victoria—rose:
watermeloncholy:
just to reiterate (since casting has begun), it is explicit in the books and grrm has also confirmed that the martells are not white people.
I sorta want to see this confirmation.
And what exactly do you mean by white people?
I don’t care about the colour of skin the actors will have, they can be purple for all I care.
I just don’t understand the fan hate, and the constant battle for them not to be white. And white specifically.
1. Re: Dorne and the Martells: The salty Dornishmen were lithe and dark, with smooth olive skin and long black hair streaming in the wind. The sandy Dornishmen were even darker, their faces burned brown by the hot Dornish sun. They wound long bright scarfs around their helms to ward off sunstroke. The stony Dornishmen were biggest and fairest, sons of the Andals and the First Men, brown-haired or blond, with faces that freckled or burned in the sun instead of browning.
Re: Oberyn Martell: Beneath, his face was lined and saturnine, with thin arched brows above large eyes as black and shiny as pools of coal oil. Only a few streaks of silver marred the lustrous black hair that receded from his brow in a widow’s peak as sharply pointed as his nose. A salty Dornishman for certain.
Re: GRRM’s confirmation: http://janinagavankar.com/george-just-told-me-i-look-like-lady-nymeria (There’s also a post where someone in the fandom asked him about the Martells and he referred to them as people of colour)
If you combed through the House Martell tag, this information is readily available to you.
2. There aren’t many people of colour (visibly non-white people as in their skin, their customs, their heritage signify them as different from other Westerosi like the Starks and the Targaryen etc.) on this show, especially people of colour in principle roles. Of the people of colour present, most of them are in the background or not portrayed very favourably. House Martell is one of the only noble ruling houses in Westeros with people of colour.
3. Representation for actors and characters of colour is important because quite often roles available for people of colour are stereotypical or background. Black, Asian, and Latino characters often have to take roles that don’t portray them as human, but as stereotypes. Since we consume so much media and one of America’s biggest exports is entertainment, these portrayals spread these stereotypes and therefore are very detrimental to people of colour.
4. 90% of the roles on this show will be casted with white people or will go to white people. They don’t need the repsentation. They don’t need the jobs.
5. It is 10 times easier for a white actor to try out for any role, even roles meant for people of colour, and land those jobs due to racism in the industry and problems like white-washing.
6. White-washing is when Hollywood takes a role where it is implied or explicit that a character is of colour or when race is ambiguous and casts a white actor in that role. This is a practise that happens a lot in Hollywood. As I’ve said before, it’s like having a pie and taking 90% of that pie…leaving only 10% for someone else, then looking at that 10% and deciding that you want the entire pie.
7. You don’t care because you don’t see any of this as a problem. People of colour and their allies do care because people of colour are the ones who are most affected by lack of representation. It also happens that when society ignores the contributions of people of colour, culture as a whole suffers.
8. There is no such thing as purple people. People of colour are actual real life human beings, not pretend people, and dismissing race as though it doesn’t directly affect their lives or like it’s not that serious, is pretty insulting.
In conclusion, it perturbs me when people aren’t overly concerned about the Martells being fancasted as white or potentially being cast as white. GRRM has said that the Martells are people of colour; the fact that they’re not white is important because it pertains to their background and they’re literally the only noble house in Westeros with people of colour. I don’t consider the ethnicity of characters of colour to be a minor detail. I don’t consider the ethnicity of characters of colour to be a minor detail. I understand that not everyone realises or even cares that positive representations of minorities in TV and film are actually important, but it is extremely important for those of us who rarely see positive non-stereotypical representations of people like us in our favourite films and TV shows. Fantasy and Sci-fi are my favourite genres; they’re genres that should be more diverse because they’re so imaginative and yet, many of the fantasy shows that I’ve been obsessed with are severely lacking in diversity.