Episode of Community (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) removed by Netflix-Is a Drow cosplay offensive?
I am a big fan of the show Community and recently started rewatching it on Netflix. I then get to about halfway through Season 2 and didn't actually realize that Netflix (and others) have removed episode 14 which was an episode of the characters playing Dungeons and Dragons due to one of the characters depicting a Drow (though a person not familiar may find it offensive).
Personally as a fan of Baldur's Gate (and the entire forgotten realms and everything associated with this) - I was quite disappointing by Netflix doing this in what I believe is just trying to appear "with it" and not actually contributing to the actual issue at hand. As a solution to what I think is basically censorship I would be happy with a warning at the start of the episode so that this episode can remain on streaming services.
I would be keen to hear what other people have to say about this in this community (no pun intended), as I am not knowledgeable enough to know about the drow and their origins and creation (apart from basic Wikipedia research and a few YouTube videos). Happy to learn and modify my opinion from others.
For those who have not seen the show or the episode: this I believe gives a good summary (actually saying the episode is one of the best in the show):
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJmm_JEvaKQ
And here are two videos of their viewpoints on the episode and its removal:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDcDanlDmD4&t
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qRu866MknA
Personally as a fan of Baldur's Gate (and the entire forgotten realms and everything associated with this) - I was quite disappointing by Netflix doing this in what I believe is just trying to appear "with it" and not actually contributing to the actual issue at hand. As a solution to what I think is basically censorship I would be happy with a warning at the start of the episode so that this episode can remain on streaming services.
I would be keen to hear what other people have to say about this in this community (no pun intended), as I am not knowledgeable enough to know about the drow and their origins and creation (apart from basic Wikipedia research and a few YouTube videos). Happy to learn and modify my opinion from others.
For those who have not seen the show or the episode: this I believe gives a good summary (actually saying the episode is one of the best in the show):
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJmm_JEvaKQAnd here are two videos of their viewpoints on the episode and its removal:
-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDcDanlDmD4&t-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qRu866MknA0
Comments
Mind you, I don't consider myself SJW or liberal. I'm a moderate that sometimes leans conservative and sometimes leans liberal. I do think the whole situation is unfortunate because we need more television and movies that address bullying. And I do think under normal circumstances it would be better not to censor the episode since it does address the perceived racial undertones.
Which is the exact reason why people can call stupid things such as tanning or bronzing ones skin, black face... But that's something for another day.
People try to create this stupid issues by connecting things from real world to things in fantasy where they don't belong, ignoring other context of the real world that have stronger claims to being there such as white being good and pure, and dark being evil or bad in HUNDREDS of cultures long before they ever came into contact with Africans or black; and that's ignoring those very concepts also existed in AFRICAN CULTURE. Like the ghananian story of how night came to be and the story of how man first escaped the darkness of night to the warm embrace of the lightness of day..
If anyone is racist, it's the people who try to claim dark elves and orcs are negative/blackface representations of black people because it show more how they see black people not how blacks are being represented.
Nope. I have no problem with disagreeing, but there's no reason to call everyone who sees it differently than you racist. While I do think that sometimes what people call racism is actually racist itself, seeing problems with all of this is not.
It's one thing to o see something differently, it's another thing to forcefully try create a connection that isn't there, and another thing to tell the people who are of the race it's "suppose to be representing" tell them, no it isn't, just to hear "yes it is" by the group that neither created it nor is even apart of the supposed represented group.
It does infact say more about them then it does the product. I've seen this one too many times with both DND and magic the gathering.
And don't get me started with magic the gathering...
The only drow cosplay I could agree with being offensive in nature is a Drizzt costume. Because special snowflakes like him alway pop up as part of pesky Forgotten Realms cameos in each and every title. Pfeh!
I actually do remember WotC putting out a message about how they were looking at re-designing the way races are constructed in D&D so that it doesn't send a message of "X race is always bad/evil/filthy etc." So races like orcs and drow would be getting expanded and becoming more nuanced rather than saying they were all brutish raiders or spider-worshiping murderers. Although part of me takes umbrage at such drastic re-designing of iconic D&D races, I don't think it's anything TOO different from what's gone before. Remember how back in D&D and AD&D, it was nearly impossible for Elves to be Evil? (The entry in the MM for Banshee says "the spirit of an evil female elf, a very rare thing indeed.) 3rd Edition went further down this track by allowing for Orcs to be "Usually Chaotic Evil", acknowledging that, as a mortal race, they too are afforded the same free will and choice of destiny that all living sapient creatures have. Eberron also took steps for allowing priests to be of varying alignments from their deities; not something I'd usually use in my own campaign world, but it does make sense for the mood and atmosphere that Eberron was trying to set.
