Holden: “They’re not saying anything about you now. Okay? They’re talking about fictional characters. Fictional characters. Am I…am I getting through to you at all?”
Jay: “So, all we gotta do is go stop the fuckin’ movie from gettin’ made.”
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
As many of you know, I will find anything to bitch about. But sometimes something comes up and I have to bitch about the bitchers. Disney does not need my help defending themselves against a bunch of yahoos that not only have things to complain about that don’t affect their lives, but believe in their bullshit enough to start campaigns and try and get Disney to…I don’t even know.
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| "No one will complain about this. I promise." |
There’s some new terrible ass made for TV “animated” cartoon about a new character named Princess Sofia. One Disney representative made the mistake of saying that she was Latina. Now, we all know that every race wants to be represented in TV and movies. But it has to be the way they want it. Latinos are pissed because Sofia has blue eyes and her skin isn’t dark enough. Because as we all know there are no Latinos with blue colored eyes. That shit isn’t even a real thing.
The thing that gets me is that she is being criticized for not being “Hispanic enough.” Just so you know, I rarely say Hispanic. I tend to say Latino the same way I say “Blacker” instead of “Black” or “African American.” Disney says that the character isn’t Latino in the first place and that someone spoke out of turn when they said she was. By the way, what the hell does it take to be Hispanic enough? You can easily slide into some racist ass territory with that line of thinking. If someone saw a single goddamn sombrero they would lose their minds.
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| "I...I cant. My parents think you're Mexican." |
Senior Vice President of Blah Blah Bloopity Blop for Disney Junior Worldwide released a statement saying “What’s important to know is that Sofia is a fairytale girl who lives in a fairytale world. All our characters come from fantasy lands that may reflect elements of various cultures and ethnicities but none are meant to specifically represent those real world cultures. The writers have wisely chosen to write stories that include elements that will be familiar and relatable to kids from many different backgrounds including Spain and Latin America. For example, Sofia’s mom comes from a fictitious land, Galdiz, which was inspired by Spain.”
Some would say that’s a corporate response to public outrage. Maybe it is. Either way, it’s a good response and a nice way of saying she's a fictional fucking character!. But they know how people are. Blackers got mad when that Princess & The Frog movie came out. People said she wasn’t Black enough which made me wonder what was Black enough? Did she need an afro? Jerry curl?! Because, like with the Latino stuff, you can take one tiny step too far and end up in an even larger shit storm.
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| Mmm-hmm! |
You can be any race and have blue eyes. The standard for the longest time with Disney films were White chicks. Then they made stuff like Mulan and Pocahontas to shut people up like “Here’s your race, damn it! Now leave us alone!” I seriously don’t give much of a damn about race. We’re all just a bunch of meat bags that happen to be in different packages, some better than others. Like this cute little muscle machine.
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| My secret weapon. |
Now, society will always call this beautiful little future fight factory Black no matter what color her eyes are. Is it common? Nope. Does she have parents that are mixed? Yes. But neither of them have blue eyes. With this Sofia character, even if her eyes were brown people would say she didn’t have dark enough skin. If her skin was darker it’d be called too dark. Then people would say her accent wasn’t strong enough. Stop looking to Disney for a hero. That’d be like me asking DC Comics for a cool Black superhero.
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| Yep. Still waiting. |
Or you can just smarten up and find better strong women to have your daughters want to be like instead of some half a slave ass woman still living at home that has to be saved by some shallow ass prince that will fuck you just because of magic spells or because even though she’s funky as hell, she cleans up well. And there’s always Pippi.
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| Madness. Thy name is Longstocking. |
7 comments:
I definitely feel that all ethnicities and minorities blah blah blah should be represented but then you absolutely DO get into 'what is really Black..?' territory. It's not like an ethnic group is a monolithic bloc of people who all look, sound, dress and act the same. And like, Disney's tradition white princesses (sheltered upper middle class American girls) represent nobody I knew as a kid nor aspired to be. (I wanted to be Firestar, She-Ra, or Diana from Dungeons & Dragons). But even white people aren't all the same.
