A Chatterbox

One of the biggest mistakes made by creators when making empowered female characters or attempting to have female representation in a narrative, is to only do it once. A single prominent, contributing voice to carry the full weight of the female gender.

The problem with this is that when there is only one woman standing alongside the men, speaking as loudly as they speak, every element of her character is magnified. After all, she’s “The Girl”, the only mirror we have to see ourselves in and it’s not one that’s going to reflect true for all of us. Every weakness, every flaw, every petty moment stands out like a massive, giant sign that screams “This Is What The Author Thinks All Women Are Like”. Because there is nothing for comparison to tell us any different.

Obviously real women are flawed, some very deeply, and flaws are a vital part of a well-rounded character. Having flaws doesn’t mean she’s not empowered or that she isn’t an important part of the story. And a lot of arguments can be made based on the virtues, skills, and accomplishments of “The Girl” in any narrative she appears in. These in turn often lead to nit-picky fights at the end of which “The Girl”’s supporters throw up their hands in frustration at the dissenters and declare “you’re just not happy unless female characters are better than the men, are you? That’s your idea of empowered, I see”.

So the usual answer to a weak and flawed “The Girl” is; her perfectly flawless cousin. Tough, strong, ass-kicking, skilled, intelligent, and capable; all the wonderful traits that usually get a big “Get yer’ empowerment here!” sticker slapped on them. Except that, just like before, there’s only one of her, or she’s the only one out of a horde of voiceless background women to do anything of significance. Once again, she is magnified to the point of being unrealistic. At worst, she comes off as pandering — “look, look, she’s as amazing and awesome as the 500 awesome male characters in the same story! This totally proves I’m not sexist at all!”

At best, she becomes not “The Girl”, but “The Goddess”; the unobtainable ideal. The message that woman are not deserving of stories because we are human and flawed and equal, but because we are magical, mystical, and above the petty, war-like thoughts of men. And any of us that aren’t, don’t deserve to get our own voice.

It’s funny how people “get” that a single male character can’t possibly represent all men — that’s why you get the Five or Seven Man Teams with characters types like “The Warrior”, “The Intellectual”, “The Kid”, “The Dumbass”, and every variety you can think of in-between. Most everyone understands this by default. But when it comes to women? “The Girl” is treated like another personality type that happens to have breasts.

Recently, an announcement came out regarding the casting for the “The Last Airbender” movie, directed by M. Night Shyamalan and based on the cartoon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender“. You can find the post with the announcement and pictures of the proposed actors here.

Now, even if you don’t know much about the show or were unaware that it was heavily influenced by a variety of Asian cultures, you could at least pick up on the fact that while the drawn pictures of the sister and brother pair, Katara and Sokka, show them as being brown skinned, the actors picked for them are very, very white.

Skim the comments and you’ll notice that quite a few fans of the series are furious over the casting. “Not even one Asian main actor in a film based on Asian culture? Are you insane?” they cry, “For love the of god, at least pick someone with the right skin tone!” To them, the racism in M. Night’s choices is apparent and appalling.

But, inevitably, mixed in with the protests are the justifications. “It’s not about what race they are, it’s how well they act,” those on the other side insist, “You’re ones making it racist by insisting they pick actors based on skin tone and not on talent. It’s a show for all kids to enjoy, so what does it matter what race they are anyway?”

For them, race is such an unrelated issue that it shouldn’t even be brought up in context. “Avatar” is a fantasy world, so whether or not it’s based on real Asian cultures is irrelevant, by their view, in determining which actors are cast. It should be “colorblind”, which is a nice seeming word that doesn’t look as nice in practice as it does on paper. Many of them go so far as take the moral high-ground of “well, we’re just going to watch the movie and judge them on their acting and talent, while you lot are still off judging people on their race.” It’s unfortunate that they’re taking the moral high ground for the sake of a industry that’s already in the racial sewers.

But lets look at the concept of hiring based on “talent” instead of “look” or ethnicity and why it doesn’t work — and that even if it did, Hollywood isn’t doing it that way regardless.

Talent vs. Race

I’m going to need an example to explore this, so lets take the character Sokka.

So the people doing the casting sent out an open casting call (they didn’t, but work with me here) and the only two people who show up for auditions are Jackson Rathbone and an Inuit teenager with no acting history we’re going to call Kakortok.

