01. "Blackened"
This year's spring new fan is also the main battlefield of the immortal fight, "Party Langke Zhuge Kongming" made a good start under the slogan of "Zhuge Liang + anti-crossing", and the current performance of the animation also made the audiences on both sides of China and Japan shout, successfully squeezing into the list of the hegemonic struggle in April;
"Rainbow Gakuen Idol Fan Club Season 2" as a member of the popular 2.5-dimensional idol project "Love Live", already has a considerable number of basic fans, and under the extraordinary adaptation of the animation production team, this very distinctive idol group can be described as a strong momentum;
In addition, the classic IP "Black Rock Shooter" has produced a new work after ten years, the third season of "Miss Hui Ye Wants Me to Confess" makes up for the wounded heart of the comic party, and the first harem fan "Dating Battle" chased by young people is addictive...
It is impossible to draw conclusions about who this April hegemony really is.
Of course, when it comes to hegemony, we have to mention "Spy Over home" produced by the Hegemonic Society.
This family comedy in the guise of "spy war" has brought a lot of joy to animation fans around the world, especially in the European and American markets that are keen on dark animation, and the various contrasts in the animation have made the audience here taste the sweetness of healing.
However, when it comes to the film and television circles in Europe and the United States, and their fan circles, it is impossible to avoid a clichéd problem--- political correctness.
Because of historical reasons, Europeans and Americans are extremely angry about the skin color problem, no matter what the reason for the formation of the skin color of fictional characters, as long as they touch their pain point "black", it will definitely cause fierce discussion on the internet, and even affect the decision-making of the creator.
In other words, even if the original does not involve any skin color problems, some magic netizens will forcibly make changes to it to express their political tendencies. For example, an African-American netizen named "Soul Dreamcon" posted a redraw of "Spy Over home" on Twitter.
"Spy Over home" is about a world of cold war between the East and the West, the spy "Dusk" in order to complete a mission, with the ability to read the mind of the little girl "Ania", the killer "Joel" together to form a temporary family, under the premise of hiding each other's identities began to live together.
Although the story takes place in an alternate world, it is not difficult to find that the prototypes of the East and West are actually European countries, and most of the characters appearing are white. The fun story + the closeness brought by the overhead world is one of the reasons why "Spy Over home" can become popular in Europe and the United States.
However, in the eyes of some people, such a "white and slippery" character design leads to the humiliation and humility they have engraved in their DNA, and causes physical discomfort, so in order to make the animation "correct", Soul not only changed Ania's skin color to a brownish black unique to the African race, but also changed the original cute and playful pink hair to dirty braids and increased the thickness of the lips...
At this point, netizens who love to watch animation and do not love to watch animation are silent, although in the ACG field, the scope of the second creation is very extensive, but this behavior of changing the race has still caused displeasure among netizens. However, Soul doesn't see anything wrong with his actions and believes he has every right to make changes to the character.
And if you look at his Twitter, you can see that many animated characters have been brutally killed and "smeared" on a physical and biological level.
Before the "daughter" Ania was changed to black, the former "son" of the A-Houses, Poggi, was also changed from a white-skinned prince to a small African chief;
Well, in fact, none of the three members of The Ania's family escaped his poisonous hands...
In addition to the deliberate smearing of white characters, even Japanese ninjas such as Kibamura could not escape Soul's brush and were forced to "blacken".
There is also the white fur and white skin in "Spell Return"--- the dog curling thorn, and also becomes a typical black character.
Some netizens are puzzled by such behavior, after all, the original character of the character has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and such a second creation will not have any changes to the original work, and do not understand why Soul has to go to great lengths to change color.
Seeing that their familiar animated characters were so badly ruined, some Japanese netizens couldn't help but open up with Soul, believing that such a change was disrespectful to the original author.
