Read on Twitter
a thread on why s&b's brownface was racist and completely uncalled for, and why you should care:
brown/blackface have a very painful history. they've historically been used by white people in negative representations to enforce their ideas of white supremacy. the western film industry in particular has portrayed very harmful, exaggerated, and dehumanizing stereotypes of POC.
people have said that its hard to find stunt doubles that are WOC, but there are plenty of large film industries (such as bollywood, which produces thousands of action films a year) that would have plenty of stunt doubles netflix, a multibillion-dollar company, could've hired.
besides, they've found several POC for the show itself—it was a WORLDWIDE casting call. there are SO MANY actors of color that are just waiting to be hired but get so few opportunities because of the racism that is so prevalent in the world.
there were also so many other options other than brownface. the lighting was dark, the few scenes with the stunt double weren't pertinent to the plot (amita suman did most of the action scenes herself), and they could've even utilized the fact that she wears a hood all the time!
then we also have colorism. as south asians, we've seen so many skin whitening products and endured so many taunts and comments about darker skin. seeing amita suman on such a big screen was awesome for south asian rep—so don't tell us we shouldn't be mad when they did this.
so, @netflix. diversity is NOT a marketing strategy. you need to have diversity beyond just the cast—if everyone behind the scenes is white, then it defeats the purpose. you need to make a better effort to increase diversity in all aspects, and NOT for your own selfish purposes.
if you boast about your diversity, at least make sure it's accurate and well done, NOT performative. in general, people need to be more sensitive, because they haven't been for so long, and therefore have hurt so many people. this is not okay, we are SO tired of this. DO BETTER.
clarifying: i am not saying/trying to portray that this overtakes any other larger issues! there are definitely more immediate ones, i just thought i should speak on this since it impacted my community. i’ll rt links to larger issues to spread awareness and help however i can!
ok so since this gaining traction, i'll be linking threads to resources so you can help and raise awareness for issues around the world! https://twitter.com/sootquack/status/1389993993392508935?s=20
