I see more posts by white people asking if it’s “okay” for them to see Black Panther than I do see them asking for links to charity campaigns trying to help young Black kids see the movie.
which is to say the BP tags have like three of the former posts every day, but I have yet to see a SINGLE post by a white person asking people to send them links for campaigns they can support.
I need someone to realize that this is the pinacle of performative allyship.
they’re out here trying to get their hoodpass into wakanda but aren’t ready to let Jerome hold a dollar. They want to be invited to the cookout, but won’t even bring a bag of ice. They want to think themselves the ‘special white people’ but don’t actually want to do the work of the special white people.
and before you, white person clearly missing the point of this posts asks, yes, you CAN reblog this if it’s to show support of the message.
Here’s some links, btw, to gofundmes that still need funding for helping black kids see Black Panther:
The official Obama portaits unveiled today. President Obama’s portrait was done by Kehinde Wiley, and Michelle Obama’s portrait was done by Amy Sherald, making the two artists the first African-American artists to be commissioned for portraits at the National Portrait Gallery.
“What I was always struck by when I saw his portraits was the degree to which they challenged our ideas of power and privilege,” Obama said.
The juxtaposition of contemporary urban culture with centuries-old postures and wallpaper-like backgrounds make for bold paintings, of which Obama’s is Wiley’s most famous to date.
For her portrait, Michelle Obama chose Baltimore-based artist Amy Sherald. Sherald is another African-American artist known for her unique style, and her portraits also tend to underscore themes of social justice. She often paints black skin tones in gray as a way to take away the assigned “color” of her subjects. Sherald’s work is less about realism in composition and more about shape and color; like Wiley, the choice of Sherald ushers in a new era of presidential portrait … The former first lady said she was thinking about the impact Sherald’s work will have on “girls and girls of color.”
“They will see an image of someone who looks like them hanging on the walls of this great American institution … And I know the kind of impact that will have on their lives because I was one of those girls,” she said.
Race. *sigh* I keep revisiting this ask, and each time I do I feel more and more like I don’t want to engage as there are so many landmines.
I didn’t get into fandom for landmines, and so I maneuver around them, and the reason I’m answering this at all is for those who are thinking about topics like these but are too afraid to respond for fear of the landmines.
I’m responding bc I feel like if sharing my perspective could make just one person feel better about this, then it’s worth the risk and worth my time and effort.
I’m up for Daniel being Black in the adaptation. His race isn’t mentioned specifically in the books, and we need diversity in an ocean of white Eurotrash fops! I don’t see any reason why not and Bryan cast the lead in American Gods as black so I’m hopeful to see some good changes in Anne’s work. What do you think?
^Here’s one person who wants to cast Daniel as POC/Black, and they seemed to be accentuating the positive. They want diversity. They compared him to the lead from American Gods being cast as black. I don’t watch that show so I don’t know if that character is the “butt of crazy jokes” or only has value being attached to another character, but it seems to me, at face value, that this Anon thinks that Daniel being cast as POC/Black is parallel with the lead of another series being cast as POC/Black, this Anon states that as being a good change.
I answered that Anon more in depth with some historical context, so you can look at that response, but basically, Anne is open to casting POC for VC characters. I’m open to it! I trust in whoever is running the adaptation to produce it in a tasteful and respectful way, and updating it to be inspiring and satisfying to a wider audience would be great, however that happens.
TL:DR; I think people do care about Daniel, and would love to see a character that they care about, like Daniel, be cast as a POC as a good thing. Daniel is not perfect (none of them are! Except Mojo) but he has many positive traits: he’s clever, resourceful, sassy, charismatic, capable of loving and being loved in return. I think people would love for the adaptation to show that those traits can absolutely be found in POC, too. We do need more positive representation like that.
Reminder that this is a fandom blog for entertainment and I am not here to make/agree/disagree with political statements that are potentially inflammatory. Not my focus. But I will address your points to some extent.
Speaking to the connotations of race, it’s interesting that people in the fandom want to make Daniel the black character
I haven’t seen an enormous amount of people in the fandom wanting this change, I think one blog is dedicated to it? I’ve mostly seen interest and support for casting a POC as Akasha, since that casting in movie!QOTD was pretty widely praised. I see people talking about considering casting other characters as POC, but I don’t see anyone other than Akasha as being the main character of interest for that.
