#instead of using an Indigenous specific art style

[telekitnetic-art]

Have you seen the formline art in splatoon? It's present in a variety of salmon run decals and on some of the locker graffiti. Idk if the Devs just googled "salmon art" and got indigenous art and decided to copy it or what. Not sure how I feel about it personally.

Long post incoming, gonna put a break here. Also sorry for the late response, I wanted to take a couple days to formalize my thoughts together before responding fully.

I have, I remember noticing in 2018-2019 (when i first started playing splatoon 2) how much one of the decals/graffiti located on the ruins of ark polaris back in 2 sort of resembled a formline bear and salmon. (near the logo in this screenshot, I couldn't find a clear picture online)

Back in 2019, it was pretty easy to think of it as coincidence or a stretch for a comparison. But with splatoon 3's salmon run decals, the resemblance is far easier to see, specifically with the TS-ORBRS graffiti and the TS-SCHL graffiti.

(also this was the best image size I could find for the graffiti images, sorry)

A couple of the banners have the designs on them as well:

The website Sealaska Heritage has info such as textbooks and an online doc about formline art (specifically geared towards Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian nations' style) with lots of info about formline art, and the Seattle Art Museum website has an info sheet (with credits listed as being from the Sealaska Heritage site as well) breaking down some of the basic shapes of formline art.

with this chart, you can definitely begin to notice the similarities between the Salmon Run graffiti and formline art. the ovoids, crescents, and u-shapes appear noticeably in some of the graffiti such as ORBRS and SCHL.

For perspective, here are some formline pieces featuring salmon or fish from various Indigenous artists from various nations.

"sk’ug sdang" (Two Dog Salmon) by Robert Davidson (Haida)

"metal medallion", by Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl (Tlingit Athabascan)

"Salmon People" by Alano Edzerza (Tahltan)

"Jumping Chum" by Stephanie Anderson (Wet'suwet'en)

"Salmon" by Art Thompson (Nuu-chah-nulth)

And that's literally just the surface of dozens of Indigenous artists from the PNW.

With these pieces, you can begin to see the resemblance that the graffiti designs have. A lot of the heads follow the pattern of utilizing ovoids for both the head and eyes, and u-shapes for the bodies and crescents to fill in specific areas are also common. For example, TS-SCHL has a small school of fish where the bodies are entire ovoids.

However, there are a couple flaws in the graffiti designs too. With a few of the designs, you can see they utilize the u-shape (see the formline shape breakdown from Sealaska again) in designs like TS-WHP and TS-SMFR. I can't speak for every Indigenous formline artist ever, but from how I've been taught to design formline art from my family, the u-shape should connect to the rest of the form instead of free-floating. I drew a quick example here:

you can see similar mistakes with a different kind of u-shape with TS-RLPL and TS-C0HK.

Another very specific mistake that takes a bit of squinting to make out is that ovoids are sort of top-heavy, for lack of a term I can't think of right now. The line or the area should be thicker on the top then the bottom. This mistake is frequent in the graffiti designs utilizing ovoid or ovoid adjacent face or body shapes, like TS-ORBRS, TS-C0HK or TS-SCHL.

Full disclaimer, I am not an expert at formline art. I've been practicing it under the tutelage of my aunt and father for about 3 or so years now, and there are definitely cultural variations that come into play as well. My culture's formline art style can look completely different from someone who is Haida or otherwise. This critique of the graffiti designs is based off my knowledge and skill at formline art, as well as critique and feedback that I've gotten from family. Formline art isn't just something you look at and replicate, there is a specific process of utilizing the shapes and negative space that you need to account for too. Some shapes have their own rules for how they're used as well.

Despite the beginner mistakes, the clear resemblances are pretty definitive proof that a good section of the sticker/graffiti designs for the salmonids are meant to be, or at the very least based off of or inspired by, formline art.

Splatoon's lore has a lot of elements of taking inspiration from real life culture (which is sort of one of the main elements of the story, the squids and octos are basing their society off long dead humans). Hell, Shiver and Frye are two prime examples of Splatoon working in real world culture into their setting and characters.

With that in mind, using an art style that's exclusive to an ethnicity of people as inspiration or baseline reference for the game mode that's all about taking natural resources from a species that in-game dialogue tends to treat as dangerous and lesser-minded is... not a good choice. Especially an ethnicity that has historically been ravaged and attacked by settlers for natural resources.

Now, technically if you do digging into lore for salmon run, you can find out that the salmonid are not as simple-minded as the dialogue in-game (I am staring directly at the deep cut big run announcement dialogue we've gotten so far -_-) makes them out to be. The salmonids do trades and commerce with the octarians for equipment and gear. That's why they have such technically high tech gear, like the scrappers with their shields that actually resemble octarian shields and the flyfish with their missiles and flying aircraft. That's also why power eggs show up in the story mode; they're from the salmonids' trades with the octarians.

So the salmonid could technically be as just as smart as the inklings, which is why the dialogue and some of the portrayals of the salmonid are confusing and contradictory (shiver's dialogue from the first big run, that one promo picture of an inkling walking a smallfry on a leash????). I think a good bit of the fanbase sort of thinks of the little buddy we get during the game as a pet, and I'm sure that much more of the fanbase/playerbase doesn't really care about the lore whatsoever. Salmonids sort of have a similar vibe to me as hilichurls from Genshin Impact, where the lore tells you that they're smarter than people assume while NPCs talk of them as less intelligent monsters. And you're also caught in this paradox where killing/fighting them feels morally wrong but the gameplay loop has you continuously doing that while also telling you on the downlow that you should sort of feel bad about it.

Rassicas did a really good video on translating salmonid lore from various interviews, which is where I learned a lot about the salmonid lore that doesn't really get explained/brought up in the game.

The usage of formline art in Splatoon has me sort of mixed on my opinion, because besides using an Indigenous art style for an enemy species that are considered lesser in intelligence by the NPCs, Indigenous art and culture as a whole has suffered a lot under colonialism. I don't know how much awareness whoever is reading this has about Indigenous history and colonialism, but Indigenous culture as a whole was banned in North America by the respective governments from being practiced by the respective cultural groups. Things such as ceremonies, regalia, and even practicing formline art were banned from being used by Indigenous people. Non-Indigenous people however were free to use it, which is why a lot of bastardized versions of Indigenous regalia and culture exists. You can see it in non-indigenous spiritual practices utilizing Indigenous practices and terminology like spirit animals and dreamcatchers, and sports teams utilizing Indigenous culture in its labelling and mascots. That is where cultural appropriation comes into play. And before I get anybody commenting about this, the salmonid formlines don't count as "cultural appreciation" because as far as the info available is concerned, there wasn't any Indigenous people that were consulted for the designs. And even if there were, I again have mixed feelings about Splatoon utilizing an Indigenous art style as a design piece for an enemy character in the franchise.

On another note, this isn't the first time Indigenous cultural appropriation has popped up in the Splatoon franchise. There was actually a headgear that was unreleased in the first Splatoon game called "Warrior Headdress", and you can guess what it looked like.

Yeah. That was all levels of yikes and I'm thankful as hell that it didn't make it into the game (technically it's not in the game as a wearable item, but you can spot it at the very back of the headgear shop ingame)

So Splatoon has utilized Indigenous culture as inspiration beforehand with the games, so it's not much of a stretch anymore to think that the salmon run graffiti designs were based off formline art or was an attempt at formline art.

I'm not really sold on the idea that the salmonid are meant to be representative of Indigenous people though, nor do I believe that utilizing formline art for the salmonid was a malicious decision. But it was a slightly ignorant decision at best, because again using Indigenous specific art for a species of enemies that gets fought for their natural resources and is referred to by some of the NPCs as basically being lesser-minded animals is really not a good decision.

This whole thread is not meant as a guilt trip for anyone who likes the salmonid lore, has bought any of the salmonid graffiti stickers, or enjoys salmon run, nor is it an accusation of the devs for maliciously misusing Indigenous culture. I actually really enjoy salmon run for it's PSP and concept, but this design aspect gives me mixed feelings as an Indigenous person. And to be honest it's hard to label intentions or the thought process because there isn't any info available on the development of salmon run and those graffiti designs specifically. So it's hard to know if the devs employed an Indigenous artist for feedback or if they indeed just looked at some formline art of salmon and tried to replicate it or used it as inspiration. I'm inclined to believe the latter judging by the beginner formline mistakes seen in some of the designs. There is an art book coming out soon for Splatoon 3, so maybe that will give more info.

To wrap this all up, I don't think there is really anything to be done about the designs. The game has been out for a while and I don't know if the game would change the designs at this point. I also don't think this should stop people from buying the sticker designs in game or playing salmon run. However, it is important to learn about the context of these designs so that you know why they exist and why they can be harmful, and so devs and creators can avoid making the same mistake in the future, and so Indigenous issues with cultural appropriation can be made more aware in the public space and not be ridiculed by non-Indigenous people. And again, I am just one Indigenous person so there may be other opinions from other Indigenous people on the graffiti designs and how they should be handled or viewed.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and have a good day!! Be sure to check out some actual Formline art made by Indigenous people, like the ones I listed near the top of the post!

[perfectlypanda]

When visiting the many islands that comprise the Fire Nation, it was not uncommon for their royal majesties Fire Lord Zuko and Master Katara to don the traditional dress of the host island.

Almost as soon as I had finished working on the art piece I did with Zuko and Katara in Thai inspired outfits, I knew I wanted to do something similar but with outfits inspired by the Philippines (or outfit, sorry Zuko I find women's fashion more interesting than men's).

Before jumping into the commentary, I'll stress that this design is fantasy inspired by the Philippines. Although I did research, it is not an accurate representation of Filipino national costume, nor is it meant to be.

This was more challenging in some ways than the Thai piece, because even though the Thai piece required a ton of detail work, I was creating a design much closer to its real world inspiration. In this case there wasn't a specific "look" I was trying to recreate, instead I wanted to create a design inspired by the traditional fashion of the Philippines. However, 1). pre-colonial fashions were very different from the Spanish inspired styles that arose during colonialization and that have since evolved into modern traditional Filipino attire, and 2). the Philippines is home to many different indigenous groups, each of whom have their own traditional costumes.

Originally, I wanted to exclusively look to the pre-colonial period for inspiration, but when I looked only at pre-colonial designs, I found I missed the iconic silhouettes seen in modern Filipino dresses. So I widened my research scope to see how I could combine pre-colonial with elements of modern fashion.

For pre-colonial styles, the best historical resource is the Boxer Codex. Karakoa Productions was also a helpful resource to see how pre-colonial looks were being interpreted from historical illustrations and descriptions into real world garments. I looked at modern designers from the Philippines to see how they were playing with the design of terno (which often feature the iconic butterfly sleeves I wanted to include). One design I was really inspired by was a look worn by Filipina actress Kathryn Bernardo.