Although there are many netizens who doubt and oppose, Soul does not seem to plan to stop his creation. In his homepage, there are still many characters who have been forced to change their skin color, and since Soul does have a certain skill in painting, most of the characters have been changed beyond judgment under his exquisite modifications.
So much so that people can't help but think, is there still a meaning of existence for the "character" that does not conform to the original work?
02. Is it creative freedom? Or hinder creation?
No one can be more intimidated by these racists when it comes to striking a blow at fiction and its related derivatives.
Cos are one of the ways for fans to express their love for works and characters, and excellent cos can also play an additional role in publicity for the official, so in the process of long-term development, a large-scale cos cultural circle has been formed in the fan circle, and a set of "mainstream aesthetics" (popularly speaking, white skinny beauty) has been born.
In people's subconscious, the so-called most reductive cos is the cos that is exactly the same in clothing, posture, demeanor, and even race. However, as the influence of related cultures increases, aesthetic changes and inclusivity increases, cosers will also make bold attempts to challenge roles that do not match them in all aspects.
On Twitter, for example, there are many African-American Japanese anime fans who go to cos-related characters in order to express their love for a certain work. Just in 2020, an African-American netizen posted a cos photo on her social account, although she did not match to towaka's skin color, but the tall figure and arrogant charm can also be regarded as capturing the essence of the character. Therefore, many netizens have said that such interracial cos is also interesting.
However, how godlike this coser is, he can't cross the formal accusations.
Some netizens believe that Tosaka Rin is obviously a yellow race (according to the setting, Tosaka Rin actually has some Nordic ancestry), since cos pursues "reduction", the skin color is naturally the same reason. Therefore, in order to condemn the African-American coser, netizens not only committed Internet violence, but even sent some black L photos in the form of private messages, which completely intensified the contradiction.
It is true that black people also have their own unique beauty, but this is another matter of "fit" and "whether netizens can accept it"; not to mention that in Europe and the United States where racial topics are quite easy to explode, such cross-racial cos will naturally cause fierce controversy. But what needs to be noted is that this is by no means a legitimate act, on the grounds of aesthetic differences, to bring out the black L history to hurt these minorities.
In addition to the cross-racial coser will be attacked by some netizens, some painters who paint ethnic minorities will also be labeled as racial discrimination.
Although Disney's animated film "Full House" has not achieved excellent box office results worldwide, its plot and art still have a lot of merit, so it has more or less gained a group of painters who are willing to create it for a second time.
In Japan, a painter drew a warm fan portrait of the "Maliga Family" in "Full House of Magic".
At first glance, the painter restores the personality and look of each character, and their eyes also hint at the relationship between the characters, which can be said to be a fan who fits the original work very well. However, shortly after the painter published the picture, a large number of American netizens rushed to its comment area to angrily accuse the Japanese of indiscriminately coloring, lightening the skin color of Latin Americans, and having racial discrimination.
Because the creator never wanted to cause trouble, after learning that his fandom caused displeasure among netizens, the painter apologized in the form of deleting the picture. However, just when netizens thought that this storm would end here, a large number of Latin American netizens chose to stand up for the Japanese painters and angrily rebuked American netizens for defining them as black people (South American ethnic composition is complex, and all kinds of people have it).
Of course, this is not where some racists are most intimidated. In their circles, a popular label called "blacktober" is a label that painters specifically use to change the ethnography of Japanese ACG characters to black.
Yadouko in Oni Blade, Kakashi in Naruto, and the protagonist group in Sailor Moon are all blackened in "blacktober". If it were not for those very distinctive hairstyles as a symbol, passers-by netizens would still think that the original animation of ethnic minorities has risen.
If it is said that the secondary creation of existing characters is the personal behavior of netizens, which can still be explained by "creative freedom", then the public opinion on the color of the characters can influence the official behavior, which is the biggest mockery of "creative freedom".