One could criticize that choice as being bad, as it could imply that POC/Black women are villains, bc she was a villain in that movie. That’s not the message I took from that casting choice, but one could easily argue that that was a message being sent (and therefore, Bad representation, even though she was cast as a character in a position of power).
when for so many years, a goodly bulk of this fandom has only attributive Daniel as having any value to the story when he’s attached to Armand, or made him the butt of crazy jokes.
“for so many years” covers decades of time, these books have been around since 1976. Reflecting back to when I started in this in 1993 (which was already almost 20 yrs late), I can’t say that any character has escaped being the butt of crazy jokes in all this time, and with the nature of shipping, many of the characters seem to only have value when attached to other characters.
Re: shipping: it seems like ships are more prevalent in fanworks than fanworks portraying the characters on their own, and so it may give the impression that fandom “prefers the characters as part of a ship,” but personally, I think of shipping as the collision of 2 (or more) characters, to see how they’ll interact: in happiness, sadness, anger, all the different ways! Writing about a ship can allow a fanartist/writer/etc. to explore how each member of the ship will react in
actions/words/etc.
to the other’s actions/words/etc. So I can see how you might get the impression that “Daniel only has value as being attached to Armand,” but I think it’s more about how Daniel presents himself when he is with Armand, that’s what the fanworks are exploring.
Along those lines, however you interpret that ship, the bulk of Daniel’s post-IWTV “screentime” was in QOTD, with Armand, and after that, Daniel doesn’t get much action in canon until the more recent books (but even then, not as much as in QOTD). As the fandom does tend to ship Daniel with Armand, and plenty of it that I’ve seen (especially in fanart) is somewhat fluffy, again, I can see why you might get the impression that “he’s only valued when attached to Armand,” but really, I think Daniel/Armand shippers are fascinated with the dynamic of that ship. It’s rarely fluffy in canon. So some of them make fanworks for wish fulfillment, and that’s valid.
Personally, I don’t think Daniel’s only value to the story is when he’s attached to Armand, but again, he spends most of his time in canon with Armand, maybe that’s why the fandom doesn’t tend to write him on his own time separately.
Re: being the “butt of crazy jokes”: As a side note, when we joke about characters, that’s not to say that that’s always a negative act. Look, we’re currently dragging Lestat bc he said IN CANON that he loved being called a “slut,” which is really more of a layered commentary on shaming people for enjoying sex/intimacy, and he refuses to be shamed for it, he’ll turn around and take it as a compliment instead 😉
I’ve been in this fandom for over 20 years and I don’t think Daniel has gotten the worst treatment in those terms, it seems to me that there have been waves of love/interest/disdain/mockery of most of the main (and side) characters at different points in time, and from different groups of fans. So that may be your experience, and that’s absolutely valid, but I haven’t seen it that way. Of all the characters, I think Lestat probably gets the worst of being the butt of crazy jokes and he likes it bc bad attention is better than no attention.
It seems awfully suspicious to me that the “best’ character” to be cast as a POC is the one so many have considered the throw-away one. If that doesn’t speak volumes, I don’t know what does.
I’m sorry, but I have to disagree here, too. I wouldn’t say he’s a throw-away character for the whole fandom. There are Daniel RPers. As I’ve mentioned, it happens that he doesn’t have a lot of action in canon other than in books 1 (as just the interviewer, but it counts!) and 3, so the fandom does not have as much canon to work with as they do for other characters.
And again, re: the fandom choosing him as “the best character” to be cast as a POC, that seems to be Akasha, from what I’ve seen.
The reason I love Only Lovers Left Alive is it shows that a character (Adam) can be severely mentally ill, in this case depressed and suicidal, and still be seen as lovable and capable of being loved and loving in return without being “cured” of their mental illness, and that a mentally ill character can have other attributes aside from being mentally ill while still showing the impact being mentally ill has on his personality.
Adam from OLLA is an extremely important character to me you guys.
Similarly, I think people would love to see a character that they care about, like Daniel, be cast as a POC as being POC is often portrayed negatively in media. Fans of a POC being cast as Daniel would want (I’m paraphrasing from above):
to see
Daniel
showing that a character can be POC, in this case black, and still be seen as lovable and capable of being loved and loving in return, and that a POC character can have other attributes aside from being POC while still showing the impact being POC has on his personality.
Daniel Molloy from VC is an extremely important character to me you guys.
