On the matter of Racism and PotC:DMC

[permetaform]

You.

Yes, you.

You realize, right, that you are racist?

You realize, right, that it is perfectly okay that you are racist? So long as there's some awareness/sensitivity to the matter? That one of the worst things you can ever do is protest, "There is not a racist bone in my body?"

Also?

Ya'll do realize that Johnny Depp is not white? (not completely?)

Ya'll do realize that generalizations are not the same as stereotypes, and that pirates were stereotyped in both movies?

Ya'll do realize that, yes, both PotC's are, inherently, racist?

And that that's okay? That you are still allowed to enjoy the movie?

First, lets get something out of the way. Yes, the fact that the "black" people died (or had a small speaking role...and then died) is racist. The thing with the hanging balls of bones with the cackling part of the crew being predominantly black, and then dying, is racist because of "omg the treachery of black people and they cackle and point and race to get ahead of us, but then they die and all is well". Which, y'know, is a comment paralleling the same fears that people have towards immigrants, "omg they're taking our jobs/money/women!" etc. etc.

But, and here's a thing that seems awful and yet kinda cool and amusing as I watch it happen, why is no one seeing Johnny Depp's race?

He is not white, in fact he's part Cherokee.

And?

I look chinese, I act chinese, and parts of me *are* the chinese stereotype. And yet I have germanic blood in me and I've been white-washed by American culture. So does it count?

One of my friends is half-Hawaiian and half-black and she was raised by a white father and a chinese mother. She is labeled as black. Is it true?

And more, from this post by runefallstar.

Specifically, in her post:

I'm the oldest of two daughters. Two girls who look a whole lot more like our Zapotec indian mother than we do like our tall skinny white surfer guy father. We grew up in a neighborhood where we were the only non-white folk on our street.

Bear and I are smart kids. We both did well in school, played sports and took part in the arts, even got into good colleges -- Bear having done much better than I did, getting to turn down Yale of all places -- and yet, even now, people seem surprised by my articulateness. They want to know the college that I graduated from (go Kenyon) and how I came to have the skills I have (sheer good fortune) and can not seem to connect my visible ethnicity with any of either of these things.

Until they discover that my father is white.

Johnny Depp, who's probably playing an indeterminate interracial bastard child of x, y, and z, is "made king" and appetizer for a mixed group of indeterminate interracial cannibals.

...If anything, I think cannibals should be pissed that *they* are being stereotyped.

And here's the thing too, pirates were also stereotyped in the movie. Uptight English folk were also stereotyped in the movie. But guess what, people don't *see* it because either they can't see it or because they're assuming that the traits being displayed are *positive*.

Okay, to display this concept in perhaps a more familiar setting?

Why is Jack's constant flirting acceptable, and Tia Dalma's not? She didn't even perv over that many people, just the pretty blacksmith.

Why is her sexuality a problem for people, and yet Elizabeth's is not?

Why are black generalization and global descriptions (stereotypes) inherently bad, while white generalities and global descriptions (stereotypes) are inherently good?

_{It's like saying that feminine characteristics are inherently bad (being gentle/sensitive/prettyboy) and that masculine characteristics are inherently good (being strong/stoic/muscled). And actually, some of the conversations remind me of parallel conversations about feminism held by second-wave femi-nazi's.}

And I'm speaking this as a person watching these conversations about a "potentially racist" movie worried that they're "potentially racist".

It's okay, yes you are racist. Yes, that's a supposed "flaw" in your character.

But the larger flaw is if you don't realize you are racist, because also? Human beings are hard-wired to make generalizations, because it's how you learn, it's inherent to the logical process. A generalization is a hypothesis that may or may not be true; but it helps you get towards truth, because otherwise you're utterly rudderless in a sea of unsorted information.

Where a generalization becomes a stereotype is when you stop realizing it is a generalization. When the hypothesis automatically becomes the conclusion, you have a problem.

Otherwise, you're okay. Savvy?

One more thing:

That scene at the end? With the people holding the candles above the water?

Attempt to imagine that with white people. Does it not give you the impression of fundie christians or goths?

What I don't think a lot of people who're raised in Western/Westernized cultures realize is how much spirituality isn't part of the mainstream culture. It's looked down upon, it's marginalized.

But once you hit non-Western cultures? runefallstar will get into this more in her post from the Mexican side of things and from various things from her paper. But I know for a fact that spirituality is rampant in mainstream chinese culture. People still go to herbal medicine doctors, people still believe (honestly believe) in ghosts, people still believe in fengshui and paths of energy (chi), and there's still altars to the dead tucked into hidden nooks of most buildings.

And yes, you *can* call this superstition and throw it away. But look at what it *is*, look at it's roots. Look at perhaps even your own almost instinctive reaction that it's "primitive" and "illogical". Superstition is based on this belief in an "other", a "beyond", a forces in heaven and earth that is not based on your (westernized) philosophy. And frankly, while most white mainstream cultures have spirituality in the context of organized religion, it does not often spill over into the daily life.

