insert witty title #2

Most of the time I have a vague idea regarding the subject matter my meandering thoughts home in on. This is not one of those times.

I find myself returning to the same shit that I've already discussed. Be it the merits of classics (no fucking Twilight ain't a classic and hopefully will disappear in the ginormous ocean that is useless prose) or logic (another horse I now have quite whacked to death with my trusty keyboard hammering)... I also shan't return to analyzing movies again... but... wait... wait... the spark of an idea:

No, I won't do movies, but it is an issue that concerns movies first and foremost: regurgitating ideas. I mean every story has been told, and all us wordsmiths do nowadays is find new ways to tell the same old shit. Be it the typical boy meets girl (When Harry met Sally) or boy follows a convoluted plot to meet girl (insert any current romcom) or the always reliable boy saves the world before he gets the girl... the actors might vary, but in the end it is about one or two people finding true love (or themselves) in front of a backdrop that can be anything.

Sadly there are far too few stories dealing with non-white people. Not that we cannot replace a white protagonist with a black one, byebye Robert Pattinson, hello John Boyega. Western civilization is arrogant, and since Othello we haven't found much use for those non-white characters.

Not that I am innocent of that particular misdeed. I write fantasy, and while Nazir in Robin of Sherwood was a brilliant idea and a fascinating character, the majority of the genre deals with medieval European things... we got them knights, them lords, fucking pseudo feudal systems that only were relevant for one area: Europe. Thanks Tolkien! To make matters worse, in the fantasy classics the colored folk were usually the bad guys. I mean the Haradrim in Lord of the Rings were explicitly in league with Sauron... no black folk fighting for the White City *cough cough*

So far I haven't introduced people of color into my novels, not that they don't exist, but since most of Shattered Dreams and Shattered Hopes and Shattered Bonds takes place in an area slightly larger than North Rhine Westphalia and things are not very cosmopolitan, the opportunity never came. Does this mean the world is solely white? No and yes, but that is a matter of how I created the world, so to speak... I went into a bit more detail in my guest blog entry Through Thinking -- Things so I won't do that anymore here. (I repeat myself enough as it is) Suffice to say that the color is something that is added due to circumstances... and no, I will not ever go near that white savior shit.

The problematic I pointed out during my various internal logic ramblings, however, remains. And it does not change, were I to switch from white to any other colored creator deities: the majority of the world population, if not all, will have the skin color of the creating pantheon... so it's always gonna be a rather lopsided issue.

If you have one creator pantheon, the assumption that all of them are of the same skin tone, is only logical, and I believe it's insulting to just toss in an Asian, African, Hispanic looking god just to explain that variety... it's like whitewashing only the other way around. If you create a world based on ancient Egypt, people everywhere will be Egyptian, walking, talking like... you get the picture (repeating myself again, it's late)

Is it racist to narrow it down to just one skin color? To say yes, would imply that any myth from any culture is also racist. Norse mythology is about as racist as Japanese mythology, or Greek, It is not. I'd go as far as to say that skin color is basically interchangeable, so what if Rapunzel has black hair instead of blonde locks... the story remains the same. Changing just part of the assemble's skin color, however, would be racist. In some cases the change would be an interesting one, supporting or subverting racially based viewpoints: imagine Cinderella's step-sisters and step-mother being white while Cinderella is black. The girl's mistreatment would feel amplified, the tale suddenly not only a metaphor for honesty triumphing over deceit, but also the racism inherent to many white folk (let the step-family speak in a southern drawl and the twist would be perfect) in certain areas. Let the prince be black as well, in this scenario, would amplify the double standard many racists have... it's okay to be nice to the colored folk as long as you gain something from it... if you look at how certain orange would-be politicians run the segregation, with people from countries with which he does business still being allowed to travel into the USA, you get what I'm talking about.

In essence, however, if skin tone is the same for every character, one can interchange any mythological story. The Iliad could as well be portrayed by Asian people, or African people, as long as it is consistent, it doesn't matter.

I've read about racism in fantasy, I've written about it here... if the world is structured logically, there will be no racism. Not because people are enlightened enough to see that one's skin color does not matter when it comes to character, but because the people will all be from the same stock. I've constructed my world as a mythological one, and as such the entire cast could be changed with barely a problem.

Even if you had a mixture of cultures and religions similar to Earth, the problem would be negligible, PROVIDED EVERY CULTURE HAS A PANTHEON OF GODS AND NO MONOTHEISM. Did he just capitalize something??? Why yes, I did. And it, again, has to do with logic. If a people think themselves the chosen of their one god, who incidentally created everything else as well, everyone who does not believe in this deity is automatically seen as inferior. Perceived superiority, no matter how delusional and fact-free, leads to racism. If you have a pantheon of gods, each one has their job and is part of the machine, allowing for outsiders to be integrated as well, be it gods or people. Monotheism (one god faith) does not allow for outside religious views, there is either right (that particular religion) or wrong (the rest); people who are selected/chosen by that deity and the outsiders. Superiority is almost automatic, and with that comes, eventually, racism.

This wasn't planned as a theological essay, I know far too little to make these things stick. These are merely my perceptions and interpretations of the matter, brought into a fantasy aspect. (Though I do think I am correct.)

Let's see what happens in "insert witty title #3"