Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Halle Bailey Turns White in Little Mermaid Remake Video Altered by AI (giantfreakinrobot.com)
12 points by stale2002 on Sept 13, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments


AI, famous for running around social media trying to annoy humans on its own initiative ◔_◔

The reality is some guy did this and boasted about how he could deepfake the whole film in 24 hours with sufficient GPU power. Then some other guy crowed about how the first one had 'fixed the woke actress' that actually performed the role. Then they both got suspended because everyone who saw it concluded they were jerks.


Some argue that such race-swapped casting would be called cultural colonization if e.g. whites were cast into roles from Chinese, Indian, African, or Native American folk tales. In fact even media where whites wore make-up to try and pass as a different race (blackface, redface,..) is now rightly criticized.

But such arguments are misguided because, unlike those places, Europe has always been diverse - so-called "native" Europeans don't have any special claim on their folk tales or culture, so it makes perfect sense to update them to reflect the growing diversity of our society.


>Europe has always been diverse

Under what definition?

Africa has historically been much more diverse than Europe, The Greeks took over Egypt in 300BC, Romans successfully invaded Egypt and Carthage nearly 2 millennia ago, Arabs colonised the whole of north africa back in the 7th century and were heading down south at a fair rate, Europeans have been more involved in African affairs for far longer and far more often than vice versa, if it is acceptable to black-wash white characters under your rather Orwellian argument of "Europe has always been diverse" which has barely any evidence behind it especially compared to Africa or India, then it should be acceptable to white-wash or arab-wash black characters considering the massive historical European and Arab presence on the african continent dating back more than 2000 years.

>"native" Europeans don't have any special claim on their folk tales or culture

compared to Africa, India and The Middle East, Europe is one of the lesser diverse continents. under you're own argument Europeans would have a greater claim to their own folklore than Africans, Indians or Arabs to theirs. The only places with a greater claim would be East Asia, Oceania and the Americas.

Ultimately your post is just an excuse for hypocrisy.


They're also misguided because mermaids aren't actually real, so a white mermaid is no more accurate in any sense than a black one.


I didn't mention accuracy because it's not about accuracy. E.g. casting whites as Mezoamerican or Indian deities wouldn't go over well, despite those deities not being real.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: