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mamuzzyAlso I officially renamed the Fandom Fuckery tag to The Fandom Menace. I saw that tag on tumblr and just did what we call public procurement here. :DDD I actually started to collect quotes about Ghez Hokan but I was caught up how he hates the Neimodians and I remembered fandom opinions AGAIN. And this is how this entry was born. Because this is a long entry this is the summary what's this about:
::: On racism in fiction
::: Not everyone is watching from the US
::: When you accidentaly recreate racism in progressive fandom spaces but it's okay because you put glitter on it
::: When you use other cultures as inspiration but you only take the aesthetic
::: Double standards
On racism in fiction...
This chapter mentions a lot how much Ghez Hokan despises Ankkit and the profit-driven Neimoidians in general. And I never understood why antis or the more critical fans consider these sections of the book racist. I mean, okay it's clear he is racist. In-universe racist. Ghez Hokan hates the Neimodians, he is prejudiced against them, and he would want to kill his client here on the spot because he doesn't consider him worthy of life. I've always thought of this as a realistic depiction of racist people, and it's probably uncomfortable for the reader the writer "forces" them to see into the head of such person (actually, no one forces you, you can put the book down anytime), as if the very act of reading about a person like this make them racist too.
What >> I << did not understand:
What is racist?
1.) That such scenes and thoughts are depicted in the book between two fictional characters? The character is racist and his thoughts are racist. This is the fact. This is a character trait. But just because this character was created and written from his point of view doesn't mean that the character is racist towards any real-life minorities, BECAUSE WE'RE STILL TALKING ABOUT ALIENS IN SCIENCE FICTION. Ghez Hokan is a human and the Neimodian is an alien. If you want the fantasy equivalent, swap the Neimodian for an Elf or a Dwarf and you've got an average scene from the Witcher (books) and the Dragon Age universe.
2.) Is the writer a racist, that it even occurs to her to portray such situations? As a writer myself, I believe that the depiction of such situations or characters in a fictional setting does not necessarily mean that what read is an explicit translation of the writer's real life beliefs and moral values. Sometimes the biggest assholes can write the most wholesome books, or books with positive messages. Sometimes the most wholesome people can write the most gruesome things you can ever imagine. Many people make the mistake when hating on a writer that they start looking for signs in their works for any kind of incriminating evidence to justify real life crimes (Oscar Wilde, everyone?). I find this reoccuring mindset tendency in fandom spaces rather concerning. So this is neither an answer I could accept.
If you've been following my writings for a while, you know that I don't choose sides. I like to do research, observations, and through them, understanding people. Not famous people, but those who are surrounding me. That's just the way I am, life fucked my brain with too much empathy. I wanted to understand why fans think these books are racist. But I just couldn't figure out what kind of real-life things they were seeing here.
But then I heard more and more about this Neimodians being racist Asian stereotypes thing in fandom, and I just got more confused. WHERE. How can you figure this out if you are reading this book? Where is it hidden? What do you see that I don't? Why are Asians your first thoughts? Or in general, why do you immediately associate to any ethnics or nations on Earth when you look at these aliens? A reddit post mentioned their accents. ACCENTS.
So I had this idea of rewatching the scenes from The Phantom Menace with Nute Gunray IN ENGLISH. So I watched a video compilation AND NOW I GET IT. Nute Gunray and the Neimodians have a stereotypical Asian accents in the movie.
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Not everyone is watching/reading from the US
We are a Dub-Nation: this means that when a film's screening rights by our country is bought, it will be dubbed completely (or in case, documentaries or reality shows, it will over-dubbed, and these dubbed versions will be shown in the blockbuster cinemas and broadcasted on TV channels. You will not see a movie in their native language with subtitles on our domestic channels, unless your TV has the function that allowes you to change the language. We had a booming period for subtitled films in cinemas, but in the past decade it started to pushed back into indie-theatres again. There is a reason why countries are pushing dubbed shows, but I don't want to get into political media science right now.
I watched cable TV mainly in the late 90s/early 2000s, so I watched what was available. If you only watched a dubbed movie, you don't learn to appreciate the a foreign movie or its actors for what they are. For me, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa are not Mark Hamill or Carrie Fisher, if it makes sense. Today, of course, I watch everything in original audio with subtitles, because I grown to like to listen to the languages of other nations, but this had to be a very conscious decision, and a conscious desire to be open to other cultures and languages.
What I wanted to say is that since I didn't watch The Phantom Menace in the original version, but in dub, I never made the association that the Neimodians are Asians.
