Witcher Fandom Racism: example

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/399SpK9

I have an admission to make. I’d been watching all these posts go around about racism in fandom, and specifically racism in the Witcher fandom, and I’d been like, well. That seems serious. I’m sure this is a thing. It’s a systemic issue, those are hard to spot.

Well, my curation must be very good, I thought. I acknowledge I see more of some content than of others, sure, some pairings are underrepresented for sure, but most everything I’ve consumed has been reasonable, and I haven’t seen anything really terrible at all!

And I went on my way, not quite smug, and with much solemn nodding, and understanding that this was something I’d better be vigilant about, and I’d better think twice about some things and maybe read things more critically and be careful about my own choices of what to depict, etc., etc., etc., and then–

well, then someone I follow reblogged something cute, from an artist I’d seen before whose work I had in fact reblogged before https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/637241075809009664/icpe-witcher-3-doodles-165-like-for-real, and I was like oh I should check that out, they have a store, I should get a notecard, that’s cute, I like their stuff, how funny, and then the friend who’d reblogged the thing was like WAIT NO DON’T and I was like what?

They’re super racist, my friend said.

Really? I looked again, scrolled through the lil storefront of notecards and t-shirts and whatnot. Everything seemed… fine? Cute? Cartoonish? Sorta goofy? Harmless, for sure.

And then they sent me to this cartoon https://icpe.tumblr.com/post/187371975499/witcher-3-doodles-317-im-getting-ready-for. A comparison of the game Triss and the Netflix Triss. Well, I thought. It’s not flattering of either of them, that’s just the artist’s style. And then I opened the little preview picture and clicked through to full size. Hm, I thought, but like, well, I mean. It’s not. Super damni– wait. Those aren’t eyelashes. Wait. They drew Netflix Triss with these really weird heavy eyebrows that Anna Shaefer absolutely doesn’t have. That’s an odd choice to make. … and in that context, choosing to give her big gold hoop earrings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQE-6XV3v3M&feature=youtu.be is… interesting, given that’s also something the character… doesn’t wear, in any scene I can find. Hm! That’s. That’s not damning in itself, like there could plausibly be some other explanation… but it’s a data point.

And then my friend followed up with several more links.

Leaning in to Triss’s nonexistent unibrow/brow ridge. https://icpe.tumblr.com/post/618198249211412480#notes Like, it’s drawn next to a screencap, it’s not subtle that this is something they’re just fabricating. This one too, you could be like, ah there’s some context I’m missing maybe. And like– it’s an unflattering portrayal of Geralt too, with the butt chin. But the thing is… heavy eyebrows or a prominent brow ridge like that are a feature of racialized caricatures both of Black women and of Rromani women, while a butt chin… sometimes in anime a butt chin signifies a white character, but a) racism against white people isn’t really a thing? and b) crucially, Henry Cavill actually has a buttchin. Again, Anna Shaefer does not have notably heavy brows, and they certainly don’t connect in the middle.

Another direct comparison https://icpe.tumblr.com/post/614853572620894208/art-request-triss-from-the-netflix-series-being of the Netflix and video game Trisses, featuring an astonishingly (unwarrantedly? Game!Triss stabs men in the face and firebombs things?) childlike white lady vs a glowering, severe, unibrowed… gray woman. Oh this is… less and less deniable.

And now here’s one where Triss has a unibrow and Yennefer is there https://icpe.tumblr.com/post/613857075381059584/witcher-netflix-comics-17 too. Interesting to pick on Yennefer’s lips, to exaggerate, of all things. Anya Chalotra does have a wide, generous mouth, but her lips are not particularly thick or pouty; she wears red lipstick in one scene in the show, and her lips are overlined to appear thicker, for the effect of that scene, but generally she’s not… pouty. So it’s weird that…

yep every time https://icpe.tumblr.com/post/616295428689903616/witcher-netflix-comics-21 this artist draws Yennefer she’s got these huge red lips https://icpe.tumblr.com/post/617476358107512832/witcher-netflix-comics-23. Oh this one also has Triss with a unibrow AND big lips https://icpe.tumblr.com/post/190179329679/witcher-team-playing-tabletop-rpg-in-a-basement .

And this one even expressly seems to indicate that for Anya Chalotra’s hunchbacked portrayal of Yennefer to become beautiful https://icpe.tumblr.com/post/190459301024/witcher-netflix-comics-4 she would have to… shift into the game model of Triss??!!! Listen if I saw this on its own I would maybe assume they were joking because W3 Triss is kinda goofy-looking, but with the weight of all the other comics– what the fuck? Maybe I don’t get it? Maybe I’m missing something? But with the weight of all the other things I just linked to–

Again, any of these things by themselves….. here’s how this works: I am a white lady. None of these racialized things on their own is enough to flag my radar. I would never have noticed any one of them in particular, because I’m not particularly sensitive to how women of color are portrayed in media, I’m socially awkward, I miss references all the time, I don’t always get what’s going on, etc. etc.

But I happen to own a pair of gold hoop earrings that I bought expressly to wear to a job of mine about 10 or 15 years ago because they were enforcing the dress code about earring size only to write up the Black girls wearing “too-large” hoops; I wore mine without incident several times, because nobody was looking at my ears. That’s racism, guys. That’s… that’s what that is, there’s not really a question about it; they didn’t want the Black girls looking “ghetto” but since I’m white, the earrings don’t matter. That’s racism!

But I wouldn’t have seen it, if I hadn’t had the way pointed by the people experiencing the other end of it.

That’s how dogwhistles work. Any single one of these drawings you could kind of shrug at, but when you see all of them together…. you can hear the whistle, then, and you can see what they’re getting at. And it’s not pretty.

Which is basically the point of all those other posts admonishing us to be careful of racism in fandom. It’s mostly not obvious stuff, it’s not something that you’re going to see and immediately recognize. In this case, it’s only obvious when you look at the pattern.

But when you look at the pattern it is super super obvious. (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[harpers_child]

Oh. Oh wow. That's just. When you put them all together like that. Blocked them.

[dragonlady7]

Yes!
It was actually in a Discord server, and my friend was like oh! oh this is not good, and several others were like ah yes. this is this racist trope, and that's that thing, and i was like-- I hadn't been participating in the thread, and i'd looked at the preview image and muttered to myself i don't see it but then as they kept talking I was like wait what and scrolled back up and opened it and was like
OH
oh FUCK
yeah when you see them all it's like. ! ! !
i mean. people were commenting on that first one right from the beginning that it was super racist if you scroll back through the notes, but I'm sure a ton of people were like me and were like ?? i don't see it? because yeah, no, if you're not primed for it, that shit's gonna slide right by.
And we all like to believe the best of one another, and it's easy to be like oh those poor dears, I can't blame them seeing enemies on all sides when they're treated like this, poor things, I'll just stay out of this one until the dust settles
(and still think of yourself as anti-racist, you're just-- you know, you don't want to just kick up a fuss when there's nothing in particular to be gained and you're not even really sure what the fuss is about??)
but like
there was a person of Romani extraction in the server who was like, horribly upset, detailing all of the things she noticed in the art, and at the end was like
well but I can't complain, because I complained so much nobody listens to me anymore.
so i was like.
okay.
white lady powers, activate.

It's really glaring when you zoom out, and it was my turn to zoom out and really look.

[light_of_summer]

Thank you very much for posting this, B!

And I say that as another white woman, and one whose legal ID actually includes the name Karen.