Reflection and Analysis

A Wrinkle in Time - Too much SJW? (2/13/2018)

Except, the reasons aren't the same. The fact the book featured a female lead wasn't the only reason the book wasn't published, but the writer never set out to do something new. Add to this, this isn't something new. What about Binti or Orelans? Why not give the work of an African American artist a boost, or even create another new story with a heroine of color?

Here's where I bring up the fact I found myself excited when the first trailer for the movie popped up. I saw a character of color, but she was a character in the sci-fi genre. I thought at first I was going to get a new story, but then saw the line about being "based on the classic novel" and I thought to myself – wait, there is a book I don't know about? Only, I found out the book in question was A Wrinkle in Time. I felt disappointed.

Orrin Konheim argues "I also think that it's important not to let out politically polarized climate prevent directors from telling the stories they want to make, and DuVernay, like any other filmmaker, should have full support to make art how she sees fit."

Yet, I take major issue with this statement, being first the fact, A Wrinkle in Time isn't DuVernay's story. It's a story created by another person entirely, and her task is to adapt said story, not to tell her own story. This attitude adds to my disappointment, because if she wants to make her own story, she should be going and doing her own story.

This kind of attitude is why certain copyright holders don't want their fictional work adapted to the big screen. This kind of attitude removes the control of the copyrighted material from the copyright holder and gives it to someone else, yet copyright law is supposed to protect the copyright holder from things like this. People adapting another person's canon material need to remember they don't own the copyrighted material, period.

Does this mean there shouldn't be any leeway?

Well, in regard to Altered Carbon a scene was removed because the producer didn't feel said scene would translate to television without coming across as torture porn. Voltron: Legendary Defender changes things, but takes place in an obvious alternate universe from the originals, but the changes focused on stereotypes within the source material that don't work. (Not all princesses are blonde haired, blue eyed and fair skinned, but not all geeks are guys.) One Day at a Time (2017) has a lesbian character the previous series did not, but it goes with an all new cast of characters.

This?

I read a quote about how they wanted the characters to look like the people they grew up with.

Say what!

Headcanon the books the way you want, but please be more professional than this.

Somewhere – I think it's in my essay collection regarding fanfic writing – there is an essay explaining the problems with all of the arguments why racebending is okay when it's white to POC, but not the other way around. My main points were...

In storytelling a character is the majority unless explicitly stated to be the minority, so to claim that the characters aren't explicitly white misses a legit storytelling method, but pretty much villainizes it when it is actually a good tactic. Seriously, it is hard enough making sure the minority characters are identified as such, yet you want writers to identify every single character so this argument doesn't occur? How hard is it to understand that a book taking place in an Asian country will have Asian characters, or a book taking place in an neighborhood with a primarily African culture? Readers would be called out as racist if they didn't recognize this tactic in these settings, but when it's a white majority readers get a pass.

There are works out there featuring strong black female characters. Instead of trying to reshape the popular readings, search out these books with the strong black female character. Give them the attention they deserve rather than singing false praise over a racebent character whose only a racebent character for tokenism More importantly, support these African American writers who are trying to get popular, but are ignored in favor of other books simply because the focus is in the wrong place.

My added point is...

If ethnicity has no part of the narrative of the characters despite the historical and social context saying otherwise justifies the racebending of a white character in a book which takes place in a context where the character would be historically and socially most likely white to a character of POC, don't get upset when the same is done for black characters whose ethnicity only has context within the historical and social setting if their narrative can still be told by a white character being changed into a white character.

Imagine Cyborg for example as white because, after all, ethnicity isn't an important part of who he is as a character.

If you don't get the fact I'm being sarcastic here...

Last – I'm not saying A Wrinkle in Time will fail. I'm worried it will flop because of too much SJW, just like I worried Korra would be a Mary Sue, or that an all female cast would completely ruin Ghostbusters. Which, by the way, I was right on the first part, wrong on the second – though for Ghostbusters I headcanon the series as a sequel not a remake, and believe Holzmann is the pansexual daughter of Egon and Janine Melnitz who – because of something happening finds herself adopted and not knowing her biological parents, making for an awesome ironic twist – which will likely never be canon.