Meanwhile On TumblR: Whitewashing Urban Fantasy And Anti-Asian Racism In Porn And Personal-Care Products
By Andrea Plaid
Two form of entertainment with passionate defenders garnered some great critiques that drew quite a bit of Tumblr attention this week, starting with Chronicles of Harriet’s Balogun spot-on post on the white-washing of urban fantasy:
From Maurice Broaddus’ King’s Justice. Cover art by Steven Stone. Via yetistomper.blogspot.com.
Come on, y’all…if you write a story and set it in a place like Broaddus’ Indianapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, London, or Las Vegas, basic demographic research will indicate the presence of people of color. To read and enjoy Urban Fantasy, I am expected to just accept that Black people don’t exist? You get the side-eye for that one.
Whether or not you like Urban Fantasy, the fact of the matter is that this subgenre of Fantasy has had an immense and global impact on people through literature, television and film.
It is because of this impact that we cannot ignore the messages that Urban Fantasy brings. Each time an author of this subgenre decides to tell a story, instead of working so hard to erase people of color out of existence, they should work just as hard to erase the problems that plague our society. And fanboys…do not say that writers should not have to be political; that they should be free to write merely to entertain. Every statement we make is political. Every sentence we write is potentially life-changing for someone. Such is the power of the word.
You cannot truly change culture without literature. We can pass a thousand laws saying that racism and sexism are wrong. We can make a thousand impassioned speeches to rouse the marginalized masses; but if everyone returns home after those speeches and sits down to read the latest installment of Twilight, or watch the next episode of The Vampire Diaries and their fictional worlds in which those same marginalized masses barely even exist – then how much change can truly be affected?
[T]here’s a very clear utilization of offensiveness in pornography, to some the idea of a pornographic film that doesn’t intentionally offend the viewers taste is useless. As a society we’ve fetishized the very idea of being offensive for offensiveness sake. A movie like Slant Eye For the White Guy might not actually ever refer to the Asian women as slurs durring the scene, but the taboo attached to “yellow fever” itself is part of the fetish being served to consumers. If any of the parties involved were trying to insult their audience like many porn films aim to do that would be entirely different that defending yellow face as completely innocent.
There were no such Asian Americans in the Walking Dead parody. The people who had the power decided to go with yellowface and are continuing to defend it. Interestingly, according to actor Danny Wylde in his apology, the role of Glenn was the last to be cast and not being familiar with the show he wasn’t even aware that he would be playing an Asian- American. After seeing himself in make up , he raise questions about racism. The reaction was mostly laughter.
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