So, my mom brought something up a few minutes ago.
Whenever you pick up a book, you never see a characters skin tone described, unless of course it's a typical Caucasian white skin tone.
You see freckles described, darker skin tones, unusual ones (green skinned elves?)
And the dark range is usually referred to as a type of coffee, or chocolate. Not a color, like brown, or mahogany, or copper. (Though copper is a common one.)
So… I just thought I'd bring this up. And I also wanna see other peoples opinions, or reasoning as to why this happens.
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And as this is gonna probably be controversial, Imma lay some ground rules.
1 be polite.
2 No racism,
3 no language,
4 don't shoot down other peoples opinions. If you have an issue with someone else's opinion keep it to yourself.
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Other than that, I can't wait to see what other people think about this. (Also Im offline except for late at night, so if another respected member of the community tries to make sure chaos doesn't erupt, please listen to them)
hm. you make a curious point…i think an example of this might be JK Rowling' s claim that Hermione is black after all of the HP books having been released, even though Hermione is described as having, quote, "gone pale" multiple times in the books. i have nothing against this, honestly more power to Rowling for making her characters diverse, but i'm just a bitch for consistency, yanno?
i think an example of this might be JK Rowling' s claim that Hermione is black after all of the HP books having been released
Did she actually claim that? I know that some people had that as a headcannon, which is one thing, but it seems pretty ridiculous to me to write seven books, read a popular headcannon and then be like "Oh yes, this is exactly what I intended."
Well, unfortunately, white is often "default." Also I don't remember the exact reasoning for why you're not supposed to use food to describe POC skin/other features, but I know that writingwithcolor on Tumblr does an excellent job on talking about these issues.
I think the general consensus is that food colors sound weird and almost fetishizing, whereas using earthy color names (like mahogany, ochre, copper, etc) tend to be better. Also food comparisons are so overused at this point.
Changing course BUT:
Shuri from Black Panther made an obvious vine reference in that movie. Therefore, vines exist in the MCU. So, we can assume that the It is Wednesday, my dudes vine exists as well. The man in the vine is wearing a Spiderman costume, and that came out in 2015. Tom Holland's Spiderman got his powers and designed his 'PJ suit' in 2016, six months before Civil War. So, therefore, Holland's Spidey designed his costume based on the one in It is Wednesday, my dudes. In this essay I will-
Where's the rest of the essay??
Something else kinda random,
Y'all ever listen to a song that shows you memories you've never had? 'Cause I get that feeling a lot.
@Wish
Heck yes.
Also, I think it has to do with how you see your own self and the people around you. I am white and I purposefully work hard to visualize characters as having different skin tone (when not specified) and not assuming they all look like me. Because even another caucasian person won't have the EXACT skin as me.
I think part of it is that White is default. The other part is that because it is so we rarely see paler skin tones given a description, making it rather hard for us to, keeping it as the indescribed tone and so default.
Omg it's reviving…
I forgot I made this…
But hey, it's a good topic to discuss!
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And Dom I love your point! especially since it made me realize, not for the first time, that we don't actually describe skin much at all, nevermind for people of colour, but for white people as well!
I follow an artist on YouTube who doesn't fanart of some media, and recently it was for a character that this artist realized is not described by physical appearance very much. The character's most important trait was their personality, and it's described by how they move.
That's my hashtag writing goals.
Although I understand why some readers crave visible and unambiguous representation… I think there's a power to leaving that out, as obviously beneficiaries of ethnic hegemony and also ablebodied hegemony have availed of that benefit, that "white as default human". If their appearance positions them in the world a certain way, influences their relationships, or determines their perspective, then I think it becomes important enough to describe. But I'm definitely averse to the Harry Dresden style of freeze-frame panning the literary "camera" over the body of the character.
I remember an essay by Whoopi Goldberg about how she would read Regency romances and headcanon the characters in those books as Black because nothing in the text said that they weren't, but it stands to reason that her life experience as a child gave her that image of what people were most likely to look like—so, I believe her and trust that internalizing the hegemony doesn't happen to everybody, although I myself never headcanonned Jessica Wakefield and Elizabeth Wakefield as Malaysian.
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