Maybe that's why I can see things from a slightly different perspective within the fandom and especially a heavily US/Western centric fandom.
1.) If you don't come from an American culture or any other English-speaking place, you treat these films or fandom from a completely different perspective. If you never heard Neimodians speaking English on screen, can you really associate with Asians at all?
2.) Even if you know enough English to watch the movie in English, do you have enough linguistic knowledge to realize that the accent is not some American dialect, but a mockery of another nationality?
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When you accidentaly recreate racism in progressive fandom spaces but it's okay because you put glitter on it
When it's not the official movies doing the racism, I encounter really weird things in the fandom that just doesn't leave me rest and made me super uncomfortable, but I wasn't able to form words around this feeling until now. I think it was complicated because it always happened on that side of the fandom that tried... TRIED... to be inclusive and progressive and all those things.
There is this outrage going on about the topic of racism in Republic Commando, and how racist Karen Traviss is towards aliens in her books, as if these aliens were real and breathing people, existing minorities in our world, and we should take treat every depiction of space racism as a red flag.
But these cogs were just spinning in my head. Guys... do you... Do you seriously look at these aliens and associate them with real existing minorities? You look at the rapist weequay and say, "We all know who the author was referring to and it's racist." I have no idea, sweetheart, I have absolutely no idea which real life ethnic you consider a stereotypical rapist, enlighten me.
Why are these alien characters, who are not even the main characters are so protected so fiercely, even when they are doing horrible things to the main characters? Why do fans fight for the human rights of aliens as if they were existing minorities?
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OOOOOOHHHHHHH.
right.
S T A R W A R S. Yet again the movies have these answers.
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When you only use other cultures as inspiration but you only take the aesthetic...
George Lucas's Star Wars right from the start uses design elements from the cultures of other nations (especially oriental) to make his aliens, planets, and architectures exotic for the American audience (target audience), thus creating truly Far, Far Galaxy for them. But beyond the surface, it doesn't go any further. He wanted to create a Samurai movie but American and in space. The Jedi - white actors - are wearing kimono-like robes, they are doing melee martial arts, but I'm on the opinion that George Lucas didn't think this any further and it had to be purely an aesthetic choice.
But the loud voices figured out that this has to be a minority representation, so the Jedi are Buddhists, and if you dare to criticize the Jedi in any form in the fandom, then you are criticizing minorities IRL and don't respect religion (if you say the prequel Jedi Order are buddhists, I will laugh in your face). There are other voices saying that because the Jedi Order were exterminated, they are the equivalent of Jews and Star Wars is about Holocaust, and every jedi-critical opinion is anti-semitic. My gf and I can't decide if Bariss is wearing a hijab or catholic nun robe.
I think this is why I give one positive benefit for dubbed version of movies, because I don't treat real foreign people as if they are from an alien planet. On the other hand, it's BAD, because I had absolutely no idea that they hired minorities to play certain characters. And there were minorities. It's just they were masked beyond recognition with make up or CGI like Ahmed Best's Jar Jar Binks that I had no idea, or they were only supporting characters without dialogues. But also these actors/actresses played alien characters.
Anyway, for me, the tendency to say "wow, your face is interesting and exotic, let's put a ton of makeup on it to cover it up!" is a pretty interesting attitude in the sci-fi genre.
But I think nowadays Star Wars does the other extreme to make up for its past mistake. There are barely any aliens anymore, just white people and visible IRL minority representation.
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Double standards
No, it doesn't matter if the Weequay wants to rape Etain, Etain can't think anything bad about Weequay, because that's racism. It doesn't matter that the Neimodians exploit the population of the planet (the population that drove the indigenous Gurlanins out of their hunting grounds, so it's a cycle of violence that we see in this novel), and it doesn't matter that Nute Gunray starved the people of Naboo to death in the canon on Darth Sidious' orders, no, no racist thoughts or comments are allowed from the part of the main characters. The protagonists have to carry a sign in their neck saying " I think mean things about the evil alien person who hurts me and but this does not represent my opinion about their entire species."
Interesting that when that separatist scientist is developing a mass-murdering biological weapon to wipe out the entire clone army (who are also POC), no one bats an eye. Like somehow people realizing that this is a fiction, and a fictional virus doing genocide on millions of clones is not real. But when aliens appear on the scene, most people can't handle it normally.
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The potential problematic nature of Neimodian depictions depended largely on the decisions made during the making of the films. I would like to ask the question: Why is Karen Traviss stoned shitless because of this? Why George Lucas is an artistic genius with flaws uwu, but Karen Traviss is the devil herself?
