The concept of brownfacing

Both those messages seem to state explicitly that the "no make-up" option wasn't that bad. The first link is probably the source of that implication, what with the admonition to not get confrontational if one encounters backlash (which, from what else I've seen on this subject, is mostly the same sort of backlash that POC get when cosplaying as anyone not of their race).

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

I sincerely hope your interpretation is correct.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

But, aren't most of those 'light skinned' characters in anime intended to be Japanese? So wouldn't a white person cosplaying them still be playing as someone not of their race?

edited 25th Aug '12 8:43:26 PM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

Yes. The lines blur more than many people are comfortable with.

"Brownfacing" (and related terms) is problematic in professional media because of the vicious circle effect it has. To wit—

Bob is an actor who is visibly non-white, or has a noticeable handicap, or an "ethnic" accent he hasn't been able to shake yet. As a result, he's generally not considered for many important roles because the casting directors tend to default to "white able-bodied person with American or British accent" for main characters. Bob indeed has trouble getting any parts that aren't specifically written to be his minority group, and those parts tend to be small or stereotypical or both.

But wait! Someone's written a book with a main character who Bob happens to look like, and it's been optioned by Hollywood! Yay! Bob calls his agent to arrange an audition. Bob does a fine job at the audition, but the casting director notices that he's never had a starring role before. Nothing but roles like "Thug #2" amd "Barkeep" on his resume. He's not someone who has a proven record of getting tickets sold. So the casting director goes with Dave, a known bankable star who's white, yes, but a little hair dye, some makeup, a few Spanish lessons, he'll do just fine.

Bob, if he's lucky, gets to play Dave's comedy relief sidekick.

And Bob the Next Generation sees what happened to Bob and decides that maybe he should try something other than acting, because the jobs obviously aren't there and Hollywood doesn't want people like him.

No big conspiracy, mind you, no (or little) conscious bigotry, but the effects speak for themselves.

It doesn't map the same way to individual cosplayers, but the stigma carries over a bit, and cosplayers are much, much closer to their audience so feel the full brunt of negative reactions.

Professional media tends to not do that to a huge degree. Controversy aside, it's just flat-out less of a pain in the ass to not have to do a very difficult and extensive makeup job properly for every single shoot, and they have the selection of actors to not have to even consider it. You have plenty of bankable A-listers of pretty much any ethnicity.

Oh you'll have Mark Ruffalo get a heavier tan to play Bruce Banner in India, but Tropic Thunder style doesn't really happen much.

edited 25th Aug '12 8:55:24 PM by Pykrete

You know, I remember this big thing awhile ago when a black girl cosplayed as... uh, Twilight? I think her name is? From My Little Pony? Anyway, she cosplayed as her, and a lot of people threw a bitch fit of how her skin color didn't match their idea of a humanoid pony.

So, naturally, those people were called racists, bigots, and were deemed offensive. The community came up to try and support POC to cosplay as whoever they wish. It doesn't matter if you're black or white, so long as you're having fun dressing up as fictional people. The only thing that can be seen as "bad" is the costume itself: "your wig is off" "you used the wrong material" "your make-up is the wrong color" etc. That sort of stuff is open for criticism because that can be changed easily and with practice, unlike skin color (and apparently weight, but that's a whole SJ issue I don't want to get into).

But. Here we are with white people cosplaying as black or dark-skinned characters, and we shame them. We tell them they're being offensive, they're doing the cosplay wrong, and that they're racist for race lifting.

I just really want to point out this hypocrisy, that supposedly, a POC can cosplay as whoever the hell they want, but a white person is still limited to their own race - granted, there's obviously tons of characters to choose from, but it's still racist to imply that you can only properly cosplay your own race.

I just wish the cosplay community could reach a general decision on how to not be offensive to people of other races, so I could quit hearing about it. In my opinion, the issue is resolved with this: dress up as whatever cartoon character or whatever you want. It doesn't matter. The cosplay is for you, and no one else, and the only thing open to criticism is the overall affect of the costume, not the person. So white people should be able to cosplay as Korra if they want, and black people can cosplay as Tinkerbell.

Whatever they want. No one, of whatever race, should be ashamed of their skin color when it comes to pretending to be someone else.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

That's pretty much all that needs to be said, and seems to be the general consensus of this thread.

...Frankly, if you have a problem, you're just being an oversensitive asshole, and squashing other people's lighthearted fun to salve your guilt/moral outrage complex.

Exactly. You know, there used to be a day in age where, speaking from an internet culture perspective, if you saw something that offended you, you ignored it. Unless someone was downright harassing you or clearly doing offensive things out of spite, you just let them be or maybe kept your cool and said, "Hey, that's kinda offensive, can we reach a middle ground?"

Not... this. You didn't go around crying about privilege and how racist and bigotted some cosplayers are for cosplaying as characters outside their race.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

The Black Twilight thing was a fiasco long before anyone cosplayed her that way. Between Ponibooru's usual concentration of internet assholes and utter lack of moderation, there was a shitstorm pretty much anytime someone drew fanart of her as black.

So there's something to be said for the cosplay ragefest having already had most of that momentum built up over a very long time instead of just coming out of nowhere and people were already sick that particular shitstorm. Which is...you know, just as disappointing, but in a different way I guess.

edited 26th Aug '12 12:44:10 PM by Pykrete

Twilight's a talking horse, though. She doesn't have a human race. The people complaining about black humanised Twilight are clearly racists, and that is a separate issue to characters who actually do have a defined race, however you feel about that.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Actually while black Twilight was a source of many woes throughout the fandom (at least on Ponibooru), I believe the particular cosplay was of Rarity.