So yes, I thought that that scene with the people standing in the water was very effective. It felt spiritual to me, and heartbreaking because they're holding a wake for Jack Sparrow without his body. They're doing it half submerged in the water that may somewhere touch Jack, and the element that he's of and most comfortable with.

To have it be multinational? Or to have it be predominately white? Would have been ridiculous.


And now I'm done. I'll be pointing out runefallstar's post on this matter once she get's it up, but I just had to first get that out.

I'm not saying that these conversations shouldn't happen. But I'm just pointing out that some of the thought patterns displayed by these conversations? Are just a wee bit ridiculous. XD Don't worry, I still love ya'll tho.


[edit] fannyfae with more comments on the ceremony:

"In fact, it is a fairly common African (yes, AFRICAN) spiritual practice, that goes all the way back to the to Ancient Egypt and Nubia. The ancestors or akhu don't die or to equate it with the Westernized notions, cease to exist. In traditional African faiths, the akhu go to a different place. The waters represent the Waters of Creation, the Primordial Nun - from where we all sprang."

[edit2] additional feminist-type thought from me in this context: "And I'm all wondering, are they not calling Elizabeth on the flirting because she's all skinny and virginal? Is it a Britney Spears thing where she can be sexy if she's nominally pre-pubescent and relatively POWERLESS? Like, once women have power, their sexuality becomes dangerous?"

[edit3] adina_atl from here:

I recognized even as I was laughing my ass off that the cannibal part was racist, but it never even occurred to me to question Tia Dalma, mostly because I recognized Santeria/Voudoun and respect them as valid religions. It would be like objecting to depictions of Roman Catholicism in a vampire movies because they shows how superstitious and "primitive" the RCs are, with all-powerful magical crucifixes, holy water, and communion wafers.

To object to the portrayal of Santeria/Voudoun (unless the objecter has enough familiarity with them to declare that they've been portrayed inaccurately) is to say that they are inherently disgraceful, not valid religions. Besides, in the context of POTC, Tia Dalma (and by extension her culture and religion) was RIGHT.

[edit4] phiremangston points out as a non-Carib viewer that:

I admit that when I watched the cannibals part, it bothered me a little. I was worried about how they would be represented. That is, until we heard Gibbs' explanation for why Jack was in the position he was. I never viewed them as "primitive", or even as aggressive. I didn't even necessarily view them as cannibals, in the traditional sense of the word. I saw them as a group of religious people. As Christians take bread and wine as representation of the eating of Christ's flesh and the drinking of his blood, other religions do not do this metaphorically. The "cannibals" saw Jack as a human form of their god, and, as Gibbs said, they wanted to release him from his human form. By ingesting the human form of their god, they feel as though they have been blessed by the god in thanks. That's just how I saw it. They were used as the comic relief, certainly; however, a lot of others were, too. Jack, Will, and Norrington's swordfight was comic relief. Elizabeth, Pintel, and Ragetti flailing around with the chest was comic relief. Almost everything Jack does is comic relief, frankly.

I didn't think that the representation of the tribe was negatively stereotypical, especially since the writers (through Gibbs) clearly gave the audience a sympathetic reason for why they did what they were doing. They were doing it out of the belief that what they were doing was the right thing.

***In my mind, the tribe was shown as being the only people in the movie who were completely selfless and weren't out to accomplish things for themselves.

Most people would assume that the tribe was looking out for themselves. With a single line, we are told otherwise.

I think that that was a very clever thing for the writers to slip in.

HOWEVER, there has been protests about the portrayal of...and here's where it gets tricky. Did Disney portray Caribs as cannibals? Or cannibals as Caribs? Or cannibals as Cannibals? I, personally, viewed their portrayal of cannibals as stereotyping cannibals, not as a stereotype towards those who've called the Carribeans home. ::shrugs:: But that's just me. (linked to by rachelmanija)

[edit5] jackiekjono from here:

I think it's also important to note that Will and Elizabeth are more or less point of view characters. They will not know where specifically certain customs may come from or what they might mean. I think it is very interesting that they did the research and made the customs accurate but, it would have been difficult to put explain all of that to the audience without slowing down the action of the movie while being boringly pedantic and intrusively PC.

Comments

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

The cannibal sequence bothered me for a lot of reasons. It made no sense and added nothing to the movie for me; it was styled like the Amazon; and it's historically inaccurate and wildly offensive to modern-day Carib peoples. I don't care if they're an "analogue;" I didn't like it.

Are people really upset about Tia Dalma's sexuality? I thought she was pretty interesting, not least because of her rather troublesome idea of "help," and I also thought the final scene was beautiful. I was really excited that they put in some Voudoun/Santeria, since I'd been hoping for that to happen since the first movie. And they did it without sacrificing chickens!

I haven't thought much about Johnny Depp's race--actors bore me--but I always assumed Jack wasn't 100% Caucasian. I'm not sure what, if anything, that means in the context of the movie. I think perhaps it's just meant to add to his mysterious origins (he's probably not a proper Englishman gone naughty).