So, sure. I have no real objection to coming up with some new setting, or modifying an existing one, where maybe some revolutionary Orcish Prophet tries to break his people away from Gruumsh's iron-fisted control over his people, and we start to see different orc cultures start to emerge; perhaps we can have nomadic tribes of orcs that live similarly to what the Mongols or Vikings did. When times are good and harvests are plentiful, they graze their herds or subsist off fishing. When times are hard, that's when they pick up their weapons and go plundering. Likewise, it wouldn't be too hard to start creating breakaway enclaves and cities of drow that worship deities other than Lolth.
I largely hope they they add other cultures of the dark elves than change the Drow society because the Drow's situation is an interesting one which has nothing to do with race and everything about being enslaved to an immortal evil deity.
But I liked the sounds of the changes they intend to make because I don't see much reason for one way depictions of races. In the last tabletop game we played I convinced some goblins to help us (gotta love those crits when you roll 'em) and it did not become the goblin slaughter 101 class that was basically in the module the DM was running.
100% this. Its not inherently racist, but nothing happens in a vacuum. With the currently, VERY CHARGED, political climate in the US, caution is the best course of action.
I do have to admit that the (once) exclusively evil race "just happened" to be all black is not squeaky clean either.
Are people just not aware that the dark elf race in FR have always been 'black'? In fact, they were even more accurate to real-life definition of 'black' before they became drow?
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_elf
You'd have to be an absolute moron to find a connection between 'skin tone became ebony' with 'turning evil' and turn it into a political message.
Got to say, I never got this show or critical role, it's too much like going to your friend's house and watching them play video games or having to sit out a table top session because your character died.
There are breakaway Drow subcultures, but Lolth is a jealous and very active deity who strongly encourages her priests to destroy non-Lolth worshipping Drow, so many of them are very secretive and rarely hold many members.
There are also, of course, the good Drow who believe in redemption and follow Elistraee, and there are examples of breakaway alignments with almost every race that tends toward a certain part of the axis, because these are general trends that arise from their circumstances and culture, and are not innate.
Certain sentient, non-playable races do innately trend towards a particular part of the alignment axis, but these are worth a separate discussion as they clearly are in no way meant to symbolize any humanoid being, but rather the fear of an alien, evil intelligence of greater capability than us, such as the aboleth or illithid.
Yes it is, but the problem is there's a lot of them out there, and they tell 2 friends and they tell 2 friends and so on. Before you know they've gotten tons of emails threatening cancelled subscriptions or inappropriate content that violates the TOS for youtube. So before you know it, it's been pulled from everywhere. Or worse, you have some dumbass kid who doesn't know better, not getting that it's not appropriate to wear black face on the street mimicking it.
Look at something like Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. If somebody picked it up without any context and didn't realize it was satire, they'd screaming for it to be banned. Yes this happens literally every few years. By teaching it with context, you can preserve the content without having to compromise it with censorship.
There probably is a fair bit of cross-cultural influence between different games/fantasy settings because I often see drow/dark elves being depicted with different coloured skin other than ebony. I'm looking at the covers of the War of the Spider Queen series right now, and all of the drow on the covers have more of a greyish skin than jet black. Heck, even our beloved Viconia's portrait shows her with light grayish skin! Some artists also draw drow as having purplish/violet skin; most likely influenced by the Night Elves from Warcraft.
But regardless, I think there is still perhaps a pertinent point to be made about why we generally depict "good races" like elves and dwarves with having fairer skin, and "evil races" like drow, orcs and goblins with darker skin. Intentional or not, it likely does subconsciously influence people's thoughts and opinions, especially younger players who are still forming their worldview.
So you are saying the art was also whitewashed?
