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This is a topic that's been bugging me for a while because when it comes to people who advocate for "social justice" it's commonly said by them that whitewashing is generally not a good thing (though at times claims of whitewashing will prove unfounded like in the case of Frozen, in which "social justice" types on sites such as Tumblr showcased their ignorance by not realizing the Sami people are in fact white, and don't actually resemble Inuit people when it comes to skin color [if anything this showcased racial ignorance by showing these groups apparently believe that "people who live in frozen lands must look Inuit, right?"]), but what about when people who complain about whitewashing basically do something like that when they give a "race lift" to a canonically white character?

For me it just feels like a major case of hypocrosy. If it's not right when someone makes a black character white in fan art, why isn't that same logic applied to when someone draws a white character to be black, Asian, Hispanic, whatever? Key word here is "canonically," because real quick I will say that if a character in question has no canon "human race" then this isn't much of an "issue" at all. (for example if someone were to do artwork of humanized versions of the trolls from Homestuck, given the trolls in canon are grey skinned aliens, doing "humanization" artwork of them really has no set basis on "who would be what race according to humans")

One good example of this was when I came across a Tumblr blog of someone who always draws the human characters from Homestuck to be black, even though the characters in canon are white, and how the artist has this annoying attitude of "my headcanon is the true canon and if you don't like it then you're automatically a racist so fuck you."

While I disagree with this I'm about to go to bed and I don't really have time to write out a whole response, hell knowing me i probably won't. However I'm gonna have to call out the "hs kids are canonically white" thing – Hussie is recorded saying that the kids are aracial (old, deleted blog post as well as an old formspring post, if you feel like looking for either of them). Yes, there was a lot of argument about it and CAUCASIAN was the result but as it stands in the comic, trickster mode is a separate, weird… thing and the only explicitly white character is Bro (and even that was in contention for awhile). Sure the rest COULD be as a result but this is homestuck and there's so many genetic shenanigans that there is no 100% guarantee. The kids are merely white in the sense that they are uncolored, and remain bright white as a stylistic choice.

The artist's attitude seems questionable (although it sounds like you're significantly twisting their own words to suit your point, not gonna lie) but saying that they're white is flat-out wrong, as it's never been addressed in the comic and there is supplementary content to support them not being so.

tl;dr dont argue with me about homestuck. ill write my opinion on this as a whole tomorrow if i feel like it

Fan art is fan art, I really have no issue with "Race Lift" fan art in general, but I do find it hypocritical if they support one kind of race lifting progressive but another racist

I sometimes like seeing interesting role changes played out as a concept (what if the New World developed empires that started to colonize the world instead of Europe.)

Likewise, reimagining a character who was active at a time when race was a larger issue than it is now (say, 1938, when Superman was first published, or 1939 when Batman was published) but was made to be black. There are interesting things I think you can do with something like this.

I would not be surprised if things like this are occasionally done to make the population dynamic a little more realistic in some cases. As long as the character's race isn't something important or unless the point is to play with the concept (see black batman as above) then I don't see a real problem, provided they don't try to enforce this as actual canon.

But knowing tumblr, while cases of the above likely exist, you will hear more about the people who honestly believe their headcannon that a character who could be shown to be white to the great great great great grandparents are not really white but something else, and that this is canon. I think part of the argument may be "two wrongs make a right". Sometimes it can be done as a joke to poke fun at actual whitewashing, to show how dumb it is but, again, knowing tumblr the ones people really find are ones that honestly believe that reverse whitewashing is beneficial, similar to people who think that so many bad things resulted from white men in history, therefore we should repress them.

I can't say that every circumstance is the same. Some people do this smarter than others and with a purpose. If you do it to make a point or play with the concept creatively, then I don't see the issue. If you do it because "I hate white people, so let's just change them to something other than white so I can still like the characters while still hating white people" then yeah, it's pretty much the same thing as whitewashing.

EDIT: Twilitlord, I think Ms Fortune was just using that as an example. While Homestuk may not be the best example to use in this case, it does happen elsewhere.

I know that jacob but when someone says something Blatantly Wrong about hs i have to say something

like i said i have an opinion on this and my point isnt meant to discredit the post, just that saying they are canonically white is incorrect and that the example could still hold without adding that incorrect bit

i just care a lot about homestuck is all

It's simply a matter of you can't claim you're progressive if you don't make your characters minorities. Hollywood does this a ton in more recent years to appeal to demographics and garner buzz on social media, using it more as a gimmick rather than something to enhance story. I kind of feel like the main characters in the new Star Wars movie were chosen based on that reason rather than as an homage to classic action and scifi serials as Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker were.