I suspect that a lot of the vagueness about non-white cultures and locations in the movies is meant to preserve the mystery around Jack. Will and Elizabeth get to be straightforward and defined not necessarily because they're white, but because they're the heroes. Jack (and Tia Dalma) are Tricksters.

(I thought it was interesting that Jack had acquired such a multicultural crew in a few months since the last movie, and I was disappointed to see them all go like that with hardly a line between them. :/ Unrelatedly, I think the island with the cannibals might have been meant to be Dominica. It had a bit of the look to it, and that was one of the last surviving Carib settlements; by the time of the movie, most Caribs had been exterminated and replaced with black slaves from Africa and their descendents. But it did bother me that it wasn't named, at least not clearly.)

[adrienneherbst.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that thought that the cannibals looked Amazon more than Caribe-- I kept thinking, "wtf, what are the Yanomamo doing here? What, are they replacing disputably cannibalistic indigenous peoples with definitely cannibalistic ones because the Caribs are protesting that *their* ancestors weren't cannibals? ...Are they going to make Jack into banana soup?"

Ugh. *rambling*

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

One of the things that makes me uncomfortable about a lot of the backlash is that people are insulting things as "stereotypical" that aren't too far off of real traditions in some places, like the ceremony with lights at the end (which I've seen described along the lines of 'ragged people in Mississipi slave clothes') and the facial piercings and paint of the cannibals (which were exaggerated, but have the people objecting never opened a National Geographic? Lots of Amazonian peoples have very elaborate and uncomfortable-looking piercing traditions).

I think people are also forgetting that it's still based off an amusement park ride. Maybe Tia Dalma's home looks like a Florida swamp, but that wasn't the moviemakers' ideas--it was snagged right from the ride, which was designed in a much less race-conscious (okay, generally conscious) time.

I sort of feel like some people are objecting from the POV of "civilized" westerners who may not respect indigenous peoples any more than the makers of the movie apparently do.

[permetaform]

I understand the cannibal sequence as TPTB losing sight of who their audience was, they went for slapstick and got a n00b editor who didn't understand the script/see the rest of the movie.

Some people, yeah. And ditto with your feelings on the final scene.

Well...
the audience who are race-blind are at least of two extremes
- those who are race-blind because they dichotomize everything into "us" and "them"
- and those who are race-blind because everything is "us"

I don't know where you're at in the spectrum?


I suspect that a lot of the vagueness about non-white cultures and locations in the movies is meant to preserve the mystery around Jack. Will and Elizabeth get to be straightforward and defined not necessarily because they're white, but because they're the heroes. Jack (and Tia Dalma) are Tricksters.

Hee! Jack nominally so in this movie, there's a wierd blend going on that's partially because Jack is lost for most of the second movie. I will post about this eventually, Dead Man's Chest: The Search For Jack Sparrow.

(::nods:: yeah! I saw asian and latino and black in the crew, but they disappeared quick. I love that PotC's in general are pretty much more about the Myth of pirates, and that they kept it vague)

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I don't know where you're at in the spectrum?

Beats me. I wouldn't call myself "race-blind" at all, and I definitely still have lingering white privilege that I'm not conscious of yet. But I've been to the Caribbean, and it's not a white place today and wasn't then, so I was hoping to see more non-white characters for realism if nothing else. I do think everyone is "us," but I don't think that makes me race-blind.

On the flip side, I emphatically do not think Tia Dalma is a convenient stereotype; it's not her story, or Gibb's story, or Anamaria's story, so no, they won't get the screentime or the complexity of the main characters. But there was a lot implied about her. And I think some people are perhaps seeing the racism in parts of the movie and projecting it to other parts where it might not be. I guess it all comes down to opinion in the end, though.

I did look at the gerbil balls more carefully the second time around: Jack's crew started out, I'd say, about half-white, half-POC. Gerbil Ball #1 contained Will, Gibbs, Marty, Cotton, unnamed black crew member, and unnamed Asian crew member. Gerbil Ball #2 contained, it appeared, the other POC crew members. From this I can only conclude that the other white crew members got eaten first. Whether this has any significance, I'm not sure.

Later in the movie, after they've re-crewed in Tortuga, the crew appears to be some mix of black and white (I couldn't begin to guess percentages--anywhere from 50/50 to 75 white/25 black, maybe?), which makes sense, given that there probably wouldn't be too many Indians or Asians hanging around Tortuga to be picked up.

So I'm not sure the gerbil ball breakdown was intrinsically racist, but the way it was choreographed and filmed sure came across that way.

In terms of cannibalism, I got the 'long pork' reference the second time around, and I think that was well-done: subtle, a "normal" fisherman-type, and oh, he eats people sometimes, btw. Heh.

Hee! Jack nominally so in this movie, there's a wierd blend going on that's partially because Jack is lost for most of the second movie.

Yes, he is. But he's still not explained.