We’re going to say that except for his eyes, which are probably brown, if you put Kakortok’s hair into a pony-tail, he’s a dead ringer for Sokka. His acting skills are so-so; he’s got decent comedic timing, he mumbles most of his lines and his movements and expressions are stiff. There’s some potential there, but Oscar worthy he is not.

Jackson on the other hand, is a fantastic actor (Note: I know crap about his acting skills, but for the sake this argument, we’re going to assume he’s the next Anthony Hopkins.) He comes into the audition and he’s got Sokka’s mannerisms, comedic timing, and facial expressions down pat. He can do a near perfect impression of Sokka’s voice actor, so he even sounds right. Moreover, he’s got experience and unlike Kakortok, he knows what he’s doing on a set. The casting director is blown away, “he’s the embodiment of Sokka, if Sokka were white!”

So at the end of auditions, the casting director sits down and talks with the producers and other directors — and at the end of the debate, they decide to hire Kakortok instead. Because he’s the right look and ethnicity for an Inuit-inspired character. Sorry, Mr. Whitey, no role for you.

For a lot of people, this is the quintessential “Affirmative Action” scenario. Reverse Racism in all it’s glory. Some talented, capable white kid looses out on a job because of a bunch of bleeding heart liberals are too concerned with racial diversity and being “fair” and give the position to a less talented (aka: less deserving) minority kid instead.

Is it racist to hire someone based entirely on their race and not their skills? Of course it is. But my example above also isn’t the full story. If you only pay attention to that simple “black-and-white” part of it, you’re accepting a half-truth.

Because here’s what you got to ask yourself:
Do you honestly believe that Jackson Rathbone would never be able to find another role?

He’s the next Anthony Hopkins! Okay well, even if he isn’t for real, he has recently acted in the block buster movie “Twilight” and held TV positions before that. He’s also attractive and popular with the teenage/twenty something crowd. He’s building himself a name. If he got turned down for this role, there’s a high chance he’d already have three more lined up. Granted it’s not certain, as the film industry is fickle, but he’s got a better chance than the no-experience Kakortok.

We all talk in terms of minority based hiring “costing” white people a job and we talk like that was the only possible job available to them. It isn’t. They’re already ahead of the game compared to many minority groups, because the playing field isn’t equal.

Now, I don’t want to talk down about the reality of poverty stricken or poorly educated Caucasians — because I grew up that way — and I don’t want to talk like there aren’t individuals of color who hold powerful, well-paid positions or are highly educated. Or make it sound like the “word of the law” on equality isn’t being violated here. But as an attractive white woman who was given the opportunity to “prove myself” in a job well beyond my educational and experience levels, do I feel that a minority woman of my same background would have been given the same chance? Hell no.

The spirit of equality is that a minority actor should get the role of minority-inspired character even if it means passing over a more talented white actor. Because the white actor still has more chances elsewhere.

But lets go back to the talent vs. ethnicity deal.

Learned vs. Born that Way

Whether or not acting talent is in-born is debatable. I’d say acting is like any other art form; 1% talent, 99% effort. Some actors fall out of the womb being able to act, other have to study and practice and work their asses off to get it right.

You can’t make Jackson Rotheborne not white. But you could teach good old Kakortok to act.

Now let step back from our fantasy example. The casting director, allegedly, didn’t do open casting for Sokka, which means they scouted or sent out offers to actors or potential actors directly. (Think of how Daniel Radcliffe was found because he sat next to the casting director in a theater.) We don’t know exactly how they went about it. Maybe they saw “Twilight” and decided that they loved Jackson for the role of Sokka. Which would mean that from the onset, not a single ethnic actor who actually resembles Sokkka was given a chance to prove their acting skills or prove they have the potential to learn.

Maybe they did send out offers to dozens of young male actors across the racial board — and only Jackson turned out to have the right skills for it. I admit, I have a hard time not calling bullshit on this. Of all the Asian (East and Southeast), Native American, and Latino young men out there in the world, this white kid really was the best actor out of all of them?

I mention Daniel Radcliffe above. Lets harp more on the Harry Potter thing. J.K. Rowling required that only British actors get hired for Harry Potter, which is something I will always love her for. There had to have been better British child actors out there more talented than Daniel Radcliffe. It’s not statistically possible that he, with his stiffness and limited range of expression in the first movie, was the best that Great Briton had to offer.