Both written and illustrated accounts of the pre-colonial era in the Philippines emphasize the prevalence of golden jewelry, so Katara has a gold necklace, bracelets, hair beads, and belt. Katara's belt is inspired by two main sources. The first is an extant kandit (royal belt) woven from gold wires in the Museo ng Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas's pre-colonial gold collection. The dangles on it are loosely inspired by the beaded belts made by the T'Boli people.

With Katara's skirt, I tried to blend the longer style of skirts seen in the Boxer Codex, with a striped pattern inspired by the numerous woven designs I found in traditional indigenous attire. The specific photo I used as inspiration was labeled as being from Kalinga, but I found similar weavings from other groups as well.

The flowers in Katara's hair are flowers found in the Philippines - sampaguita, waling-waling orchids, plumeria, hibiscious, and santan. She also wears her dual moon-flame tiara.

♥ Please do not repost. If you like it and want to show people, share a link to this page instead. Thank you!

[azuremist]

do you think red son or macaque count as being queercoded? it seems like something youd know about :]

YES, actually, the history of queer media and queer-coding in media is a HUGE interest of mine! So I’m happy to answer this question! (In much more detail than was likely intended.)

“Coding” is defined as when a character is subtextually given physical, action, or personality traits that draw a parallel to a real-life minority. Popular examples include fictional races being black- or Indigenous-coded, “weird kid” characters being given autistic traits, and, of course, queer coding.

The history of queer coding goes all the way back to the Hayes code. Basically, explicit queerness was NOT allowed on film, and the heroes had to always be in the moral right. So, in order to portray queerness, it had to be both subtextual, and it had to be done with the villains. This is the origin of the “queer-coded villain” trope, which still prevails in media today! Given that both characters you asked me about are villains (or at least antiheroes), I think it only right to cover the tropes regarding the queercoded villain.

Examples of queercoded villains in popular media include the likes of

Ursula from The Little Mermaid

Team Rocket from Pokemon

Shego from Kim Possible

Scar from The Lion King

Him from The Powerpuff Girls

Ways which villains (specifically, male villains) are queercoded include effeminate mannerisms, being well-dressed, flamboyant hand gestures, a sense of “pettiness” or even “bitchiness” to them, and little to no interest in women. These are alongside typical traits used to queer-code male characters, such as living with a male roommate and an interest in fashion or musicals.

SO! Let us apply ALL of that to the characters aforementioned.

Red Son:

Red Son absolutely falls into a few aspects of queer-coding. He has longer hair, and is drawn in skirts in official crew art, and has a very affluent way of speaking. His rage at the implication that Mei is his girlfriend may also fit neatly into this category.

That being said, I do not think that Red Son could confidently be defined as “queer-coded”. I feel as if the traits that could attribute to the idea aren’t a big enough part of his character. I feel like, if he wore a skirt in the show instead of in crew art, we could revisit this, though.

Macaque:

Now, Macaque is where we really hit the nail on the head. Here, we have tons of aspects of a classic queercoded villain. From his flamboyant, almost teasing style of evil, to his interest in theater (remember what I said earlier about musicals?), to his relationship to Wukong (which people on the crew are aware of and support the notion of their relationship being romantic; even to the point of one of them agreeing to the notion that they are bitter exes online), to his plain bitchy demeanor when not on the battlefield, I think that Macaque is a classic, true-blue example of a queercoded villain.

But, to be honest, I would be amiss if I didn’t bring up another character.

Tang:

I mean, you saw this coming, right?

I think that Tang is the best example of a queercoded character in LEGO Monkie Kid; even though I do consider Macaque to be queercoded. His complete disinterest in women attempting to court him has been used three times as setups for jokes. His relationship to Pigsy is exceptionally close, is pushed as important by the crew and the official Twitter for the LEGO toys alike, and.

Like

HE SAT IN THIS MAN’S LAP. Do I- do I even need to explain-?!

Not only that, but Tang also falls into a few different classic queercoding traits! He’s well-dressed, is far more emotional in later seasons than would be expected for an adult male character, and, in earlier seasons, has a sense of cattiness about him at times. I mean, it’s all pretty blatant, textbook stuff!

I definitely think that, at LEAST with Tang, the queercoding is on purpose. In the words of the former showrunner of LEGO Monkie Kid, Villads Spansberg, “There are many great people working on this show, and they all bring some of themselves to the characters. So even if it’s not written down, there’s a lot of layers being added, and I'm sure a lot of that is intentionally done to make our cast relatable to minorities around the world who feel there’s been a lack of representation in TV animation.”

Given that many members of the LEGO Monkie Kid crew are queer themselves? I think it’s safe to say that they know exactly what they’re doing.

[hadrianandantinuous]

Scrimshaw: The Folk Art of the Western Sailor

There is nothing more synonymous or representative of whaling in America and Europe than scrimshaw.  Scrimshaw is the practice carving or engraving of pictures onto whale bone, teeth, and baleen most prevalently.  They are windows into the daily lives and wants of Western seamen, as well as faithful depictions of whaling vessels done by the sailors’ own hands.  This essay will delve into the materials and manufacture of these items, and what they can reveal about the men they were created by.  The focus will primarily be on American-made art, though among Western cultures there is not considerable variation in the production of scrimshaw.  Instead, the stylistic variation of the art form is due more to the skills and materials available to whalers, a further reflection of their social standing and the cultural contact on board sailing vessels.  Through analysis of the motifs, materials, and complexity, the historical archaeologist can learn invaluable information about the whaling industry and the lives of sailors.

While the usage of whale bones and the bones of other marine mammals for art has a deep and extensive history, the specific kind of bone carving that became synonymous with classic scrimshaw emerged uniquely from the tradition of whaling in the Western world beginning in the 17th century.  Among Western traditions, scrimshaw had European precursors, notably early medieval Viking carvings and 11th- and 12th-century votive carvings in European monasteries.  The more modern version of scrimshaw was influenced by other bone carving traditions indigenous to both Europe and the Americas but has its own distinct style and hallmarks.  The primary distinction is the difference in the relationship depicted between the hunter and the prey whose body is used as the art medium.  As author Michael Dyer of “Scrimshaw” explains, Indigenous Arctic people have always had a closer relationship to the animals they hunted, having depended on them for food and subsistence.  The Western whaler did not have that same connection to the whale they were hunting, “theirs being a purely commercial enterprise.”  Their carving styles are more akin to a “trophy” of the animal, instead of an homage. 

Figure 1: Busk carved and engraved by whaling master Alden Sears (1739–1803), American, sperm whale skeletal bone, 1766. New Bedford Whaling Museum, 2001.100.648.

The art focused on in this report will follow the Western, Euro- and American-descended traditions of scrimshaw from the 18th to the 19th centuries.  The majority of knowledge about scrimshaw comes from American collections.  Very little research has been done by other countries, even those with sizable collections. The Western practice of both carving and engraving pictures and scenes onto whale bone emerged among whalemen in the late colonial era, maturing in the 1820s and ‘30s.  Sailors onboard whaling vessels were allowed to take the “hard byproducts” from the whales they processed, since they had little to no commercial value.  These byproducts included sperm whale teeth, ivory from both whales and walruses, skeletal whale bone, and baleen.  The earliest dated example of a carved sperm whale tooth comes from a British whaleship named Adam, the piece is dated to 1817.  Alternatively, the first known American example of scrimshaw was a carved busk made from whale panbone and dated to 1766.  This panbone busk would begin a long and diverse era of American art.

All a whaler required in order to make his own scrimshaw was a piece of whalebone, a sharp sail needle or other cutting implement, sandpaper, a blackening agent, and time.  The blackening agent mostly used was lampblack, easily found in the oil lamps or the tryworks onboard.  Other colored pigments could also be used, but they were harder to come across; mainly consisting of verdigris, handmade fruit and vegetable dyes, and ink bought from Asia.  The process for engraving begins with the polishing of the bone with sandpaper in preparation for carving.  After a design is drawn onto the bone, it is engraved with a needle or knife, and the black or colored pigments are “applied to the lines or dots and wiped away.”  The bone is then polished a second time to remove any excess pigments and to reveal the design.  Differently colored sealing wax could also be used to highlight certain elements, such as thinly scored lines.

Figure 2: Engraved sperm whale tooth by Frederick Myrick in 1829, depicting the American ship the Susan as well as an eagle and shield. Nantucket Historical Association, 1918.0015.001.

Scrimshaw is regarded by many as the folk art of the whaleman.  As opposed to many other kinds of sailors, whalers had a lot of downtime on whaling voyages.  After the Napoleonic Wars, the American whaling industry rose to prominence and reached its peak in the 1820s.  The prevalence of whaling also logically coincided with the peak of scrimshaw production.  This was due to “longer voyages, larger crews, and over-manned ships,” not to mention the abundant bounties of whales they were processing, creating the perfect conditions for plentiful scrimshaw production.  When not actively working, the one thing the whaler had in abundance was time.

During the height of the whaling industry, the average voyage was three years long.  When they were not busy chasing or processing a whale, they were allowed leisure time to follow creative pursuits.  Carving scrimshaw was one way to escape the boredom of the open ocean.  The artistic pursuit of these engravings also reaffirmed a collective identity onboard a whaling vessel.  As the art form was unique to the occupation, it was taught by and to other sailors.  This is seen in the subjects mostly depicted in scrimshaw, as they are maritime in nature, many artists depicting the ship they were currently working on.  For many, “the act of creation built and reaffirmed their shared seafaring identity, transferring skills gained through work into the creation of art and they shared ideas with each other about the art that they made.”  It was a way to connect to other sailors as well as a way to connect back to the home they had left behind. 

Figure 3: Anonymous engraved sperm whale skeletal bone, depicting a whaling scene, circa 1840s. New Bedford Whaling Museum, 2001.100.1067.

Though made during leisure hours, scrimshaw could be decorative or practical, and they often were both.  Many whalers carved tools such as bodkins, seam rubbers, serving mallets, and others.  With a mind on their home, some made gifts for family members, such as “massive numbers of yarn-winders, pie crimpers, hair pins, and work boxes.”  A common gift for female family members or sweethearts was a busk for a corset made from panbone or baleen.  The busks were commonly decorated with domestic scenes of life back on land, as well as natural designs, ships, and sometimes whales and scenes of whaling.  Though they would be removed from larger society for years at a time, whalers still tried to keep up with the trends and their peers back home.

Figure 4: Anonymous swift, American, sperm whale ivory, sperm whale skeletal bone, baleen, tortoise shell, cloth, nonferrous metal fastenings, circa 1840s. New Bedford Whaling Museum, 2001.100.684.

In the middle of the 19th century, canes became incredibly fashionable masculine symbols, and sailors of all ranks tried their hand at making them.  They applied their skills at carving toward stylistic handles depicting varied subjects of ranging complexity.  A common motif appearing on the ends of canes was a clenched fist, which was “a common design in folk art, representing frustration, resistance, or solidarity.”  This could be revealing about a sailor’s sentiment toward his lot in life on board the ship, as there were large disparities between the common sailor and those in positions of power, even in the types of scimshaw they were able to create.