I will disagree with anyone who says that a character's race is not an important character trait. A character's race gives an audience assumptions to make about their lifestyle. It's a tool that can communicate things about the character and their background without explicitly stating it through dialogue. That isn't to say that all characters are stereotypes of their race, but that people will make assumptions about the character purely based on their race which a writer can use to their advantage.

I don't really care but it bothers me that they get puffy when it's the other way around. Who gives a shit, its fanart, just do your thing.

Bothers me more when Hollywood does it than tumblr.

To me the rule of thumb is simple, "Either all of it's bad, or none of it's bad". I'm more bothered by people who defend race or gender changes as good decisions, just for the sake of the change having taken place. An example off it done well I would say is the new Ms Marvel, where the change in background is explored and comes into play with the characters personality and understanding them a bit more. A bad example would be femthor, who many defend despite having cringeworthy dialogue and a plot that has more unsettling implications then a blacked out CIA report.

What I'm trying to get at before I derail the thread with that, is this. If you're going to do it, at least put some effort into it. That's more a critique for hollywood and the media in power then it is for fan artists. But it still applies, in a way. If you're going to "race-lift" you better make the fan art really, really, good looking, and you better for the love of god be humble about it to.

If your vain and think "my way is the right way" when you know your changing traits the character has, then you've already fucked up. A lesson I learned from reading Fanfics myself, where changing traits characters have is as common as concrete on a sidewalk. Personally, I have no problem with race-lifting if its done with quality in mind and not taken seriously by the artist. One's race is not the be all and end all of a character.

And being one race or gender doesn't make a character superior to another, simply by changing that one physical trait of theirs. There is no inherently superior race, gender, or trait. As some artists, the ones I believe you have a grief with, have seem to have forgotten.

It's the Tumblr/SJW ideology of "It's not racist if it's done to white people" again, yes it is hypocritical to praise one direction and demonize the other. Personally, I find any race-lifting in fan art cringe-worthy because it's the artist changing the character to fit their agenda. This isn't limited to race or gender either, I really find it off putting how many fan-artists make Human Pinkie Pie fat as molasses when canonically she's no bigger than the other ponies. Not saying it's wrong to portray characters differently than canon, but such changes always put me off.

The beautiful thing about science fiction and fantasy is that it's up to the interpretation of the mind of the reader, and thus can be conveyed to anything and everything.

The clearest example of this is simple Rule 63 art: Aka making the character the opposite gender just for the hell of it. And this is a form of art nobody has beef with.

That can be done on anything. Change their race, gender, skin type, religion, I don't care. They can be white cis male or black trans bisexual for all I care, because that is up to you and how you see and read it. It can go any and all ways. Even if canon says this isn't the case, you can give that a giant fuck you because what you're creating is fanon. Hell, even canon often applies the concept of a multiverse; a character that is a white male in one can be a black female in the other. Go nuts.

Just don't shove it down people's throat and make them accept your fanon as canon, because that's just retarded. You're in this fanon together, so show some basic respect and decensy.

@Wisehowl

I will disagree with anyone who says that a character’s race is not an important character trait. A character’s race gives an audience assumptions to make about their lifestyle.

There's a disappointing lack of elaboration in your post. What does this mean in the context of a futuristic sci-fi a la Star Wars as you mentioned? I could see "soft" racial stereotypes (e.g. the assumption that blacks tend to come from urban backgrounds, whereas whites tend to come from suburban backgrounds) being used as a tool by writers in comedy or drama films set in contemporary times, but how would these assumptions translate to speculative genres?

Are you saying audiences are going to assume that the black Jedi listens to rap? Would current popular genres of music even exist in the distant future? One of themes of the original iterations of Star Trek was that race will eventually become irrelevant with social and technological progress.

Basically, I disagree with the idea that human races can be effectively harnessed as a tool by writers in futuristic genres because the audience members' prejudices and biases are entirely rooted in current culture and their understanding of history.

I follow a Tumblr pony blog that uploaded a pretty innocuous image of the mane six drawn in chibi style a few months back, with Pinkie Pie drawn with dark skin. The blog's owner then posted a schadenfreude compilation of butthurt anonymous trolls complaining about the race lift and demanding that the image be done all-white.

Then again, I'm not really a fandom person and I don't follow this stuff particularly closely, so what I've seen has been limited.

I think most people would be more unhappy then unhappy if writers just kept the race and gender of characters consistent over time.

Doesn't really apply to fan art and fans can be shitty about their opinions but whaddayagonnado?

Particle Mare said:

[[A lot that I don't think I have room for.]]

