A look at some tropes of race representation, primarily examining She-Ra, The Umbrella Academy, and Soul.

In the current environment, virtually no depiction of a marginalised group can be free of problematic elements, not always because those elements are inherently bad, but because the oppressive power structures and lack of pre-existing diversity doesn’t exist to allow for any depiction to exist outside of that context. In order to create an environment for more flexibility, we need MORE media, MORE stories, MORE characters, and most importantly, more people who belong to that group writing and directing them.

Notes:

I wanna stress something I didn’t focus on in the video which is that this subject is extremely nuanced and mine is just one opinion of many. This shouldn’t be taken as like, the final word or anything or whatever it’s just me expressing my views.

I’m also aware my positive emotional response to Soul is in part due to the fact that simple diversity in Big Animation mostly doesn’t exist. So when it does appear it seems like a huge groundbreaking thing, which I guess in this environment, it is - even though it shouldn’t be. Everyday representation is what we should have had all along.

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thanks to Anansi for consulting on the script and to Hazel for helping me not fall apart while recording ~

Anansi’s Channel:    / @anansislibrary  

Hazel’s Channel:    / envelopegenerator  

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