#roma erasure

[tetsunabouquet]

I just heard that there are people planning to protest during 4 May against Israel. As a Dutch woman of Roma heritage, I AM FUMING. To those who don't know: 4 May is national memorial day in the Netherlands where we remember those who died during WWII. Whilst I find you anti-semitic fucks who are villifying every Jew in existence for what's currently happening in Israel to be awful - targeting 4 May when that day is for EVERY minority hunted down during WWII means you are targeting ALL of our communities. Remember how I mentioned that during my final year of elementary school I had a hag of a teacher? I literally remember arguing with her about how the history books barely talk about us. The REAL estimated number of deaths could have been as high as 1,5 MILLION Roma unlike the reported '400K' you'll find in your history pages. I have seen in YouTube videos from Americans and Canadians how they solely talk about the Jews and are trying to make it about black people with the unproven historic sentiment that Jewish people originally were black. I've even heard statements written out loud from American musea who only mentioned us like a footnote before talking about black people in length. Reported numbers of black people castrated/killed during WWII were a couple of thousand because that's how few black people there were in Europe. The Roma are the biggest racial group hunted down during WWII, stop trying to take that away from the potential million people that died! Give their souls the respect they deserve. How sick in the head do you have to be to be like, 'This major genocide has to be about MY race'- when the actual group hunted down for their skin and culture wasn't yours. My deadbeat dad and his sisters are more lily white looking as I always call it, but grandpa was a bit more Roma looking like me and my late grandma did make a few implied statements that it was his father who had a Romani mother. That was during WWII. My great-great grandmother likely was an elderly lady hunted down like a rat during this period. The fact my paternal family didn't had any pictures of my great-grandfather unlike his wife, worries me but it's too heavy of a subject to talk about with relatives that I have a strained relationship with. How can you make that about you? Tell me! Another one of my great-grandfathers wasn't a member of the Resistance but he did help out with food smuggling. Ever heard of the Dutch famine during WWII? My great-grandfather tried to keep regular Dutch citizens alive and was willing to stick his neck out as one of the richer families of the area to help the lesser priviliged and he was publically beaten for it by the Nazis as an example for the townsfolk. He's the only male relative I am proud of to be related to, because that was an act of bravery and generosity worthy of praise.

Not every wealthy white man is a greedy devil, my great-grandfather proved that. As much as I hate Frank Timmermans (Dutch politican), I do agree with his statement that you can protest on every fucking day of the year- just not memorial's day. This day belongs to so many non-Jews too and making this about Israel is just overshadowing the other victims once more. We haven't done anything to deserve to get erased. Yet the media, history books and non-Roma do that very thing. In my own personal experience, even the gays are mentioned more often then we are. The only group that might be more forgotten then we are, are the disabled. And as an autistic individual that also earns my ire.

I can bet my ass off that none of those sickening protesters would have been hunted down if we lived during WWII, unlike me. I have to live with that and the handful of people throughout my life who did call my blood impure. LEAVE 4 MAY ALONE!

[fromchaostocosmos]

and what if as an added bonus we declared that this version of them of was the most sacred one of all.

marvel: what if all our romani & jewish characters…. weren’t

[theatrekidenergy]

Man so like I’ve just been thinking about how, as someone who is primarily ethnically Slavic / Eastern European how much we are portrayed as being foul, cold, angry, alcoholic, and just straight up villains? And don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge marvel fan, but it’s Marvel that has such a large influence it’s only worsened as a result of their influence on other franchises doing the same. And on top of that their erasure of Romani characters (once again, hi, also part Romani here), like Wanda who was originally written to be Romani in the comics? How she was completely stripped of that in her character, even though it was a part of her identity and herself in writing. Which is just, so, infuriating.

Whenever you see any representation — especially in western media — of your culture which little you wanted to see just so desperately, they were either erased or the villains in the comics and movies you’d obsess over, and I know so so many others had the same experience. Who knows, maybe I’m just ranting, and I know so many people might think I’m complaining over something simple, but I do think about it, and it’s frustrating. It’s so, so frustrating.

[lark-of-mirkwood]

There will be a new Irena Sendler movie & they've cast Gal Gadot?? Irena was Polish! A woman who saved 2500 Jewish children during WWII, she can't be Jewish herself, it doesn't make sense, same thing with Esmeralda in the Hunchback of Notre Dame ... How can SHE play a Roma?? Only a Roma can!!! What's wrong with Hollywood, why are they always casting the wrong people??

[dalekofchaos]

Doctor Doom gets ruined AND WHITEWASHED AGAIN!

