Race and Villainy
Oct. 25th, 2017 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI recently posted a very short essay in which I expressed discomfort concerning the racist stereotypes used to portray Ganondorf in fanwork and in the Zelda games themselves. I got some intense pushback from unexpected quarters, so I want to attempt to refine and clarify what I was trying to say.
IT IS OKAY to have dark-skinned characters who are not good people.
IT IS OKAY to have dark-skinned characters who do bad things and make mistakes and gradually grow and change.
IT IS OKAY to have dark-skinned characters who are irredeemably evil.
Let racial and ethnic minorities be villains! While you're at it, let women and LGBTQ people and neuordivergent people and differently abled people be villains! Villains are great!
But...
IT IS NOT OKAY for a publicly traded multinational corporation to tell stories about how everything that is or has ever been bad in the world is the fault of one person who we are supposed to know is evil because he is the only person in the story with dark skin.
IT IS NOT OKAY for fans to tell stories about how this dark-skinned character is saved by light-skinned people who teach him that his cultural heritage is bad so that he can be fully integrated into the "good" culture.
IT IS NOT OKAY for fans to tell stories set in a universe in which a light-skinned race has subjected a dark-skinned character's race to slavery and genocide only to have the dark-skinned character redeem himself by learning to apologize to representatives of the light-skinned race for his anger and distrust.
In other words, it's totally normal to have a character who is a villain with dark skin, because expecting characters with dark skin to be perfect while denying them the full range of human experience and emotion is a stupid and ridiculous way to approach representations of racial and ethnic difference. That being said, it's weird and gross to have a character who is a villain BECAUSE he has dark skin.
This all seems obvious to me, which is why I'm surprised that I encounter almost comically racist themes and tropes so frequently in fanwork based on the Zelda games. It's been my experience that fandoms for other video game franchises (like Dragon Age, Borderlands, Final Fantasy, and so on) don't isolate discussions of the more problematic characters from the main fandom, and I can't help but wonder how different Zelda fandom would be if conversations and fanwork portraying its villain characters weren't pushed so far out of the mainstream.
IT IS OKAY to have dark-skinned characters who are not good people.
IT IS OKAY to have dark-skinned characters who do bad things and make mistakes and gradually grow and change.
IT IS OKAY to have dark-skinned characters who are irredeemably evil.
Let racial and ethnic minorities be villains! While you're at it, let women and LGBTQ people and neuordivergent people and differently abled people be villains! Villains are great!
But...
IT IS NOT OKAY for a publicly traded multinational corporation to tell stories about how everything that is or has ever been bad in the world is the fault of one person who we are supposed to know is evil because he is the only person in the story with dark skin.
IT IS NOT OKAY for fans to tell stories about how this dark-skinned character is saved by light-skinned people who teach him that his cultural heritage is bad so that he can be fully integrated into the "good" culture.
IT IS NOT OKAY for fans to tell stories set in a universe in which a light-skinned race has subjected a dark-skinned character's race to slavery and genocide only to have the dark-skinned character redeem himself by learning to apologize to representatives of the light-skinned race for his anger and distrust.
In other words, it's totally normal to have a character who is a villain with dark skin, because expecting characters with dark skin to be perfect while denying them the full range of human experience and emotion is a stupid and ridiculous way to approach representations of racial and ethnic difference. That being said, it's weird and gross to have a character who is a villain BECAUSE he has dark skin.
This all seems obvious to me, which is why I'm surprised that I encounter almost comically racist themes and tropes so frequently in fanwork based on the Zelda games. It's been my experience that fandoms for other video game franchises (like Dragon Age, Borderlands, Final Fantasy, and so on) don't isolate discussions of the more problematic characters from the main fandom, and I can't help but wonder how different Zelda fandom would be if conversations and fanwork portraying its villain characters weren't pushed so far out of the mainstream.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-26 12:39 pm (UTC)(Also I didn't know that figmentforms had never played zelda before, but if they're getting info second hand, that does explain a lot...)
no subject
Date: 2017-11-24 03:48 pm (UTC)That doesn't give fans a free pass to take these stories and bring the underlying currents of white supremacy to the surface, however.
I'm gearing up to write a long essay about this in relation to A Tale of Two Rulers. I will very quietly post it on Tumblr, and I'm sure I'll lose some followers, but at least someone will have said something in a public space about why the white supremacy of that comic is strange and unnecessary.
It's funny, though - Tumblr is all about radical resistance culture, until someone says something about someone or something everyone likes, in which case it's seen as trolling or even harassment to offer even a gentle critique. I think that, in any other context, I wouldn't hesitate to speak up about such an obvious instance of white supremacy, but I'm afraid to say anything on Tumblr for fear of the backlash. It's probably going to be months before I find the courage to post my essay, but hopefully I can eventually get to a place where I'm brave enough to say something.