One of the forms of scrimshaw that was less accessible to the average sailor was the complex construction that went into making a swift or yarn winder.  They were made up of thin, carefully riveted pieces of panbone that can collapse or expand as a whole.  Because of their architectural complexity and relative size, most sailors would not have had the materials or space to make one themselves, and the only swifts made onboard were generally done by the ship’s captain.  Other complicated and beautiful scrimshaw objects include watch hutches and birdcages, not to mention the skill that went into carving a small pie crimper, which was a relatively common scrimshaw item.

Figure 5: Anonymous engraved sperm whale tooth, depicting a woman wearing a fashionable dress and holding a book.  Nantucket Historical Association, 1925.0007.004a

The subject or theme of many engraved teeth and panbones “was of a nautical theme, depicting harbor scenes, great battles at sea, or men and ships in pursuit of the mighty whale.”  In addition to artworks depicting their daily lives, there were those that longed for the home they had left behind.  Mostly those included depictions of sweethearts or family they had left behind on land.  Whalers “carved toothpicks, whistles, and pipe-tampers in the shape of female legs, and they etched and sketched figures of women half-clothed.”  However, most surviving scrimshaw depict the whaling ships themselves, or scenes from the whalers’ daily lives. 

While the art of scrimshaw was mostly limited to Western whalers, the style was inspired and influenced by many cultures within and touched by the Western world.  As previously mentioned, they drew heavily from previous techniques of bone carving from Northern Europe.  They were further inspired by other cultural influences during the peak of the whaling industry.  Cultural contact between American whalers and Inuit people in the Western Arctic resulted in altered styles among both groups.  For example, some American scrimshanders began making detailed carvings on traded walrus tusks, and Inuit carvers began making cribbage boards using both traditional Arctic carving methods as well as the newer Western forms to sell them as souvenirs to Western visitors.  Traditionally, Indigenous Arctic art was easy to tell apart from Western scrimshaw due to the motifs and scenes depicted, until the allure of selling to Western buyers forced them to change their style.  However, relief carvings made from bone and ivory are rarely seen in the Western tradition. In addition to their Arctic counterparts, American whalers were influenced by many other cultures they encountered.

Figure 6: Anonymous carved walrus tusk, circa 19th century.  Depicts two walruses and a sled pulled by dogs.  Nantucket Historical Association, 1961.0033.001.

Whaling vessels were incredibly diverse places, including Americans from different backgrounds such as African American seamen, as well as plentiful Portuguese from the islands of Cape Verde and the Azores.  Whaling crews would also take on sailors from ports they visited in other European, Latin American, and Pacific ports, with Pacific Islanders contributing greatly to the American whaling industry.  This is mostly due to whaling vessels taking on replacements in Pacific waters for American sailors who had deserted while on “liberty,” or leave, in port.  Pacific Islanders were also attractive to whaling captains because they could be paid less, and they “had reputations among American captains for bravery and boat skills.”  Many of these men, both poor White sailors, and many of the non-White sailors, could not read nor write, eliminating them from the written record of history.  They could, however, carve and create art that still exists today in the form of scrimshaw. 

Evidence of this cultural sharing with Pacific Islanders is exemplified most by the addition of carved coconut shells to the American whalers’ repertoire.  Coconut shell objects were traditionally produced in many different forms throughout Oceania, parts of Africa, and in many areas in the Indian Ocean.  The favored form among American sailors were coconut-shell dippers and spoons, with handles fashioned from typical scrimshandering materials.  Unfortunately, this impactful art form was harvested from finite materials and eventually had to come to an end.

The whaling industry was brought to a rapid end by the discovery of “rock oil” in the ground, which rapidly replaced the need for whaleships and whalemen.  The declining whale population and the American Civil War also exacerbated the death of the industry.  The few remaining whalers were raided heavily by Confederate Naval ships during the Civil War and made most whaling ventures incredibly unprofitable and undesirable.  Along with the eventual demise of whaling led to the cessation of any scrimshaw made from whale products.  Author John Erickson of “Scrimshaw” argues that the tradition of scrimshaw lived on in the Americas through the engraving of powder horns, as they use similar techniques, but do not depict any of the hallmark nautical imagery that is typical of whaling scrimshaw.  Despite limited opportunities, the traditional maritime form of scrimshaw did continue, though at a much more reserved rate during the 20th century.

However limited, there are still parts of the world that continue to hunt whales, whether legal or not.  Thus, it follows that there are still versions of scrimshaw that are practiced today as well.  In the past 30 years, the traditional folk art of scrimshaw has had a surge in popularity, and with many authentic examples being housed in private or public collections, fakes and reproductions are rampant.  Many use authentic materials, even going as far as recreating traditional styles to create “authentic” scrimshaw to fool buyers.  Others use synthetic materials to mass-produce these artifacts, which are called “fakeshaw” by experts.  These fakes have the potential to disrupt the historical record, as many include fake names and dates.  Since the carvings were often made by regular seamen, they create a snapshot into the lives of ordinary men living in the Western world, including their desires and priorities. 

Figure 7: Anonymous sperm whale tooth engraving depicting two ships battling at sea.  Nantucket Historical Association, 1962.0035.005.

Scrimshaw can provide the archaeologist and history with invaluable information such as information about the names and even locations of some whaling vessels.  If dated and signed, several works by the same artist could create a clear picture of a voyage or sailing route.  Additionally, many works of scrimshaw include accurate depictions of their ships, so accurate that “some can be identified by the rig, hull design and type of boats as naval vessels or whaleships.”  Images of flags on the ships can also point to nationality, and other details can possibly point to a relative date, though that is much harder for the researcher to be certain of.  While scrimshaw is unlikely to survive a shipwreck, it can still offer the historian valuable information about whaling voyages.

 By analyzing the motifs, materials, and complexity of scrimshaw artifacts, details of the whaling industry and whalemen themselves can be illuminated.  The themes depicted in this folk art reveal sentiments sailors held about their lives, profession, and even those they had left behind.  The manufacture of the scrimshaw can reveal the materials and tools made available to the seaman and what skills he had picked up from his fellow sailor.  Overall, the art and skill of scrimshaw is more than symbolically representative of the whaling industry, as they are physical records of the men who lived and worked on these vessels.

Works cited:

Creighton, Margaret S. Rights and Passages: The Experience of American Whaling, 1830-1870. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Dyer, Michael P. "Scrimshaw." Academic Press, (2018): 841-845. https://www-sciencedirect-com.uri.idm.oclc.org/science/article/pii/B9780128043271000170.

Erickson, John. "Scrimshaw." Westview 16, no. 1 (November 1996): 36-39. https://dc.swosu.edu/westview/vol16/iss1/13?utm_source=dc.swosu.edu%2Fwestview%2Fvol16%2Fiss1%2F13&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages.

Luecke, Mirelle. "Exploring the Sea as Studio: The Importance of Labor and Leisure in Sailor Folk Art." The Journal of Modern Craft 14, no. 1 (2021): 57-71. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496772.2021.1912268.

New Bedford Whaling Museum. “Art and Literature: Overview of Scrimshaw.” Accessed Mar 24, 2024. https://www.whalingmuseum.org/learn/research-topics/whaling-history/art-and-literature/.

New Bedford Whaling Museum. “Scrimshaw: Scrimshaw Gallery.” Accessed Mar 24, 2024. https://www.whalingmuseum.org/exhibition/scrimshaw/#pp-toc-6109979c2c807-anchor-0.

West, Janet. “Scrimshaw and the Identification of Sea Mammal Products.” Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 2 (1991): 39–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40795035.

[powerfulblob]

There’s also something about the ways in which people spend their whole fandom experience talking shit about how “useless” or “annoying” the actual marginalized characters are…

Instead of. I don’t know.

Actually going to read books and watch movies by BIPOC, disabled, queer, and otherwise marginalized folks.

Please: Instead of reblogging that 1000-word, rightfully angry thinkpiece about whatever BIPOC character in whatever show…

GO READ BOOKS RECOMMENDED AND WRITTEN BY ACTUAL BIPOC FOLKS.

Are they going to cover universal experiences? No!

Will they always be good: Of course not! Most writing is crap, and giving much higher standards to marginalized folks is just. Absolutely ridiculous.

There’s so much variety: I actually love reading “trashy” things, and holy Fuck… Please read actual camp. And I’m not talking about OFMD. Like go to a library and pick up something unsanitized.

And also, some important advice: DON’T BE A FUCKING JERK WHILE READING.

Like, I know some people who just picked up one book by an Indigenous author and who just. Immediately bitched about how “bad” and “unrelatable it is.”

It was for a project in school:

The book was There There, by Tommy Orange.

We weren’t even assigned more than the first chapter by that point.

Please don’t do this. Please give the same patience to marginalized authors that you do to the 50k slow-burn fic about those two white dudes that I know you’re able to read.

“But powerfulblob, I’m literally queer and disabled! I don’t have time!”

You know what? So am I.

But I still take time to do this.

On the topic of attention: I know this is the neurodivergent website, so here are some tips that have helped me:

- Before you call me out: I’m literally diagnosed with psychotic symptoms. So while these strategies won’t work for everyone (since no strategies are full-proof, just like how not all media will resonate)… I get it.

0) PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARIES. If there’s a ton of language that might be confusing, don’t just give up yet… look up the plain language summary. A perfect example of this is Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s life, by disability advocate Alice Wong. She provided a free summary on her website (PDF here).

Here’s an example:

“I learned some characters in 注音 zhù yīn and how to write my name. Zhù yīn is a system of writing out the way Mandarin Chinese sounds in the English alphabet that is most commonly used for Taiwanese Mandarin”

And yes, plain language text is an accessibility aid.

My stance on people using plain language even if they don’t self-identify as disabled is, well… Okay. Like, with most accessibility aids (subtitles, etc.) if it helps you? Use it! Not only are you helping to make it less stigmatized (safety in numbers; etc.) you might learn something about yourself.

Please please please give this book a read though.

There’s various art pieces in throughout (good for attention issues): highlights include “Big Pussy Power,” “Disability Fight Club,” “S. T. F. U. White People”.

1) Buy a short story collection instead of a novel. If I’m hyperfixating on a specific thing and can barely focus on anything else: Trust me, this is helpful. I would highly recommend the afrofuturist and queer “The Memory Librarian,” a collaboration between Janelle Monáe and a group of highly talented writers. The world building is fantastic, so I would recommend it to other sci-if fans. Also, similarly to @derinthescarletpescatarian ; the writing style is very neurodivergent friendly in that it’s engaging, consistently, enough to make sure it’s keeping my attention . “Queer Little Nightmares is excellent as well; And contains poetry, short fiction, and other quick pieces that were short enough to make sure I didn’t get understimulated.