4 attempts to get Doctor Doom right

4

And we STILL can’t get this right

A master of magic and science. A man who rivals Doctor Strange and Reed Richards as the most powerful sorcerer and the smartest man alive. He rules an entire country with an army of Doombots. Considered to be one of the greatest Marvel villains. And they still can't get him right. They have to make him a fucking Tony Stark variant. Tony Stark is not Victor Von Doom and Doom is above Tony Stark.

Victor wearing the mask always is integral to his appeal and aura like Vader's mask. It not only hides his vain scars he caused due to his failures, but it closes him off from humanity and makes him believe he’s beyond it.

As far as I'm concerned Marvel Ultimate Alliance and EMH are the only good adaptations of Doom

Doctor Doom being a romani man with a background CENTERING his family's racial persecution. with his ethnicity at the forefront of his motivations and his tragedy. and they really just brought back Robert Downey Jr.

Being romani is INTEGRAL to doom’s character and without that he’s not doom. he NEEDS to be romani and played by a romani character. full stop, don't believe me? Read Book Of Dooms.

Since 1964 Victor von Doom has been established as a Romani character. His childhood was filled with antiziganism and his parents deaths were caused by it. This later led him to become Doctor Doom and overthrow the Latverian government to protect his people

I am so fucking sick and tired of this whitewashing bullshit and the ethnoerasure of Marvel characters.

The Maximoff Twins, The Ancient One, Moon Knight and now fucking Doom.

God fucking forbid an actual Romani actor PLAYS A ROMANI CHARACTER.

But no they pulled another fucking multiverse shit all so RDJ could return and it all feels like blackface from Tropic Thunder

I DON'T GIVE A FUCKING SHIT ABOUT ANTHONY STARK FROM EARTH-11029 OR INFAMOUS IRON MAN

If you wanted evil Iron Man so fucking bad, why didn't you just do Superior Iron Man?

The LAZIEST, DUMBEST, most CONTRIVED BULLSHIT casting ever, Marvel continues to not beat the whitewashing allegations. Doctor Doom deserved better.

Romani actor Charlie Clapman was right fucking there AND HE ENDORSED IT!

I'd even suggest Romani actor Óscar Jaenada as Doom. Again another Roma actor who's actively interested in playing Doom

And you know what? As bad as the 1994 movie was, Joseph Culp the first actor to play Doom in the Fantastic Four (1994) movie by Oley Sassone & Richard Corman. Culp was also white but he very clearly cared for the comics background of Victor von Doom

and you also know damn well they're going to erase everything about Magneto too that makes him who he is… which is his entire fucking background. how horrible of a person do you have to be to repeatedly disrespect the minorities who created these stories?

Doctor Doom is Roma Romani. He is not white. The MCU loves to whitewash its Roma and Jewish characters and it’s time we called them out for it. Dr Doom is not a white man, he is Roma!

They will never nail down the complexity of Victor Von Doom

Every year Doom goes to hell to fight Mephisto to rescue the soul of his mother. He finally won her soul with the help of Doctor Strange only for her to reject him.

No evil Stark replicant will ever fucking match the complexity of Victor Von Doom.

I don't care if this is a one time thing for RDJ. They specifically chose to do this when the fans were begging for a fucking Romani actor. It also doesn't fucking help that Marvel has erased nearly EVERY fucking ethnic character has been whitewashed.

Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver: Erased Romani heritage and whitewashed. Moon Knight & Wiccan: Casted non-Jewish actors. Sabra: Featured in anything at all, and actress is an IDF soldier to make matters worse.

The MCU is full of ethnic erasure, military propaganda & racism. it’s disgusting this is continuing with Dr Doom’s casting. remember to continue to boycott marvel, because of the genocide they support by casting an iof solider to play a character from the zionist terrorist occupation

Dr Doom is one of those villains that it should be IMPOSSIBLE to fuck up but wasting him on a cheap Iron Man nostalgia casting pop might be the way

[imperiuswrecked]

Victor von Doom & his parents Cynthia & Werner, are Romani. Kirby/Lee created Doom in 1962 & revealed his origin in 1964 > 60 years of undisputed canon Romani Dr Doom. Comics used the G-slur for a long time. Victor is very proud of his Roma heritage, and it's an integral part of his character. The racism and oppression he experienced growing up set him on the path to becoming Doctor Doom.

Fantastic Four (1961) Annual 2

Power Pack (1984) #53

Books of Doom omnibus

Doctor Doom (2019) #3

Books of Doom #1

To say "It doesn't matter" or that Marvel's cast of RDJ was the best choice for the character is racist whitewashing erasure. It doesn't matter if RDJ is a good actor, he took the role of a Romani character that was meant for a Romani actor.

