Winter wrote: ↑Fri Aug 04, 2023 7:44 amWell, this discussion got awkward in a hurry.
And that surprises you? Look, I am not even against race-swapping characters, as long as it makes sense within and adds to the narrative, but there are things that just boggle the mind, like this:
Winter wrote: ↑Fri Aug 04, 2023 7:44 amThe Queen Remain German and set the film during the 18th Century though maintaining the fantasy elements which allows it to deal with the subject of slavery and even racism (in case anyone was uncomfortable enough). It still about a Queen who's jealous of a young girls beauty only now you could argue the jealously has a deeper meaning due to the subject of race.
Why? Just why? Black slavery in Germany in the 18th century? I mean, you'll find the odd black servant here and there and there were quite a number of Germans involved in the New World Slave Trade, but it's so far out there as a theme, to have a black slave here during that time, that it's just mind-blowing. If you insist on a black slave, transpose the story to the Mediterranean or Spain, heck, southern France, but Germany of all places? This country is distinctly busy with itself at this time and the only larger scale slavery you are going to find in the post-medieval german states is maybe Slavs (the eastern european people) on the easternmost fringes of the Reich and even there it's almost exclusively as serfs and not slaves. Heck, outside of Scandinavia, Germany is the one place in post-renaissance Europe, where you are the least likely to find a slave in the first place, much less a black one...
See that's the kind of history-bending that gets people up in arms. I feel it comes from a source that is desperately looking for a common, inclusive history of a disparate people, which neither have a common history nor mythological background, much less an inclusive one (or, rather, the parts that are common history, nobody really wants to recollect). You know the term "cultural appropriation"? That's what's happening there and not in the stupid sense of "oh that non-black girl wears dreadlocks", but in a quite literal meaning. In the desperate quest to create an inclusive history and myth, you Americans take a multitude of racially-induced backgrounds and bend and twist them to fit a narrative of a world that never existed and in the process, trample all over the cultural heritage of everyone involved. And then you're surprised, why people are upset? I mean, come on... You don't see that coming? That's not on the level of a white child dressing up as an indian or a zulu warrior or black child dressing up as a Disney Princess (everyone can freely wish to be whoever they are and should have the right to express themselves that way). That's on the level of declaring Cleopatra to have been a black woman of nubian descent or Martin Luther King to be a white man. It's just mind-blowing to me.
Now, in all honesty. I get this drive to create a common history and myth. America seriously needs that in spades. But please, don't do that by trampling all over everyone else's. Create your own... And nothing prevents you from taking stories from all over the world, but don't make them something they are not. You're such a rich nation in terms of culture. You can literally draw from everywhere and yet you collectively decided to take from background A and force it onto background B. That's bad you know? Cheerish the history and take it into consideration, rather than trying to rewrite it...
And it's not even like you can't write a story about a mother being deathly jelous of her (adopted) daughter, then being spirited away and later getting revenge on the evil (step-)mother. Just don't call it "Snow-white" when your main character is black. I mean, you could do that as you described, but then you'd need to find a reason why that character is the way it is, so it makes sense within the narrative of the story and that's what's lacking from your idea. You find it cool because she's black. But what does that really add to the story?
Instead, let's go this way: Plantation. One of the servant-girls is black with odd-coloured hair (red? blonde? white for all I care). This fascinates the son of the plantation-owners and he falls in love. His parents obviously don't want that to happen and thus either try to sell or spirit her away or murder her. Through some twists and turns she ends up with an Indian tribe or a group of escaped slaves or is spirited away into a dream-realm inspiried by Voodoo or somesuch, where she learns to be more assertive and self-reliant, learning her own worth as a person rather than a slave or something and work it out from there. Maybe the parents figure it out and try to kill her, which works out in predictable ways. Something like that. Heck, you could even let them succeed and the son then bringing her back to life (though I suppose you'd want more agency of herself in the story, rather than being a tool for the white man). Or you could do it Tarrantino-style and let her kill everyone who has done her wrong, including the son, because he still treated her like property.
Or make it an american story. Girl is sold into slavery in Africa, because the mother was jelous of some distinct feature. She finds her place and a new life in the Americas and later finds her mother sold into slavery herself. Work it out from there...
P.S.: Because it just went through my head and I felt I needed to express that. Every story and every myth is part of every human alive today, in the past and in the future (and at some point possibly even aliens). The story of the Jade Emperor is just as much your history, as is the Dreamtime mine. Just somewhere down the line, we collectively decided that black-facing isn't a good idea. Let's stick to that. Take the core of one of humanity's many stories and focus on retelling that.
P.P.S.: Dug up the book. Not sure why, but felt I should share. Just shy of 200 pages of african fairy tales. None of them were ever made into a movie, as far as I can tell. Well, outside of Mr.Nancy in American Gods. A series which features a black actor portraying the norse god Baldr and nobody cares, because it makes sense within the story.