I am a fanatic when it comes to universes that are steeped with it’s own history and canon, but it is always good to get different perspectives when it comes to creating and maintaining them. I am sure the creators of the settings intention was not to be racist, however if every evil race is described as ‘coloured’ (regardless of that colour being green, ebony, red, whatever) there is that perception that it is racist since that is how western civilization describes ethnic minorities.
Gaider had a post here (I’ll find it later if someone is interested, I can’t right now) about the portraits from BG2 and how he thought they looked great. Another person working on the game asked why all the characters were white except for Yoshimo (your stereotypical Asian) and Viconia (who was modelled after a white pornstar). BioWare took that perception and changed Mazzy and Valygar to address that concern. The artists weren’t racist, but they only used their perception when first creating the art.
This is what diversity means. It’s learning how other people perceive the world and knowing what might be offensive. It’s listening, understanding their history and reflecting on how whatever you do, can be more inclusive for everyone, regardless of what your original intentions were.
That said, I do think the Drow represent something of a racialized stereotype. Being black/brown skinned, underground, fundamentally evil, and in some depictions hyper sexualized, is problematic. I dont think that means that RA Salvatore was racist when he explored Menzoberranzan, and I dont think it makes anyone who is interested in the Drow or sets campaigns there racist.
Fantasy has long had an issue of tying the "fairness" of skin to moral goodness and higher levels of culture. Anyone steeped in the writing of the 18th and 19th century will see through-lines with the treatment of the "other" in how (most, but not all) fantasy literature and lore is framed.
Edit - to be sure, removing that episode of Community doesnt really move the ball with regards to dealing with some of inherent problems in the fantasy genre. WoTC' deciding that there are no fundamentally evil races in D&D is more meaningful in that regard
Because 99.9% of depictions of him in art present him that way??
I do not believe your claims about the relationship between the papacy and the depiction of Christ are accurate. I also believe that your choice of example is misleading, because it mistakenly treats iconographic inculturation as an example of white-washing when the two are, in fact, distinct phenomena.
First, there was no papal "mandate" requiring that religious art depict Christ as a white man, at least in any normal sense of the word "mandate." The word "mandate" suggests a command made with authority for the governance of future conduct. Not everything any pope happens to say meets this description. Rather, the Church places a small set of formal instruments at the disposal of the pope for issuing what might be fairly called a "mandate": papal bulls, papal encyclicals, and papal pronouncements made ex cathedra. None of these has ever prohibited faithful Catholics from depicting Christ as non-white. If you know of such a document, I really think you ought to at least name it, and the pope under whose authority it was promulgated.
Second, I think your assimilation of inculturation and white-washing unintentionally overlooks a lot of the difficulties of discussing race in relation to histories and institutions with pre-modern origins, especially as regards the Church.
The first thing to remember is that the notion of a "White" or "Caucasian" race is a conceptual category constructed during modernity. That is not to say that ethnic and cultural prejudices and hostilities were not an important driver of historically significant events in the pre-modern period - they surely were. However, looking backward to reinterpret said prejudices and hostilities through a lens carelessly pieced together with anachronistic racial concepts will not serve us in our efforts to better understand the past or the present.
Why is that relevant? Because it should make us wary of using the term "white-washing" (a term that only began to carry a racial denotation in the 1990s) to describe an institutional tradition of religious iconography that stretches back almost 2,000 years (and hence, is at least 1,600 years older than whiteness-as-racial-concept).
And in fact, when you examine the Church's tradition charitably, you see something that is best described as a tradition of inculturation, not "white-washing." When I say "inculturation" here, I mean the interpenetration of Christian and local cultural forms (e.g., in visual art). All cultures have distinctive artistic styles and preferred forms of representation. These preferences extend to religious art; Christian artists are often inclined to depict Christ in familiar terms. There is nothing malicious, or even remotely suspicious about this, even when it flaunts what is likely to have been historically accurate. Consider, for example, the Marian apparition to St. Juan Diego (and her miraculous imprintation on his tilma), wherein Mary appeared not as an ethically Jewish woman, but with unmistakably Mexican features (see also, Our Lady of Akita).