Actors who could have been cast:

[tonkysexist]

One thing I think people in the MCU fandom consistently fail to understand about the issues with Jewish representation is that it’s not just some “passive” cultural and ethnic erasure, but actively insidious writing choices. The character who is originally Romani and Jewish is being portrayed by a white women and her character is still rife with nasty stereotypes about stealing children and using them in blood rituals. The “mystic witch” stereotype is cool on white women like Elizabeth Olsen and Patti Lupone but, perish the thought, we could cast actual Roma actresses to play nuanced and interesting versions of these characters. Oscar Issac is not just a non-Jew playing a Jewish character. He’s playing a character whose whole background was deeply tied to his judaism. In the show it’s barely a nod. Except for the abusive Jewish mother stereotype. And the part where he threw his kippah on the ground.

It’s not just about Jewish actors (which even if it was that would still be valid) it’s about the MCU actively making antisemitic and racist writing choices.

[jewishbarbies]

the erasure of jewish identities of superheroes bother me so much… that is core symbolism and representation and the creations of JEWISH PEOPLE as a result of what jewish people have gone through. how are you gonna pretend they dont exist.

the christian-ification of superman is my 13th reason. there’s no way you, as an appropriator of jewish beliefs as is, is going to take the most obvious Moses allegory ever and pretend like acktually that’s jesus. and give him BLUE EYES. the excuse from nerdbros is always some shitty word salad about “every character has multiple iterations so there’s no TRUE canon” and then get mad when there’s a black spiderman. it’s the same bullshit when you say scarlet witch is roma and more recently also jewish. like the mcu literally decided that judaism is the same as christianity so the son of a rabbi is like the son of a priest and therefore has religious trauma when the character in question canonically only had religious adjacent trauma because of antisemitic crimes against him, as if daredevil isn’t RIGHT THERE. he has enough catholic guilt to cover it. but no, we’re going to fuck up an infamously jewish character for the hell of it. the absolute disrespect shown to not only jewish characters, but the jews who created them, is insane. there’s no way you can claim to love and respect stan lee and then pull that fucking shit.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Oh God I was really hoping the backstory that was leaked for Billy was fake... just heard about the new episode and it turns out it wasn't. why would they choose this over adoption or reincarnation-

It's bad! I really feel like the M C U goes out of its way to interpret these characters in bad faith and come up with the worst possible versions of their stories. I've said this before, but everything about Wanda's origins and the nature of her power seems designed to make her an objectively worse person who is more directly responsible for causing harm than her comics counterpart, but is also weirdly set on punishing her for existing and having trauma. She's simultaneously more doomed by the narrative, and infinitely less deserving of redemption.

With Billy, they took a situation that, while complex and, at times, difficult to parse, is ultimately miraculous and joyful, and they made it just.... incredibly grim. There is no real distinction between Billy Maximoff and Billy Kaplan in the comics-- they're the same person, given a second chance at life and the great fortune to reconnect with his original family, in a way that doesn't invalidate or erase the second. And, again, I want to emphasize that when YA and CC were written, Wanda had Jewish heritage, so I don't think there needs to be any awkwardness in the transfer between the Maximoff and Kaplan families, and the text never does anything to imply that Billy's cultural upbringing is any less valid, or any less central to his character after his origins are revealed.

Here, they created a false dichotomy between the two characters, killed one them off, and made the other into a body-snatcher. That is so much darker, and so much more tragic for the Kaplans-- and it creates uncomfortable questions about their relationship, and Billy's identity, that I don't think can ever be neatly resolved. I will say that, thus far, I don't think the show explicitly disavows "William's" heritage, or writes off Billy's relationship with the Kaplans, the way some people are reporting. He doesn't actually remember his life before the switch, so it's not a total takeover, and at points, the episode seems to imply that he's somehow both, and neither-- a new gestalt.

But I don't trust these writers to execute that concept with integrity, or even consistency. In WV and MoM, Wanda's motives, sense of self, and relationship to her powers repeatedly change at the drop of a dime, and we're seeing the same thing, here, with the abrupt change that takes place when Billy reveals his identity. The shift in personality, escalation of power, and the vague implication that he's been masterminding this whole excursion makes no sense with the established timeline-- this is all happening within 24 hours of him even learning that Wanda had kids, let alone that he might be one of them, not to mention hearing about both Agatha the Witches Road for the first time. And up until that point, he really was just an earnest kid. The heel-turn feels silly and juvenile, and the needle drop at the end of episode #5 underscores that a little too perfectly-- his "bad guy" act is just as ill-fitting and unsubstantiated as the Eilish's edgy, wannabe-thug aesthetics.