My concern with Star Wars is more along the lines of feeling that they are doing it only to garner attention and social media buzz to generate bigger crowds, namely from the groups who aren't too into sci-fi movies (IE: blacks and women). I see articles like this one and I begin to think that maybe it wasn't done with the thought of "oh having x type of character would be interesting" but rather "having x type of character will put more people in the seats", like we saw with Mace Windu during the prequels. I get that these multi-million dollar movies are a type of business but making someone black/female for the sake of garnering more buzz about a movie seems shallow. [[course it could just be me being exceedingly cynical]]

And assumptions can work to or against an artist in ANY setting when it comes to race. We see this in Witcher 3, where many progressive types (mostly Americans) where criticizing it for not having enough minorities in its fantasy culture. It was an audience expectation that was not met, purely based on race, in a fictionalized fantasy world that does not share the same history as ours. Something MORE disconnected from reality than a futuristic sci-fi setting and yet expectations about race were still had.

I wouldn't say it's impossible to explore race or utilize race expectations in a sci-fi setting, it's just more difficult to explore human ones over alien ones since they are more tantalizing. Only thing that comes to mind right away is Eclipse Phase, a tabletop RPG in a futuristic space transhumanist setting. Though it deals more with transhumanist themes, race and species being one of them and how various factions react to various shapes and forms. I'd say that one has a LOT of potential in regards to how the writer can influence audience expectations of race and whatnot.

TL;DR: People still have their own opinions and expectations about things, writers and artists can still use that to meet or subvert expectations, Hollywood only cares about being progressive when it makes them money.

My concern with Star Wars is more along the lines of feeling that they are doing it only to garner attention and social media buzz to generate bigger crowds, namely from the groups who aren’t too into sci-fi movies (IE: blacks and women).

To accurately judge that you'd have to see the movie and judge the actor's performance compared to his contemporaries to get a feel on why he was hired for the role or not.

Although based on appearances alone the guy seemed odd. Like, in most of the scenes he's in he has this constant bewildered expression on his face. Not sure how that's going to work out

I follow a Tumblr pony blog that uploaded a pretty innocuous image of the mane six drawn in chibi style a few months back, with Pinkie Pie drawn with dark skin. The blog’s owner then posted a schadenfreude compilation of butthurt anonymous trolls complaining about the race lift and demanding that the image be done all-white.

Then again, I’m not really a fandom person and I don’t follow this stuff particularly closely, so what I’ve seen has been limited.

Huh? I've never really seen people complain about the race of human pony characters since they technically have no canonical race, but I guess this is Tumblr we are talking about. Usually, it's Twilight who is black due to the darker fur color, sometimes Rarity due to her sass, but never Pinkie.

I've always felt that the reason Equestria Girls used the pony's fur color as skin color was to avoid this kind of bitching over skin color (or maybe because dolls)

I guess if people are complaining about race-lifting characters with no canon race then you just can't escape this on Tumblr.

Reminds me of an argument I read when Big Hero Six came out. The studio turned the team from all Japanese (including Ainu) to mixed-raced. In particular, changing Fred from Ainu to white pissed people off. I didn't mind any of the changes. See, the Big Hero Six comic was created by Americans and one of the frequent complaints was that the team poorly represented Japanese people. By making it mixed-race and making the setting reminiscent of America, Disney was being more open about the fact that these aren't really Japanese people. The race change actually made the movie better.

Most people identify anything based off afro-american people as racist, even the most irrelevant ones.

Meanwhile white people being called "white paint" or "snowflake" due to their skin color is not racist for most of them.

The same can be told about how people react to fictional characters. I agree with you, it's hypocrisy.

I'm glad I put this into "serious debate" since I am getting some pretty good responses.

I guess one thing I probably didn't make 100% clear is I was really only talking about fan art in general, how it's regarded as "bad" to race lift a character who is canonically black into being white, but how it's not considered "bad" to race lift a canonically white character to be black, at least among a certain subsection of people who claim to be "Social justice" advocates. Also I realize now Homestuck was probably a poor choice of example at least regarding what I said with the human characters, it was the only one I could think of due to me coming across that one Tumblr blog where that artist has that annoying "my headcanon is right and if you disagree fuck you" thing going on.

I wasn't really trying to bring in situations like, say, characters in Big Hero 6 being of a different racial background than their comic book counterparts, because I dunno for some reason I treat it differently in that area, since in that case it's like "well if the people behind the source material are cool with it then hey whatever."

Of course I'm also beginning to realize this probably inadvertently showed some hypocrisy on my part. I admit I find enjoyment in rule 63 art, artwork that involves portraying a character as their opposite gender, so why is it that kind of artwork doesn't bug me? I guess because the fact I'm trans means I find this more "relatable" but yet since I'm not someone like Rachel Dolezal I don't feel the same about fan art which "race lifts" characters.

