jmtorres | Whitewashing

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Whitewashing

So, being a Chuck fan, I went looking for more images of my favorite actors from the show, like you do, and I discovered something odd.

Zachary Levi looks considerably less "white" out of character.

Okay, here's a promo image from the show, where Chuck and Sarah are clearly supposed to be equally pasty white.

Here's essentially a candid of Levi and Strahovski at a premiere, where you can see the difference in their skin tones.

Here's some magazine photo shoot stuff that are probably just as 'shopped as the promo pic in various ways, just apparently not tonally.

Seriously: wtf? Why would the makers of Chuck try to wash him out? He's so pretty just as he is. The only conclusion I can come to is just morally repugnant, but it looks like they thought he didn't look white enough to meet some kind of racist standard for being the protagonist of a mainstream television show not marketed to a specific ethnic demographic ETA and here I am editing for clarity: I am ascribing a motivation I cannot verify, however: the attempt, via make-up and lighting, to make him look whiter, regardless of conscious or unconscious motivation, makes my skin crawl. Making people look lighter for TV implies that being darker is bad, whether you intend that implication or not. /ETA
Just. What.

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I feel like it's less "racist standard" and more like, "Nerds never go outside, and thus are always pale and pasty."

While I don't presume to ever understand what show runners are thinking, in this case, I don't think it was racist, per se. I think it was because they wanted to present him as a geek. You know, the stereotype of the kind of person who never goes outside and thus is lily white from lack of exposure to the sun. So, an equally annoying stereotype they're playing off of, but not out of some subconscious need to have a white protagonist.

...I suppose you could argue that the 'geeks are white slobs in their parents' basement' stereotype is also a form of latent racism, but honestly I'm too tired, still a little too drunk, and that's just too depressing to think about. Because then I have think about all the depressing things about the portrayal of Anna and I just don't want to go there at whatever-the-hell-early-AM it is. ;)

Thoughts?

I think there's an additional twist, in that the character is supposed to be not just white but *pasty* white as part of the characterization. He's not supposed to be just white, he's Miracle Whip white, never-gets-out white, unattractively white. Levi in his natural state looks too healthy for Chuck.

Yeah, I noticed this when I looked at Levi out-of-character pics.

It is seriously, seriously WTF inducing. Especially as it is implied they're Jewish (though nowhere near as well handled as, say, the implication of Jewishness on Numb3rs but that's because Numb3rs didn't make them Jewish and then ignore it). And while certainly there plenty of Jews who are don't fit to what people think of as 'Jewish looks', it's still -- very, very what.

And makes me hate Hollywood so goddamn much.

Sure, unless they're, you know, not racially white. Is it racist to assume all geeks are racially white to begin with? I think so.

While I don't presume to ever understand what show runners are thinking, in this case, I don't think it was racist, per se.

The action sure looks racist, regardless of why they did it. (Intention does not get you a free pass on racism.)

You know, the stereotype of the kind of person who never goes outside and thus is lily white from lack of exposure to the sun.

Which is predicated on the stereotype of geeks being racially white in the first place. No, I don't think this gets it a pass either.

Because then I have think about all the depressing things about the portrayal of Anna

Most of the time I like Anna. Although I do wish that a show with three good, strong, female characters could pass Bechdel ever.

The pasty white geek assumption is founded on the assumption that the geek should be racially white to begin with. I do not think this is an excuse for anything.

Let me share with you a moment from chat last night:

grey_bard: I love how some fans keep coming up, out of the blue, unasked
With reasons why he Can't Possibly Be Jewish

jmtorres: buh
chuck?

grey_bard: Zachary Levi

jmtorres: ...not chuck
why do they CARE

grey_bard: I do not know!
That is why it weirds me out!

Edited to fix my code!

I thought I read Zachary saying Levi is his middle name but his last name is actually Pugh (pronounced, 'Pew') and he is Welsh?

Regardless, I noticed, too, that for the Chuck promo shots he looks quite white compared to his out of character shots. His appearance, from his colouration to those sinfully long eyelashes, always reminds me of Turkey.

Maybe he got a tan and it broke some continutity for the show? I know with Vampire tv shows if the actors (who are not really vampires) went outside in the daylight and got tanned, the make-up people would freak out because it was hard to get them back to their all-night-time vampire look. So maybe he took a vacation and was a lot more tan than he should have been?

(I don't watch it on a regular basis, so I haven't actually seen the footage.)

I would be more willing to buy the "tan" theory if I could find any non-Chuck photos of Levi in which his skin wasn't darker than Chuck's.

and he is Welsh?

That's not part of the bog-standard bio I read everywhere! But yes, I saw his name was Pugh. And isn't a fascinating insight into Hollywood that he was advised he could never "make it" with that name.

