• LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    There are two kinds of wokeness I complain about:

    1. Hernia level virtue signaling - this is when a production company is straining super hard to make sure we know theyā€™re the good guys, but the writers donā€™t have the brains to come up with interesting allegories, or even super-transparent ones like the half-black/half-white dudes in the TOS episode. All they can muster up is character dialog like, ā€œWow, look how backward this time period is! So much misogyny and discrimination!ā€ Yeah duh, I live in this time period and Iā€™m not stupid. (talking to you, Picard season 2)

    2. Misrepresenting the past - this is when they portray letā€™s say Victorian England or 1950s America as a fully integrated society where characters of all races mix freely, with equality at all levels. Thatā€™s not how it was, kids. The black housewife in 1953 Ohio would not have a white maid, although she might work part time as one in a white household. You donā€™t raise social consciousness by painting a fake picture of history to avoid upsetting your audience. That does no service to the people who still feel the effects of those times.

    But oh right, I forgot, the point is profit not genuine social consciousness - sorry, my bad.

    /edited for grammar

    • BluesF@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      While I agree with your first point - corporate pseudo-progressivism is a stain - I donā€™t really think itā€™s fair to call it ā€œwokeā€. In fact, itā€™s almost the opposite of what woke is supposed to mean. To be ā€œwokeā€ originally meant having ā€œwoken upā€ to the reality of systemic racismā€¦ Corpos thoughtlessly stuffing games/films with ā€œdiverseā€ casts are not really respecting that reality. Itā€™s performative. There is an argument that it improved things for actors regardless, but I still donā€™t think itā€™s ā€œwokeā€.

      On your second point I have to slightly disagree. Taking Bridgerton as an example - set in something like Victorian England, but a racially diverse one. The Queen is black, thereā€™s a black Duke. I think these things immediately set the story apart from real Victorian England. Ok, perhaps if you know nothing about history it might be confusing, but to me I see those things and immediately one of two things is true:

      • We are suspending our disbelief. Just like the pantomime dame, within the world of the play, is a woman and not a man in costume, we can assume that weā€™re seeing black actors playing characters who would have really been whiteā€¦ Like Queen victoria.
      • The world we see is not an accurate representation of history. In this world we might assume that slavery was abolished sooner, or never started, and black people moved not just into the lower but the higher echelons of British society.

      Given that itā€™s fiction, I donā€™t mind either of these things. I think itā€™s nice for people who arenā€™t white to be able to imagine themselves in those stories, even if in the real history things would have been much different. Bridgerton isnā€™t trying to present a vision of real historical events, itā€™s primarily a romance. Just like mediaeval fantasy isnā€™t really medieval, Victorian romance doesnā€™t need to really be Victorian. We donā€™t need to see the systemic racism any more than we need to see the cholera or dropsy or whatever.

      I will also just briefly shill for Taboo which I just finished - thatā€™s a historical show which incorporates a ā€œrealisticā€ amount of diversity into itā€™s cast while maintaining (at least what appears to me) a level of historical accuracy. The story is fictional, although it appears around real eventsā€¦ But the world it presents feels genuine. Crucially by contrast to Bridgerton, slavery plays quite an important role in the story - so here it would feel absurd to have a black Queen or Duke.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        Havenā€™t seen Taboo but Bridgerton is a fantasy alt world - it can have steam-powered computers for all I care. My objection is specifically about falsely portraying real eras for the sake of casting diversity, which I think is a disservice to people who were held down in those real eras.

        • BluesF@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          Fair enough, I have seen the same arguments applied to it is why I used it as an example. I donā€™t know what shows you are thinking of, but are they misrepresenting things, or are they just using blind casting and asking you to suspend your disbelief? This is something we do without thinking when watching theatre, but itā€™s a bit more subtle when watching television or films because they go to lengths to make the environment feel more real.

          • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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            22 days ago

            Suspension of disbelief is great for science fiction and fantasy, but I donā€™t think itā€™s healthy to mask past realities. I donā€™t believe for one second anybody does ā€œblindā€ casting - entertainment companies pander to what they think their audienceā€™s main demographic wants, and they do extensive research to tell them what that is. They want to be on the audienceā€™s side on every issue, support all the right things, criticize all the right thingsā€¦ thereā€™s nothing blind or random about any of it.

            • BluesF@lemmy.world
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              21 days ago

              Perhaps, or perhaps the casting team had other goals that arenā€™t so obvious. While itā€™s true there are purely capitalistic production firms, there are clearly things being made with artistic vision behind them, and sometimes that includes blind casting. Again, I suspect this is more prevalent in theatre, where audiences are more willing to accept, say, a woman playing King Lear, or black actors playing nobles in a historical setting. Because, on stage, you are already suspending lots of that disbelief - youā€™re not looking into a throne room, youā€™re looking at a stage - itā€™s easier to take it a step further.

              But while less is asked of you when watching a historical drama on TV, you are nonetheless suspending your disbelief. You know really that cameras couldnā€™t have filmed this in the Victorian era, thatā€™s not really Henry VIII, and Jesus wasnā€™t a white guy. The question is what makes it too jarring for you?

              I noticed youā€™re quite focused on the production companyā€™s intent behind the casting. Maybe itā€™s politically/philosophically motivated, maybe purely capitalist, or maybe artisticā€¦ But you canā€™t really know. And should it even matter to you as the viewer? I understand trying to unpick the artistic decisions behind a piece, but those of the production company? That doesnā€™t seem like something to bring into your viewing experience - just perhaps conversations like this one on the internet.

