> What difference does it make if they cast another non-Italian actor to play a role?
Who said anything about being Italian?
I've only quoted the author words (Collodi)
The fairy is pale white not because she is a white person, but because she's pure.
Pale white skin is not an Italian trait, so I don't understand what Italianness has to do with anything.
If anything, the fact that she is pale white makes her obviously non-italian, because she's better than all the other characters that try to deceive and corrupt Pinocchio.
Unfortunately that's really how Tolkien's mythology tends to work. White skin is associated with purity, darker skin with corruption and evil (or at least, between the two, "civilized" and "uncivilized".)
It's a trope that's carried on into sci-fi (particularly Star Trek, where the more animalistic or violent races also tend to be darker - see the Klingons who get portrayed as darker-skinned and more aggressive with each iteration) and related high-fantasy properties like D&D.
> White skin is associated with purity, darker skin with corruption
it's the oldest metaphor in the world
it's light vs darkness, like white magic and black magic.
Heaven is light, hell is darkness.
Nobody sees "the dark at the end of the tunnel".
The idea that black people mean evil and white people mean virtue is a stretch of the modern thinking, by the same people that believe that blacklist comes from black people.
> where the more animalistic or violent races also tend to be darker
Not true.
Borgs, arguably the most dangerous species in the series, are white
The Borg are all races and Romulans, though majority portrayed as white, likely have multiple skin tones the same way the Vulcans do. Though the idea they purged different skin tones at some point fits with their overall narrative.
All the Dominion races were white, more or less. The Changelings have a whole meta commentary going for them.
>it's the oldest metaphor in the world
>it's light vs darkness, like white magic and black magic.
>Heaven is light, hell is darkness.
>Nobody sees "the dark at the end of the tunnel".
You seem to have confused "the world" for "Christian Europe." There are plenty of cultures in which these metaphors are reversed, or don't exist at all.
And the only referent that is relevant to this specific conversation is that of Tolkien, who himself described orcs thusly:
squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
He's clearly not drawing entirely from "universal" metaphors of "light" and "darkness." And even if he were, mapping that to race is still ignorant and worth calling out.
>Borgs, arguably the most dangerous species in the series, are white
I wasn't talking about simply being dangerous, since in context even the Pakleds are dangerous (speaking of problamatic portrayals) so much as presenting depictions of animistic or "savage" behavior that hearkens to outdated racialist stereotypes of non-white cultures. The Borg are essentially a force of nature, so not relevant in that regard.
Fair point about the Romulans and Cardassians, although they're clearly metaphors for Colonial Europeans and Nazis respectively, and both are presented as clearly "civilized" in their behavior. Klingons drink blood wine, Cardassians drink kanar. The implications are still there.
> You seem to have confused "the world" for "Christian Europe."
Not really
Yumboes are supernatural beings in the mythology of the Wolof people (most likely Lebou) of Senegal, West Africa. They closely resemble European fairies. Their alternatively used name Bakhna Rakhna literally means good people, an interesting parallel to the Scottish fairies called Good Neighbours.
Yumboes are the spirits of the dead and, like many supernatural beings in African beliefs, they are completely of a pearly-white colour. They are sometimes said to have silver hair.
Chinese mythology has white foxes and white tigers.
There are similar examples in all the mythologies.
> He's clearly not drawing entirely from "universal" metaphors of "light" and "darkness." And even if he were, mapping that to race is still ignorant and worth calling out.
Tolkien was a well known anti-modern, Roman Catholic orthodox conservative.
But mongol-typed are not actually dark skinned, they were in fact often very pale in the past, and tbf he also wrote "degraded and repulsive versions of".
Same way I could say, as Italian, that "Jersey Shore" protagonists are a degraded and repulsive versions of Italians.
>But mongol-typed are not actually dark skinned, they were in fact often very pale in the past, and tbf he also wrote "degraded and repulsive versions of"
True, but Star Trek's treatment of the original Klingons was much the same, based on a vague archetype of "swarthy" Eastern "barbarians" like the Khanate or stereotypes of the Japanese during WW2. We're talking about broad-brush stereotypes here. There was no non-racist reason to make the Klingons dark-skinned to begin with. As has been mentioned, the Romulans were also a villain species and they were white (as a plot point, they looked exactly like Vulcans because they were the same species. The Klingons were dark-skinned because in Western culture dark skin is visual shorthand for "savage."
