Wow, there is so much wrong with what you’ve written I’ll just go down this list one at a time:
1. “One depiction of a black character is not a statement about all black people. This is a logical fallacy white racists make (on purpose), and you are making too. The same goes for the white character. You treat it with the same prejudice you claim to be against; because in your mind she is a depiction of ‘whiteness’ but you're wrong. She's not! She's just one character that represents only herself.”
What a ridiculously reductionist perspective on media. Sure, one of anybody in general does not speak for all of whatever identity they hail from. That is vastly different than analyzing a single piece of media; with a limited number of characters to tell a story, much of what they say/do/represent and how they interact does function as a simulacrum of real-world identities and dynamics. The interplay of different races within a single piece of content, especially when it’s a piece of content produced by a major media conglomerate, operates as both a reflection of and an aspiration for how that interplay functions in society. This is not a conscious choice that people make, most of the time. It’s the reason why Coca-Cola’s advertising has been so successful over time; their executives documented well the power of subliminal advertising, which functions precisely the way that behavior/preferences/norms in movies and television do (e.g. all the leads of the major romcoms from the 2000s and before—and still—are skinny blonde white women? Guess what’s considered the most desirable look for women in society? Skinny, blonde, white. Dating app data from Tinder et al corroborates this, as does common sense and any marginally discerning look at advertising over the past century. And no, please don’t come for some “yea well I still like brunettes!” nonsense; like you may have *intended* to say, one person’s particular preferences don’t negate the norms and trends that are indicated by an entire group, such as a society).
By the way, I suspect there may be some part of you that sincerely has tried learning about the nature of prejudice and biases in order to diminish your contribution to the ills of racism, but let me tell you that making assumptions or generalizations is not an inherently bad thing—it is a bad thing when it causes harm to others and contributes to the marginalization or the perceived inferiority of a group. It’s useful when we’re predicting weather patterns, trying to understand why one racial identity is more prone to certain diseases and how to address that, or even to understand why certain behavior that’s considered acceptable or normal in one place—like most of America—might be considered rude or inappropriate in another culture or place of worship.
You don’t get to tell the author that they’re wrong about how Tina Fey’s character depicts whiteness. Black people are fine-tuned to racial dynamics because they constantly have to be aware of whether or not someone will kill them because they’ve “disrespected” whiteness in some form or another. Just the verbal violence of these comments should validate that to you; most Medium writers don’t get called “angry Black women” casually amidst dozens of angry, mean comments just for writing critical media reviews. This is the most benign representation of racism. You do not and cannot comprehend this, but Black people in America have to be constantly aware of how their words and actions and demeanors are affecting people around them because they are always in danger of what white supremacy does to them (arrests them for no reason, gets them beaten or killed, or even just the emotional trauma of the cruel and unwarranted and unsolicited things people say and do to them. Take for example the Black teenager at a hotel who was just attacked by a white woman who falsely accused him of stealing her phone).
And by the way, nothing ever actually just “represents itself.” I’m sure the clothing you wear, the words you use, the way you behave is as much yours as it is a reflection of a culture you align yourself with. Just as your choice to deny racism is a reflection of your loyalty to white supremacy, and not a reflection of your complete individuality.
2. “This is just a story meant as a story. It does not have to make a statement and it does not!”
Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a story that’s “just a story.” The closest a story has ever come to being “neutral” was in the Postmodern movement, wherein garbage like “Waiting for Godot” was produced, claiming that there was no point. But even then, the creators had to go out of their way to deliberately create something which had no point as the point. Stories are literally how human culture and behavior has been transmitted and passed down since the dawn of human existence. Every story contains messages, overt and subtle about morality, behavior, relationships, etc. It doesn’t “have” to make a statement, but it does. And part of that statement is intentionally about race because they wanted to convey inclusivity and create content that they thought would feed and reflect the heart and soul of the Black community—part of which is jazz, a musical form that was created subversively by Black people as a form of protest and love in a society that was still violently oppressing and rejecting them.