2) Like, don’t set yourself up for failure… if you know you hate historical fiction, read sci-fin instead! Hate slice-of-life? WHY ARE YOU PICKING UP SLICE-OF-LIFE? You know, contrary to popular opinion, there are tons of folks breaking into every industry (or trying to, but are unable because the publishing companies are fucking pricks)… As said by bell hooks, you cannot think that a memoir represents universal experiences. Same goes for a fiction with predominantly Asian casts, for example. BUT: There is value in reading these, even if they’re not “representative,” and are more “niche,” because it shows writers and publishing firms that there’s a market. An audience. And plus, you’ll likely end up actually finishing the work. Should you read books that challenge you? Yes! But you shouldn’t let your only point of contact with marginalized folks in fiction be in books about trauma. Because that’s just having a saviour complex. I am a huge advocate of reading fun books as well as the ones that go into the intricacies of trauma and oppression, because: well. I know people who only read the latter and it is NOT a good experience to be around them. Like these are the people who unironically ask me for books to “represent the queer community” or shit, after literally not speaking to me more than three times. Like… Please interact with marginalized folks, and their writing, in ways that aren’t so… rude? Paternalistic? There’s nothing wrong with reading a book because it seems fun: In fact, it will likely help you when you DO read something a bit more serious, because it allows you to see people as. You know. Humans who have emotions other than grief.

Happy reading, and go read books, watch movies, and listen to voices that aren’t some random-ass white dude!

Character: is a white man. That’s it.

Fandom: how dare you dislike this femme-coded female-coded gay-coded disabled-coded mentally ill-coded icon

[aangussca]

Art Studio 1 Excursion: ArtSpace, AGNSW and MCA - PART 2 (10.5.24)

MCA: 24th Sydney Biennale

Juan Davila's oil paintings

Row 1: Untitled (2021), Untitled (2023)

Row 2: Untitled (2021), After Image Wilderness (2010)

Description: "Asked why he chose painting, Juan Davila once answered, 'An enjoyment … does not need explanation. Over an artistic career spent lacerating political figures, government policy and state control, the artist has indeed consistently refused to explain himself. From the outset, Davila's paintings have unflinchingly interrogated cultural, sexual and social identities, taking cues from popular culture, political discourse and mythology to create a complex and provocative body of work. Born in Chile, Davila moved to Naarm/Melbourne in 1974 after the fall of the socialist Allende government. However, his work does not suggest what 'should be', instead richly-illustrating the joys, anxieties, shames and triumphs of the contemporary moment. Psychological and psychoanalytic themes are often present, but the artist refuses to articulate or reveal a clear position, prompting us to question our own biases."

Freddy Mamani

Left to right: Diablada (2024, wood coated in gloss enamel), Salon Gallo de Oro (2024, maquette)

Description: "For the past 15 years, Aymaran architect Freddy Mamani has been designing and building Cholets, a combination of the French word 'chalet' and 'cholo', a reappropriated term once used to disparage those of indigenous descent in Bolivia. Interrupting the monotony of the existing cityscape with his vibrant and distinct neo-Andean style, each Cholet recalls the colours, designs and patterning unique to the Aymara culture. The title Diablada, in particular, recalls the Danza de los Diablos, an Andean cultural dance characterised by performers wearing carnivalesque costumes of trickster devil characters. Neo-Andean architecture largely emerged during the presidency, from 2006 to 2019, of Evo Morales, who was Bolivia's first indigenous leader in the country's 200-year history. It can be seen as a consequence of both his economic policies, which empowered a generation of Aymara business people, and of the sense of pride he instilled in the country's indigenous majority. Designed specifically for the needs of the Aymaran people, each Cholet is three to seven storeys high and follows the same essential layout; the ground floor is dedicated to commercial activities, the middle floors to cultural events, while the upper floors are residences. In this way, each Cholet develops and sustains its own economy. As Mamani says, 'this architecture has its own language, its own culture, its own identity'."

Left to right: Sergey Parajanov's The Colour of Pomegranates, (Out-takes and camera tests) (1969, film installation - colour film), Frank Moore's Lullaby (1997, oil on canvas with red pine frame)

Description of Parajanov's The Colour of Pomegranates: "The Colour of Pomegranates follows the 18th-century ashug (poet, singer) Sayat-Nova from his time in Georgia's royal court, love affair with a princess, consequent expulsion and journey across the Caucasus, to his death in a monastery. Transcending both traditional narrative and national boundaries to draw inspiration from across the region, much like Sayat-Nova's songs, the film recalls a series of Persian or Armenian illuminated miniatures. Created in the years following filmmaker Sergey Parajanov's disavowal of social realism and before his 1973 arrest by Soviet authorities under false charges, it contains references to the endurance of cultures across the South Caucasus region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, as well as Ukraine) in the face of Soviet oppression. Re-edited by Sergei Yutkevich, a key figure of the avant-garde during the 1920s, his version balanced Parajanov's poetic style with the Gosfilmofond's (Russia's state film archive) demands to make the film more accessible. Thanks to documentary filmmaker Daniel Bird and the National Cinema Center of Armenia, the unseen out-takes from The Colour of Pomegranates were presented at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2019. Over a hundred canisters of out-takes have survived despite the Soviet authorities blocking its distribution. Such film would typically have been recycled rather than preserved. Starring Sofiko Chiaureli, who plays six characters, The Colour of Pomegranates left a lasting impact on the film industry and survives as a testament to the power of poetry as a form of resistance across centuries."

Description of Moore's Lullaby: "Ernest Hemingway once suggested that each person dies twice, once when they pass away and again when the last person to remember them forgets. However, if someone is forgotten before they die, then it might feel as if they never existed. This was the reality for those who lived through the AIDS crisis. For years, as people became sick and died America's gay community was ignored by the media and government. Painter and activist Frank Moore, who at 48 died with HIV/AIDS, created Lullaby by transforming his own sick bed into a whimsical landscape populated by a herd of buffalo. Given US President Ronald Reagan did not so much as utter the word AIDS until four years into the crisis, Moore suspected that his community, much like the endangered buffalo, was being left to become extinct. Drawing parallels between the AIDS epidemic and burgeoning ecological crises, Moore believed that this was an apocalypse for himself and those he loved."

Serwah Attafuah's Between this World & the Next (2023-2024, film installation - digital animation (3D computer-rendered models), and e-waste on wooden frame)

Description: "Serwah Attafuah's digital creation unfolds in a near-future Ghana, drawing viewers into an Afrofuturistic vista contrasting colonial remnants with utopian hope. The narrative, propelled by burning slave castles, sinking colonial ships and formidable female warriors, weaves a tale that is both haunting and empowering. This work embodies Ghana's matrilineal legacy, while addressing contemporary issues like e-waste dumping, symbolised by a bespoke frame crafted from e-waste and the incorporation of Sakawa, or 'internet magic. Responding to William Strutt's Black Thursday, February 6th, 1851, also on display, Attafuah delves into West African history, land rights and climate impact on its indigenous communities, fostering a dialogue between historical reverence and visionary insight. Through imaginative storytelling, Attafuah challeges conventional viewpoints and incites reflection, offering commentary on transcending historical bounds. Her avant-garde blend of cultural reflections with futuristic aesthetics establishes this work as a conversation between past legacies and speculative horizons, towards a reimagined future."

BONUS: Maria Fernanda Cardoso's Butterfly Drawings - Morpho didius (Peru) (2004, archival butterfly wings, acrylic, silicone and metal)

Description: "First, I wanted to be a scientist but I used more the model of theRenaissance artist, like Leonardo, which was scientist and artist. So lwent into art thinking that I could do both, I could do art and science." - Maria Fernanda Cardoso

"Maria Fernanda Cardoso is renowned for her use of unconventional materials, which often include symbolically charged elements from the natural world. ...a selection of the artist's butterfly drawings, featuring the insect's delicate wings arranged in mandala-like patterns. Underpinning these works is a system of geometry and repetition. The drawings invite us to look more closely and reflect on our complex relationship to the natural world."

[show-us-kaidenshenandoah]

ill eventually make a proper, pretty intro-post

but hello, hi, i am Kaiden-Shenandoah Knapp

also, yes, Kaiden-Shenandoah is my first name. the hyphen is optional, but you still have to type/say the whole thing. no, you may not call me "Kaiden". yes, i am aware it is a mouthful lol

(probably gonna change my surname is "Knapped" in a few years. i wanna distance myself from some shitty family while making the Indigeneity in my surname more apparent. dont be surprised when that happens. im just putting it off bc i got a lot on my plate rn lol)

(also if you knew me as "Kayleen", hi, hello, i no longer go by that childhood nickname. it is retired, wave goodbye, better to have loved and lost and all that)

this is my messily mindless "welcome to my head" blog, we do things very casually here. im making it my new Main (as of 24 March 2024). my professional/art blog is @kaidenshenandoahknapp

but the real point of this post is: i am not a bot lol

and also, stuff is on a queue (until i do a mass-reblog binge but, typically, i am on queue)

everything in my queue is now 2 post per 24 hours (as of: 20 April 2024)

ive been on tumblr before, but since this is a new Main, im just going through my favorite content-creation blogs i know and mass-queueing loads of the op's projects. (if you are one of those said blogs and find this nth new notes a day from me annoying, please let me know; and i will just spam them all to Post Now so i can get out of your hair asap) i'm also just not good at regularly keeping up with creators' new stuff week-by-week, so instead i generally mass-queue because i assume mass-reblogging is a bit more overwhelming, idk, maybe im just overthinking lol

tags guide: (mostly for me, ngl lol i need reminders of what i tag what when i do my mass-queues)

#me - me posting something

#relatable - "omg that is so me" at someone else's post

#aesthetic - me just really liking the vibes, which sometimes just also happens to be pretty to look at lmao

#canines wolves and werewolves i love - i know what i am about. ill probably have more "niche My Special Interest tags" as i find posts that fit them

#nutty nutcrackers / #the nutcracker - another Special Interest tag. pretty self-explanatory, i like The Nutcracker a lot lmao

#betty boop - you would think this belongs with fandom tags, but no. part of why i am obsessed with her (and have been since i was, like, 14) is because she was the popularization of the very next tag's trend

#infantalization in animation - it's when you apply baby facial proportions to an adult bodied character, it's most often done in female characters. i'll be using this tag outside of animated stuff btw. but yeah, anything that examines that visual design choice i am all 👀 over lmao

#other people's art - any individual person, not counting final version of studio work (like ill tag "Lilo and Stitch"'s exploratory concept art with this, sure, but i wont tag stills of the "Lilo and Stitch" film)

↳ #animal art

↳ #background art

↳ #oc art - is all "my original character in a canon piece" kind of ocs, not the "my original character in my original story" type

↳ there are also specifically listed artists here and there if they have influenced me/my style in the past or recently (such as but not limited to: #rvsa). almost all of them are indies with social media (aka: no Van Gogh, no Hayao Miyazaki. if they have their own fandom, i tag said fandom and not the specific artist, usually. it depends. there are some gray areas)

#brushes - the (digital) brushes people i like use

#art tips

#writing tips - is about actually doing the practice

#on writing - is the philsophy about the practice

#[insert fandom here]

#[insert fandom here] analysis

(here are the tags i chose for some fandoms that had multiple possible tags. this is not all of my fandom tags)

● #studio ghibli, #[insert studio ghibli title here] (i tag both the movie itself and studio. because sometimes i want something from the original movie, so i go into those tags; and i also go to the studio to look at overarching things since the studio has such a strong overall aesthetic/visual brand)

● #[insert disney title] (here, i do tag the specific movies and i dont just use the studio. because im usually looking for specific things this one disney movie has)

● #moomin (as opposed to "moominvalley", "tales of moominvalley", or the like)

● #my hero academia (so many different options for one work)

● #trigun (so many different branching creations from one source lmao im just gonna lump them together)

● #into the spiderverse (i dont use "across the spiderverse" for simplicity's sake, and i don't use the hyphen/space between "spider(-)verse" also for simplicity. its easier for me to be consistent if i just go "nah, its all one word")

● #marvel comics (i do not tag the mcu specifically)

● #dc comics, #batman (i tag both. but i dont tag any other dc comics property. i just know im esp obsessed with the batfam enough that, sure, they should get their own tag)

[aliaharomero]

Pérez Art Museum Miami Visit!

