Nerd Rant: The “What if” Arguments
Any time Hollywood remakes something, and changes a characters skin color to anything not white, white people have complete breakdowns over it. I’ve seen so much outrage recently between The Rings of Power, and now The Little Mermaid, it’s just draining.
So many “What If” arguments are out there. The thing is, those arguments aren’t really proving anything.
“What if they changed Black Panther to a white guy?”. Sure, he’s a fictional character, but being black is integral to who he is. Also, there aren’t a lot of black superheroes, so why would you want to change one of the few who exists? White people have more than enough white superheroes.
“What if they changed Pocahontas to a white woman?”. Well, seeing as Pocahontas was a REAL person, you’ve already lost that argument. It’s bad enough what Disney did to her. But, even if she wasn’t real, it is still set in an INDIGINOUS culture. This isn’t something that should be changed, but it often has been.
I’ve seen other similar “what if” arguments, trying to make some sort of point. But, they all focus on a character that is a POC for a damn good reason. Even if there wasn’t a good reason for the character to be a POC, we have more than enough white people on our TV and movie screens, we are not exactly lacking in representation.
There is also the argument of, “Why not create something new, instead of changing what is already established?”. They do create new things, and often times those things are specific to their culture, so it’s a little different. There really is nothing wrong with changing something you’re use to, like a generic fairy tale, where the character being white isn’t important to the story. Also, now we end up with two versions, and that’s pretty great.
Don’t forget, Hollywood has often changed characters, that were meant to be a particular race, that was NOT white, to white. It’s like a tradition for them. Which reminds me of an interview I read a long time ago. Dean Koontz was talking about how he had been approached about making a movie out of his novel “Tick Tock”. But, he refused because they wanted to change the main character to a white guy. The main character was half Chinese, and looked Chinese. It was who his character was, for a reason, so Koontz stood his ground.
White people, men in particular, have long dominated TV and movies. Fairy tale princesses are more often white, than anything else. It’s okay to change those things, it doesn’t take away from the classics we grew up with. After all, most of those stories have already been drastically changed from the original source material (especially when it comes to Disney), and no one seems to care about that.
I’m going to end this rant on one of the lamest arguments I always see when something is rebooted or remade, especially when changes are made (male to female cast, white to POC), is “THEY ARE RUINING MY CHILDHOOD!”.
How? How does this ruin your childhood? The one you loved still exists. Your memories still exist. Nothing will make that go away. Maybe the new version isn’t being made for you, and that’s okay, not everything is about you. No one is going to force you to watch it. Just ignore it, and move on.