Obviously, the most important issue here is not the quality of writing, but where this character falls into the spectrum of whitewashing and erasure. The fact that Locke is not Jewish but, before the switch, is playing a Jewish character-- and, specifically trespassing on prayer and religious ceremonies-- is a problem. I've seen a lot of different opinions expressed by a lot of different people within the community about who can or can't play Jewish characters, but I think we can all agree that this is worth criticizing, especially given the larger context of repeated erasure and historical distortion against Jewish and Roma people in this franchise.

But I also want to emphasize that, because of what was done to Wanda, and the franchise's insistence on conducting blatant anti-Romani racism, there was never going to be a truly authentic or acceptable version of this character. Now matter how they cast the role, a significant part of his background had already been erased, and he was already saddled with significant racist baggage. I am very, very tired of white people and Young Avengers fans overlooking that fact.

[clericxhood777]

Marvel fans: We want rep. We hate Marvel for whitewashing & ethnic erasure of Jews & Roma ppl.

Joe Locke, for wtv fucking reason: Y'all mad I'm gay and got a gay role lol.

How does that even relate to the fact that Marvel fans hate whitewashing & ethnic erasure???

[ad1thi]

if you're celebrating rdj being cast as Doctor Doom you are celebrating the deliberate (and repeated) erasure of roma characters in the mcu just btw

[tetsunabouquet]

That Hunchback of Notre Dame ask I received reminds me of something I wanted to post ages ago: a rant directed at Disney. Now, thankfully other people have already adressed the subject about how wrong it portrayed Romani people and have went in depth about how the original book was very strongly anti-Roma and not good source material for positive Romani depiction in the first place. But can I just say that I already fear Disney is going to insult us again with the live-action and how angry I am at Disney for their lack of Esmeralda merchandise? Growing up, I always wanted to have an Esmeralda doll precisely because I am part Roma and she was the only Disney character who had a similar skintone as I did and was the only popular example of media representation I had as a kid of mixed heritage. But no matter how often my mom dragged to local toys stores, I never spotted an Esmeralda doll. I made peace by getting a Belle doll, because to this day she is the only princess who has hazel brown eyes like me and my hair is more like a dark chestnut opposed to her lighter chestnut hair. As a kid I always identified as a mix between Belle and Esmeralda, you know? But I was still sour I never had Esmeralda as a doll. The fact that because of the live action, this might be the first time that Esmeralda dolls will be widely sold, I want to scream out of anger. We had dolls of nearly every racial background imaginable in toys stores, except for Esmeralda despite the fact she outdates most of the POC princesses in existence and the movie being a year older then I am! She deserved to be in the toys aisle DECADES ago! Disney doesn't gives a shit about actual diversity as their lack of Esmeralda dolls showcases that they're only doing it to appease Twitter and not actually care about the little girls who want a doll just like them. If you want further proof, look at the Wrack-it-Ralph scene with the Disney Princesses and how Esmeralda is NOWHERE to be found! She is a Disney Princess, so why is she the only one who isn't there?! I generally identify as white because that was how I was raised, but anyone can see I am not 100% white and I definitely did had my insecurities about not looking lily white as a little girl. I wanted a doll that looked like me and I could identify with too. The fact toys stores have sold white AND black Ariel dolls before they even sell Esmeralda dolls, is what I see as a slap in the face.

[ae-neon]

I don't wanna be mean about someone's personal feelings so I'm not gonna address it directly

BUT (fuck G.ermany)

I'm sorry, you don't get to be mad at people for looking at your country and frowning when for the second time in less than a hundred years you guys are pushing white supremacy as your frontline politics

You don't get to vent at us for being outsiders who don't understand your woes and feelings about white guilt and loss of a sense of culture.

Who erased those folk cultures? Who tied your traditional foods and festivals and pastimes to the dehumanisation and death of others? Not us.

Your grandfather's and great grandfathers were either the victims of or the perpetrators of their own cultural erasure in the guise of inventing a national myth of white supremacy. So vent at them and take back your culture, immerse yourself in trying to uncover your regional history, make new meaning in national pride.

But don't sit here and act like you're a victim because "outsiders" are looking at your Western European country taking a second lap at genocidal ideology, falsely in the name of righting your most famous wrong, when you can't even acknowledge the other genocides like in Namibia, the other victims of the holocaust like the Roma, the legacy of colonialism, the dependency certain sectors of your country has on immigrants

And clearly the emphasis your education system supposedly puts on not "making the same mistakes" didn't work?? Because here y'all go again, victimising yourselves into fascism all over again

[doomrichards]