On Saturday, October 14 at 11:00 am - 1:00 pm I had the opportunity to visit the Pérez Art Museum. It was an enlightening and amazing experience as I walked around and analyzed the artworks on display. Many of which, were paintings that all had their own artistic styles that I really enjoyed studying.

Speaking Seeds, by Gisela McDaniel was one of the works that caught my attention the most during my visit. What made this painting stick with me, was the fact that there were certain parts of this painting that were sticking out. These included her face paint and the leaves on the plants. From these characteristics and the feather with a skull the woman is holding , I assumed the painting had to do with indigenous culture and the label of the artwork proved my assumption right. The description explains that the woman in the painting is a Tlingit Chief named Kristen and the pieces that are sticking out are actually seeds and corn. I believe this painting was just a portrait of Kristen that was done to show off her culture and maybe the important aspects of it. Moreover, their agriculture could be something that is valued most in Tlingit culture which can be seen with the corn and seeds embedded into the artwork. I think her pose shows how relaxed she is and it could tie into the fact that she is comfortable with her culture or proud of it. The desscription says "For Kirsten, her practice constitutes a form of decolonization..." and I don't thinks she flaunting it in a way thats like 'my culture is better than others' but more like a reminder of what was forgotten or attempted to be wiped. Additionally, as I continued to look at the painting I realized that the woman has one of her feet hidden while the other is shown being well executed and showing depth. When I tried to replicate this in my sketch, I realized that shading played a big role in showing how far back the foot was. It helped me practice foreshortening and depth as I constantly tried to replicate it in my sketch. It's why I focused more on shading the legs rather anything else in the painting. Overall, it was a fun experience trying to replicate this piece and I absolutely admire this painting.

The second artwork I decided to sketch was King for an Hour by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. What I noticed most about this painting was directly what the description of the artwork mentioned. The bright white colors of the eyes and teeth in contrast to the dark background and the "unnerving expression." I think this painting along with other artworks helped made me realize what type of artwork im interested in. The description mentions that subject is not of a specific person but a enogmation of Yiadom-Boakye "memories, fantasies, and literary interests. " With this painting, I think it has to do with how hidden African American's are in different aspects of life. Whether it has to do with media or history, the way the subject almost blends in with the background shows how out of sight they really are. The label also mentions how Yiadom-Boakye highlights the idea that "people of African descent" are misrepresented and I think we can see that with the facial features the subject has. The subject is described to have an unnerving expression but it could be a malicious take on a smile. When sketching this artwork, I really struggled with the subject's legs and I realized a few things about the proportions. I used my pencil to line up where I thought the knee was of the right leg to the head and realized that the elbow, head, and right knee were lined perfectly. It definitely showed me how linear the body was in the position the figure was in. I decided to shade the face and arms instead of the whole figure because I was interested in studying the facial expression the artist gave the individual in this painting.

With the 2 artworks that I choose, I think they both allowed me to gain a better understanding of certain parts of figure drawing I struggle with. Seeing how both artists style in their drawing of the figure gives me an idea of how I should approach it. Even the stories behind them helped me realize there is more to a body than how it's posed.

[enki2]

However, I think this is also a collision with side hustle culture and reification/essentialism in communities around art. A lot of people who would be much happier writing in their free time for beer money have convinced themselves that they're not a Real Writer unless they write novels & live off royalties. YA's generally-shorter page counts (and the familiarity that younger & more naive writers have with YA) means it gets an in-flow of exactly these people who are desperate for the validation of the Officially Published Novelist & Full Time Author labels.

(This is mostly based on observing all the small horror presses that popped up in the past decade & the author communities around them, and noting how the behavior of the authors who also do YA & middlegrade differs from the ones who don't.)

We have a rennaissance of small presses that basically use self-publishing tools & then handle stuff like editing, layout, cover design, and promotion in-house or in the creative community they've attracted. This is great for people's egos (I was super excited when I got a paperback anthology with one of my stories in it), incentivizes work in some of these fringe genres that don't justify big-five involvement (the anthology I contributed to was specifically for modern takes on mid-century gothic & the same publishing house has put out a book-length thesis about plan nine from outer space, a reprint of a collection of 70s vampire movie reviews, a coffee table book of newspaper print ads for movies, and an anthology of dark saturday-morning-cartoon fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off, among other things, and other small horror imprints are specializing in gay indigenous authors or marijuana-themed stories), puts a little bit of money in writers' pockets, and builds social connections between artists. I think it's great (even if I bitch and moan about some of the specifics, like discord pitch parties). But a lot of people go into writing expecting to become Stephen King, and they're gonna have a Bad Time.

You're never gonna be Stephen King, but H. P. Lovecraft status is probably attainable (by which I mean: if you work really hard, you can get the occasional story published in a paying market, develop a group of penpals who help brainstorm and edit new stories, and get a small but dedicated fanbase of people who loudly insist that your unique writing style is not evidence of incompetence but instead an affectation that's tolerable once you get used to it, and 80 years after your death some of your fans will have become popular enough that your books get reprinted with annotations).

My scorching hot 60%-endorsed take is that the vast majority of the sickness of the soul on YA twitter and similar comes down to the fact that without all the old boys club gatekeeping of yore there are just orders of magnitude more people who are half-decent at prose and want to be writers than there is market demand to support living wages as a career writer. The more democratized and open creative pursuits are the more vital being discovered is and the more leverage trad publishers or whoever gets to pick winners have to secure as much of the pie for themselves. The viciousness just spirals naturally from there.

[queen-breha-organa]

How to Spot Whitewashing - Clone Trooper Edition

Today I saw the question: “How can I spot whitewashing in Clone fanart?”

Seeing this really made me think. First, I think this is a wonderful question. Acknowledging when you don’t have enough experience, knowledge, or awareness is super important. Not everyone can know everything! Once you acknowledge a gap in your awareness or understanding, the next step is to fill that gap.

Listen to those with experience, knowledge, and awareness on the topic. Listen to those personally effected and learn. That way you can grow and encourage others to do the same. And when you have enough awareness to spot harmful things like whitewashing, you can avoid contributing to them!

Temuera is Māori from Aotearoa (New Zealand). This indigenous group is a subgroup of the larger Polynesian ethnicity. Personally, I am Native Hawaiian (Kānaka Maoli) which is also a member of the larger Polynesian family. So tonight I want to use my personal experience to talk to all of you about Polynesians and whitewashing, and how to specifically spot the basics of whitewashing on Clone Troopers.

I want to start off by saying: whitewashing is NOT limited to skin lightening. Often it goes much deeper than that. Whitewashing can be drawing someone’s features more eurocentric, by giving them thin features instead of round ones. It can be drawing their hair straight instead of curly. It can be drawing double lids on a character with monolids. Or round eyes on a character with almond eyes.

Whitewashing effects features as well, not just skin tone.

And with that out of the way, Let’s get right into it, and analyze some of Temuera’s features.

Starting with face shapes.

Temuera has a round face and round features accompanied by hooded eyes. His jawline is very soft, and he’s got a strong nose bridge. These are essential when drawing clones. No matter the art style, round features are round. Replacing round noses with thin sharp noses, is whitewashing. Changing Tem’s face from round to thin, is whitewashing.

Below, I’ve assembled some references and highlighted some of his facial shapes:

Next, hair!

When Temuera’s hair gets long, it gets more curly. However, when it’s cut shorter, it just has slight waves. The closer to his head, the more “straight” his hair appears. However, it always has slight texture. This is also essential. He doesn’t have straight white hair. His hair is part of his genetic identity.

Heres a few close ups:

And finally, skin tone.

These are a few pictures I made for a previous post, showcasing Tem’s skin in multiple lightings at multiple ages. It’s important to remember that skin can get thinner as one gets older! This may lead to darker skin at a younger age, and paler, more translucent skin at an older age. However, age does not suddenly make you a white person. Undertones and features remain.

I encourage you all to ask yourself this question before you draw or reblog Clone Trooper fanart:

“Am I contributing to colorism, whitewashing and racism in the Star Wars fandom? Or am I helping end it?”

Thank you for reading, and thank you making/supporting content that accurately represents Temuera’s heritage and provides accurate and helpful representation for Polynesian fans!

It makes me so happy to see Polynesian Representation in Star Wars. So so happy. Seeing people with my features be loved and accepted and honored makes me feel loved, accepted and honored! So thank you!

Aloha ❤️

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Frequently Asked Questions:

Is eskimo a slur?

"Eskimo" has a complicated history, and given how the people it's been applied to have been subject to like 4 different nations' colonial rule (Russia, the United States, Canada, and Denmark are the ones I know about), you're going to get some different answers depending on who you ask. Insisting that the word Eskimo be treated as a slur in every context leads to policing Indigenous folks and how we talk about ourselves and our cultural identities, so do understand that there is nuance that comes not just with the time period, but with where and among whom the word is used. The best way I've heard it explained is that you wouldn't tell a guy from the Philipines not to call himself Filipino, even though it's an exonym and a product of imperialism. The word eskimo has a complicated history and has been weaponized against vulnerable peoples, and so it's understandable if you don't feel comfortable with it, but understand in turn that Indigenous peoples are not required to alter the language we use for ourselves to conform to your idea of respectability.

What's a kuspuk?

A kuspuk (also spelled qaspeq) is a smock-like garment resulting from Euro-American style dresses and shirts being introduced to Inupiaq and Yup'ik peoples. Missionaries insisted on us dressing more modestly indoors (because traditionally indoor clothes didn't cover much and there really wasn't a nudity taboo), and we made alterations to the patterns to suit our needs. They were made bigger and looser to be worn over skin clothes, similar to a gut parka, and to be quicker and easier to make. Hoods and large front pockets were also added. They have become regalia but are also open to outsiders. It is not cultural appropriation to wear or draw kuspuks as someone who isn't eskimo. Everyone is welcome to it and it is understood as appreciation.

What does nalauģmiu mean? Is it an insult?