But Daniel Radcliffe is Harry Potter. We knew it from the first cast photos and we were dead certain by the time the movie posters came out. This had nothing to do with his acting and everything to do with his look. The same is true for Rupert Grint as Ron Weasly (who actually could act). Casting according to appearance isn’t always a bad thing.

Do you look at Jackson Rotheborne and say “yes, THAT’S Sokka!” If you do, you’re one of the few.

It’s not your place to judge…no seriously, someone else already has.

It is good of people when they decide to withhold their judgment and not look negatively on the actors because of their race. This is important, because the actors aren’t to blame. They’re undoubtedly good, hardworking kids who’ve put a lot of effort into getting these roles and are probably very excited to have them. They’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.

When people talk about “judge based on acting, not on race” they are talking about judging the actors. They trust that the studio made good choices in terms of acting (or will suffer the consequences of low box office sales, in theory) and were fair.

People who are against the casting picks aren’t judging the actors, they’re judging the people doing the casting.

We don’t trust that the studios are hiring based on acting skills. Which is a reasonable judgment, considering that the open casting call for Aang specifically said they were looking for young men between 12-15 of “Caucasian and any other ethnic descent”. It’s really not that much of a stretch to believe that they went looking for Sokka and Katara actors of Caucasian decent first and didn’t even look too hard at non-whites. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is hiring according to race.

(And for anyone gearing up to type “oh so it’s okay for them to hire according to the ASIAN race, just not WHITE race, uh huh, hypocrite, who’s the racist now?”, be aware I may copy/paste sections of this article in response to you, since I’m not sure you’ve been reading it.)

When you judge the actors based on acting, you’re assuming that the studio, director, casting director, producers, and everyone else involved, already did their bit for Equal Opportunity. You’re assuming — and accepting as fact — that the people doing the casting gave equal chances to actors of all races to prove their capabilities.

Because that’s what hiring based on skills really means. Everyone gets a chance to try out and prove themselves. It doesn’t mean picking a handsome white actor from a popular movie to play a tan-skinned role or asking for white people and the faceless, homogeneous mass of “any other” race to send you audition tapes. Whether or not movie goers are racist in judging actors doesn’t change whether or not the studios used racist hiring practices.

When we defend a studio’s choice of actor based on us not being racially against that actor, we’re putting our moral high ground on their moral sinkhole.

A common statement that pops up in the same-sex marriage debate is the fact the current arguments being used against legalizing same-sex marriage are the exact same ones used against legalizing interracial marriage a few decades ago.

Many “one-man, one-woman” individual rolls their eyes at hearing this over and over again. “That’s illogical,” they say, “Those who were against interracial marriage were clearly wrong because they were against opposite-sex couples that fit into the definition of marriage. Same-sex couples don’t fit into the definition of marriage. There is no comparison between the two issues at all. ”

(To me this sounds like they’re saying “interracial marriages are okay because they aren’t same-sex”, which is weird — it has nothing to do with interracial marriage being right or wrong and everything to do with same-sex marriages being wrong. By the same logic, couldn’t you then argue that “same-sex marriages are okay because they aren’t incestuous”?)

What they should be saying is “That’s illogical. We only know that those who were against interracial marriage were wrong because all the things that they said would happen, didn’t happen. That’s how we know they were wrong. But all the things we’re saying will happen if same sex couples can get married. And no, it doesn’t matter that we have no more proof of this than they did.”

For me, I completely see the comparison. (well, duh) People were against interracial marriage not because it was honestly wrong or unnatural or against god or unhealthy for society — they were against it because they were afraid of those things being true. They were afraid that society would collapse, that god would punish us, that it was wrong and unnatural. Why should we, as a society and a species, trust that those against same-sex marriage aren’t just acting out of fear and ignorance? At the very least, they should find some new arguments.

Anyway, an intensive (read: 5 minute) Google search turned up a PDF comparing arguments made against interracial marriage, for anyone interesting in seeing the similarities. The PDF link itself goes to a dead page (here it is, in case it comes alive again or works for someone else), so I copy/pasted it here from the Google cache.

Among the obvious, this really shows how our language has changed over the years.

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Let’s talk Prop 8. I’m sure most of you know, but as a refresher; Prop 8 is the measure to get gay marriage banned in California.

As a woman in a committed relationship with another woman who wants to make said commitment legally recognized, I will be voting No on Prop 8. This has less to do with things like taxes and health insurance and everything to do with things like being able to protect each other and any children we might have in times of crises.