Regarding such examples, there are many examples in the field of ACG in Japan alone. For example, "Sister Milip" is a humanoid Pokémon in the classic IP "Pokémon", as a non-character species, it should have nothing to do with "racial equality", but in the eyes of some racists, the black-skinned, thick-lipped, and strong body shape of Mi-Lip Sister is suspected of alluding to black people.
Coincidentally, in the "Pokémon Sun and Moon" animation broadcast in 2018, Xiao Zhi made the act of smearing his face and body black in order to play the Pokémon "throwing monkey". After some European and American audiences saw the scene, they thought it was a discriminatory act of "Blackface", and there was a wave of extranetitis.
The corresponding number of episodes was also "jumped" at that time.
Therefore, in order to take into account the European and American markets and eliminate controversy, the official "Pokémon" will either delete the number of episodes in which the fan lip sister appeared, or specially prepare a special version --- purple fan lip sister.
And there are many more affected characters like Sister Milip, and the decent characters in "Dragon Ball" who are servants of the gods and whose early combat strength is higher than sun wukong, Tianjin rice, Xiaolin and other protagonist groups have also been labeled as "discriminating against black people".
Some netizens even turned its P into a "god lamp" with high saturation.
Almost can enter the eyes of European and American netizens of the black skin, and even other characters with minority elements, whether they explicitly refer to race or why black skin, will be marked as "racial discrimination" by those racists.
But the so-called "authorities are obsessed with bystanders", obviously, those netizens who think they are seeking justice have fallen into a misunderstanding, in addition, they are just using their own standards (double standards) to formulate the so-called "equal rights" and force others to accept such standards.
In fact, such overcorrection is like a kind of discrimination in disguise. The sister with the lips and the throwing monkey are not human, but they are inexplicably labeled as "black", can this be deduced that in the eyes of these racists, black people are not equal to humans?
In the European and American film and television circles in recent years, ethnic minorities have inexplicably begun to play some roles that do not belong to their skin color, in fact, as long as they think about it a little, no matter who can realize that such an approach is absolutely not correct.
However, at a time when equal rights tend to be demonized, people can no longer make accusations against such behavior, because in the eyes of some people, minorities are a natural barrier, and there is no room for a trace of "rebuttal", if they are separated from the "excellent resources" given to them by the upper class, then you are discriminating against minorities.
Therefore, even those creators who know the mainstream aesthetics of the market are still unable to freely integrate it into their own creations, and those so-called tolerances are gradually killing the freedom of creation, and even forcibly turning some of the creations that have been fixed into pluralism.
The creators have long determined the race, appearance, and even life and death of the characters, but under the "equal rights", they can also change at will and become black, yellow, and blue. Creative freedom has long been limited by those rules.
03. Conclusion
In the final analysis, the reason why these above-mentioned "blackening" behaviors are not welcome is because such behaviors have both aesthetic conflicts and historical factors, and on the basis of such multiple contradictions, one group of people hurts the rights and interests of another group of people, and wrong ideas imprison creation.
It is worth noting that cosplay, drawing, film and television production are different fields.
As a realistic hobby, cosplay itself is subject to various conditions, so true respect is particularly important. No matter what the color of the person, there is freedom to like and dislike freedom, there is also the right to role play, so no matter what kind of cos, it should not be a reason for personal attack.
Otherwise, the Thai brother who is known for his brain hole, he uses all parts of his body to interpret it with emotion, is he suspected of "vulgarizing" the second dimension?
However, drawing, film and television production are not limited by reality, and creators can do whatever they want to create stories that do not exist in reality. Since creation is free, why don't creators who have the ability and desire for equal rights create works and roles that conform to the concept and aesthetics of minorities? Instead, should they forcibly transform those who do not fit their roles into roles that conform to their own ideas and aesthetics? Isn't that also an overcorrection?
If there is really a criterion for limiting creation, all I can think of is respect for history.
On this basis, letting all kinds of people play roles that match them, and use better creations to express different races and positive values is the best interpretation of freedom and peace.
Of course, the same is true for anime.