              Iā€™d invite you to try suspending your disbelief as you might when watching the Passion of the Christ, and see if youā€™re able to enjoy these films/shows despite the historical inaccuracies.

              • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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                21 days ago

                Okay hereā€™s my background - Iā€™ve been involved in over 20 stage productions as an actor, director, assistant director, designer, set builder, and various other tech positions. This doesnā€™t make me an expert but it means Iā€™ve been there and done that. Iā€™ve seen Midsummer Nightā€™s Dream done with 1930s gangsters, an all-black MacBeth in Stratford, England, and I was stage manager for a Comedy of Errors in a Hollywood Squares style set with a cigarette-smoking nun playing a piano. I understand suspension of disbelief, so you donā€™t need invite me to try it like youā€™re talking a kid about broccoli.

                Casting directors do not cast ā€œblindā€ except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration. I imagine this is even more true in television and movies, where thereā€™s a lot more money at stake and a lot more people to please. They carefully control every element they can - if only because every person in those coveted positions is striving to prove how indispensible they are. Nothing is done at random except for occasional quick one-off decisions. I donā€™t object to comic anachronisms like throwing WWII German soldiers and Count Basieā€™s orchestra into Blazing Saddles. Iā€™m talking about serious stories where everything seems to be meticulously recreated except the painful elements of society are being whitewashed for the sake of pleasing modern-day sensibilities.

                Suspension of disbelief only has meaning for an audience that already has knowledge of the material, but todayā€™s audiences generally know very little about history except what they see in movies and on TV. You probably arenā€™t even aware that about 1 out of 4 cowboys in the Old West era were black. Ranch work was something a lot of freed slaves took up after the Civil War. But having grown up with American movies and TV, my mental version of the Wild West is almost all-white - with the odd asian cook, or an occasional black dude sweeping up in a saloon. I bet yours is similar. Thatā€™s why I criticize the current trend of misrepresenting history as a carefully balanced well-integrated society. Whatever the reason, itā€™s just a different generation trying to please audiences. Like every generation the one currently doing most of the creative work in Hollywood thinks itā€™s more enlightened than every other one before it, which is another crock of shit. One delusion in the collective consciousness is no better than another.

                • BluesF@lemmy.world
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                  20 days ago

                  I understand suspension of disbelief, so you donā€™t need invite me to try it like youā€™re talking a kid about broccoli.

                  Haha, ok, I wasnā€™t trying to be patronising - my suggestion was that you try suspending you disbelief in situations where you otherwise might not. Clearly you know what it is, I didnā€™t mean to suggest otherwise. Jumping ahead a bit to another relevant part of your commentā€¦

                  Suspension of disbelief only has meaning for an audience that already has knowledge of the material

                  Where I am suggesting you might suspend your disbelief is exactly that - a situation where you have knowledge that the world youā€™re seeing is inaccurate. Anyway, I donā€™t mean to come across as condescending, sorry about that.

                  Casting directors do not cast ā€œblindā€ except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration.

                  Blind casting doesnā€™t mean you have to have no artistic vision. It just means you arenā€™t concerned with, for example, the gender or race of the actor. I saw a production of the Little Prince a while ago where the titular prince was played by a woman. Now, given the storyline (which was presented more or less true to the book) I think itā€™s clear that there was no philosophical motivation behind the castingā€¦ She was just small. Iā€™m sure it was a conscious decision to cast someone small, but do you really think they specifically wanted a woman? I doubt it.

                  Iā€™m talking about serious stories where everything seems to be meticulously recreated except the painful elements of society are being whitewashed for the sake of pleasing modern-day sensibilities

                  This specific situation I can understand. The reason I was inclined to argue with your original point, and why I jumped to Bridgerton as an example, is that I have usually seen these arguments presented in relation to things just like Bridgerton, where they really have no placeā€¦ So, do you have an example?

                  Iā€™d also ask, given your example, what your perspective is on modern Cowboy films still presenting the old west as predominantly white?

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      23 days ago

      You took the words out of my mouth, both of those are such libshit that I cringe my asshole out.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        Thatā€™s another aspect of it - those practices arenā€™t ā€œlibshitā€ theyā€™re corporate shit. Same as sticking a big GREEN label on random products.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          23 days ago

          Ya know, thereā€™s a scene in The Boys where Maeve is outed as a bisexual, so they decide to promote her queerness as part of a ā€œBrave Maeveā€ campaign to encourage those in the closet to come out.

          But then they tell her she has to be a lesbian, not bisexual, because bisexuality is ā€œtoo confusingā€, and even then they police what behaviors she is and is not allowed to do; she can be a lesbian but not ā€œtoo gayā€, and sheā€™s only allowed to date feminine individuals while presenting as masculine or vice versa because to do otherwise is to ā€œsend the wrong messageā€

          This basically ruins her life, forces her girlfriend to break up with her because she canā€™t take having to be a ā€œModel Minorityā€ at all times, and Maeve is left so broken she almost reveals the fact that she and Homelander donā€™t actually save people to the whole world.

          When I saw that, I was like ā€œHoly shit, finally, someone else who understands why I, a transgender woman, actively avoid media that caters to the LGBT community. Finally, SOMEONE gets it and theyā€™re making sure other people get it too.ā€