The literal translation with all the connotations and implications is something like "person of (defined specifically by) not knowing" or more simply "person who doesn't know", basically used to mean white people or cultural outsiders in general. It's no more insulting than "newbie".

Can you tell me about [Inuit thing]?

I can certainly try. The Inuit are a culturally diverse and geographically scattered group, King Islanders/Ukivokmiut/Uguivoqmiut were especially unique in our architecture and diet. I can try to share what I've picked up on, but I can't guarantee I'll really get the nuance down, as it might not be something I've grown up with and might even be from the other side of the North American continent

Are Inupiat and Inuit the same?

The ancestors of the Canadian Inuit and Greenlanders split from the ancestors of the Inupiat about 1000 years ago and we've developed seperately, in culture, technology, what have you. My family never refered to us as Inuit, choosing Native, Inupiat, or Eskimo instead. I don't refer to myself, or even really consider myself, as Inuk even tho on a technicality I am.

Can I draw traditional tattoos?

I don't mind the idea of nalauģmiut drawing traditional tattoos. Like using the word eskimo, I think prioritizing the idea that it should never be done can ultimately do as much harm to the quieter communities involved (the Inuit and Inupiat are not the only peoples with women's face tattoos and non-natives rarely try to educate themselves on our cultures or look into white-passing folks' cultural backgrounds) as good. That said, people tend to put in as little research as possible, leading to the cultural practices portrayed being bastardized for the sake of neat fan art. There are other visual aspects to the culture that are entirely for aesthetics, and insisting on tattoos you don't know the rules for or significance of is pretty gross.

Are Yup'ik peoples Inuit?

No, they're Yup'ik and have just as much a right to these discussions.

What are your pronouns?

They/them

Do you have a dni?

Not against any specific kinds of people, just in forms of interaction. Please don't reblog my posts about eskimo stuff to blogs with a lot of z*tara content. Don't drag me into fandom discourse (if I want to talk about it, I will on my own terms). Don't ask me my opinion on or tell me about your ships unprompted. Do not ask me for my opinion and tell me i'm wrong for having an opinion (yes, this has happened to me already). Do not suggest I'm some kind of bigot for not wanting characters written to resemble people of my culture to be proselytized to (this has also already happened to me). Understand that I'm a disabled adult with bills, a job, and other responsibilities. I will not always have time or energy to respond right away. If you have a question and are unsure if it crosses a line, you can ask me. Private messages are open and asks on the topic will be answered privately

Do you post fanfiction anywhere?

No.

[skidar]

Story Pole 2

Instructor Sample: A relationship between me and the land. My story pole depicts me and the places I have lived in or called home. From western Washington to Texas, Idaho, Florida and back to Washington. I have always found a way to connect to the nature around me by learning about the local wildlife. I enjoy long road trips across the places I have lived and I live for the moments when pavement turns to dirt, I stop seeing other cars and can truly immerse myself in the wilderness around me. When the ‘no service’ signal pops up on my phone I know I’m there.

In an effort to appease my teacher I stripped the project of the CoSalish style. An interview with a friend who’s family has carved totem poles for decades put it easily: ‘No matter who you ask, some people on either side are gonna say yes it’s a problem to use the style or no its not. Since she’s giving you a grade, change it to please her, when you teach it yourself do it your way.’

I did enjoy the freedom of style for the story pole design and I do feel it will give students a chance to shine with their unique styles. While I still want to do a project that involves the CoSalish style in the future, my friend made the suggestion of picking a specific artist from a specific tribe, as many carvers from family to family and tribe to tribe have different styles, specific colors and types of cuts used to make their poles unique. I think this is a good idea as it brings name recognition to local artists that may have been overlooked instead of lumping all Indigenous artists together, and it gives students a chance to research and connect to their community and neighbors rather than just sifting through google for CoSalish designs and images that look pretty.

As for my story pole project, I am satisfied. I think this is a great opener project for higher level students as it gives them a chance to introduce themselves and share something meaningful about themselves through vertical art that tells a story.

While part of me was upset about gutting the original project, I think the discussion I had with my friend and the more research I did ultimately made this the better call. It allows students to be true to themselves by not hiding a part of them behind a style that might not fit them. I can repurpose parts of the old project for another, meaning we I don’t have to have a ‘one and done’ assignment about CoSalish history to fulfillment an educational quota, I can continue to have local CoSalish appreciation assignments all year. And in the end, the assignment is still a vertical story pole just like I wanted to do.

I think it’s a good assignment. Now the only thing left to do is the presentation...

[sylvanas-girlkisser]

The Solari theory, aka. “here’s how Mel can still win”

Cast your mind back to episode 8, remember this dress from the flashback?

It’s a really nice dress right? It’s also nothing even remotely resembling Noxian fashion (which tends to be a lot of hard edges and black on black). What it does kinda resemble is Rakkor fashion. Specifically that gold ring symbol on her chest looks like a Solari insignia.

Yes i created a reference board just to make this point, cause it’s kinda what this entire theory relies on.

So “Rakkor”, “Solari”, weird fantasy terms, what do they mean? Well, the Rakkor are the largest, and most militarized of the tribes inhabitingthe Mount Targon region. The Solari are a religious order which most (but not all) Rakkor belongs to, who as you may have guessed from the name, worship the sun.

Also just to avoid confusion: oftentimes when you hear the word “tribe” used in fantasy, its meant to imply some sorta small, “In-touch with nature” nomadic community, based off of white people’s fetishized views of indigenous cultures. That is not the case here, the Rakkor are a vast (and diverse) group of people, they have universities, religious schisms, vast cities, and oh yeah, a well-trained standing army that could probably go toe to toe with Noxus.

Here’s the thing though, Mount Targon is nowhere near Noxian territory, but other than that, the cultural values of two groups line up pretty well. Noxus sees itself as the great liberator, the Rakkor sees themself as the protectors of Mount Targon (and its’ tribes), both are really into military prowess. Meaning if Ambessa, for some reason ran into a solari warrior, they would probably hit it off.

However, given that the Noxian capital is on the other side of the planet from mount Targon, and that the Rakkor believes in communally raising children within temples, a relationship probably wouldn’t last. I can’t imagine Ambessa being particularly excited by the idea of her daughter being raised side by side with “peasants”.

And you might be like “hold on Valk are you really basing all off this on a dress scene in one seen? That seems kinda thin.” At which point I would like to draw your attention to my second big piece of evidence: Mel’s tattoos.

(And yes they are tattoos. they’re there while she sleeps, and they stretch/deform with her skin.)

Now scroll back up to my reference board for Solari sigils. Notice anything familiar? Yup a lot of them also have golden tattoos on their upper bodies, however theirs are in circular patterns fitting the solari aesthetic, whereas Mel’s are in a more art deco/Piltover style. You’ll also notice: Mel doesn’t have her tattoos yet in the flashback.

Which brings us to the meat of the theory: Mel’s dad is a Solari, who at some point during Mel’s lifetime had a falling out with Ambessa; maybe it was the same thing that led to Mel being semi-disowned? Who knows 🤷‍♂️, would explain why she smeared gold over her painting of the Noxian capital though. Until that point, Mel’s dad had been teaching her about his side of her cultural heritage, which she clearly had an interest in (why else would she wear a Solari dress in what I assume to be Ionia?)

After being shipped off to Piltover, Mel found someone who could give her gold tattoos similar to the ones worn by the Solari, but chose to instead have them made in a Piltover style. Possibly as an attempt to combine her cultural heritage with her new home? Or maybe as a way to own her Rakkor heritage without seeming like she was giving Noxus the middle finger?

How does all of this explains how Mel might survive the hextech rocket? Well the last thing we see before the rocket hits the council building is this:

A flash of light travelling across Mel’s tattoos in a way that doesn’t quite seem to fit with either the light already in the room, or the light emitted by the rocket’s engine. Light magic, like that practiced by the Solari however, is recognizable by its golden glow, and is very commonly used for defensive purposes.

Magic may be illegal in Piltover, but it’s not in Noxus; in fact there you are all but obligated to hone your magical abilities if you have them. So Mel grows up, having inherited her father’s magic and has some of the best trainers money can buy. She is exiled to Piltover where magic is forbidden, thereby also severing her ties to her dad. But in that split second before the rocket hits, she’s no longer thinking, instincts kick in before her conscious mind even registers the dangers, reaching out despite the rust, projecting a magical barrier around herself and those closest to her.

Because lets be honest here, they’re not gonna kill of Jayce and Viktor, and this feels like the least bs way they could survive the blast.

“But wait!” I hear you say: “Isn’t Mel’s dad Jago Medarda?” And no, it is almost certainly not. Let’s disregard Jago being white, because genetics can be weird and characters can have their race changed; what’s more likely is that Jago has been retconned. There’s just too much lore that doesn’t add up otherwise.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about: There’s a page on the official lore wiki, which predates Arcane by years, saying that house Medarda is a well-established house in Piltover lead by an old white guy named Jago Medarda. Jago’s heir apparent is a (black or mixed race) man named Jalrond “Jae” Medarda; which seems to go against Mel being “the richest person in Piltover, but the poorest Medarda”. It also just doesn’t make sense to “exile” Mel to Piltover if she’s got like half her family already living there, Ambessa would already have a political presence. There’s also some, a bit iffy references to house Medarda arming anti-Noxus rebels, but those can potentially be explained, I just don’t wanna do a deep dive into Noxian poltics here.

[memecucker]

idk if you've already talked about this but what do you think of the idea of cultural appropriation when it comes to closed practices? like when white people wanna wear war bonnets or claim they're doing voodoo

So the issue here isn’t “cultural appropriation” as people use the term but rather respect of particular practices. For example war bonnets have been given to non-Natives as formal gifts from, during WW2 the Indian Confederation of America voted to gift war bonnets to Joseh Stalin as well as Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas Macarthur. The NY Times article in particular is interesting because it talks about how it was a Mohawk war bonnet that was in the possession of a Mohawk chief named Fallen Trees and that it was originally planned to be given to Major Gen. Alexander Repin who was in charge of the Soviet military mission to the US and it was felt that since obviously Stalin couldn’t accept it in person another man who was himself a war leader could accept in his place. However Repin had to abruptly return to the Soviet Union and the Indian Confederation of America did not wish to hand it off to a subordinate officer because only another leader of warriors should accept in in place of the ultimate recipient so instead they modified the ceremony and handed it to the civilian Edward Carter of the Russian War Relief charity group and presented not as Carter “accepting” it but rather being tasked with the role of a “messenger” who would deliver it to Stalin (rather than if Repin was still in the US in which case he’d accept for Stalin in abstenstia with a ceremony looking more like the ones for American generals rather than a more low-key handoff). The reason I focused on that for a bit is that it shows how the ICA wasn’t just some random group that handed out war bonnets to random famous people as favors but was an organization of native people that took these cultural traditions very seriously and specifically the act of gifting it to an outsider was part of it and came with its own set of rules.

