There are various positions on this argument:
1. Ethnicity in historical fictions is not accurate - there's too much white-washing.
2. Ethnicity in historical fictions is not accurate - there are too many unrealistic insertions.
3. It's muddy - on the one hand, there is some white-washing, and on the other, there are some unrealistic insertions.
Discuss.
Everybody in history was a sort of grey colour. As we're the trees, the sky, the grass and everything. Evidence: Every film before approximately 1930 and every photograph before 1861. End of.
SBT
'Tis true. Then, in the 1960s, folk made the mistake of swirling about and mixing up all of the new colours far too much, which led to an excess of muddy oranges and browns in the seventies. Took until well into the 1980s before people managed to get all of it off the wallpaper and soft furnishings.
Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 04 July, 2021, 05:32:52 PM
Everybody in history was a sort of grey colour. As we're the trees, the sky, the grass and everything. Evidence: Every film before approximately 1930 and every photograph before 1861. End of.
SBT
Tis true, I have (unproven) photographic evidence to prove (or disprove) it too!
'A lull before the Battle of Hastings', photographer: Verity Lambert, 1066
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/88/Time_Meddler.jpg)
Quote from: Funt Solo on 04 July, 2021, 05:10:44 PM
There are various positions on this argument:
1. Ethnicity in historical fictions is not accurate - there's too much white-washing.
I think this implies there's a deliberate "let's remove poc from this narrative" when often it's the result of decades and decades of european / white people making media for their own consumption (where racism is a factor, no doubt in who gets to make that media) and centring it on their experiences (so ... incompetence rather than outright malevolence?). Witness the recent outrage about - was it 1917? when someone moaned about the insertion of a Sikh soldier into WWI, fundamentally there were battalions of soldiers from all over, but we're so used to seeing movies with nothing but white protagonists that one POC looks weirdly out of place to our eyes.
It's something I try and keep an eye on, as a white chubby middle aged bloke from Belfast, all my characters tend to be me, so I try - but my world experience is limited, to broaden that out as best as possible. Not always successfully, I joke I can draw three different white blokes, two different women and maybe one different POC, everything else are those with beards or moustaches.
Quote
2. Ethnicity in historical fictions is not accurate - there are too many unrealistic insertions.
I would pound to a penny bet for every "this insertion is unrealistic" there are about a hundred absolutely bizarre real life historical antecedents that would boggle your eyes and be so unlikely you'd never believe that they were real except for the fact they were. So I don't think it's POSSIBLE to have too many unrealistic insertions. But this will depend on what the fiction is - a realistic wwii story? Plenty of US black soldiers, but none mixed or mingled with the US white soldiers. So that would stick out. (But if you're writing a narrative where it's true to life, but fictional I think it's on you to make some sort of point abotu this) But you're doing a fictional wwii storey with monsters, knock yourself out - if someone is gonna complain about the realisim of a black sergeant in a white US army regiment, but have no complaints about everyone being eaten by a NAZI WEREWOLF I have zero time for that bullshirt.
Quote
3. It's muddy - on the one hand, there is some white-washing, and on the other, there are some unrealistic insertions.
I don't think it is muddy - complain about it in factual things, if it's fiction then you've no legs to stand on.
BTW: I draw too many white people in Dredd, I'm aware of it, it's something I try every day to change.
Also: I think there's so much of interest to be explored in other cultures, that it really behoves 2000ad (and other publishers) to grab those voices in, let's have afrofuturism, let's have Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem, let's grab that rich resource of people that we've been busy ignoring so we can GET NEW AMAZING THINGS.
There was an advert on telly about 15 years ago, which had CGId the cast of Happy Days into it. I remember seeing some bloke upload it to YouTube as an example of an urealistic portrayal of history due to its ethnically diverse nature. He thought there were far too many people of colour hanging around with Fonzie and the gang and that this would never happen back in the 1950s.
The advert was for the Citroen C3. Everybody in the advert was driving one.
Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 04 July, 2021, 05:32:52 PM
Everybody in history was a sort of grey colour. As we're the trees, the sky, the grass and everything. Evidence: Every film before approximately 1930 and every photograph before 1861. End of.
SBT
This is a pernicious attempt to cancel and ignore the sepia tones of the 19th century.
Nowadays Hollywood has managed to contain this phenomenon to Central America.
Quote from: M.I.K. on 04 July, 2021, 07:41:24 PM
There was an advert on telly about 15 years ago, which had CGId the cast of Happy Days into it. I remember seeing some bloke upload it to YouTube as an example of an urealistic portrayal of history due to its ethnically diverse nature. He thought there were far too many people of colour hanging around with Fonzie and the gang and that this would never happen back in the 1950s.
The advert was for the Citroen C3. Everybody in the advert was driving one.
Happy Days, of course, the absolutely accurate portrayal of 1950s America, was the show that introduced us to Mork.
First person of colour in that advert (I looked it up on youtube, was curious) is young girl who gets her dressed ripped away from her by the car, leaving her embarrassed in her bra and pants, so it's not exactly a shining example of progressive values.
Quote from: pauljholden on 04 July, 2021, 07:14:26 PMBTW: I draw too many white people in Dredd, I'm aware of it, it's something I try every day to change.
One of my ongoing Dredd bugbears is how white and male everything is, from the leads to background characters. It's good you're looking into this, but I wish all 2000 AD Dredd artists would.
Pick 100 random people TODAY in the US as a whole and you'd get a broadly even gender split and 61 white people. 13 would be black. 18 would be Hispanic (some of which would be white Hispanic). 87% of law enforcement officers are men, admittedly, but you'd assume things would shift somewhat in over a century.
Also, if I see another story full of white male Judges where the only woman is a psi or a named character like Beeny, I'm going to scream.
Quote from: M.I.K. on 04 July, 2021, 07:41:24 PM
There was an advert on telly about 15 years ago, which had CGId the cast of Happy Days into it. I remember seeing some bloke upload it to YouTube as an example of an urealistic portrayal of history due to its ethnically diverse nature. He thought there were far too many people of colour hanging around with Fonzie and the gang and that this would never happen back in the 1950s.
Wonder how they'd react if somebody told them where rock'n'roll came from?
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 04 July, 2021, 09:03:00 PM
Pick 100 random people TODAY in the US as a whole and you'd get a broadly even gender split and 61 white people. 13 would be black. 18 would be Hispanic (some of which would be white Hispanic).
I had a (sort of) hilarious argument with a comicsgater on Twitter along these lines a while back. He was fuming that "straight white men" were being "pushed out of superhero comics" — so I ran him through pretty much that exact set of stats to show him that, statistically, only one in three Americans is a straight, white man and asked him if he could show me any book from the Big Two where straight, white men were under-represented.
Less hilariously, he then pivoted to overt white supremacism but, y'know, you take the wins where you can get them.
Rational, evidence-based argument doesn't cut much ice with racists, unfortunately!
Quote from: sheridan on 05 July, 2021, 12:19:28 AM
Wonder how they'd react if somebody told them where rock'n'roll came from?
Michael J. Fox taught it to Chuck Berry, obviously.
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 05 July, 2021, 08:00:38 AMI had a (sort of) hilarious argument with a comicsgater on Twitter along these lines a while back.
Yikes! It is horrible to see people push back against even basic representation. Plus it's not like gender-flipped superheroes are anything other than blips anyway. Did anyone
really think female Thor was a forever position? Or that Tony Stark wouldn't return again? It's absurd how fragile white blokes can be.
Personally, I'm increasingly impatient at every level in comics with representation. I get the issues with historical depictions — and they should be better. But anything set now or in the future needs looking at closely as well, and at every level. Cast your eye across the average 2000 AD strip and it, frankly, doesn't fare that well. I've mentioned Dredd's weird white/maleness, but similar issues affect almost every strip to a large degree. Writers, artists and editors just need to think a bit more.