“Ballet embraces the soft, ethereal and majestic side to women, and yet we often don’t see the media portray black women in this light. My project aims to reveal that women of color possess these qualities. We too are capable of portraying the princess, fairy and swan.”
—Aesha Ash
Aesha Ash’s prestigious career has included world class roles. Yet she’s now on to a different mission, with three big goals. She wishes to see ballet become more diverse. She hopes to inspire youth from rough areas to pursue their dreams. And she wants to show the world that tough environments can’t hold back talented people, especially those with ambition.
Aesha performed professionally for 13 years. She attended the legendary School of American Ballet; joined the New York City Ballet at age 18; and has danced solo and principal roles for companies like the Béjart Ballet in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Alonzo King Lines Ballet in San Francisco. Now she’s focused on The Swan Dreams Project, in which she uses imagery to tackle stereotypes placed on black women. Aesha commissions photographers to snap her as a ballerina in her hometown of rugged Rochester, New York, and in Richmond, California, and then donates proceeds from photo sales to organizations helping advance inner city youth. She also donates images to organizations for their fundraisers and to people seeking more positive imagery for their children or groups.
The dancer points out that black women have always existed in ballet, yet few become principals, the highest tier of dancers. When Misty Copeland became the first black female principal with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre last summer, Aesha found the milestone a moment to celebrate, yet sad and troubling that in 2016, we’re still celebrating a first. She hopes The Swan Dreams project will give more dancers — and youths in general — the chance to be celebrated for their own talents.
Rochester has one of America’s highest crime rates. But Aesha hits the streets to prove that her hometown is more than violence and gangs. That’s where her Swan Dreams Project comes in. “My community saw that out of our environment came a ballerina, not just negativity — a little black girl from inner city Rochester actually went on to become a professional ballet dancer in a top-tiered company,” Aesha said in a one-on-one interview for this report. “Youth followed me on the street saying, ‘This is what we need. This lifts us up.’”
Fun fact: If you google “Those who must be kept”, this is the second picture to come up… and it was done by me… in December 2009. That’s 8 years ago!! And I still kind of like it. A lot.
The clothing is all wrong, of course…
I remember how proud I was about the texts having some meaning… I cheated a lot and just copied existing texts and changed some words in them… and added some “I’ll just write it like usual but with a hierogyph-font”…
It sais something like this:
at their feet
Left: “Mother of Gods” “Full Of Magic” “Ruler Of The Universe” Akasha
Right: “Ruler Of Eternity” “Great God” “The Perfect One” “First Son” Enkil
on the left See! They are the Beginning. She is the Mother. He is the Father. Those Who Must Be Kept. Protect and enshrine them, the progenitors of all vampires. They are our destiny.
*Beloved Son Marius, for us you give your freedom and your love. We will always remember you.*
They are the Beginning.
*** All those Names are the Names used for Isis and Osiris. (Except the “first son”)
(On a sidenote and before people come at me and accuse me of whitewashing: Read the books: As vampires they had Alabaster skin. On this picture they are supposed to have been vampires for quite some time already. So cut my younger self some slack, ‘kay?)
This is how we had our very fist contact… in 2010!!
Beautiful! I love these kind of stories!
(I’m sorry you felt you needed to add the side note about POC. This is a hotly debated thing. 1) AR was adhering to the vampire physiology rules she had already set in place in the first few books, that vampire skin becomes lighter with age, and 2) we do not know definitively what color mortal!Akasha’s skin would have been, given that not all Egyptians are necessarily dark skinned. Rami Malek, for example, is a light-skinned Egyptian-American).
I have to say I’ve never gotten a race casting suggestion quite like this before! So this is a first ^_________^ It’s especially appropriate to answer it on MLK Jr. day here in the U.S., when we reflect on the progress we’ve made and how far we still need to go in pursuit of an equal society for all.
Some characters may change where “ethnicity is flexible”
Anne and Chris agree that POC being casted are important and will be considered in casting. The Millennial vamps (older gang) will most likely be largely POC.
Marius was played by a black man in the musical and Anne thought he did a great job. Marius can be any ethnicity so long as he’s half Roman. She’d prefer to have Marius as blue eyes and blonde haired like Lestat but it’s “not imperative for him”.
Anne and Chris to be inclusive, but will always focus more on how fine the actor is. Talent is needed to get the role, not just looks.