I agree that "all geeks are white" is a racist assumption. However, looking at the non-whitewashed photos, he looks to me like he has a tan. Maybe non-white, maybe not (I have a white (by modern definitions at least) friend who's darker than that thanks to a combination of lots of sun and southern Italian ancestry), but tanned either way. And whether that's right or wrong, it is a problem if it directly contradicts the characterization you're trying to set up.

I have a white (by modern definitions at least) friend

And one of the things that so damn hilarious about all this (in a laugh or you'll cry way) is how arbitrary that is. And how chromatically inaccurate words like "white" are.

darker than that thanks to a combination of lots of sun and southern Italian ancestry

so if your friend were in this role, you think it would be cool to erase not only the tan but the ancestry?

it is a problem if it directly contradicts the characterization you're trying to set up.

And I think the characterization is a problem if, for a role that is not making a point about race, you think you need to make someone paler.

ETA: Additionally: I do not know his family history or how he self-identifies racially. I honestly don't think it's relevant whether it's a tan or ancestry. I just think it's wtf that they feel the need to lighten him up.

Mostly, I have to be optimistic about shows or else I'd never watch TV again, frankly. I also don't intend to give anyone a free pass on racism, but until I actually get the chance to express my concerns to show runners, I just don't have the time or the energy to do the whole internet rant thing anymore. I leave that to others and they do it far better than I can. I use my time trying to educate my students as to why this sort of portrayal is Not Okay and then maybe they'll grow up to be in Hollywood and change things. Who knows.

As far as Anna goes, I like her character too, but then you have the double whammy of the exotic Asian and the nagging girlfriend who never lets her boyfriend have any fun. So, yeah, skeevy on its face for me.

And one of the things that so damn hilarious about all this (in a laugh or you'll cry way) is how arbitrary that is. And how chromatically inaccurate words like "white" are.
True, especially if you mix together one-drop attitudes about blackness with the fact that, based on mitochondrial DNA, almost 1 in 10 Spaniards (who unlike the Italians have always been "white," at least if they came here directly) has direct female-line descent from a North African woman, which probably means that the total percentage with some North African ancestry is much, much higher.

Tangentially, there's a theory that the term "blue blood" derives from this phenomenon - medieval Spanish nobility were both untanned (while they were in the Sun a lot, they were generally in armor at the time) and of unmixed European ancestry, and therefore had light enough skin to have blue veins visible in their wrists, which most of their subjects did not. Certainly, the term appears to be of Spanish origin, from a time when the Spanish nobility was gradually pushing Southward into the taifa kingdoms.

so if your friend were in this role, you think it would be cool to erase not only the tan but the ancestry?
For me, it would depend on his reaction. If he was cool with it, I wouldn't care; if he complained but the producers insisted, I'd think they were assholes.

And I think the characterization is a problem if, for a role that is not making a point about race, you think you need to make someone paler.
I think if your thinking is "Geeks are pale. He should be pale," then yeah that's a problem. I think if your thinking is "He looks like he spends a lot of time in the Sun. Geeks don't spend a lot of time in the Sun," then that's significantly less problematic.

For me, it would depend on his reaction. If he was cool with it, I wouldn't care; if he complained but the producers insisted, I'd think they were assholes.

I think there has to be an additional element considered, the societal impact, the reinforcement of the idea that whiter is better.

I think if your thinking is "Geeks are pale. He should be pale," then yeah that's a problem. I think if your thinking is "He looks like he spends a lot of time in the Sun. Geeks don't spend a lot of time in the Sun," then that's significantly less problematic.

But the outcome of these thought processes are the same: the action of lightening him up. I find the action itself problematic.

I think there has to be an additional element considered, the societal impact, the reinforcement of the idea that whiter is better.
Now, I haven't seen the show, so there may be some inversion involved, but in general geeky paleness, if that's what they were going for, is not seen as a positive trait. Certainly in society in general, but even among geeks, it seems to me that it's seen as, at best, a negative consequence of a positive practice - "See what I suffer for my art!?"

But the outcome of these thought processes are the same: the action of lightening him up. I find the action itself problematic.
Even if he's entirely of Northwest European ancestry and it is actually just a tan?

I think this geeky paleness crap is a rationalization on the face of it. I think it's irrelevant. I don't think it was their actual reasoning but I don't actually know, and neither does anyone else on this thread, and the why is not so much the point. And no, I don't think you can claim that they're they're making him look whiter as a negative for him, our society doesn't work like that. Oh noes! I'm too white! Someone might accord me more privilege than they would otherwise! Woe is me!

Even if he's entirely of Northwest European ancestry and it is actually just a tan?

I think this is a stupid question, because if he tans that way, it's an aspect of his skin tone. Furthermore, I don't think it was a continuity issue of he wasn't tan and then he got tan and they covered it up to make it all the same; from the pictures I've looked at, as Chuck, he's consistently made up lighter and as himself and even in other roles, he's consistently darker than he is as Chuck.

