From Shit People Say To Women Directors:
A few years ago I was working on a major (major!) big budget LA-based film production
I was one of four women (out of more than 60 people) working in the art department. One day a male colleague and I were talking about how few women were working on this production.
He proceeded to inform me that, “women are not as talented as men when it comes to the arts.”
The weird thing: he said this with no malice, just as a fact.
Well sure. After all, there were only four women in the art department. There’s your fact right there.
I’m an Animator and Character Designer
I’m helping put together a pitch for a company’s new cartoon show, aimed at kindergarten girls. I submit my designs, and get the following notes back:
“Make her white. Only white people spend money.”
“She’s not sexy enough. Make her sexier.”
The character in question is eight. The producers of the show are all old, white men.
Well it could be worse, she could be seven.
That’s waaaay up there on the creep-o-meter, yet somehow unsurprising to me.
What is this I don’t even? This is just stated like it’s an obvious, unquestionable fact that all non-whites are worthless peasants, and that the creator needs to be educated on that fact. It’s not even couched in some kind of business excuse like “we need our show to be more palatable to white viewers” or some shit. Just straight up “rich white people good, poor black people bad”.
Huh? I’m pretty sure that it’s not only white people spending money in the world. Ok, so I get that they’re talking specifically about their particular market, but I have to wonder if it ever occurred to them that the fact that they’re apparently only interested in catering to the white market might have some influence over them being the only people they see spending money?
I recall a discussion a few months back in which an author was challenged for their non-white characters, on the basis that unless there was something significant about the ethnicity, the default must be white – srsly, why would anyone think that a random teacher, cop, doctor, lawyer, policeman, scientist, or superhero might just be brown, black (and even maybe [**gasp**] female).
So I wonder if “only white people spend money” provides a pre-emptive response, something like: “Yes we know that there are people of colour out there. We’re not racist, but they are simply not our target market.”
(And a giant “ugh” for the sexualization of an 8-year-olds, a disturbing trend in media and culture that just seems to be getting worse.)
Even if it were true that only white people spend money (which seems pretty ludicrous), why would that mean all the characters have to be white? The kids I interact with at work (generally 5-year-old and less) don’t give a crap what colour their toys are. If anything, they prefer variety.
The few times I have heard anything racist from a young child, it is pretty clear that they are repeating something an adult said and not understanding it; their racism has mistakes in it like when people play the telephone game.
Hollywood’s tradition of being run by creepy child abuser types (which dates to the 1930s, I think; maybe the 20s but I can’t think of any examples from back then) continues, apparently.
Chaplin. (He was an ephebophile.)