This is pretty ubiquitous too. As much as I love The Phoenix, at no point did anyone look at newish strip I Love Pixies and think: "Hang on, so the protagonist is a boy, his best friend is a boy, and two of the three main pixies are male, with the only female one being ditsy?" Gender flip one of the kids and one other pixie and that particular problem goes away. But, no, we get yet another Smurfette strip in a children's comic, and that's just not good enough.
Then you lob in ethnicity at every level of comics and... well. Even in the very white UK, we have a ~15% non-white population. Most British-made comics don't reflect that. (The Beano is currently attempting to, albeit in a sometimes slightly clumsy manner. Still, if the end result is better representation, I'm all for it. Having The Chandras 'replace' Tricky Dicky shifts the needle a bit, provided slightly better representation in Bash St. Kids and made my daughter happy that there were "more girls" in her comic. Naturally, some ageing white men got all pissy about it, because the natural order in a typical UK school is nine boys, one tomboy girl and one swot who only shows up when they need someone to bully a bit about him being a swot.)
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 04 July, 2021, 09:03:00 PM
Also, if I see another story full of white male Judges where the only woman is a psi or a named character like Beeny, I'm going to scream.
I'm not arguing against diversity here, but a mostly white male Justice Department makes sense in universe. Just look at the current American police forces. These organisations have never been paragons of progressive values, just imagine what they'd be like if they were given the power of judges. Do you think they would share that level of authority with women and minorities? Maybe we never see women in the background in MC-1 because the fascist Judge regime severely curtailed their rights? Maybe minorities are too afraid to go out in public for fear of being shot for no reason*? Maybe Judges aren't allowed to persue romantic partners because the department would be too busy constantly dealing with domestic abuse scandals? Maybe the real issue is that the Judges aren't depicted as racist and misogynist as they should be?
Although...
1) I wouldn't actually want to read that kind of comic.
b. It would cause a shitstorm, with half the social media brains-trust thinking Tharg was actually a horrible bastard instead of just telling stories about horrible bastards, and the other half thinking "Hey! Finally! Some comic characters I can really relate to!".
(iii) It's a kids comic at heart. No (responsible) parent would be comfortable letting their kids read that sort of thing
This kind of shit is why you'll never find me darkening the prog's by-lines.
Seriously though, I think it's more a case of unconscious bias than active exclusion. I offer that not as an excuse for it, just an attempt to explain it. Or mansplain it if you prefer.
*I mean even more-so than today
I for one am very disappointed in the lack of alien representation in ancient civilizations. Haven't any of these woke film producers in Hollywood watched The History Chanel?
Apocalypto? More like Apocalypt-NO.
Quote from: Mister Pops on 05 July, 2021, 11:04:53 AMI'm not arguing against diversity here, but a mostly white male Justice Department makes sense in universe. Just look at the current American police forces. These organisations have never been paragons of progressive values, just imagine what they'd be like if they were given the power of judges.
Two problems there. 1. There is a trend—even if it's painfully slow—to more women and minorities in policing. So the assumption is that would have—for no reason explained in 45 years of the strip—been reversed. 2. Pure demographic shifts are going to radially change the nature of the USA 100 years from now. Of course, Judge Dredd isn't a lesson in 'futurism'. If it had any degree of accuracy, Mega City One's initial population wouldn't have been 800 million—it would have been north of 8 billion at least (or its area would have been much, much smaller). Still, we've again seen nothing in the strip so far to suggest such shifts were curtailed in any way.
But also: my point isn't just about Judge Dredd or even the judges—it's
everything.
QuoteMaybe we never see women in the background in MC-1 because the fascist Judge regime severely curtailed their rights?
One might have thought that if that's the case, we might have seen at least one story about that over the past 45 years. We haven't. If anything, MC1 seems quite open about things like sexuality and race in the general population.
QuoteSeriously though, I think it's more a case of unconscious bias than active exclusion.
I agree entirely—white men are the people behind most of the comics we read, and they write about and depict themselves. But that's why everyone—Tharg; script droids; artists—needs to be aware of this and do something about it. (And, as I said, this isn't me having a go at 2000 AD. This issue is everywhere, even in The Phoenix.)
Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 05 July, 2021, 11:07:35 AM
I for one am very disappointed in the lack of alien representation in ancient civilizations.
It's not just aliens, think about predatory oceanic animals ... all the major roles go to Great
White Sharks ...
I think it's easy to over think why there isn't more diversity in the prog but in all honesty it's nothing more than artist using themselves as reference. It could be called lazy but when drawing a strip you're worrying about so many other elements such as story telling, perspective, anatomy - just basic drawing skills, not to mention the time scale and scheduling to get it finished that generally you just draw people that come easy to you. I have been guilty of this and have made a point of adding more diverse characters. Only recently mind. It's basically that for me. I draw what I find easy to draw because I have to get the job done. I have to earn money to pay the bills. We're all on page rates and unfortunately comics don't pay what they probably used to so the quicker you get them done the better chance you have of making a living, and it becoming a career, not just a hobby. A lot of writers now state in scripts what gender or ethnicity some background characters are. Just as an artist when you're not poked in a certain direction you tend to revert to type. In my case its drawing fat, thin, short or tall versions of myself. Oh, and women are harder to draw correctly for some male artists as - again, we generally use ourselves for reference.
Quote from: dancornwell on 05 July, 2021, 05:06:44 PM
I think it's easy to over think why there isn't more diversity in the prog but in all honesty it's nothing more than artist using themselves as reference
Which leads to arguably the bigger problem, which is that most of the creators are white males (like me...)
Maybe because its that the average reader is a white middle age man? I know back in the 60's, 70's and probably before, girls comics were huge but for reasons I don't know (music magazines etc?) they seemed to die out. More diverse creators are emerging which is great so the future looks bright. I can only guess that if the vast majority of readers or fan base for the prog are white middle aged men its only natural that those fans who want to be creators are in the main white middle aged men? The more diverse the stories, the more the prog attracts other kinds of readers then maybe the creative teams in the future will be diverse too?
There's also inherent cultural bias. Look at how many women write children's books for example. Now look how many of those are also very heavily biased towards make protagonists and male supporting characters. Why? Loads of reasons, from what people grew up with to what they assume the audience will read. (I so often hear "but boys won't read about girls, whereas girls will read about boys" to the point that I may well go postal one of these days due to that excuse. Even Julia Donaldson got really pissy about this, disappointingly, wrecking my respect for her Gruffalo follow-up.)
This is why it needs everyone to just take a step back and question why they've made their entire cast white/male for a story and—when relevant and necessary (which, let's face it, will be most of the time) make changes accordingly.
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 05 July, 2021, 08:54:31 PM
There's also inherent cultural bias. Look at how many women write children's books for example.
My daughter reads the Harry Potter books constantly, or is listening to the audiobooks. The way Hermione is treated and described as a character would, rightly, be absolutely slaughtered if JK Rowling were a man.
Harry Potter is deeply problematic when it comes to sexism and also—as per part of this title's heading—"accurate representation of ethnicity". It seems to treat British magical myth as a default. White is the default. Specifically, white English is the default. The depiction of Irish, Asian, etc, is horrible. But I'm not sure she's be slaughtered if she were a man. People laud David Walliams as a children's author and his books are horrendous.
Possibly. I have seen people pull JK Rowling up for the reasons you list, but I haven't seen her being criticised for the sexist portrayal/description of characters.
I've yet to meet a parent who lauds David Walliams! He seems to be widely reviled for producing cynical, mean-hearted and poorly-written books as far as I can tell. Can't fault his publisher's distribution and marketing, though!
We know a few parents who are fans. Our kid did a book swap with a friend and it was a Walliams one. We... weren't thrilled. But hey-ho (and the kid didn't like it enough to want more).
As for a general representation thing, our kid got a free-reading thing from school. It contains a jigsaw, and they colour in a piece for every matching book they read. Excellent. Except there are six authors listed, five of which are men and the sole woman is Enid Blyton. Suffice to say, I told my kid to ignore this and read what she wants and rattled off an email to the school about that.