Yeah, Ponibooru's Mods were practically nonexistent.

I still say a lot of the vocal racists were trolls though. Not everyone on Ponibooru was an asshole.

"Twilight's a talking horse, though. She doesn't have a human race."

That point was actually brought up several times. The racists either argued that a black person would not have Twilight's personality, or that because Twilight's voice actor was white the character would be white as well.

edited 26th Aug '12 10:00:49 PM by DeviantBraeburn

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

In other words, a mess all around. Internet, etc etc.

Let me ask: how common is it for non-white cosplayers to use makeup to cosplay as a white character?

I have no idea why anyone would make a statistic on that.

But I'll search the Internet to see if one exists.

EDIT: I haven't found any statistics but I have found a lot of statements from White Cosplayers on the matter:

This is my favorite as it points out the Double Standard present in "whitewashing".

edited 27th Aug '12 12:45:28 AM by DeviantBraeburn

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

I'm not talking scientific statistics. I just mean, if someone's been somewhere with a lot of cosplayers, about how often would they say they see this.

Yeah, I've seen people non-white cosplay as characters who aren't members of there race.

edited 27th Aug '12 12:58:14 AM by DeviantBraeburn

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

Off topic regarding that picture with Rose - I believe Andrew Hussie said that the human characters in Homestuck aren't actually intended to be any race. The white of their skin is supposed to be 'blank' - he himself is caucasian, and he draws himself with orange skin. But I guess everybody sees Rose and Dave as white anyway.

edited 27th Aug '12 2:12:50 AM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

The Homestuck kids aren't just "blank". It's a bit of a spoiler but due to time travel, cloning and ontological paradoxes, they are completely and utterly unrelated to the rest of the human race. So when they are described as "aracial" that is literally, canonically true.

So, technically, cosplaying them without painting yourself chalk white is a Race Lift.

edited 28th Aug '12 5:42:10 AM by Elfive

Recent converts to the social justice cause tend to be really stupid about it, because they haven't yet had their idealism tempered by dealing with the real world. Having opened their eyes to another way of seeing the world, they're going around with Social Justice Glasses on, temporarily without the judgement to see things through any other set of lenses. Having just learned how to use a tool, they're applying it to everything, without good sense.

In this case, they're fixating on racism so much that they are seeing everything in terms of racism and nothing else. Thus, they're prone to seeing things that aren't there, as well as prone to not seeing things that aren't about racism.

In other words: feel free to ignore the fuck out of young social justice bloggers and the things they lose their shit about, because they have not learned to use their toolkit sensibly and judiciously yet. They just got a hammer and are going around seeing what in the world is nail-like, and striking out a lot of the time.

A brighter future for a darker age.

Indeed, I even suggest that they take courses on how to debate and think in critical and rational terms.

"Hipsters: the most dangerous gang in the US." - Pacific Mackerel

...!!!

Hmm? If your intention is to say "Hey, this is OTC, stay on topic!", be plainer.

I don't think criticizing the type of person who rants about "brownfacing" on Tumblr is too far off topic, myself, but I'm open to convincing.

A brighter future for a darker age.

Maybe Pykrete was saying "Isn't OTC full of young social-justice bloggers?"

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

Possibly 'Tis why bluntness is better.

A brighter future for a darker age.

thread hop

I've got rather strong opinions on this subject, considering I (by accident) ended up placing myself squarely in the middle of it one time. disclaimer

I used to run an urban fantasy LARP, and there was a need for someone to play an NPC *

who was multi-racial. I'd created the NPC when I had a staff member who was dark-skinned who could have played him, but by the time the player group got around to wanting him to show up that staff member had quit.

So I had to do it.

Now, I'm pretty damn white; I'm blond, blue and pale for those of you who don't frequent the Photos thread. So, I was all "what the hell, I don't want to explain out-of-character every five minutes what this guy looks like, so I'm going to do the costume right." I spent five hours in a chair getting made up for the part; *

the costume was massively uncomfortable but it turned out pretty good, and everyone who saw it thought it was awesome. Hell, I had people who'd known me for years taking a good five minutes to recognize me.

It should be noted that I was aware of the connotations involved in a white man dressing up as a non-white man, so I took steps to avoid it. I re-wrote the character's background to be half-white and did some research to ascertain that I wasn't going into Blackface territory with the makeup and hair.

Again, the costume was a massive hit with everyone who actually saw it.

Unfortunately, there were people who heard about it without actually seeing it, and pretty soon I was hearing rumors that I was a flaming racist. Why? Because I dared to costume as someone of another race one time. After my game ended and another began, the staff of the new game made specific rules about playing (and costuming for) characters of a race other than the players' own.

There are two things that strike me as egregiously stupid with what I dealt with. For one, all the objectors were people who didn't actually see the costume, and went off heresay to make important decisions.

For two, everyone who was offended was white. The two African-American players at my game who actually saw the costume both thought it was cool and thanked me for paying attention to their sensibilities.

My take...makeup is just another form of costuming. Doing it badly is doing it badly. If you want to get offended, get offended because the costume is bad. Don't assume the costumer is trying to make some kind of racist statement unless you are willing and able to back that kind of accusation up with facts. Accusing someone of racism is Serious Business..and to those who aren't that way, the accusation really hurts.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:53:23 PM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~