khaleesipls:

this isn’t GoT related but omg people aren’t mad about a white girl being cast as johanna bc it ~~~~upset their perfect view of what johanna looked like~~~~

they’re upset because johanna is a somewhat racially ambiguous character and the movies have ALREADY been whitewashed (i’ll grant you that “olive skinned” doesn’t only apply to PoC but only requesting white actresses for a casting call is KINDA SHADY) so when a white person is cast as a character like johanna it raises some eyebrows and you know what i can’t say it for myself but i am sure it is REALLY REALLY hurtful for people of color

it’s not about “jena is the best actress!!!!” because we already know that non-white actresses weren’t even considered for the lead role. it’s not about that, it’s about lionsgate and hollywood and the media immediately defaulting to white for any character whose race isn’t specified. just because the author gets behind the choice doesn’t mean it’s not a racially motivated choice either. it’s not impossible for your favorite author to be racist….

i’m not going so far as to say it was an overtly racially motivated decision on the part of the creators of the film. there’s probably very few people saying that. what most people are criticizing is our tendency to default characters to white and the media’s validation of such. so maybe we’re not intentionally being racist, maybe lionsgate and collins and everyone else involved in the process isn’t being intentionally racist but we ARE playing into a very oppressive structure, if that makes sense

and to the people mocking PoC who are hurt by this decision: fuck you, you ARE being blatantly racist no matter how many “black friends” you have

i’m not saying jena is a poor actress or that she won’t do well or that this is all her fault. all i’m saying is that decisions like these aren’t made in a vacuum. it’s not “just a book” or “just a movie”. our media reflects our morals and values as a society and the consistent whitewashing of popular characters is indicative of something very wrong with our society