this time, that’s fine. We will also have an online space to discuss things after the con is over.
And yes, we will eat dinner while we discuss if we all decide the dinner time is fine. :) Meet in the lobby of the hotel, then we’ll decide where to get dinner. (Facebook event is here if you want to RSVP.)
Talk / Discussion: Interstitial Arts Foundation Town Meeting — Sunday 10:00 AM, RI
Sarah Smith with discussion by K. Tempest Bradford, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Shira Lipkin
The IAF is a group of “Artists Without Borders” who celebrate art that is made in the interstices between genres and categories. It is art that flourishes in the borderlands between different disciplines, mediums, and cultures. The IAF provides border-crossing artists and art scholars a forum and a focus for their efforts. Rather than creating a new genre with new borders, they support the free movement of artists across the borders of their choice. They support the development of a new vocabulary with which to view and critique border-crossing works, and they celebrate the large community of interstitial artists working in North America and around the world. The annual Interstitial Arts Foundation Town Meeting at Readercon is an exciting opportunity to catch up with the IAF and its many supporters to hear about they’re doing to support the interstitial art community in 2010, solicit your ideas for future projects, and to give you a voice in the development of interstitial art.
Talk / Discussion: How to Write for a Living When You Can’t Live Off Your Fiction – Sunday 11:00 AM, RI
Barbara Krasnoff with discussion by Inanna Arthen, K. Tempest Bradford, Jeffrey A. Carver, Rose Fox, Jeff Hecht, Alison Sinclair, Gayle Surrette
You’ve just been laid off from your staff job, you can’t live on the royalties from your fiction writing, and your Significant Other has taken a cut in pay. How do you pay the rent? Well, you can find freelance work writing articles, white papers, reviews, blogs, and other non-sfnal stuff. Despite today’s lean journalistic market, it’s still possible to make a living writing, editing, and/or publishing. Let’s talk about where and how you can sell yourself as a professional writer, whether blogging can be done for a living, and how else you can use your talent to keep the wolf from the door. Bring whatever ideas, sources, and contacts you have.
The Doctor Who season finale was just as mediocre and disappointing as the rest of the season. I don’t know what the hell everyone else is so happy about, except perhaps Steven Moffet’s lackluster turn as head writer has somehow lowered everyone’s bar and they were happy to see anything resembling a moving bit of drama. Cut for spoilers, unfortunately too late for many… sorry. :(
Anonymized link, for those who care.
Remember that he is the masshole[1] who compared including women and minorities in an anthology of science fiction stories to finding lettuce in reams of copy paper.
In other words, he is not to be taken seriously at all, ever. His ignorance stands as a monument to his vast privilege wanking which stands as a monument to… something. So of course he doesn’t understand Who Fears Death. It’s not like he tried. It’s all just lettuce and potatoes to him.
So I have a couple of stories that I’d like to sell as individual eBooks, just to try the whole process out. I’ve made the ePub file — which took more doing than should have been necessary… — and I’ve tried it out on the eReaders I have around. But I’d really appreciate it if those of you out there with an eReader or a smartphone that has an EPUB-reading app would check it for me as well. Just let me know in the comments if you’d like a copy and I’ll send it to the email you leave there. Thanks!
Next step is getting accounts on and uploading my story to some eBook stores. I’m thinking iBooks, Kindle, Sony, Kobo, B&N, Scribd and maybe B&N once their self-publishing thing happens. Anyone have experience with these they want to share?
So, normally I am an RPatz fan, though not a fangirl. I think the dude is pretty sharp looking, and I love the way he makes fun of Twilight and Stephanie Meyer. But looking at the new trailer, I am sort of appalled at Bella. Perhaps because I have never seen Jacob and Edward standing together on screen, but Edward looks really fucking nasty in this new movie, and even moreso next to shiny, brown-skinned Jacob. I mean, I have have never been struck by that horrendously applied white makeup before and WTF is up with the yellow-ass eyes? How is it that people in Forks or whatever town they are in do not know that the Cullens are vampires? They look like a baker attacked them while they’re recovering from malaria. WTF.
I suppose that this should not make any sense to me because, if it did, then the books would start making sense, and one of y’all would have to kidnap me and stage an intervention or something. Still, I have seen other vampire movies that manage to make them look all sexy while pale and this is not one of them. Why didn’t she choose the brown wolf boy? Maybe Bella is racist! Or… maybe these books (and the makeup crew) just suck.
Anyone care to help me out here?
I’ve been thinking about writing this post since the Take Back The SciFi Redux panel at WisCon where we talked about media that portrayed rape in a horrid, sketchy way but also mentioned some media that did it well. The latter list was very small, as you can imagine.
I’ve railed against the way writers of books and television shows and movies use rape at least twice before. But there are obviously some people who still don’t get it, and they don’t know why they don’t get it. What makes the portrayal of rape in book X palatable to me, but the portrayal in book Y sends me into a fit of rage?
