Performative Diversity and Colorism in Film | Dear White People Review, My Wife & Kids,HTGAWM & More

guys welcome back to my channel my name is queen daniela and you're watching town natalia if this is your first time watching welcome this video is going to be about colorism and performance of diversity as it pertains to the entertainment industry let's start from the beginning with the rise of diversity monitoring and inclusive recruitment over the past few years you've most likely noticed that there has been a shift in the demographic of many workspaces put frankly i think a lot of businesses have had a big scare after the black lives matter movement and noticed that their lack of inclusivity was not only noticed based on a lot of biases that they had within their hiring and casting divisions therefore there have been considerable improvements made to remove the recruitment biases that affect people of color sounds simple and fair and relatively easy however it seems that people have found a loophole to keep shows and films tailored toward a whiter sorry wider audience even while having more diversity okay so this is the part of the discussion that raises a few questions the first being how is it that we have more diversity but still lack the conclusivity and representation that was needed to begin with well the first and most obvious answer is how people of color are being casted and the roles and tropes that they are made to represent i want you to think about some of the films and series and tv programs that you've seen most recently have you noticed that black female leads they usually look something like this colorism by definition colorism is dislike an unfair treatment of members of a particular racial group who have a darker skin color than others i'm not color struck high school no all those girls just have mixed parents and their hair is long and curly and they have oh my god am i my color strength the issue of colorism is not a new sergeant concept in the premise that fair skinned people of color are given privileges is a long lasting problem one that dates as far as centuries ago with the effects of colonialism across the world eurocentric features and attributes have been idolized leaving many countries with an association of eurocentricity including facial features hair texture and skin shade with wealth high class and beauty this has had a long lasting effect in many communities in haiti they want lighter kids because their life is gonna be easier but how much of that is just european beauty standards how much of that is internalized hate i was talking to one member of my family and they were like oh yeah back when i was a kid i dated a haitian girl and she was really black but she was beautiful and i said why did you have to use the word butt like why but she can't she just be beautiful the fetishization and idolization of fair-skinned women within society has gone so far that within the music industry artists would rather pose as someone that's fair skinned whether that be by bleaching their skin complexion or simply referring to themselves as a light-skinned woman or yellow bone even when they are not in order to gain popularity and success yellow bonus buddy [Music] danny bopps belongs to the track mouthing along to the lyrics yellow bone is what he wants light skin on the yellow bone in my opinion that's just what i am so it's like it wasn't something that i looked at so deeply i'm not a colorist i'm not a racist but the western entertainment industry is not the only culprit of displaying an obsession with fair skin within media south asia's billion dollar film industry bollywood displays some of the most blatant acts of colorism within film as it pertains to the casting of their actors hassan minhaj also tore into bollywood's hypocrisy for condemning racism while backing skin lightening creams hollywood stars do skin whitening commercials so we don't look black thank you britain scale god i want to be assassinated right now wow whitening face scrub whitening face wash moving on to makeup and look at these foundation sticks that's chalk mayo ivory and vanilla so unfortunate how sad that they come up with literally a product which states natural fairness make sure you're gonna wonder like how you've never seen this in shops and aisles and that's probably because popular in a lot of stores in middle east and regions as well as like south asian regions but this is so sad like i'm so upset that i couldn't believe my eyes when i suddenly be on it the film industry is not exempt from this form of discrimination and it clearly favors fairer-skinned actresses particularly as it pertains to casting love interests or desired women over their dark-skinned counterparts you know hollywood's i guess you could say acceptable version of a black girl and that has to change [Applause] [Music] we're vastly too beautiful and too interesting for me to just be the only revisitation pack now you may be wondering but how about all of the dark clean actresses that we do see how about viola davis lupita nyong'o mindy kaling gabrielle union well that sparks the next part of this discussion how dark-skinned women are presented on the screen the first issue of representation i'll be discussing is the erasure of dark-skinned actresses by their fair-skinned often biracial counterparts in 2001 abc blessed our screens of a sitcom named my wife and kids about the hilarious dynamic of the cow family an african-american family who lived a relatively normal life the family in the first season consisted the father michael kyle played by the wayne's brother damon waynes the mother j kyle portrayed by tisha campbell as a fiery take-no-nonsense mother who's the perfect balance for michael cowell's nonsensical approach to parenting michael jr the air-headed eldest son played by georgia girl i am so confused lost in the friction of life no i have never read a addiction every in my life claire the eldest daughter whose personality was an exact stupid look at her mother's was played by jazz raycol like her mother on the show she was intelligent self-assured strong-willed and extremely talented and the youngest daughter kd was adorably portrayed by parker mechanic posey i and many others like myself that watch the show remember the feeling of being represented because of the casting of claire so you can imagine my surprise when that was short-lived