If your intent is to be respectful of other cultural practices then this involves understanding the rules, not making up and blankety applying them which is what contemporary CA discourse does. My issue with the way “closed cultural practice” (and especially “closed culture”) is often used is that it’s assumed it’s only a “do not touch” sign like in a museum when in fact there are particular rules and traditions and oftentimes competing ones. So in the above example the war bonnets were given to non-natives but after a process of deliberation and decision by a group representing various tribes from the northeast. This is important because CA discourse has a habit of focusing on the what’s styled as the “transgressors” and I remember weird articles with titles like “How To Know If Your Comitting Cultural Appropriation” which tends to focus on the “intent” of the (implicitly white) reader rather than understanding the particular rules that go into a culture because it puts all the “rules” on the outsider and doesn’t emphasize that if your intent is to respect traditional customs then you learn what the traditional rules for the custom in question is (thus you get kimono and henna discourse which have never had any kind of rule about outsider wearing but people wanna distract you from that).

Another example i often use for this sorta question is Whang-od of the Butbut tribe of the Kalinga people and the last surviving master of traditional indigenous Kalinga tattooing. Traditionally the tattoos have been reserved for members of the same tribe (not simply “reserved for other Kalinga” as ive seen some people say, or even worse “reserved for other Filipinos”). The reason for this closed practice wasn’t “just because” but because of the particular meanings conveyed by the tattoos. Tattoos whose art designs are intended to represent ones ancestry in the tribe don’t make sense for outsiders to have because designs signify lines of ancestry within the tribe so if you aren’t descended from the tattoo artists tribe those don’t make sense to have. A large eagle tattoo was among most prestigious tattoos only to be given a brave warrior of the tribe who killed and decapitated an enemy and Whang-od not only doesn’t do that for outsiders but no one because she believes the design is reserved specifically for warriors who either participated in or defended the tribe from head-hunting raids rather than a general idea of a brave soldier but the traditional Kalinga practice of headhunting ended decades ago (IIRC the last confirmed headhuntting raid was in the 1970s) and thus the meaning the tattoo conveys has fallen into disuse and thus it is no longer to be given. However Whang-od did open up other designs to people not of the Butbut tribe if they’re willing to make the long difficult trek to her village and undergo the long and painful process of traditional tattooing. The designs she uses with outsiders aren’t things that relate to being a member of her tribe but rather other designs that convey a magical meaning. So for example a tattoo that’s meant the bless the bearer with fertility/virility or to ward off evil spirits.

So are these “closed” or “open” practices? I think that’s a bad framework to approach the issue from the outset. It tries to encourage respect but without encouraging learning first.

[realife-mermaid]

Reading Log for End of Summer

Counts stayed the same for once lmao, I did Not buy any new books this month or miraculously find yet More books shoved under my bed that I had forgotten about. Also - I MADE MY GOODREADS GOAL EARLY!!!!!

And a reminder that books with a bisexual main character and books written by Indigenous author are all marked!!

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite - 4.5 stars. This was fun, sweet, and romantic. It dealt a lot with women in STEM - its about a female astronomer who is In Her Feelings after her lover marries a man, and falls in love with a rich widow who decides to become her patroness - but it also surprisingly goes into women in art as well, and never pits the two subjects against each other. Also, the constant question of “what does a marriage really mean?” was incredibly well handled and I loved Lucy and Catherine’s views on marriage, science, and art.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman - 4 stars. This is a reread because I never read the sequel. I also wanted to see if it held up because it was one of my favorite books in high school and really opened my eyes to allegory in fiction. And it really held up. I think it could have been like 50 pages shorter (so much running around, not enough focus on Seraphina’s connection with other dragons) and also it used the word h*lf br**d 😑 But i liked that it wasn’t a one for one allegory. When I first read it, I remember connecting a lot with the half dragons and being biracial but I also saw a lot of disability, queerness, in addition to the racial and ethnic allegory. Unlike a lot of books though, there actually ARE queer characters, disabled characters, characters of color that are half dragons (and that are fully human) and I liked that. Also Lars and Viridius own my gay ass okay.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo - 5 stars. This really spoke to me. I listened to the audiobook that she read and it was just brilliant, and it helped me visualize the stories she weaved as she spoke and chanted and sang. It’s about identity, and it centers an Indigenous one because she is Indigenous, but she quotes people like Sandra Cisneros and it feels like it makes clear that she means these questions for everyone. It turns the Indigenous identity into the Every Man. It’s so good.

The Shy Duchess by Amy McCabe - 4 stars. Cute, sweet, and fun. It explored the “fridged wife and child” thing in a way that was actually interesting, and also dealt with how reputations affect us. It actually was a LOT like the first season of Bridgerton lmao I think Amy McCabe should ask for royalties bc some parts were eerily similar.

Perfect on Paper by Sophia Gonzales - 4 stars. So sweet like candy!!! I loved the plot, sort of like a Sex Education thing where the main character gives relationship advice anonymously for a fee. Darcy was a great protagonist and I loved how unabashedly queer this book was. I took a star off though bc I hated Darcy’s best friend and nothing really happened there and bc I wish, seeing as it was about the specific issues bisexuals face, it had gone more deeply into those issues.

The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace - 2.5 stars. There’s substance but no real form. In the vein of Rupi Kaur, it’s just a lot of hitting enter at random words instead of actually attempting to give the poem proper flow, proper word choice, good prose. I’m sort of confused as to why this was so highly recommended actually.

Phantompains by Therese Estacion - 4 stars. The style of poetry isn’t my favorite (lots of repetition) but the poems were still striking. There’s on “there’s an amputee under the magnolia tree” that is really good and a poem where she compares her disabled body to Filipino lore her grandmother taught us and they were amazing. But be warned, the poems are about the author nearly dying, and in the process getting both her legs amputated and her ovaries taken out, and her dealing with the aftermath. It’s very good but really blunt and brutal in describing her trauma.

Theirs for the Night by Katee Roberts - 4 stars. Steamy. Just full of fun, typical romance stuff - a dethroned crown prince from a fake European country is hiding out in America with his bodyguard/boyfriend and just happen up a down on her luck, fussy young woman who’s down for a threesome, except they all catch feelings - but with very good writing and some pretty good characterization set up in this novella for the main series. Also it was surprise MMF AND IM SO HAPPY.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston - 5 stars. I was hesitant to read this bc RWRB is just a book about white guilt and I was sure this would be the same BUT it was amazing! Romantic, fun, witty, and just full of warmth. The found families, the romance, the grappling with last trauma, and it also pulled off a True Love’s Kiss better than Disney could ever DREAM of.

Neon Gods by Katee Roberts - 4 stars. Listened to this audiobook. I liked the girls voice better, she was very expressive, the guy was a bit cheesy. But - this was super good. Not only is it kinky, but there’s clear safe words, boundaries, Hades all but busts out the BDSM checklist to check through Persephone’s yes’ and no’s. AND THEYRE BOTH BISEXUAL. It’s a modern retelling of the myth and the world building to explain how it’s modern is really original. ALSO this was the book I finished my reading goal on!!!!

Forever Theirs by Katee Roberts - 4 stars. Parts of it dragged a bit bc everyone was busy being melodramatic but I still really liked it, and the characters, and how they dealt with the relationship, and I liked a lot of the supporting characters as well.

Desperate Measures by Katee Roberts - 4 stars. On the one hand, the way the author has a really clear idea of how BDSM and power dynamics work is just REALLY compelling and I adored the ending so much. On the other hand, this didn’t actually feel like an erotic retelling of Aladdin, with the exception of Jasmine. It was just erotica with Arab characters who happened to share the names. And while I’m not complaining about an erotic/romance book with non white leads - ESPECIALLY given how Jasmine and Jafar aren’t orientalized since everybody is fucking in this book lmao - it didn’t really live up to its branding in that regard.

Return of the Viscount by Gayle Callen - 2 stars. *Dr. Doofenschmirtz voice* Boy if I had a nickel for every time I was thoroughly enjoying a regency era romance book and then all of a sudden a main character rapes someone and it’s treated like a youthful mistake instead of a heinous crime, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Never Seduce A Scot by Maya Banks - 5 stars. I think the fix to my recent issue with regency/Victorian/Georgian era historical novels is to only read ones where one of the heroes is disabled. In this, the deaf (and believed to ~daft~) daughter of a Scottish laird is forced by the king to marry the laird of a rival clan. Saddled with what he believes to be a wife he can never truly be married to, Graham takes Eveline to his home and tries to care for her, but Eveline wants to make the best of their marriage. It’s romantic, laugh out loud funny, sweet, and also deals A LOT with the different ways ableism affects people. I enjoyed this immensely and I highly recommend it.

IRL by Tommy Pico - 4 stars. There’s this line that goes “My homeland was taken over by brawny English and yet I’m still single!” And it is very indicative of this poetry novel. It’s funny, taking the concepts of colonialism and genocide and imperialism and interrogating them on a personal level from the POV of a city native. Also I just love Tommy Pico’s narration!

Surrender to the Earl by Gayle Callen - 5 stars. So much better than the first book. This one is about a blind widow who enters into a fake engagement with a soldier who served with her late husband in order to get away from her controlling family. There’s so many points where this could have taken the easy way out - not had the hero examine his controlling behavior, had the sisters be catty, and on and on but it always did a good job really digging into the complexity of every situation. Also, it was Wonderfully romantic.

New Books Read: 15

Rereads: 1

Total Counts: 17/97; 24/188

Goodreads Goal: 56/49 💙💜💖💙💜💖💙💜💖💙💜💖💙💜💖

[dweemeister]

NOTE: This is the third film released theatrically during the COVID-19 pandemic that I am reviewing – I saw Raya and the Last Dragon at the Regency Theatres Directors Cut Cinema’s drive-in operation in Laguna Niguel, California. Because moviegoing carries risks at this time, please remember to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by your local, regional, and national health officials.

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

As Raya and the Last Dragon, directed by Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada and written by Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim, made its theatrical and streaming bow, the United States was grappling with a wave of highly-publicized hate incidents towards Asian-Americans in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This spike in racially-motivated verbal abuse, assaults, and homicides began with the pandemic and, frustratingly, had only been receiving national attention in these last few weeks. Despite the nation’s racist origins entwined with chattel slavery of black people and its continued unequal treatment of minorities including Asian-Americans, I am not qualified to say if the U.S. is “more” or “less racist” than other countries. But I can hardly think of any other people that interrogate racial inequality and oppression as much (and as publicly) as Americans – an undeniable strength. There was no way Raya and the Last Dragon’s cast and crew could have anticipated the film’s fraught timing, but the film provides a much-needed, positive, and heavily flawed, action-adventure romp drawn from Southeast Asian cultures.

The very notion that Walt Disney Animation Studios was attempting to craft a film using an amalgam of Southeast Asian cultures stoked my excitement and dread. Southeast Asian cultures – including, but not limited to, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam – are often lumped into those of East Asia (China, Korea, Japan), which dominate Asian-American depictions or Asian-influenced media in the United States. What gave me pause is that Disney’s track record in films featuring non-European-inspired characters and places inspired by non-European cultures is mixed. Aladdin (1992) and Pocahontas (1995) are aggregations of (and indulge in stereotypes towards) Arabs and indigenous Americans alike, especially in their presentations of “savagery” (Pocahontas in particular is guilty of false equivalences).