As for JK, it's a good point about the sexism. If nothing else, that (horribly) in part suggests such tropes are just broadly accepted these days. This is in part why I'm dog/bone with this stuff with everything my kid comes into contact with, but also wider media, whatever the reasons for such imbalance existing.
Quote from: Mister Pops on 05 July, 2021, 11:04:53 AM
I'm not arguing against diversity here, but a mostly white male Justice Department makes sense in universe. Just look at the current American police forces. These organisations have never been paragons of progressive values
Interesting police representation numbers here, albeit from seven years ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/03/us/the-race-gap-in-americas-police-departments.html
(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/03/us/the-race-gap-in-americas-police-departments.html)
Extrapolating from 2015 and presuming a slowly improving make up of the police force (by which I mean moving towards an ethnic make up more similar to the communities their stations are resident in) you get a much more representative department or even certain sectors where the local sector house is overwhelmingly minority by the time MC1 becomes a reality.
Today's Baltimore, which is MC1's sector 35 (I'm using this for reference https://forums.2000ad.com/index.php?topic=40120.90) could/should be majority black.
But then again Judges move around, or are reassigned all the time so the numbers would even themselves out in aggregate.
Either way, definitely more minority judges needed on the pages.
Quote from: dancornwell on 05 July, 2021, 05:06:44 PM
. Oh, and women are harder to draw correctly for some male artists as - again, we generally use ourselves for reference.
And don't forget that pile of magazines under the bed, reference material Shirley?
Quote from: Proudhuff on 06 July, 2021, 02:48:49 PM
Quote from: dancornwell on 05 July, 2021, 05:06:44 PM
. Oh, and women are harder to draw correctly for some male artists as - again, we generally use ourselves for reference.
And don't forget that pile of magazines under the bed, reference material Shirley?
Undoubtedly - and in keeping with the wholesome nature of this forum - this is the kind of material to which Proudhuff is referring? ;)
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/EXRB4H/1940s-uk-wife-and-home-magazine-cover-EXRB4H.jpg
Quote from: paddykafka on 06 July, 2021, 03:34:19 PM
Quote from: Proudhuff on 06 July, 2021, 02:48:49 PM
Quote from: dancornwell on 05 July, 2021, 05:06:44 PM
. Oh, and women are harder to draw correctly for some male artists as - again, we generally use ourselves for reference.
And don't forget that pile of magazines under the bed, reference material Shirley?
Undoubtedly - and in keeping with the wholesome nature of this forum - this is the kind of material to which Proudhuff is referring? ;)
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/EXRB4H/1940s-uk-wife-and-home-magazine-cover-EXRB4H.jpg
*tut* - can't believe you posted a picture of somebody in a bath! Full on to the camera too!
Quote from: sheridan on 06 July, 2021, 03:52:07 PM
Quote from: paddykafka on 06 July, 2021, 03:34:19 PM
Quote from: Proudhuff on 06 July, 2021, 02:48:49 PM
Quote from: dancornwell on 05 July, 2021, 05:06:44 PM
. Oh, and women are harder to draw correctly for some male artists as - again, we generally use ourselves for reference.
And don't forget that pile of magazines under the bed, reference material Shirley?
I'm just wondering where she's hiding the soap!
Undoubtedly - and in keeping with the wholesome nature of this forum - this is the kind of material to which Proudhuff is referring? ;)
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/EXRB4H/1940s-uk-wife-and-home-magazine-cover-EXRB4H.jpg
*tut* - can't believe you posted a picture of somebody in a bath! Full on to the camera too!
Nice use of a backscrubber tho!
Important and topical thread hijacked and dumped in a Cul-de-sac, wheels off and windscreen smash... sorry
Quote from: Proudhuff on 14 July, 2021, 11:12:03 AM
Important and topical thread hijacked and dumped in a Cul-de-sac, wheels off and windscreen smash... sorry
This is the way
I only made this thread to free up the movie thread. Then this one got genuinely interesting for a bit.