The Church has embraced inculturated images for at least two reasons: (1) in recognition that Christ belongs truly, fully, and intimately to all peoples; and (2) because the primary purpose of iconography to elevate the viewer's soul to God. In this spirit, the Church has embraced iconography depicting Christ as Vietnamese, Korean, Ethiopian, etc. But by the same token, inculturation also needs to be recognized as equally legitimate in Western countries, where it is more likely to result in the production of lighter-skinned images of Jesus (though this is not always the case - see, Black Madonna, which typically depicts both the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus with dark skin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Madonna). To think otherwise is to mistake the genre and its ends: historical accuracy was never the main goal of Christian iconography.
I hope this helps make clear why using the prevalence of light-skinned depictions of Jesus in Western countries as an example of "white-washing" has the potential to be very misleading. Inculturation and white-washing have distinct histories, purposes, and conceptual preconditions. I am not denying the existence of cases in which the depiction of a light-skinned Jesus is regrettably entangled with racial animus, but these cases should be understood as distinctively modern perversions of the Church's otherwise good and sound practice of inculturation.
Phew...thanks for your patience, all of you who made it to the end. Racism is a blight on the common life we all need to learn to build together, but I do not think we speak persuasively against it when we our statements are not conceptually clear or historically grounded.
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@ThacoBell - please do not take any of this personally or as an insult; it is not intended as such. For all I know, you have considered this all carefully already and rejected it. But for those readers who may not be as familiar, I feel it is important to present an alternative perspective. I only hope some found it interesting enough to be worth their consideration.
So something is bad because it's in the majority? Whoa boy, you do not want to go down that route...I promise you that!
Can't really agree to that notion. Example: Undead. The walking dead, especially the ever so popular and evil vampires, are pretty much always depicted with unnatural deathly pale skin in both the Fantasy and Horror genre. The enthicity of a mortal doesn't matter here - they will lose a noticeable amount of skin tone either way due the loss of blood circulation. Same goes for most depictions of incorporeal undead such as ghosts or banshees.
Only exception of that rule on top of my head are shadows: being entirely pitch black, just like one would expect from a sentient shadow. Mainly because a 'white' shadow would be hard pressed to successfully hide in a person's black shadow. Kinda would make it obvious to spot it with even the most terrible of Spot skill check roles, I reckon.
That example is deeply problematic - Vampires predate the modern fantasy genre by quite a bit, and vampires in modern fantasy are absolutely pulled in from preexisting sources (Vampyre, etc) - which themselves were pulled in from folklore in Central and Eastern Europe well before that.
Also, please note that I didnt say all examples. So pointing to one or two certainly doesnt dismiss the argument out of hand.
It's far weightier to point to fair skinned elves and humans in most modern fantasy as being morally and culturally superior to the green skinned barbarian orcs or your insidious evil dark elves. They are also often time portrayed as more intelligent, which reinforces yet another racial sterotype.
A better example you might have pointed to would be The Elder Scrolls, where the Altmer (high elves) in Skyrim are basically semi-nazis, and are clearly not morally superior to other races. The orcs are still problematic (Barbarian-esque green skinned peoples with a lore steeped in bloodshed). The Dark Elves are better though, less evil and less reliant on stereotypes.
By the same logic, using any of the classic fantasy races as an example (such as elves) is deeply and inherintly problematic as well. Such fictional races all predate modern fantasy after all and are part of real world mythologies and folklore. And not just inside Europe either, but globally present. The Penanggalan vampire inside Malaysian folklore being a point in case.
As such I cannot help but disagree with your chosen differentiation here. And more importantly I see it as problematic when projecting an existing species (human) inside the role of a fictional (elf) one. It may be one thing to seek connections between real enthnic groups and fictional ethnic groups of humans inside an fantasy worldsetting. That, I could understand.
But a fictional race with a different physiology and psychology, completely different from humans? No, I fail to see the point there. Humans aint elves/orcs/angels/demons/ect. after all and should be regarded as such. It is not too much to ask for a reader or gamer to tell fiction from reality after all.
We are talking about fake depictions of what he would have really looked like. If Jesus existed, he was most certainly not a bearded, white European male. And that is what he is portrayed as in nearly every painting and statue in nearly every Christian church on this planet. So yes, I would say that purposefully changing the nationality/race of someone 30% of the world views as a divine being is going to have profound effects on how that race is viewed vis a vis other races.
We’re also talking about fringe movements who nobody takes seriously compared to an highly influential and international organization.
It’s pretty much the same as me making a wild statement and my reach, and then Justin Trudeau making a similar wild statement and his reach.