Actually, Welsh would probably explain it; he looks practically Mediterranean because he's of Gaelic descent.

Though my skintone is quite, quite pale, if you look at the tone of my skin, it is sallow and tans yellow/dark and my father's skin is actually just about the same tone as Levi's -- and my father's half Scottish. (And actually I'm just about half Gaelic myself when you add in the Cornish from my mother's side; that side of the family's much paler, though, which is in fact where I get the paleness.)

And, yeah, thing is, darker skintones are actually quite common among those of Gaelic descent. We can't be certain how much of that is due to the pre-Celtic peoples who lived on the isles and how much was the influx of Celtic and later Roman blood, as we really have no way of knowing what the pre-Gaels looked like, but it's certainly there to be seen.

And isn't it just fascinating how you're not allowed to be too obviously Celtic/Gaelic in Hollywood. It's perhaps a miracle that Ioan Gruffudd was able to keep his name and the Welsh spelling of it.

And no, I don't think you can claim that they're they're making him look whiter as a negative for him, our society doesn't work like that.
Yes, it does, if we're talking about actual skin tone within a certain range which is itself a subset of the range typically designated "white" - being "white" puts you in a better position socially than not being "white," but being "white" and well-tanned puts you in a better position socially than being "white" and pasty. Most humans, even racist ones, do not find near-albinism attractive, especially if we're talking about a man.

Oh noes! I'm too white! Someone might accord me more privilege than they would otherwise! Woe is me!
Because discrimination among white people in favor of those with lighter skin is so incredibly prevalent in our society. Right.

I think this is a stupid question, because if he tans that way, it's an aspect of his skin tone.
Okay, but more broadly: Is it bad to visually detan a white person so they'll look like they don't get a lot of Sun? Why?

Furthermore, I don't think it was a continuity issue of he wasn't tan and then he got tan and they covered it up to make it all the same; from the pictures I've looked at, as Chuck, he's consistently made up lighter and as himself and even in other roles, he's consistently darker than he is as Chuck.
I'm not suggesting that it's continuity; I'm suggesting that it's plausibility - if a character looks like he spends a lot of time in the Sun, and canonically doesn't spend a lot of time in the Sun, that's a problem.

The action sure looks racist, regardless of why they did it. (Intention does not get you a free pass on racism.)
Taking a look at that and giving it some thought, I think I've come up with part of the reason that I always end up disagreeing with most progressives I talk to about what's racist, which is essentially definitional. As I see it, you can think of racial issues in a work as occupying a spectrum:

1. The work is racist propaganda - Mein Kampf.
2. The work has major themes which are fundamentally racist - a lot of colonial literature.
3. The work's major themes are not racist, but there are intentionally racist elements, - arguably a lot of HP Lovecraft's work, although some people would bump it up to (2).
4. There are elements that are not intentional, but that are based on stereotypes, or what "feels natural" - the Gypsies in Stephen King's Thinner.
5. There are elements similar to those in (4), but whose origin is not related to racial stereotyping - e.g. if I wrote a plot outline and then determined the race of each character using a random number generator, and my psychotic, subhumanish, rapist villain came out black.
6. There are elements that are not unambiguously based on racial stereotypes, but that more or less reasonable people can still find offensive or problematic - use of Arabs as international terrorists, in the context of a world in which Arabs at least arguably are the leading ethnicity involved in international terrorism.
7. There are elements that are offensive or problematic in the eyes of people who are clearly batshit insane - I don't have a good racial example, but on the misogynist side, there's Beethoven's Ninth, as seen by Susan McClary.
8. No one, not even the insane, claims that the work is offensive - examples?

It seems to me that a lot of progressive types draw the line for "the work is racist" either between 6 and 7, or even between 7 and 8 (and the difference between 6 and 7 is what I was trying to get at, a little poorly, with my "some people are just irrational, and it should be fine to say that" argument in the previous RaceFail post - McClary is a much better example than the one I used there, which I admit was a bit iffy).

I draw the line between 4 and 5, which means, I think, that a lot of my disagreements with progressives about whether something is racist come down to disagreements about what being racist means.

Incidentally, I agree that "intention does not get you a free pass on racism" - but for me that just means that 4 is still racist, not that 5 and 6 are, much less 7.

The scheduling of a picnic to honor baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson led to a furor over alleged racism at the State University of New York, Albany. Some 40 students at the university insisted that the word "picnic" originally referred to the lynchings of blacks.

They were wrong. "Picnic" comes from a 17th-century French word for a social gathering in which each person brings a different food. But in reply to the 40 protesters, campus affirmative action director Zaheer Mustafa put out a memo asking all student leaders to refrain from any use of the word "picnic." "Whether the claims are true or not, the point is the word offended," he said. [emphasis mine]

This is loony irrational stupidity - and it's not "an act of prejudice" to call it that.