3. “The fact there's a black character does not make the film about race, or black! Frozen was not about coming out, and Soul is not about race or white savior bullshit either. Crazy conspiracy theorists concoct patterns, where they don't exists and take them seriously. You should know better! Whatever statements you think the movie makes are arbitrary conjectures of your own.”
Actually it does. It’s a deliberate choice the creators made to make the main character Black, and it was informed in no small part due to the lack of inclusivity in the Disney/Pixar portfolio, which in the age of racial tensions and social justice gaining prominence, they’re looking to capitalize on and rectify. Choosing a Black lead character is not an arbitrary choice. Especially when his history and background as a Black man in jazz is what makes him who he is. Race informs your life and your personal history whether you want to admit it or not. And this isn’t a complete surrealist fantasy where the Black lead character is a prince of another planet; the aspects of verisimilitude that they maintained within the story very much highlight and center his Blackness-but only up to the point that they can tokenize it.
That you would compare it to Frozen is a testament to your desperately seeking anything that resembles what someone like you might refer to as “identity politics” in any film or media—that is, anything that doesn’t fundamentally center the experiences of whiteness, cis-heterosexuality and usually able-bodied, thinness too. These are the default to the point that anything outside of these you are clearly hyper-aware of because they’re not usually depicted at all. And it’s so striking to you that you could compare the existence of a completely peripheral gay “plotline” (it hardly even warrants being called such as it is so insignificant in air-time or meaningful dialogue/interactions/reflections) to the choice to make an entire movie about a Black man. It’s so irrational it’s almost hard to respond to a comparison like this. It’s like comparing apples and confetti... they’re both… things?
As for you calling a Black person a conspiracy theorist for talking about racism, shame on you. Disgusting. It’s possible that despite your empty rants that you are not the highest authority on racism, you know. As a matter of fact, your credibility in discussing it is approximately zero given that you are not and have never been a victim of it. And before we get any further let me just explain here that “racism” explicitly refers to a systemic imbalance between two races; you could be the victim of prejudice or bigotry which is absolutely toxic and inexcusable, but that is not the same as experiencing systemic disadvantages and marginalization due to your race.
4. “It starts looking worryingly like an obsession when you take the pain of time stamping the shit out of it! And no, I'm not gas-lighting you, or blinded by privilege or whatever prejudicial label you want to throw at me. You're simply reading too much into it and it resembles harmful fixations I have only seen in people brainwashed by cults.”
You are Satan. Yes, you are gaslighting the shit out of this Black person. For the love of God they’re a fucking MEDIA CRITIC! As in, a professor-level human who studies media! But maybe people like you want to harken back to the days of simplicity when you were churning butter by hand and no one had time to think about racism because everyone was dying of malaria at the age of 17. You are so backwards and deluded it’s incredible. Whether or not you like it or find it credible or interesting, there’s a reason why most newspapers have critics reviews. And there’s a reason why liberal arts colleges exist, and why almost every single one of those has a media studies department. We study media with what to some philistines might look like an obsessive eye because it tells us so much about who we are and what we value. Only a true clown will think that media is completely neutral and doesn’t reflect or inform society and human values and behavior on some level.
5. “You want to hate on the film, because you wanted one kind of film and the producers cared more about producing the film THEY wanted than the one you wanted, with the money and time THEY risked. Fine! But criticism needs objectivity and in some places the review fails at that abysmally. Could it be that the movie isn't hurting you but your obsession is?”
Could it be that your deluded self-importance and obliviousness to your own racism is hurting you? It’s more obsessive and indicative of some creepy fetish you have that you wrote out this garbage than any of the subjective nonsense that you wrote. And to think, you’re criticizing the author for not being objective! Incredible. And what, pray tell, is objective about any of the bullshit that you have peddled here? Please, go line by line and tell me which parts are objective. Hopefully it won’t be the part about you saying “this isn’t racism!” because that would be a pathetic indication of why you could’ve benefitted from a liberal arts education wherein you might have truly understood the difference of objectivity and subjectivity.
