Racebending.com

Kent A. Ono and Vincent N. Pham, Asian Americans and the Media (via anniepology)

Tamara Winfrey Harris | Privilege And The White Dude Super-Detective (via trollny-stark)

 #i still remember bossymarmalade and glockgal’s deconstruction of white privilege in supernatural #and how dean and sam worked so well #because no one ever questioned white dudes #even when they were sketchy as fuck #and then glockgal drew racebent spn comics #where sam and dean really had to work to be able to be hunters #because they couldn’t just get away with fake IDs now that they weren’t white anymore #it was so amazing #i would’ve watched THAT show forever

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This. This. And This.

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Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan on being detained at the U.S. Airport—twice. (Once, he was detained while promoting a film called “My Name is Khan” which was ironically about a person with the last name Khan suffering from repeated racial profiling.)

Multiple actors and other prominent individuals in the film industry with the last name “Khan” have been detained when entering the country. Irrfan Khan (The Life of Pi, Slumdog Millionaire, Spider-man) described the three times he was stopped—while on the way to receive honors for his roles in films such as The Namesake—as “humiliating.” Actor Aamir Khan was stopped and stripped searched in 2002. Director Kabir Khan, was reportedly detained at least three times in 2008 while filming in the United States. The New York Times ended up remarking on The Dangers of Fying While Khan

This much is clear:

• Despite being an incredibly common surname, in the United States, Khan is a racialized last name and those who carry it suffer from additional, insulting, stigma and scrutiny.
• There is no shortage of talented actors of South Asian descent whether from within the United States, from the UK, or Bollywood—and many of them even have the last name of Khan.
• With Star Trek Into Darkness the name “Khan” is once again stigmatized as antagonistic, but the actors named Khan, the Khans of the world, and those who look like Khans once again have no voice about how they are represented in American media.

If you’re an award winning actor named Khan, you will still get stopped and humiliated at the airport. When that rare character in American media finally shows up sharing your name, he will be played by a white British man. That actor will wear your name for one movie and sneer and strut to great critical acclaim. You will wear your racialized name, your skin color, and hope you don’t get detained another time.

Lucy Liu (via secondscreenmosaic)

(via secondscreenmosaic)

Carrie Rickey

(via fireworkselectricbright)

“You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario which is both complicit and complex. It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film.”

-Ryan Gosling on the controversy around the rating of his film ‘Blue Valentine’

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Original Brave Director Brenda Chapman chimes in on Merida’s Redesign | The Mary Sue

Here’s my opinion on the matter:
They should not redesign Merida to fit the Princess line;
they should change the Princesses line to fit Merida.

The positive message she sends to young girls is that you don’t have follow stereotypical gender roles or strive to fit the narrow image of beauty that is constantly regurgitated in mass media.

I don’t see why change and making money are mutually exclusive. This is a perfect opportunity for Disney to reinvent what it means to be a princess, and for some reason think they’re going to loose money if they do that.

I understand it’s a well established line, and change is difficult, but what’s the point of life if you don’t take any risks? It’s not like Disney is LOW on money, they can stand to loose a few million dollars. (via fieldnotesonfeminism)

(via fieldnotesonfeminism)

Marissa Sammy on Star Trek: Into Whiteness.

perfect commentary which parallels what Rawles was saying earlier about the possibility of Moriarty being a person of color: 

• “…The actual issue is that black people aren’t often allowed to play full and complete characters, and an antagonist who isn’t unintelligent, thuggish cannon fodder is just as much of a rarity for black men as the stubbly hero who saves the world or wtfever. “
• “…The stereotype in no way intersects with brilliant geniuses who choose to step outside of the boundaries of society in order to exercise their intellect while having no concern for lesser beings.
  
  Or to break it down further: the problematic stereotype regarding black people is that of being, in essence, subhuman. Characters of the Moriarty (and Holmes) archetype are rooted in being superhuman.”

You see? It’s more complicated than “people of color get typecast as villains.”

Black people get typecast as an extremely specific type of villain - they’re thugs, brutish and animalistic. South Asian actors are similarly typecast as scary oppressive (usually coded Muslim) terrorists.

But when your villain is of the superhuman archetype? When they’re brooding antiheroes, when they’re nuanced, when they’re multi-faceted?

They’re white.

(And check out this post on the glorification of white criminality in shows like Dexter, Breaking Bad, Weeds, Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, etc.)

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Poet Bao Phi on the play Miss Saigon.  Despite continual protests from the Asian American community, theater companies like Towne Theater in Columbia, South Carolina continue to perform the racist musical—and to add insult to injury, this production has an all-white cast.  The show is opening during Asian Pacific American Heritage month.

“In the Twin Cities, the problem is not that we haven’t organized against it. The play has been here at least three times and we’ve organized against it, with different strategies each time. Each time, the white theater tells us they’re sorry and they want to be sensitive to the community. They create focus groups, then ignore the focus groups when they advise them not to bring Miss Saigon back.

“All the while, new generations of people of all races go to see this play despite all of our educational teach-ins, our counter-shows and protests, and it’s the one ‘learning experience’ they have about the Vietnam War and Vietnamese people. I was a teenager the first time we organized against it - I’m 38 now and i’m tired of it. We’re still going to organize against it but a lot of this crankiness is with my frustration that there seems to be little to no progress. White supremacy is a machine that keeps grinding, I guess.”