The tangentially linked topical news would be whether taking the knee prior to a sporting event is a simple declaration of support for anti-racism, or a dangerous call to an anarchist state? Oh, and can Priti Patel be both racist and the victim of racism at the same time? Tories are saying latter and no, respectively.
Got to say, when I saw Boris on HIGNFY years ago I never thought he'd be the poster boy for a modern, embryonic fascist movement. Yet here we all are.
Quote from: Funt Solo on 14 July, 2021, 03:51:07 PMtaking the knee prior to a sporting event is a simple declaration of support for anti-racism, or a dangerous call to an anarchist state?
The former, unless you're deranged.
Quoteand can Priti Patel be both racist and the victim of racism at the same time?
I find any argument to the contrary of this baffling. It's a way of minimising the abhorrent messaging from people of colour who happen to be horrible. Patel is at the very least xenophobic in a pretty extreme manner, along with being a nationalist. She might not be
racist but she frequently uses dog-whistle politics that align with racists. That's the thinnest of lines. But also: of course people who are minorities and who experience racism can be racist themselves.
QuoteGot to say, when I saw Boris on HIGNFY years ago I never thought he'd be the poster boy for a modern, embryonic fascist movement.
I suspect had people been reading his Telegraph column, they might have had a better idea of where things would end up should he ever get anywhere near power.
In relation to the above, maybe not on the topic of this thread, but certainly in the spirit*, I thought I would post Saka's response to the things:
(https://preview.redd.it/d41p3bh99eb71.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97b4fae4a14e8e906d7757619ff9c30d8aab328f)
My main takeaway was this:
Quote
I knew instantly the kind of hate that I was about to receive
Social media has facilitated racism for too long. It has fomented it as a business model. Not just racism, but all forms of abuse have been cultivated to generate traffic and clicks.
If I posted footage of Saka missing his penalty on a social media site, it would be taken down almost instantly.
But if I just called Saka a racial epiphet for missing that penalty, social media hand waves it away with free speech. Claims it's impossible to contain. Like emptying an overflowing bath with a teaspoon. I could call Saka a n*****r with impunity on social media, but if I posted some NWA they would shut it down instantly.
At this stage, I think the only way to stop these bullshitters in this neo-liberal free-market dystopia is to stop supporting these social media conglomerates. Stop giving them clicks and traffic
*of white people trying to understand racism
I don't really understand the perception that in losing the final, they lost overall. My point: making it to the final at all is a huge achievement. I don't really get that binary nature of football support where it seems to be all or nothing for every match.
"Love always wins" is a nice idea, but not actually a truth (unless it's just his personal truth, of course). Still - I can't but agree with everything else he said.
In most cases in sport second place is the "best" loser, nobody remembers whom came second.
There's a serious sense of entitlement on football fans in this country, and I say that as a big football fan.
Given the squad we have, and the (lack of) success we've experienced in the last 55 years getting to the final was a big deal in itself but to a lot of fans we 'deserved' to win because we're England and as a nation we are super arrogant about us being the best.
Obviously winning IS what it's all about, and the draw was kind to us - it was definitely our best chance of winning the damn thing, but Italy were the best team in the tournament (and on the day) and they still didn't beat us over 120 minutes. Not winning was crushing but to not credit the achievement of getting where the team did is madness.
I'm not sure if it's different outside England, but where football gives you massive emotional highs it does the same with lows, there are so many people who can't handle their frustration and it just spills out into rage. Smashing up Leicester Square or beating up your wife because your football team lost is just incomprehensible to me but that is a much bigger discussion and probably not for this thread! When I was a kid I was often shocked and scared at the hatred at football matches. Eventually I got used to it, but what was a real eye opener was starting to follow rugby when I married a Welsh girl and the fandom culture there is totally different. I'm not sure what it is about football that is so toxic.
As to the racism on display - it's awful and has been rightly condemned, and was sadly inevitable in light of the messages from our government. This shit has always been there, but now it's creeping back into the light as our overlords pander to bigots to win votes. I really hope this next generation, who seem to be roundly despised for having a social conscience, can change things in the future.