No country on Earth has so much baggage and bullshit about race than the US. And, without meaning by any means to be anti-American, what annoys me is when Americans try to impose THEIR understanding of racial tolerance and diversity on other places. I frequently now find myself keeping my mouth firmly shut when Americans I know start going on about this kind of rubbish. Ironically, I have to remind myself to be tolerant of other people's views! Ha. Ah, humans. We're a joke, really.
And that photo of your being affectionate to a tiny, gorgeous little girl is just too much cuteness for any one blog-reader to handle. She's so incredibly pretty. And so squeezable-looking.
No matter what any company, not just Disney, does people will not be happy. Only in cartoons can someone make a race where everyone looks the same. At least that used to be the case. Now characters are shoehorned in for diversity even when it just looks bizarre. "Here's a group of people...and their random Asian friend?" When I was little I didn't care that He-Man was White. There is this magazine geared towards Blackers called Ebony (go figure). They used to advertise this Black superhero and all I could think of was how lame he looked.
I think other cultures can be interesting but most times it just seems to cause headaches and trouble. You will never see me fight someone for offending my culture. Lots of people say America doesn't have one and if we do have one its used in an insulting way. "Your country has no culture! Wait. McDonald's is your culture!" I just look at it as we're all here for a very short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Get over yourself, Earth.
I cant wait to see Muscles again. Hopefully I'll get to this coming weekend.
Muscles will slay you with her cuteness!
When did we all get so oversensitive to being offended and offensive anyway? People say 'Diversity and tolerance is so important to me' and get offended when other people feel differently. That's not respecting diversity, and it's very intolerant. The whole thing is absurd.
Tch. If America doesn't have culture, no country has. Cinema, TV, art, fashion, languages, slang, poetry, literature, food, architecture, music ... the list goes on. It's a pity if some dumbass cultural snobbery makes people blind to all the things America has to offer, but I suppose there's none so blind as those who won't see.
People like to get offended. I could easily be accused of finding things to be annoyed with. But, like, offended? Not really. People get groups together to protest this kind of thing only having the smallest amount of information. People aren't upset that our school system is shit but will raise armies because Disney doesn't have a Latina princess...or does. But not Latina enough.
Yeah, there are plenty of things that were started in the US or had great influences but then someone walks into the room mentions Africa and it all goes off the rails.
I think the difference between being annoyed and being offended is if you decide to be offended by something, you feel you have the higher moral ground. Which probably means you're an ass and don't know it. Being annoyed about something probably just means you know you're being an ass, and you enjoy it. ;)
I'm going to try saying 'Africa!' in a room full of Americans next time and see what happens. Africa's the past. I think that America should probably focus its considerable energies on making things right for Americans today, however they found themselves in the US. However it is a strange thing to think that America is the only western country (that I'm aware of anyway) that had slavery right into the 19th century.
I think the only time I took actual offense to something was when someone called me "mysterious." I was like "If you ask me a question I'll answer it!" I put a lot of stuff on my sites that is public. I talk to people about all kinds of personal shit. Then I realized that she just had no life and wanted to hear gossip and bullshit. Plus, I just don't see any mystery to me.
The thing with Africa is that no matter what someone says about their culture and how great it is and how influential it has been, someone can say "Africa!" and win since most people agree everything started there. Its that guy when everyone talks about how bad their day was says his puppy died. Cant beat that.
And America is still a very young country compared to everywhere else. It had previous owners that were evicted and then was built on a shit ton of evil. I'm pretty sure that if I wasn't born here I would hate it and its history or want to live here because California rules.
Aw, I think you're being hard on the girl who called you 'mysterious'. Ok, she is/was your friend and you obviously know her well enough to be able to say she just wanted to hear about drama but I'm guessing that by saying you seemed 'mysterious', it was code for 'I want to get to know you better and am trying to flatter you so you'll talk to me more'. Most guys would LOVE to be told by a girl that they were mysterious!
Most countries were built the same way as America, but I guess your history is more raw as it is a younger country. I really love the US, despite all its faults I think it's God's own country, as they used to say. I want to live and work there again sometime, I hope I get the chance. Hmmm, I'm in danger of starting a 'USA' chant if I keep going on.
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