There are three books I’ve read in recent years that make excellent examples – two bad examples, one positive example:
Below is a description of each book that contains spoilers for the story and possible triggers for those who’ve been raped or sexually assaulted, so please take care when clicking. Though my hope is that the issues raised will be more helpful than harmful. Click here to read.
So, Carly Fiorina. I feel like that woman is really crazy and should not be a senator. But here’s some other things I do know about her.
Since a good number of the people who are interested in helping with and hammering out details on the eBook Magazine project I posed about will be at Readercon in a few weeks, I think it would be a good idea to have a meetup there. I know there are several of you interested who won’t be there, so hopefully I can get together with you online to make sure we know about the skill sets, availability, and ideas of everyone who wants to be involved.
For the peeps who’ll be at Readercon, how does meeting during the dinner break (yes, over actual dinner) on Saturday sound?
For the online component of this project, people seem to use Google Sites to good effect for organizing such things. Would anyone be interested in setting up one of those with both public and private areas?
During WisCon I had a brief conversation with Jed Hartman about my continued sadness that more online magazines don’t have an eBook version of their stories so I can easily load them on my eReader and thus read more fiction. He agreed that Things Must Be Done, but there are questions of logistics and reader/audience desires plus the technology to make it all happen. We came to the conclusion that making this work is about more than just creating an eBook version of the magazine, but also delivery and access. There’s a niche here that needs filling, but in order to do that, we’re going to need coders.
I want to propose an open source coding project and gather coders around me to make it happen, but I have no flippin’ idea how to do that. I also want to get some more feedback on this idea and work out the kinks. Luckily, I have a blog, so I totally know how to do that. So here are the questions, issues, problems, and goals I see surrounding all of this.
This is what I’ve come up with so far, but please feel free to add anything else you think should be under consideration and please give your thoughts, solutions, etc. to the above. I feel that if this is done right, we may end up with a really cool program or online service that can handle all of these things. But, as I said, I’d want this to be open source and made available to magazines for little or no cost, if possible.
I’d love any suggestions on how to proceed from here.
When I welcomed new friends and readers last week I forgot to do that thing where I say “here’s where to find me” in case people don’t do the RSS thing. So here it is:
LiveJournal: I’m here as ktempest and the journal there is essentially a mirror of this journal here at fluidartist.com. The only difference between the mirror and an RSS feed is that the entries show up under my own username with my LJ icon. You can’t comment there, which I know is a sadness. But keeping up with two comment threads gave me the vapors. I do friend people back on LJ because I do read the FList there (not as frequently as I used to). If you’d like me to friend you, please introduce yourself.
Dreamwidth: I’m here as ktempest also but that journal is on lockdown. Only people I’ve granted access to can see the majority of my posts there. There’s nothing super secret going on. I just want to use that journal as a place to have the kind of conversations that can only happen when you choose the company selectively. If you subscribe to me there and I don’t subscribe back or grant you access to my locked posts, please do not take it as a sign I don’t like you. However, if you do add me, I would appreciate you introducing yourself as I sometimes don’t match up the person with their LJ/Dreamwidth handle and my brain needs a bit of help. If you want to read the posts from the fluidartist.com journal on Dreamwidth, there’s an RSS feed.
Twitter: I’m tinytempest here. Twitter is full of randomness and I just add to the noise. I do not always follow people who follow me. I’m starting to realize how mean I am!
Facebook: If you search for K Tempest Bradford you should be able to find me. Or just hit the link there. Though Facebook is evil with the privacy stuff I still like it overall because it can act as a hub for almost every social network. Whenever I post here, there’s a notification there. When I review something on Yelp, add a picture to Flickr, etc. My Twitter and Facebook are not mirrored, though. Sometimes I post something to both, but usually it’s one or the other. I friend back most people on Facebook, but I also filter pretty heavily there, too. It’s really, really helpful to me when people include a message with the friend request saying “Hey, this is where/how I met you” or “this is how I know you” or “I’m a friend of your friend” or whatever. Sometimes people just say “hey, I read your story and liked it, want to stay up to date” and that’s just fine, too.
An io9 commenter on why she won’t renew her subscription to Realms of Fantasy:
I can’t even begin to unpack the racefail here because I’m too busy going: wait, is that true? I don’t even read the magazine (despite having multiple free issues pushed on me) but I don’t remember anyone saying to me recently “Have you seen all the wonderful ethnocentricity going on in Realms, lately?”
Regular readers, care to enlighten?
Via Nick Mamatas. In the comments someone points out that it may just be a case of them seeing one non-white protag and going OMG the mud people took ovah!
You can call me Tempest.
I'm a writer, most often committing acts of Fantasy and Science Fiction, though I have been known to slip in and out of genres. I'm famous on the internet, an editor of some repute, and hopeless convention addict.
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