6. "WHATEVER DIRECTORS DO, SOME WILL TWIST IT TO CLAIM IT IS A LOVE LETTER TO WHITENESS. So, what on earth do you race theorists want exactly? Do you even know or do you just find pleasure complaining?"
Awww you’re so close to getting it here! Take out your opinion about twisting it to claim it and you’re there! I’ll keep it simple, my friend: we live in a racist society, so media will always reflect that. Remember what I said about how media and society mutually inform and reflect each other? Well, in a white supremacist society, EVERYONE has internalized racism (including Black people!). This means that even the most well-intended content will still have some racism in it, just as even the “wokest” of all of us will never completely disentangle ourselves from having racial bias. And that’s okay—the point of criticism, just like the point of life, is to always be improving, even if it’s hard or feels impossible. It’s kind of like how your conditioning and life experiences have functioned to make you the person you are today, the kind of prototypical white dude who angrily and sanctimoniously comments on and derides the opinions of Black people about the racism THEY experience, and it’s unlikely that you could just wake up tomorrow and cold turkey your defensiveness and be a compassionate and reasonable person who’s willing to really ask what privilege and progress and equity look like. I know it’s possible for you, and I speculate that some part of you asking these questions does come from a place that might eventually facilitate more decent behavior, but it takes time and patience and you’ll never be completely free of that part of you that actually self-victimizes and blames marginalized groups for publicly standing up against their marginalization even though by most systemic standards you possess a great deal of power and privilege.
7. “Collectively you people are always shifting the goalpost, and seem confused as fuck.”
“You people” sounds racist af, not that you care. And telling Black people they seem confused as fuck is also racist and stupid. As for the goalpost, I listed it above. Only pathetic stagnant losers are ever completely content with where human evolution and behavior is. That’s the great fallacy and embarrassment of conservativism (not that liberalism possesses higher moral values) – the idea that we’re better off from churning butter racist malaria days is an absolute joke. Look at the trajectory of the universe. The only guarantee in life is change. You can fight it or you can embrace it, but the latter is sure to give your life and your relationships a hell of a lot more meaning. And it’s not to suggest that anything ever “isn’t enough” either—it’s literally a matter of embracing that we have the capacity to change and to be more inclusive, equitable and compassionate (recognizing fully that I haven’t extended you much compassion here, because you’ve pissed me off and I’m a human being).
We can appreciate the media content around us AND hold it accountable to keep getting better. These things are not mutually exclusive. It can be both at the same damn time. And it doesn’t mean anyone is a “bad” person for enjoying problematic content. It means that we all always have to strike the right balance for ourselves of being open to critiquing what could be better and also simply enjoying the fun of entertaining stories. But you certainly don’t need to rail on the people whose calling it is to do more of the former. Those are the people making society a better place.
And for the record, Hollywood is predominantly driven by white men. They are the ones who run the few media conglomerates that exist, and hold the most directorial roles and make the most funding and casting and story decisions. That has real consequences for the media we consume, which is incidentally why it’s such a “big deal” when finally a Pixar movie features Black people after decades – in spite of the fact that a huge population of America (and its viewers) is Black. You don’t get to change the facts about who runs Hollywood or who gets most of the leading roles, etc. Did you know that Halle Berry is still the only Black woman to win a best leading actress Oscar? For a role where she’s a slave who falls in love with her captor? That’s the perfect epitome of how Blackness is represented in Hollywood; it can only be celebrated if, in some form or another, whiteness is vindicated and recentered because any insinuation that a story can or should feature Blackness is received as an affront or an insult or “reverse racism” or some bullshit like that.
And by the way, the lead creator and director of “Soul” is a white man. Surprise.
