Blackwashing Is Racist Too

Whitewashing is just simply weird, ridiculous, racist and unnecessary. So … let's turn the tables and make justice by "blackwashing"? Well, I'm afraid that it's a horrible and extremely racist idea: Because blackwashing means denying racism.

Who else wants to see big-budget movies and TV shows about exciting events like the Haitian Revolution?

Racism is a horrible thing. I believe this is something we can all agree on. Yet racism is also part of our history. And part of the history of art as well. One might think that in 2018 it should be in the past. Yet, apparently, it isn't.

The Ridiculousness of Whitewashing

Sadly, such things as "whitewashing" still exist. This term is used in various contexts, but in general it means: replacing coloured people with white people. When a white person is cast for the role of a coloured person in a movie it's whitewashing. When a character's race is changed from coloured to white it's whitewashing. When the creators don't seem to have the guts to make a character fully coloured and give him or her one white parent (so that the character is not too coloured) it's whitewashing as well.

The Portrayal of Men in Media

What our culture defines as masculine hurts: If a man fails at being that perfect, invincible hero, he's a loser. Shouldn't we creative people help finding new heroes and role models?

A "real" man is the shining hero, the dragon slayer who never wavers,
always able to overcome even the hardest difficulties. This needs to change.

It is very common nowadays to see women as the misrepresented gender. And I can't argue with that. Being a woman myself, I do perceive issues with the portrayal of women in media.

However, having an egalitarian mindset, I can't look past the simple fact that patriarchy suppresses both genders. In different ways, yes, but both genders suffer. And while much has changed for women in the past decades little was done for men.

No, Men Do Not Have the Same Rights

Sure, the portrayal of women in media is still far from ideal. But we do talk about the issue. Much. We have a discussion. And sometimes we even have shitstorms.

But as for men ... With the old ideals being questioned nobody seems to even know what it means to be a man anymore. As a woman, you can choose how to live your life when it comes to career and family. On paper, men can choose, too. While in truth ...

Good and Evil in Stories

Interesting, complex characters aren't "grey", since grey is still only a mixture of black and white. Good characters have colour. And for that storytellers need to shift more towards an alternative worldview ...

The very idea that there is only one true god expresses that
there is only one right way to think and to live and everything else is bad and linked to evil forces.

One advice storytellers often hear is not to make their characters black or white but grey. Everybody seems to be fed up with shiny, good, pretty heroes fighting evil queens, overlords and their ugly henchmen. So the advice is to put both good and evil into one's own characters, to blend black and white into various shades of grey. This, people say, turns two-dimensional characters into complex three-dimensional characters.

However, what people often forget is that grey is, still, a mixture of black and white. It technically isn't even a colour. "Grey" is still a symptom of a two-dimensional, even deeply religious worldview.

Good, Evil and Religion

I'm not quite sure when this binary perception of the world first was created, but there's no denying that monotheistic religions eagerly make use of it. The very idea that there is only one true god expresses that there is only one right way to think and to live and everything else is bad and linked to evil forces.

Chemistry of Romance - 4 Rules for a Good Love Story

Which rule is most important to you?

Love is one of the most common subjects in all genres of narrative art. And as it is with common subjects, there are good love stories and bad ones. Furthermore, I believe that the romance genre is especially vulnerable to overdoing: If there's too much violence in an adventure story you can just roll your eyes and go on; yet if a love story is too cheesy it's really hard not to throw up.

So what can we do to spare our audience the need for vomit bags? Here are some thoughts on this question.

Clichés: Good or Bad? 

My personal love story trauma is the movie Waterloo Bridge from 1940. And I can take much, actually. I generally enjoy romance anime, I love the movie Désirée (1954) as well as the original novel by Annamarie Selinko and I love shipping fictional characters. I generally like love stories. However, watching Waterloo Bridge was a torture. I hated the story, I hated the characters, and most of all I hated their relationship. I know the movie was made at a time when people had other ideals concerning love, but I still couldn't help but think that Roy is an a****** and Myra a stupid cow without a noteworthy personality. From the very beginning of the movie I wanted them to die, and when Myra threw herself under a bus I was genuinely happy her miserable and annoying existence finally ended.

Self-Insert Out of Control, or The Creepiest Writing Experience Ever

Valley does what she wants. That's what she's like in the story, and that's how she behaves towards me.

Fanfiction wouldn't let me go. While I write novel-length fanfictions my original works somehow always turn out to be short stories. I've even managed to turn ideas for original novels into short stories. Don't ask me how I did that. One of my readers said about one of them that it seemed like a trailer. ... Well, I don't know. Maybe one day I'll actually make a novel out of my Log Out short story. Maybe. ;)

For now I'm cursed with fanfiction. In 2013 I actually planned to start writing an original novel, yet ... I came across Assassin's Creed III and its Protagonist Connor Kenway and I didn't have another choice than to write a fanfiction in order to release that squealing fangirl inside of me, so she'd let me alone. I still made the best out of the situation by writing that fanfic in English and thus improving my language skill.

And I also made an interesting experience with a self-insert character who started to make autonomous decisions.

Idealism vs. Realism in Art - Why Characters in Art Usually Are Too Pretty to Be Real

Throughout all of human history we see more idealizing artworks than those showing reality.

There's a question I frequently end up asking myself: Why do people usually create young and healthy characters? Why are at least the main characters almost always good-looking? Why are scars or any other injuries more decorative rather than ... serious?

This isn't a question which is only about modern days. Throughout all of human history we see more idealizing artworks than those showing reality. There's Napoleon's nose on Bonaparte at the Pont d’Arcole that is too straight to be Napoleon's actual nose (just compare it to other portraits). There are all those Greek and Roman statues showing perfect bodies. And today we have photoshopped models and anime girls with thigh gaps that are only possible if you have an extremely dangerous combination of anorexia and a deformed pelvis.

OMFG Y R U SO HAWT??!!!!!!!!11111 - How to Create a Fangirl Magnet

Fangirl magnet characters are good: The creator gets more money,
the fangirls get someone to squeal over and everybody's happy.

Many art genres feature characters. And it often happens that one particular male character becomes extremely popular with the female part of the audience. Some characters are made to be such fangirl magnets and actually succeed (e.g. Sasuke Uchiha from Naruto), some characters are meant to be disliked by the audience, and yet many female readers still fall in love with them (e.g. Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter), and finally, some characters are meant to be total fangirl magnets and totally fail (e.g. Derek from RE: Alistair ++).