Cultural aggregations in fictional settings are not insensitive, per se. Yet, Disney’s stated intentions on this film are undermined by a voice cast ensemble almost entirely composed of actors of Chinese and Korean descent – you can bring up Adele Lim’s response to the voice casting controversy all you want, but her response contradicts the film’s promotion. Amid its gorgeous production and character design, Raya manages to avoid the worst mistakes of its Disney Renaissance predecessors. But its hero’s journey is too cluttered and too littered with the anachronistic and metatextual jokes plaguing the last decade’s Disney animated features.

Five centuries before the events of Raya and the Last Dragon, the land of Kumandra saw its people live in harmony with dragons. That relationship, however, would be devastated by the appearance of the Druun – a swirling, purple vortex that turns living beings into stone. In the conflict against the Druun, the last dragon, Sisu (Awkwafina), makes a fateful sacrifice to save Kumandra by concentrating the dragons’ collective power into a magical orb. Soon after, Kumandra’s five tribes – Fang, Heart, Spine, Tail, and Talon (named after parts of a dragon) – fight amongst each other for control of the orb (Heart eventually gains possession of it), effectively partitioning the land. In the present day, the Heart tribe’s Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim) proposes and hosts a feast-summit to discuss and heal Kumandra’s divisions. Benja has taught his daughter, Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), the ways of a warrior and the necessity for Kumandra’s tribes to realize their oneness. At the feast-summit, Raya befriends Namaari (Gemma Chan; Jona Xiao as young Namaari), the daughter of Fang Chief Virana (Sandra Oh). Predictably, Namaari betrays her new friend in an orchestrated ploy to pilfer the dragons’ orb for Fang. Just as the Druun make a surprise invasion of Heart, the botched heist sees the orb break into five, and each of the tribes makes off with part of the orb. It will be up to Raya to recover the other four pieces of the orb, lest Kumandra succumb to the Druun.

The film’s screenplay is, charitably, a mess. Though Qui Nguyen (primarily a playwright) and Adele Lim (2018’s Crazy Rich Asians) are the credited screenwriters, Raya’s phalanx of story credits (mostly full-time, white employees at the Disney studios) suggest studio interference. Raya seems as if it is trying to cleanly differentiate certain tribes as based on a certain Southeast Asian nation. Instead, it comes off as a brew of mish-mashed parts (this problem extends to the otherwise stunning animation). With the exception of those from the militant Fang, the bit characters from the various tribes do not behave any differently from the members of other tribes. The partition of Kumandra, five hundred years before the events of Raya, feels like as if it had never existed for lengthy stretches in this film.

After Kelly Marie Tran, as Raya, narrates the mythology and history of Kumandra in the opening minutes, the film’s structure tethers itself predictably to the monomyth. The fracturing of the dragon’s orb into five parts sends Raya onto a tedious adventure: the physical travel to a new part of Kumandra, introduction of a sidekick (all of them are comic reliefs), an action setpiece involving a necessary assist from new sidekick, and the integration of that sidekick into Raya’s ever-growing party. Lather, rinse, repeat. To squeeze the four other tribes into the film’s 107-minute runtime and set up a climax and resolving actions results in a frantically-paced movie. Almost all of the film’s dialogue is subservient to its structure, the hero’s journey. This disallows the viewer to learn more about our lead and her fellow adventurers. In arguably the most important example in how the dedication to story structure undermines the characters, take Raya’s repeated mentions to her newfound confidants that she has difficulty trusting others. Six years have passed since the day of Namaari’s betrayal and Raya’s discovery of Sisu. How has Raya’s sense of distrust evolved over time, and how does it manifest towards those of other tribes? Does it appear in moments without consequence to her quest, in gusts of casual cruelty? In terms of characterization, Raya is showing too little and telling just the basics – a dynamic that also applies to the film’s most important supporting characters.

Ever since Tangled (2010), the films of the Disney animated canon have increased their use of metatextual and anachronistic humor (e.g. Kristoff’s comment about Anna’s engagement to a person she just met in 2013’s Frozen and Maui’s Twitter joke in 2016’s Moana that still makes me gnash my teeth when I think about it). Invariably, the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has seen its brand of pathos-destroying humor bleed into the Disney animated canon and Star Wars. Like so many films in the Disney animated canon, Raya takes place in a fantastical location in a never-time far removed from the present. From the moment Raya meets Sisu, the circa-2020s humor is ceaseless. For Disney animated movies set in fantastical worlds, this sort of humor suits films that are principally comedies, such as The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) – a work that owes more to Looney Tunes than anything Disney has created. Instead, Raya’s comedy will suit viewers who frequent certain corners of the Internet, “for the memes.” Do Disney’s animation filmmakers believe the adults and children viewing their films so impatient and unintelligent about human emotions? That they will not accept a scene that deals honestly with betrayal, disappointment, heartbreak, or loss unless there is a snide remark or visual gag inserted within said scene or shortly afterward?

Raya seems like a film set to portray its scenarios with the gravity they require. But overusing Awkwafina’s Awkwafina-esque jokes and a DreamWorks- or Illumination Entertainment-inspired infant causing meaningless havoc will subvert whatever emotions Nguyen and Lim are attempting to evoke. These statements are not arguing that Raya and Disney’s animated films should be humorless, that Disney should stop casting an Awkwafina or an Eddie Murphy as comic relief. Instead, Raya is another case study in how Disney’s brand of ultramodern humor is overtaking their films’ integral dramatics. Raya is noisy, clamorous – no different than anything Disney has released in the last decade, save Winnie the Pooh (2011).

Production designers Helen Mingjue Chen, Paul A. Felix, and Cory Loftis have worked on films like Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Big Hero 6 (2014), or Zootopia (2016). Each of these films feature glamorous, near-future metropolises or sleek digital worlds. Where the tribespeople of Kumandra might not be behaviorally-differentiated, the color coding, lighting, and biomes of each of the five lands comprising Kumandra ably distinguishes Fang, Heart, Spine, Tail, and Talon from each other. As if taking cues from the production designs of Big Hero 6’s San Fransokyo and, to some extent, The King and I (1956), it is difficult to pin down specific influences on the clashing architectural styles within the lands, in addition to the unusually empty and cavernous palaces and temples and varying costumes. As picturesque as some of these lands are, the art direction does not help to empower the characteristic of the tribes and their native lands. Nor does James Newton Howard’s thickly-synthesized grind of an action score, which prefers to accompany the film’s excellent combat scenes rather than stake a clearer thematic identity for its own. Howard uses East and Southeast Asian instrumentations and influences in his music, but, disappointingly, they are heavily processed through synthetic elements and are played underneath the film’s sound mix.

Character art directors Shiyoon Kim (Tangled, 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and Ami Thompson (2017’s MFKZ, 2018’s Ralph Breaks the Internet) embrace the (generally) darker and varying skin complexions of Southeast Asian peoples. The skin textures are among the best ever produced in a Disney CGI-animated feature, and the variety of face shapes – although still paling in comparison to the best hand-drawn features – is a pleasure to witness.

The number of films starring actors/voice actors of Asian descent (all-Asian or majority-Asian), animated or otherwise, and released by a major Hollywood studio makes for a brief list. Raya and the Last Dragon joins an exclusive club that includes the likes of The Dragon Painter (1919), Go for Broke! (1951), Flower Drum Song (1961), The Joy Luck Club (1993), and Crazy Rich Asians (2018). Among those movies, Raya is the only entry specifically influenced by Southeast Asian cultures. Its cast may be headlined by Kelly Marie Tran (whose skill as a voice actor is one of the film’s most pleasant surprises), but most of the roles went to those of Chinese or Korean descent. No disrespect intended towards Gemma Chan, Sandra Oh, or veteran actress Lucille Soong, but the majority East Asian cast only serves to further monolithize Asians – as the amalgamated story, plot details, and production design have already done. I will not second-guess any fellow person of Southeast Asian descent if they feel “seen” through Raya. What a compliment that would be for this film. How empowering for that person. But the life experiences of those of East Asian and Southeast Asian descent are markedly different. Disney’s casting decisions in Raya – all in the wake of the disastrous Western and Eastern reception of the live-action Mulan (2020) – have revealed a fundamental lack of effort or understanding about the possibilities of a sincere attempt at representation.

To this classic film buff, the discourse surrounding Raya strikes historical chords. When Flower Drum Song was released to theaters, the film was labeled by the American mainstream as the definitive Asian-American movie. Opening during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement, the film (and the musical it adapts) looked like nothing released by Hollywood (and on Broadway) at that time. In that midcentury era of rising racial consciousness and the lack of opportunities for Asian-Americans in Hollywood, the marking of Flower Drum Song as the absolute pan-Asian celebration was bound to happen – however unfair the distinction. Even though Rodgers and Hammerstein (two white Jewish men who made well-meaning, problematic attempts to craft musicals decrying racial prejudice and social injustices) composed the musical and zero Asian people worked behind the camera, those labels remained. With some differences in who wrote the source material, The Joy Luck Club and Crazy Rich Asians have followed Flower Drum Song’s fate in their categorizations. Will Raya? Time will be the judge, the only judge.

Before time passes judgment, we have some present-day hints. Though not released by major studios, the quick succession of The Farewell (2019) and Minari (2020) point to an experiential specificity that Raya attempts, but never comes close to achieving. Whether through aggregation or specificity, Hollywood benefits from the perspectives of underrepresented groups. Widespread claims that Raya too closely copies Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008) reflect that dearth of East Asian and Southeast Asian representation in American media. For too many, ATLA is the Asian fantasy. These simplistic observations and bad-faith criticisms (one could rebuke Disney’s vaguely-European princess films on the same principles, but I find this as lazy as the bad-faith ATLA criticisms) also suggest a lack of understanding that Asian-inspired stories are drawing from similar tropes codified by Asian folklore and narratives centuries old. If one reads through this reviewer’s write-ups, you will find an abiding faith in the major Hollywood studios – past, present, and future – to be artistically daring and to genuinely represent long-excluded persons. Many might see this faith as misplaced. But even in the major studios’ flawed attempts to depict underrepresented groups, like Raya, they concoct astonishing sights and form moving links to the cinematic past.

Assuming you have not skipped to this paragraph, the write-up that you have read may seem scathing to your eyes. Raya is no Disney classic – there has not been one for some time. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my first viewing of Raya. After a few weeks’ worth of keeping my agony private over the recent uproar over attacks on persons of Asian descent in America, it was a surreal experience to see even an amalgamated celebration of Southeast Asian culture. Over this last year, we have lost people and things that emboldened us and ennobled us. In this season of unbelonging and otherizing feelings for Asians in America, Raya’s timing is fortuitous. It is emboldening and ennobling.

My rating: 6/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.