Apologies for a long sport post on a comic forum. I wouldn't dare post about comics on a football forum!
I recall when I was young someone very senior at Crystal Palace (the owner?) arguing the black players were lazy and didn't work as hard as the white ones. Very little has changed in certain areas of the game, not least among supposed fandom. The thing is, take those black players out of the squad and England would be hosed. Take out the rest of the team who have migrant roots and there'd be hardly anyone left. But too many people still double down on this absurd notion about the 'purity' of the English.
It's also notable how the team is 'us' for people when it's winning but 'them' when it isn't. You're either in it or you're not. I don't really give a fuck about football, but I did like what this team represented and how it acted. It was disgraceful to see the desperate attempts by senior Tories to get on board, having roundly ignored or even encouraged racist attacks earlier in the tournament. Fair play if the rumours are true that the Downing Street event was cancelled because the black players said no and the other players joined them in solidarity.
Agreed. This English team appears to be full of really nice hard working likeable young men and they've represented the country in a way that puts our government to shame.
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 16 July, 2021, 11:26:16 AM
but I did like what this team represented and how it acted.
Certainly makes a change from all the local teams I've had the misfortune to share cities/towns/boroughs with (their player's only appearances in the local press outside of the sports pages being when they're involved in sexual assaults, racist abuse or attacking patrons at nightclubs in the town centre).
p.s. as you may or may not be able to tell, I'm not into sport, but everything I've heard about the current crop of national team players has been good* - which makes the contrast with the general behaviours of the locals all the more stark.
* off the field - no idea what they're like when they're working.
Quote from: sheridan on 16 July, 2021, 11:51:32 AMno idea what they're like when they're working.
\
From the evidence of this set of matches, they play as a team. Not much showboating. In the past, England has frequently had a lot of talent, but not since 1990 have the individuals really worked together as a team.
Uh... I am aware of and writing in this thread for days, only to forget about it in the meantime; now, I took the courage to write my thoughts on the matter with enough will and time because this is going to be a lengthy one.
First, I'll express my pleasure that someone opened a thread like this (so kudos to Funt) as we live in hot times where matters like this are not bedroom stories. Also, I'd like to suggest a minor modification to the thread, but I'll get there when the time is ripe. Anyway, I hope that commenting won't get out of hand as it did on conspiracy one (which is the only one that was locked during my tenure here, I think), but I must warn that this comment may not be up to someone's liking.
So...accurate representation in the media? On the point? Under-deserved, over-deserved? To me, media, at least when it comes to the telly and movies, followed closely social trends. That's why earlier films had to show black people, used (white) actors in the blackface. And this was even before when Sean Connery or Mickey Rooney played Japanese guys (I have to admit, I loved Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's), but at that point, at least when it comes to people of AfroAmerican heritage, have vastly improved. Actors got more recognition, and their stories got more coverage.
True, Hollywood has not always been on the spot when it comes to representation. From blackface, which was around 100 years ago to today, things changed, but occasional controversies remained. For example, Exodus. Hollywood has a certain standard on how they run things, and most of it revolves around bankability. So when Ridley Scott said he had to find actors with an (international) appeal to play Moses and Ramses, you better believe it. And speaking of, almost all of the Hollywood movies are done from the American point of view. History in movies often doesn't stray away from controversial material, where sometimes a fucking hair is a problem, least accurate representation and justice is done to a specific character. As I said, the reasons are few. Bankability, artistic choices, vanity of filmmakers... Sometimes the problem is the fucking hair. In not just biographical movies but historical fiction as well. But representation, if done right, is always welcome, instead of making rather political choices, and definitely some people deserve their story to be told appropriately. And it goes both ways (that is, if you want to sound like a hypocrite). A movie about Samuel Coleridge Taylor (not to be confused with the 18th century poet) is welcome but Jodie Turner-Smith as Anna Boleyn - bollocks no. Ofcourse, I always say that such issues shouldn't be taken into account; someone's ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation shouldn't be the most pertinent factor (none whatsoever), but rather if you have something under your belly to show. Show skill. It's definitely a tacky subject for sure.