Of course this is why it's a good idea to discuss this sort of thing, I got something off my chest and now I'm hearing insights that can probably change how I feel about the subject at hand.

My concern with Star Wars is more along the lines of feeling that they are doing it only to garner attention and social media buzz to generate bigger crowds

I do think you're being cynical. As jarbox implied, the race of the character could've been entirely disregarded by the hiring crew, with only the skill of the actor taken into account. There's no real need to look at the cast through a racial lens at all.

I see articles like this one

What line of logic did you follow to come to the conclusion that the casting was probably done with profit in mind? (Which it probably was, but for different reasons – see below.) The only thing that article tells me is that Star Wars has an excellent social media team. Are you positing that gender-neutral armor was a move to attract more female audience members? I think it was more likely a simple design decision that some boor on Facebook decided to get testy over.

My concern with Star Wars is more along the lines of feeling that they are doing it only to garner attention… namely from the groups who aren’t too into sci-fi movies (IE: blacks and women).

This is how capitalism works. When culture and demographics shift, industries tend to shift in order to stay profitable. You are 100% correct in saying that an all-white cast wouldn't generate as much interest as a diverse cast – because America (and the internet) isn't 100% white. The film's producers accounted for this, just as all businessman have for centuries. What I'm wondering is why this comes off as worthy of "concern" to you.

{ I admit I find enjoyment in rule 63 art, artwork that involves portraying a character as their opposite gender }

You can enjoy something for what it is without making it a political stance. People "ethnic up" Disney princesses so they look like their culture instead of a dumbed down kids version of it (but that's who those movies are for, little kids who don't have a strong concept of different cultures), and I always enjoy looking at those. It's when the artists/someone who reblogs it comes along with a BOYCOTT DISNEY TIL THEY REMAKE ALADDIN RIGHT!1!! petition, when they politicize and try to make it like Disney is a bunch of whitewashing racists vs just catering to 4 year olds that the whole conversation gets very tired and obnoxious.

Of course I’m also beginning to realize this probably inadvertently showed some hypocrisy on my part. I admit I find enjoyment in rule 63 art, artwork that involves portraying a character as their opposite gender, so why is it that kind of artwork doesn’t bug me? I guess because the fact I’m trans means I find this more “relatable” but yet since I’m not someone like Rachel Dolezal I don’t feel the same about fan art which “race lifts” characters.

I feel the reason is that most Rule 63 isn't trying to "change a character" but usually has two sources. An alternate version of said character as a funny "what if?" and "Look how hot this character looks as the opposite gender!" Rule 63 gets away with it because the change is so drastic, not only do you change the gender, body shape facial structure, hairstyle (which with a lot of characters is a major if not the major visual identity) but a lot of times personality and life choices (if it's not just fan art but a whole story)

Another reason too is people a lot of times don't even see them as the same character but as "Female version of X character" Similar to the Uncanny Valley, the change is so much that it's still recognizable as the character, but different enough to not be off putting.

With Race-lifting, the change is not great enough to be considered another character but great enough the the character isn't recognizable as themselves, thus off-putting. It gives the impression that the artist wants to change the character to fit their desires, which in itself can be off-putting. Doubly so seeing how racial identity is a touchy subject and the idea of changing ones racial identity can come off as racist, regardless which way it's being done.

Tl:dr Rule 63 doesn't have sexist undertones and is radical enough to not be unsettling while race-lifting has racist undertones while being subtle, but noticeable enough to be unsettling.

Rule 63 gets away with it because most of the times it doesn't lead to anything other then a piece of fan art that people enjoy. Most people aren't trying to push it as something that aught to be the true interpretation of the character, and everyone else is just ignorant or malicious to not see it.

I've seen people who take Rule 63 art of Link, and push that link should be gender swapped by nintendo for various reasons, such as the assumption that link is trans or lgbt, or that the characters actions and personality fit more as female then male, or that it would result in an empirically better story. More over, these people actually get frothing at the mouth furious when you tell them that the stuff they're pushing is just in the realm of fan art.

In anime, it can sometimes be worse, where there are characters who dress ambiguously, look androgynous, and seem to have no strong sexual preference in any direction. Baby wars have been fought over such issues and honestly, it ruins the appeal quite quickly when someone demands you either do something, or don't do something, that affects literally no one.

You know I want to bring up Fem Thor badly right now to talk about this, but that's not fan art. That's main art imitating fan art, but done in the worse ways that really don't deserve to be defended.

Again, not a marvel thread, nor a thor thread, so I'll save it for another time. Still, it's good to use it as an example of when Rule 63 stops being okay. And how something like Adventure Time handled it way better, if a lot weirder.