TL;DR #1:
You might be right about Daniel’s race not being explicitly stated in canon, and if it were up to me, I would be open to considering a POC to be cast as Daniel, or other characters. Any adaptation provides a chance to improve on canon the way fanfic/fanart do 😉
TL;DR #2:
However, casting Daniel as a POC may introduce racial considerations that AR & Co. are not capable of addressing well, especially during the mortal!Daniel/Armand time period (1975-85), a decade in the U.S. when interracial relationships were still somewhat taboo. Since we have our fair share of racial issues now, too, whether
AR & Co.
shift the Modern Era to now, or leave it 1975-85, racial issues would still need to be addressed.
[^Everyone loves John Boyega and he would cost a bazillion dollars to cast in anything now, but I saw him in the movie “Attack the Block” years ago in which he’s more like Daniel to me, and I think he was great in that, dealing with packs of
weird
roving aliens, and I think he’d do well with
weird roving
vampires! So yes, as a casting suggestion, Boyega would be my first POC choice for Daniel.]
An adaptation is a director/showrunner’s vision for the canon material. It’s like an official fanwork. Some changes to canon in an adaptation are for the better, but “better” is subjective, of course. We tend to consider the opinion as objective when the majority agrees on the change being “better.”
Claudia was aged up by about 6 years for movie!IWTV, bc they couldn’t find a child close to the canon age who could act better than Kirsten. For that role, I think the performance was more important than the canon-compliance, and her being closer to achieving physical maturity made her more tragic ;A;
Armand was aged up and physically very different, the director may have wanted him to be more convincing as Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world to audiences who had not read the books. Many fans of the books STILL DO NOT LIKE this change.
Claudia’s Story was an official VC graphic novel, since by nature it was from Claudia’s POV, some of the narrative from IWTV was altered or removed entirely. Was it for the better? I felt like we got a better understanding of Claudia’s character, so maybe it was, but for me, it relies on and coexists with IWTV, it’s a slightly different story.
Movie!QOTD changed many things from canon, including making Akasha visibly a POC, even though she is described in canon as being white from age and *handwaves* AR’s vampire physiological reasons. I think many ppl would agree with me that that change was definitely for the better, but many of the other changes in that movie? Not as good, but some ppl love that movie and/or consider it nostalgic.
So could a POC Daniel be good for the adaptation? I can’t pick a side so I’ll say: Possibly!
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
1) You’re right that we don’t have much diversity in canon 😛 This casting could add a new dimension to the Armand/Daniel ship that wasn’t there before. According to Wiki:
Interracial marriage in the United States has been fully legal in all U.S. states since the 1967 Supreme Court decision that deemed anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, with many states choosing to legalize interracial marriage at much earlier dates.
Daniel meeting Armand in 1975 would mean that interracial marriage had been fully legal for less than a decade. From 1975-85, their “courtship,” I think it was a time when interracial relationships were still somewhat taboo in society, at least in the U.S., and it still is taboo in some places in the U.S. and around the world. So that would need to be carefully addressed. Or they could change the time period to be more current, but I would say that we have different race issues now that would need to be addressed, no less pressing than in 1985.
2) Anne, Bryan*, Chris**, & Co. may not be equipped to handle racial issues very well. Anne has gotten criticism from fans, at least from what I’ve seen here on tumblr, that when she writes POC she “fetishizes” them. I haven’t fully accepted that term itself, but I can agree that AR often writes POC in a way that treats their superficial qualities as being overly sexy and appealing. I think she tries to address – but may not quite grasp – the deeper racial issues that could be addressed, but writing about POC issues is also something I am not well-educated about, so I wouldn’t know how to improve her writing of this subject matter.
Here’s an example of how she describes her POC characters, this is Davis, a black vampire in QOTD:
Davis was a black Dead guy and one damned good-looking black Dead guy, as Baby Jenks saw it. His skin had a gold glow to it, the Dead glow which in the case of white Dead guys made them look like they were standing in a fluorescent light all the time. Davis had beautiful eyelashes too, just damn near unbelievably long and thick, and he decked himself out in all the gold he could find. He stole the gold rings and watches and chains and things off the victims.
Choosing a race for a character whose race might appear open-ended in canon to make them Good Representation, could pose the risk of Bad Representation.
*I don’t know the American Gods series and I haven’t watched the adaptation, or heard reviews about the casting of a POC person specifically, so I don’t know if that’s a sign that it was a widely-agreed upon successful change to the canon material.
**Similarly, I haven’t read any of Chris’s books so idk if he even has POC in them.
I-want-my-IWTV 