But racebending the other way's good, right? Right?

[kickair8p]

(I've already posted this over in foc_u, but I thought it would be of interest here as well.)

DAZ 3D is a company that provides (relatively) inexpensive 3D software and the 3D content to use in it -- people use these to create various artworks, from 3D animations to rendering simple 2D stills (that's what I do -- check out http://kickair8p.deviantart.com/gallery/ if you're interested). Most of the content isn't made by DAZ itself, they act as a brokerage for independent content creators.



One of these is Tony Puryear. He's "half-black and half-Swedish-American", and if you check out his website ( http://www.tonypuryear.com/ ) you'll see he's got a graphic novel coming out that's all about PoC. He's not somebody I'd call a racist. Nor am I calling him that now -- I just think he's inadvertently doing something racist.

I could be overreacting. Maybe I'm seeing an issue that isn't there. But . . .

Tony's most recent products are an as-yet-incomplete set called "Road of Heroes" based on Norse Mythology. He put up a couple "upcoming" promo shots, including this one:



To which I posted a response: " . . . and Odin seems snazzy. But Loki . . . maybe it's a trick of the angle and lighting, but it looks like he has a broad nose, thick lips, and darker skin. I'd hate to think that the one member of this version of the Norse pantheon with features inexplicably indicating African ancestry was also the canonical bad guy."

Tony's response:

(The whole thing's here: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=2390353#2390353 )

Am I wrong here? Is that not a black guy (with a little green added in) representing the canonical villain in an otherwise all-white cast? Whoops, almost all-white -- I initially forgot Nott ( http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/0/nott-goddess-of?item=10817 ), an obscure Goddess of the Night. Isn't it a bit hinky that the Norse goddess with the apparent African ancestry is a goddess of literal darkness? She's not black, though, nope -- she's blue.

On the one hand I want to applaud Tony's efforts to include PoC in his take on one of the original all-white pantheons -- he's probably getting flack for that alone. On the other . . . the villain and the night goddess? Am I over-reacting, or is Tony not seeing the issue?

~

Comments

[the_future_modernes]

that god is black. he ain't seeing the issue.

[green_knight]

If I'd only seen the second picture, I would never have had the association 'black' - the closeup is a different matter. Then again, I'm reasonably familiar with the DAZ figures, so I'm kind of used to the look. [*]

Stepping back a little further, I think the problem of portraying the 'good' gods as blond and nordic and the 'bad' one as _other_ - whatever shape the othernerness takes - is a problem full stop.

[*] That's another rant altogether. When I was building a runtime, I was looking to find characters that would allow me to depict humanity-as-I-know-it. You can get an endless supply of white female characters with supermodel features; different ethnicities and skin colours and particularly hairstyles or clothes can be exceedingly hard to find. There's an endless argument cycle of 'we don't produce it because it doesn't sell but if it doesn't exist, people can't buy it'.

[mjules]

And... yeah, if he's going to go changing around skintones to include non-white, non-blond, non-Nordic figures in a cast of Nordic characters... he could at least put some of them in the "good guys" section. (Although I like Loki, that doesn't mean he's a "good guy".)

And this is my own personal view on Loki but I never pictured him as being big and clunky. He's not the Hulk. *laugh* He's a trickster... sly and fast. But that's another issue altogether.

Mod note

[dark_administrator]

Since this post already has comments discussing the issue, we'll let it stay, but in the future, until we have resolved the new direction this comm will be going in, all posts not related to the challenges we are running will be moderated for posting approval.

Since we had not made this clear in our profile, this isn't a reprimand, merely a clarification.

[torachan]

"big, thick, heavy-featured" = "scary"

No, that's not drawing on racist tropes at all! /sarcasm


*headdesk*

[elements]

"I wanted to make him *exotic*, so I made him look black, and then shifted it to green" and "I'm a person of color therefore I am unquestionable on this matter" do not cut it. You're definitely not over-reacting.

[folklorefanatic]

Did you ever get screencaps?