Skip to main content

The real reason for blackwashing established fictional characters

It has become more and more common nowadays for producers of works of fiction to take an existing work (usually not by originally made by them) and make a new version of it, usually some kind of remake, or a medium adaptation (such as making a film version of a book, or a theater play from a movie), and engaging in "blackwashing". This is the act of replacing a character who was white in the original work with a character who is usually black, sometimes something else.

The more well-established, famous and beloved that character was in the old works, the more public outrage the change will usually cause (with only few exceptions), especially when the change is done clearly for sociopolitical reasons, and to virtue-signal. The resulting drama usually follows the same pattern: The change is made, clearly for political reasons, the long-time fans of the original work will complain, and the new authors, social justice warriors as well as the same bunch of leftist media pundits will accuse them of racism, and ignore the legitimate reasons for the complaints. (They also completely ignore the fact that the same fans would complain if the change were made in the reverse, ie. if a well-established beloved black character were to be changed to white in a new installment, especially if the change were made for some kind of real-life political reasons.)

But why is this becoming more and more common? Why are they doing it?

They talk about "representation" and "inclusion". Black people, they say, aren't "represented" enough in media, and we need more of them, for some reason.

However, that's not the actual core reason why they are doing it. They may claim it is, and they might even superficially believe that's the reason, but at its core its not the actual real reason.

The actual reason why they do it is because they want to take away things from white people and anything perceived as "white culture". They may well fully believe in their "representation" thing, but ultimately what they want is to remove "representation" in works of fiction from white people. They want to take something that they think white people have, and take it away from them. In a sense, they equate "representation" in media as some kind of societal power, and they want to remove it from white people, by replacing famous white personalities and characters with somebody non-white.

That's the reason why you never, ever, ever see these same people demanding that works of fiction that have little to no white people in them (eg. many TV series and movies made in East Asia and Africa, for instance) ought to have more "representation" and "inclusivity" on that front. They only want to take this "power" that "representation" has (at least in their view) away from white people, they never want to give it to them.

If they truly believed that media should be "inclusive" and all people should be equally "represented", they would go both ways. But they don't.


Edit: After re-reading the above, I notice that it might give the false impression that I'm trying to say something like "they are trying to steal something from us, white people; they are trying to destroy our white culture", as if I were some kind of white supremacist or something.

This is not my intent at all. I did not write this blog post in that sense. I'm referring to how social justice ideologues perceive the situation. It's from their perspective and point of view. They are the ones who divide people into monolithic groups, and perceive "white people" as some kind of such monolithic group (socially, culturally, politically and, in some cases, even genetically), clearly distinct from other groups. They also perceive this "white people" group as the enemy. They are the ones who, at some level, have the mentality that "white people" are the despicable group from which all privileges and power, in any form, must be removed, even if it's just by taking away their "representation" in works of fiction.

(And on that same note: The main problem is not really that a "white character" is replaced with a "black character". The problem is why that's done, not really the mere act of doing it. It's the motivation behind it, the mentality, that's the main issue.)

Comments