Yes, it is good to think about on what founding assumptions an argument is being held. *eyebrow*

Is this, my post, the lightening of Zachary Levi, the most incredibly significant sociopolitical issue ever? No. That doesn't make it loony irrational stupidity, even if you think he's just tan. Other people--other posters in this thread think he looks a variety of interesting racial possibilities, from Turkish to dark Celt; apparently he does in fact get mistaken for a Jew on occasion. What this means is it's not just about "is he white or white with a tan," it's about "does he look white or does he look a variation that may or may not be white?" Which makes lightening him up problematic.

By the way, here's an extreme example of "he's just tan!" in an incredibly wtf way, and here's a comment that explains why it's so offensive.

ETA for emphasis.

You make me tired.

Comment here notes why levels of "whiteness" could in fact still be significant. (Because, you know, not everybody thinks all levels of 'whiteness' are actually white.)

You make me tired.
I apologize; my intent was not to tire.

Comment here notes why levels of "whiteness" could in fact still be significant. (Because, you know, not everybody thinks all levels of 'whiteness' are actually white.)
Fair enough. My point was not that there is a socially ideal skin tone and that being paler is always socially negative, but merely that a paler skin tone can be a negative, depending on context*. If you have paler skin and it makes racists confident that you're actually white, that's a plus (assuming, of course, that you want or need the good opinion of racists). If you have paler skin and it convinces athletic types that you're a loser who never goes outside during the daylight hours, that's a minus.

That doesn't make it loony irrational stupidity,
That was specifically a comment on the "picnic" issue, and in particular the statement that the facts were irrelevant, that all that mattered was that someone was offended. In the previous RaceFail post, you said that calling a POC's taking offense irrational was itself an act of prejudice, and I'm just saying that clearly there are some cases in which it's not, as exemplified by Zaheer Mustafa's idiotic remark.

While I'm not fully on board with your analysis of this issue, I don't think it's loony or irrational, and I'm sorry if I came across that way - to use the classification of my previous comment, I'd call lightening Levi a 6 (rational people can disagree), but using the word "picnic" a 7 (if you're offended, you're a loon).

even if you think he's just tan.
Personally, I think he's darker than average for a white man and tan on top of that, which makes the issue more complicated than if he were just one or the other.

By the way, here's an extreme example of "he's just tan!" in an incredibly wtf way,
Wow, that's some major fail there. And what makes it even worse is that it's close to, but fundamentally different from, an actually insightful point: What does it say about our binary notions of race that Barack Obama is "black" despite the fact that, if you picked a random white man and gave him a good tan, and picked a random black man (with or without tan), odds are very good that Obama's skin tone would be closer to the white dude's than to the black dude's? But instead, we get fail, for the reasons described in your third link**. Also, that woman has a love of asterisks that disturbs me - and I'm positively punctuation-sexual for the little splats***. And she's a Carnegie fan. So, yeah, serious fail there.

Yes, it is good to think about on what founding assumptions an argument is being held.
And behind the assumptions, the definitions.

*eyebrow*
That's a weighty eyebrow there. *uvula*

*This ties into my problems with the way that privilege is often conceptualized - but I think I'll write that up as an entry on my own LJ, given that a) it's getting pretty far afield from the central point of your post and b) it's not like my journal is exactly swimming in content.

** More or less - I have a few quibbles, but they're irrelevant to the basic point.

***As seen here.

If you have paler skin and it makes racists confident that you're actually white,

And of course by "racists" in that sentence you mean everyone in our society with racial bias that they may or may not acknowledge and may or may not try to overcome, and not just neo-Nazis. Right?

Probably somewhere in between, but closer to the former. My only quibble is that not all forms of racial bias are applicable to all situations - if my default estimation of blacks that I haven't met is lower than my default estimation of whites that I haven't met, that doesn't necessarily imply that my estimation of a black man that I have met, and formed a more informed opinion of, is lower than it would be if he were white.

But yes, quibbles aside, I am including anyone who has a bias which will affect how they interact with the individual in questions, whether consciously or unconsciously.

. . . are here. I don't know if you have any interest in reading them, but if so, there they are.

if my default estimation of blacks that I haven't met is lower than my default estimation of whites that I haven't met, that doesn't necessarily imply that my estimation of a black man that I have met, and formed a more informed opinion of, is lower than it would be if he were white.

But it does imply that a black person would have to "prove" him or herself to you more than a white person would before you reached that informed opinion. Which seems like something you might want to work on, in your own attitudes. The general you.

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Third time's the charm?

And, of course, the moment I get the html right, I find a racial example

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Replying here to multiple comments

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My possibly incoherent thoughts on privilege

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