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Friday, January 15, 2021
Apple TV+'s Dickinson Suffers From Colorism and It Shows
The Mary Sue: AppleTV+’s Dickinson, like many shows that have come before it, suffers from colorism, and if we don’t confront it head on, we’ll be stuck in a preferential state of things where light skin is good skin.
I’ve also never seen the show but I don’t fully agree with this article. Don’t get me wrong, we need more stories focusing on BIPOC people and their cultures, not just as side characters with less lines. In this instance, if the creator set out to create a historical drama in a certain time period/place or focusing on specific historical characters, it’s not a valid criticism to say they shouldn’t have casted so many light-skinned people. A better critique would be about the script writing or focus of the story. Why do the majority of stories revolve around light skinned characters? Now on the the other hand, they could have pulled a “Bridgerton” —-which I fully support. I think Bridgerton was very successful in showing the diversity of present society but in a period drama that has been a predominantly white genre. The focus of the story is still surrounding a historically white story— upperclass London in 1813, but they were not concerned with historical accuracy and therefore casted white range of skin tones.
1 comment:
I’ve also never seen the show but I don’t fully agree with this article. Don’t get me wrong, we need more stories focusing on BIPOC people and their cultures, not just as side characters with less lines. In this instance, if the creator set out to create a historical drama in a certain time period/place or focusing on specific historical characters, it’s not a valid criticism to say they shouldn’t have casted so many light-skinned people. A better critique would be about the script writing or focus of the story. Why do the majority of stories revolve around light skinned characters? Now on the the other hand, they could have pulled a “Bridgerton” —-which I fully support. I think Bridgerton was very successful in showing the diversity of present society but in a period drama that has been a predominantly white genre. The focus of the story is still surrounding a historically white story— upperclass London in 1813, but they were not concerned with historical accuracy and therefore casted white range of skin tones.
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