Regarding black people specifically participating in ww2, I found this article:
http://lestweforget.hamptonu.edu/page.cfm?uuid=9FEC3345-FDE7-5326-01EF58424224C02E
Obviously, the situation for black people greatly improved in the 1940s, after post-slavery times, in where the most significant leap toward the rights of black people was land-owning (after abolition), and even that was for very seldom number of them and still had very little advanages to advance in life. Nor the conditions they were living were like in Song of the South. But the1940s were far from ideal. Segregation, violations of human rights, etc., affected even their plight during ww2. I'll still insist on that if you were a soldier somewhere on European soil, there was a fat chance you wouldn't stumble across a black person. Ofcourse, their contribution to defeating the German war machine, whether minor or significant, should be seen as admirable, at least. Even though I prefer they didn't take part in it, that I say for every soldier out there, but such statement belongs to an entirely different subject.
But cinematically, so far, at least I know about:
Red Tails
Miracle at St. Anna (which is historically half-accurate, and not because of the portrayal of black soldiers who participated there)
Tuskegee Airmen
Hart's War
The Affair (not much in representation matters, but more as an interracial love story.
And there is Windtalkers (glorious ww2 epic, but like most of Woo's films, weak on the characters).
Accurate representation doesn't affect just movies or Hollywood. The following is the excerpt from the Wikipedia page on the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
Some publications and websites accused the developers of "whitewashing" for not portraying people of color in the game, and for the game's portrayal of Cumans and Hungarians as cruel invaders.[34] The developers responded by asserting that the game is historically accurate since people of color did not inhabit early 15th-century Bohemia in significant numbers.[35]
European media also responded to some aspects of the criticism. A commentator at the Czech newspaper Lidové noviny called the accusations "out of place" and claimed that most Europeans would respond that there were very few, if any, black people in early 15th-century central Bohemia.[36] To evaluate if non-white people lived in 15th-century Bohemia, the German magazine M! Games asked scholars at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. According to them, there were at most Turkic peoples, like Cumans (who appear in the game as enemies), but otherwise the presence of non-whites is "questionable".[37]
Some of these publications also reproached the views held by the game's director Daniel Vávra, who has been a vocal critic of what he believes is a progressive bias in video game journalism. Vávra associates his views on video game journalism with #GamerGate.[38][39] Daniel Vávra and Martin Klíma responded to the accusations in an interview, stating that Vávra might be a little "quick with words", apologizing for anyone who felt offended.[35]
I'll let people make their own conclusions on the subject.
When it comes to the modification I suggested above, I'd like to see this thread expanded to the females as well, not just ethnicity because women were here and there in particular historical events, in minor or significant numbers. I already mentioned Flora Sandes as an example. Now, if there is a movie about soldiers in the trenches, and you know it's the battle in which Ms. Sandes participated, and all soldiers are male... hardly that would be malewashing for just one character. Unless you make a movie totally based on her persona.
About soccer/football players' racial abuse, I wonder if all those people would react the same if Rashford, Saka, and Sancho scored their goals. I bet those same people would hail them as national heroes.
Regarding black people specifically participating in ww2, I found this article:
http://lestweforget.hamptonu.edu/page.cfm?uuid=9FEC3345-FDE7-5326-01EF58424224C02E (http://lestweforget.hamptonu.edu/page.cfm?uuid=9FEC3345-FDE7-5326-01EF58424224C02E)
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What an inspiring article, would love to see what Garth Ennis would make of that...
BBC's been reading the board, obs:
World War Two: The forgotten Indian soldiers of Dunkirk (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-58466527)
QuoteThe post-war environment was a very different one, in Europe and in India. In Europe there was a need for physical reconstruction and for building new societies. The focus was on the future, and the elements of the war that lived on in popular memory were taken from a narrow field, usually involving those with white faces and posh backgrounds.
"In India, the process leading to independence and partition took precedence. History is always a moving and unfolding process.
And that sentence still reflects the British (and definitely the British media's) understanding of the war.