Whitewashing an Entire Genre

When the SciFi Channel dramatized Ursala K Leguin's groundbreaking science fiction trilogy of novels, Earthsea, it was a huge event for fans of the science fiction genre.

Why was it such a big deal? Well, Earthsea is the first major American fantasy novel whose protagonists are not white anglo-saxon protestants with blonde hair and blue eyes.

When the folks in Hollywood decided to make Earthsea into a television show, they, for whatever reason, decided that a more marketable demographic could be found if the cast was whitewashed. So, the non-white heroes, became white. Brown eyes became blue.

Caucasian readers are probably thinking, "So?" Well, it is a big deal. Just as the act of Hispanic activists reimagninging the "Star Spangled Banner" in Spanish (with altered lyrics) was offensive because it alienated native anglos. Imagine a film which depicted George Washington or Abraham Lincoln as black. Or Christ, who was probably not as lily white as the European masters painted him, portrayed as a Kenyan. The average WASP would feel alienated, even angered by this portrayal.

This was also the case with non-white fans of Earthsea, as evidenced by this powerful essay written by Pam Noles, called Shame. Where she explains the main thrust of her complaint:

This I believe: If Hollywood has taken a groundbreaking, universally acclaimed, multicultural novel that has been in print for over thirty years and turned it into a white-boy romp, that is a news story. The cooperation of the author of the books is not needed to write that news story. If the genre news outlets exist to serve their subculture in a way more than pimping for the publishers and the production companies, the deliberate omission of characters of pigment in the Hollywood adaptation of Le Guin's Earthsea is the sort of news story a genre news outlet should notice and write about.

But they did not. When we live in this reality where a redhead white woman can throw down about Tupac with a hip hop Asian kid who can walk into a bookstore and get briefed about the proper pronunciation of Tananarive from a hipster white guy who first learned about the Beast of London from a Chicano low-rider. It's a crying shame.

Shame, too, on The Hollywood People for making me cry again, even though here I am all grown.

Be sure to give the entire essay a read. It's an important statement about how the media really effects our sense of self whether or not we realize it.

link: http://www.infinitematrix.net/faq/essays/noles.html