And portraying "degraded and repulsive" versions of a specific human race is the literal definition of a racist caricature. Especially if the point is to make them evil.
>Same way I could say, as Italian, that "Jersey Shore" protagonists are a degraded and repulsive versions of Italians.
... if literally every Italian in the show was portrayed that way, and was canonically in the Mafia. And the protagonists were all non-Italians. And when people were corrupted by evil, they turned more Italian.
There are plenty of counter examples within Star Trek of patently evil or aggressive characters and races being humanoid with light skin. This is purely your own projection.
Might have been true with Star Trek as of early TNG, but not sure it's been that way since. I imagine there was uproar around Tuvok being a black Vulcan, but would be hard to imagine Trek fans caring about that today.
Just keep rolling with basically racist concepts because we like the other aspects of the mythology? Or explicitly overturn the racist parts, and keep the rest?
I like the second one, but apparently many other commenters are perfectly comfortable with "white=good".
D&D is at least trying to do the latter - they just issued an apology for the Hadozee - a slave race of monkey people for which the unfortunate implications are obvious. At least to some people.
Of course we're still left with the archetype of race mapping to moral alignment in general which is gross, but at least it's something.
And of course every single time anyone tries to decolonize (I'm going to use that word specifically because it irks certain people) fantasy and sci-fi, there's a controversy like the one we're in the middle of now. Some people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.
By translating the origin from Italian into English another crowd is reached, and movie adaptations often differ from books. In this case, casting was chosen to be diverse at the expense of a detail barely anyone cares about. Whether such behavior is -all things considered- a win or loss depends on if such choice hugely hampers the popularity. IOW, vote with your wallet.
> In this case, casting was chosen to be diverse at the expense of a detail barely anyone cares about.
Sorry, but that's like saying that nobody cares about Gandalf the white in LOTR, and you can cast whoever you like for the role and make his robe rainbow colored.
In fact Amazon didn't do that, the actor playing Gandalf in Rings of power is a white man. For obvious reasons, that have nothing to do with being against diversity.
The blue fairy has a central role in Pinocchio and she has long blue hair.
They knew that casting a shaved woman would be much more than simply adapting a story. it's like if in a Nausicaa in the valley of the winds adaption Nausicaa is a black disabled boy. It would simply not be the right choice, casting as a job is exactly that, choosing the more apt person for the role, which includes appearances.
Of course the colour of the skin is not a fundamental trait, unless it is in the story.
A white Apollo Creed would be highly controversial, like a black Abraham Lincoln, an Asian Sitting Bull or an Italian Malcolm X that only eats spaghetti and says "mamamia" with the hands.
Perhaps the casted person was the best choice? Ian McKellen was an excellent choice for the role of Gandalf. Whether the same is true for other actors and roles depends on a case by case scenario. I couldn't care less about his skin colour.
We in the West allowed foreigners and people of colour into our culture. We deal with it by being inclusive in 2022. Deal with it, simple as that. You don't like it, you don't watch it.
I live in a country where a bunch of people have decided to hang their flags upside down. I don't like that and if I see a business doing such, I don't do business with them. Simple as that as well.
I don't know if that person would be right or wrong for that role since I don't know enough about acting in that sense. I envision myself being a terrible caster (but not on this specific matter).
It appears you believe skin color isn't compatible with a role, but I don't care about it; I only care about the actor's performance, and if the actor's skin is incompatible with the script we make it compatible. Either we change the skin color, or the script.
> The fairy is pale white not because she is a white person, but because she's pure.
Right, because of all of parts of the story that have been changed, _this_ is the part that must be kept - using white skin to equate to purity.
Do you agree that in our modern diverse society a black woman can be used to represent "purity"? Because if you do, then surly we can keep the author's original intent without tying it to skin color like he did in 1883.
> Right, because of all of parts of the story that have been changed, _this_ is the part that must be kept - using white skin to equate to purity.
And maybe the blue hair too, given she's named after her blue hair.
> Do you agree that in our modern diverse society a black woman can be used to represent "purity"?
Do you agree that for white here we mean white the colour, not the pink skin tone, which is inhuman?
I am not white like Swedish people are, certainly not like the blue fairy.
It's mythology, it's not literal, you are taking it literally, only zealots do that.
Do you know that in African mythology fairies are white too?