But the tax benefits and legal acknowledgment of our union helps too.

When people argue against something that, to me, so obviously represses or infringes upon the happiness of others for no good reason, all I can think to myself is “they can’t understand what it feels like to be on the other side. They can’t know the real reasons why this is so badly wanted.” But if that is the case, there has to be something they do believe. Some reason that is “good enough for them”. I don’t think all of the people who want to vote yes on Prop 8 who do so out of hate — mostly it’s just fear.

Fear of what? Religion is a big part of it, but I don’t think it’s all, as I’ve met agnostics against gay marriage. (I have yet to meet an atheist against it, though, which I think says something.)

In the nature of understanding what my opponents are thinking in the same-sex marriage debate, I visited one of the “Yes on Prop 8″ websites and explored a couple of the articles linked there.

There was one particular article that caught my attention and I will link here when I get home and find the link again, so I’ll be citing my sources like a good little researcher.

The article was a point-by-point break down against the usual Pro-Gay Marriage points. It was well written, mostly non-secular, and well informed.

It was also one of the few times that I’ve seen the sheer depths of someone’s prejudice shining through even though they aren’t directly acknowledging it. He didn’t say that it was wrong to be gay or wrong for homosexuals to form long-lasting, loving relationships with each other — just as long as it wasn’t acknowledged as being equal to heterosexual marriage, because that would completely undermine civilization as we know it.

How, exactly, same-sex marriage would do that boiled down to two apparently interconnected fears:

1) It would imply that mothers and fathers are interchangeable when it comes to raising children.
2) It would imply that marriage is a social construct, not an act of natural design.

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In an act of apparent cleverness, PETA offers a $1 million prize to the first research team to come up with a competitively priced fake meat by 2012. Which is nice that they’re offering money as a reward and all, but considering that over $5 million has already been put into this research and it’s going to cost millions before it yields marketable results, isn’t offering only $1 million the equivalent to giving someone $50 bucks for buying a new house?

I can’t say it isn’t a nice thought, though — the “don’t kill animals, just grow them to be eaten” part, not the reward. I will say that PETA has their heart is in the right place, even if that heart is full of bitter black hatred for their own species and doesn’t always seem on the up-and-up for the animals they profess to love, either.

Producing in vitro meat that has no feelings, no brains, and no way of suffering would be a great moral balm for anyone wanting to eat their steak and potatoes without guilt. It would also mean less environmental damage than the huge factory farms that are destroying tracts of land and creating literal ponds of shit (especially in the case of pig farming) and less risk of disease or use of growth hormones on the meat itself. Not to mention, that’ll help clean up our methane problem.

It sounds too good to be true and probably is. I could go on a rant about how governments could allow this new technology to create sub-par, genetically corrupted meat that results in horrific cancers or strange mutations or amazing superpowers. (Maybe not the last one.) But I don’t honestly believe that. Not because of any faith in the government, mind you.

You know vitamin pills? Supplements are awesome when you don’t have the time or resources to eat right, or have certain vitamin deficiencies. This doesn’t change the fact that the human body doesn’t process supplements as well as it processes whole, natural foods. Most of the vitamins in those pills just pass through our systems and aren’t absorbed at all. Real food, cultivated properly, is just healthier for everyone involved.

And thus we circle back around to the issue of massive, animal abusing, environment destroying factory farms, that are producing meat in unnatural and unhealthy situations. They shouldn’t and can’t continue as they are. PETA and other animal rights groups would just like to see them disbanded entirely. I can’t agree with that either, because some people, as well as certain pets that people keep, need to eat meat. Humans are omnivores. Get over it.

So what to do?

Eat less meat, for one. The amount of animal protein consumed in the United States alone is staggering. Even with the growing vegetarian community, there are still restaurants who’s menus are 90% meat dishes. Many of said dishes are composed primarily of a Meat, and then some random vegetable that isn’t even identified in the list of ingredients beyond “served with roasted vegetables”. Salads aren’t considered a ‘real meal’ until some strips of grilled chicken or bacon have been tossed on top and vegetable soups get a base of chicken or beef broth because, apparently, they aren’t flavorful enough on their own. And the average household feeds itself following the same thought process. I know mine did growing up.

Maybe instead of replacing meat with a laboratory produced equivalent — or attacking people with horrible images of slaughterhouses to make them feel bad about themselves for liking a nice rare steak on occasion — we could try changing the direction of our diets?