and claire's role was somehow replaced in season two jennifer freeman who looked and acted like a completely different character not only had claire's character's whole image changed she lost her strong-willed personality and somehow became a simple-minded teen who couldn't count to 10 without batting her eyelashes to distract from her lack of numerical skills it's safe to say the representation that the show previously had was lost and claire's ditzy persona accompanied by a new complexion and hair texture felt like more of a rebranding than an accidental lack of continuity now while the true reason original actress jazz reiko left the show is ambiguous what we know for sure is that it wouldn't have been hard to find a replacement actress that allowed some form of continuity to claire's character however the complete rebranding of the character painted a clear message of the rage of darkskin women on the screen by their fairer counterparts an image that is repeated too many times regardless of whether or not that was the producer's intention in 2016 fans of the legendary nina simone were keen to see a biographical film based on the songstresses life and music career nina simone's undeniable talent clothed in her eccentricity and dark skin made her a joy to behold as she stood in places where people that looked like her could only dream and would leave crowds of prejudice hecklers silenced in all of her talent so you can imagine the decision of casting who would play nina simone should be carefully and critically decided a few candidates that would naturally come to mind would possibly be michaela cole who both resembles the singer and has the acting skills to deliver such a role or even a fellow performer like the likes of jennifer hudson or possibly even normani but this is hollywood so of course director cynthia moore thought it would be an acceptable decision to make zoe donna the lead role and use dark toned makeup and facial prosthetics to resemble a dark-skinned woman as opposed to simply casting one while this could be written off as a harmless issue of poor casting it again plays into the reoccurring issue of fair-skinned women being casted to play lead roles even when they do not represent the intended image of the character in 2017 justin simeon's netflix series dear white people kicked up a storm for its controversial approach to discussing racial issues in america for the most part people felt the show's abrasive radicalism showed discrimination against all white people and played into the issues it was satirizing on that note i developed a particular state for the show for actually for how it challenged the issues of white privilege but conveniently failed to discuss the protagonist privilege in this discussion for having a close proximity to whiteness my issue with the show is that while addressing the issue of colorism it unironically plays back into it without within the storyline the dark skinned women on the show are either in the sidelines of their fair skinned best friend picking up after the leftovers of their popularity bitter and cruel with an inferiority complex or damnit psychotic while both fair-skinned cast members were given the privilege of being multi-dimensional characters with the balance with a balanced backstory where the 2014 film dear white people which inspired this series had a fair amount of gimmick and character caricature for these stereotypes to be satirical and telling the series failed to do so and in my personal opinion just came across as hypocritical as opposed to satirical dear white people you made me hate myself as a kid so now i hate you and that's my secret shame dear white people if you wanted to demoralize us with your european beauty standards mission accomplished now let's discuss viola davis valley davis's role in how to get away with murder made her a household name after her portrayal of annelise keating in what was arguably one of the most gripping performances on television how to get away with murder [Music] here we go annelise played a strong independent woman who not only took on the role of a mother for her law students more closely played the role of her father her approach to parenting was one that was fought that forced her non-biological children to engage in risk taking a personal lacks empathy and quite frankly she provided safety and protection for her law students without the emotional security a mother would typically give thus her role was devised around her masculinity and what often seemed to be her lack of humanity the issue with the strong independent trope felida davis is that instead of challenging the world that disproportionately spars the dark skinned women and villainizes her it tells her to wear more padding and to just deal with its blows thus she's villainized for having to live a life without having the chance to heal and is expected to have the same amount of patience and warmth as her counterparts this video viola davis discusses the effects of colorism on her mental health during her career with pop culture it's like they have they have clubs and parties light-skinned versus dark-skinned girls still feel like that's what we're fighting healing from the past i think that it affects everything that we do it affects our relationships it affects our art this wouldn't be a video on my channel if i left it on a negative note so here is an appreciation of some directors and producers and writers that were able to cast dark skinned leads unproblematic with unproblematic characters and storylines hi i'm spike lee i'm not directing i do this anyway i had this new comedy coming out it's a very funny show she's gotta have it check this out my first impressions of nola darling insatiable there's a girl that i once knew who often had a friend or two she gave them time of waiting this corset is really uncomfortable so could we all just wrap it up and go home my king stop it stop it hey what was that don't worry about it don't scare me like that colonizer it was my duty to fight for what i love i should [Music] is

Channel: Town of Tawiah

Views: 83,575

Keywords: colourism, blackpeople, blackfilm, blm, blacklivesmatter, townoftawiah, howtogetawaywithmurder, violadavis, sneako, anncytwinkle, bollywoodcolorism, she'sgottahaveit, HTGAWM, HowToGetAwayWithMurder, videoessays, videssay

Id: mMNtNyX8o7Y

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021