Yumboes (they resemble European fairies) are the spirits of the dead and, like many supernatural beings in African beliefs, they are completely of a pearly-white colour
Did it ever occured to you that western mythology was made by westerners and it is silly to try to bend it to reflect USA of today, while they could use non western mythologies and finally show other cultures respect, but probably American studios can't do that, because they wanna make money and not really respect diversity?
Why take an 1883 Italian book to show a black fairy?
It seems pretty telling that you didn't actually answer what should have been a simple question.
> And maybe the blue hair too, given she's named after her blue hair.
So then... you agree? White skin representing purity is an aspect that _has_ to be kept, even when so many parts of the actual story have been changed and we've had ~140 years of society in-between?
> Do you agree that for white here we mean white the colour, not the pink skin tone, which is inhuman?
Ok, so is the portrayal in the 1940's Disney Pinocchio equally as outlandish considering she's just a white woman with blond hair? Would you be reacting the same way if they cast a white woman in the role?
And to that point, isn't the new movie intended as a remake of the Disney version, not the original, in which case the blue fairy already didn't have blue hair?
> Why take an 1883 Italian book to show a black fairy?
Because people like the Disney version of the story?
> It seems pretty telling that you didn't actually answer what should have been a simple question.
it is not.
I do think that a black woman can represent purity.
It simply doesn't fit the story as it has been written in the case of Pinocchio.
If you have to explain why things are the way they are, you're probably overthinking them.
Let's explore why the "representation era" is a smokescreen, shall we?
Imagine a no brainer: a black Tarzan.
There would be nothing strange about it, he's living in the jungle in Africa.
Except now you have to rewrite all his back story, because Tarzan is the son of a white British lord and his white British wife.
You can rewrite them too, as a black British lord and his black British wife.
Except now you also have to explain why in an all white community, the British lords, there is this odd couple.
Where do they come from?
How do they made it to becoming lords?
Are they black people living as white people or do they help the black community?
etc.
What's the problem?
The problem is that Tarzan was written by an American author of British Puritan ancestry, supporter of eugenics and scientific racism, beliefs that he used extensively in his books.
No matter how many black people they put in the story, they'll never be able to fix it.
They shouldn't adapt the story, they should write a new story or adapt a story where black people are already protagonists of the story.
That would actually mean something, but it wouldn't generate much attention I guess...
Less attention = less money (or a loss)
If Disney things that Pinocchio needs "fixing" they better leave it alone, because Pinocchio is a story from 150 years ago and it is not adherent to contemporary American standards in many ways.
Including the presence of a human eating monster fish.
See, simply putting "black person" in the cast doesn't add anything to any story,it doesn't improve representation, people don't actually feel more engaged, it's simple easy selling identity, but, tbf, it generate a lot of buzz, and buzz is all studios need right now, they won't admit they are remaking for the nth time an old story because are incapable of writing new ones, so they are distracting the audience with this silliness, hoping it will work.
Even Pixar is stagnating dramatically, take their Luca, directed by an Italian, set in Italy, I should feel oh so represented, but exactly because it plays with my culture trying to sell it to people who don't know it very well, I found it embarrassing.
The moral of this story is, I guess, that representation is overrated and there is much more to a movie than simply watching someone who looks like me for the sake of watching someone that vaguely looks like me.
> Ok, so is the portrayal in the 1940's Disney Pinocchio equally as outlandish considering she's just a white woman with blond hair? Would you be reacting the same way if they cast a white woman in the role?
Do you realize it is the same Disney both times, do you?
Two wrongs don't make a right.
> in which case the blue fairy already didn't have blue hair?
Yep.
Disney, being wrong since 1940s.
I wasn't born back then and we had no internet, but yeah, I prefer the Italian adaptation of Pinocchio with the blue fairy having blue hair.
> Because people like the Disney version of the story?
so there are times when cultural appropriation is actually OK?
As a member of the culture that story comes from, do I have a say or should I bow to the Disney overlords?
Who said anything about being Italian?
I've only quoted the author words (Collodi)
The fairy is pale white not because she is a white person, but because she's pure.
Pale white skin is not an Italian trait, so I don't understand what Italianness has to do with anything.
If anything, the fact that she is pale white makes her obviously non-italian, because she's better than all the other characters that try to deceive and corrupt Pinocchio.
EDIT: fixed wording