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> "For me it's so hard to process because 'whiteness' believes it can own anything and everything," she said. Sounds overly racist to me. > The New Zealand Os

> "For me it's so hard to process because 'whiteness' believes it can own anything and everything," she said. Sounds overly racist to me. > The New Zealand Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi has weighed in on the conversation, writing on Twitter that in his opinion, "you should prioritise Polynesian (Tongan if possible!) filmmakers as to avoid cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, and to keep the Pasifika voice authentic". > Gesa-Fatafehi agreed that if the story was made into a film, she would like to see Tongans behind, and in front of, the camera. Well, they can do it if they want to - nothing can stop them to make a movie like this but they do not have any right to stop others to make their own interpretation (and they can dislike it and explain to everyone what is wrong with it). I would like to see a Hollywood movie with mostly white but with at least one Asian and at least one black actors :) Ok, I am just joking about Hollywood stereotypes here.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> Sounds overly racist to me. Read “whiteness” as describing culture, and it seems more true than racist. It's your traditional Victorian English capitalist, top hat and monocle, making children work with heavy machinery and turning the sky grey. Your colonialist, beating children for speaking the language of their parents and expecting them to be grateful for it. Your Disney, selling a child-sized “tattooed Polynesian skin” costume. (Why are all my examples about children?) I agree it could be phrased better, but I assume this is a quote from an interview? The speaker had seconds to think of a wording.
- finnthehuman 5y ago
  >Read “whiteness” as describing culture, and it seems more true than racist. No, describing a group of people based on their race instead of a more accurate descriptor for the category you're looking to talk about is just plain old racism. Being more specific might also be, but this is guaranteed to be. And your statement just sounds like the contemporary-palatable version of grandpa explaining that when he talks about black people, of course he doesn't mean all black people or exclusively black people.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Fair enough. There are still people I wouldn't begrudge for using “whiteness” like that, but I probably shouldn't assume good faith straight off the bat. You're right that this kind of thing is important to stamp out. That being said, we don't really have a good word for “originally-European (but kinda American too now) take-everything attitudes”. How would you describe this succinctly?
    - __turbobrew__ 5y ago
      “Western”?
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  > Your Disney, selling a child-sized “tattooed Polynesian skin” costume. (Why are all my examples about children?) The people who got upset with the Maui costume strike me as the exact same type of people as the characters in the movie who got upset about the titular character's "cultural appropriation" of seafaring.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    There's a difference between children painting Polynesian-looking tattoos on themselves because they think they're cool, and a multinational corporation exploiting whatever fragments of culture seem profitable, and wallpapering “Disney magic” over the rest. Imagine the uproar if Disney made a film about Christian culture – maybe some story about St Paul going on a quest to slay a dragon using Jesus Cant (the tongue of magic) – and then started selling tacky Body-of-Christ merch (or something), and that was the only representation of Christianity in mainstream culture. Some people would get upset, and I don't think they'd be unjustified.
    - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
      I do have a problem with movie merchandise in general for being cheaply made plastic garbage, I just don't think there's anything more egregious about the Maui costume than anything else. And Christians already have the market cornered with tacky Body-of-Crist merch in the form of Mass play sets. If you ask me the Orthodox have the right idea, just give the kids the real Holy Communion from the moment they're baptised, bypassing the whole need for that garbage, but that's besides the point. I think Moana was actually very good, and I was greatly and pleasantly surprised to see something of that quality come out of Disney. It's a captivating story that stands on its own legs without any pandering or preaching, and I see nothing wrong with how it represents Polynesian culture.
      - nojokes 5y ago
        I can confirm that Moana (the movi) induced respect and interest in Polynesian culture in me. Fortunately prevalence of crap merchandise is not wide where we live (in EU).
totetsu 5y ago
not sure of your context, but I often find that concepts from outside (de(post(colonial))) national experience are tricky to translate directly into it. The word racism particularly has a lot of unstated philosophy behind it depending on which country it is used in. To be plain, white people in history did try to 'own' everything in the Pacific, and that history is the base of the present we have today ect.. As for the film thing, maybe Taika is talking about the 'camera on the shore' https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018689851/reuben-friend-and-ioana-gordon-smith-a-camera-on-the-shore https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/201...
- nojokes 5y ago
  I think I understand. Still this comment made me uncomfortable.

wizzwizz4 5y ago

> Sounds overly racist to me. Read “whiteness” as describing culture, and it seems more true than racist. It's your traditional Victorian English capitalist, top hat and monocle, making children work with heavy machinery and turning the sky grey. Your colonialist, beating children for speaking the language of their parents and expecting them to be grateful for it. Your Disney, selling a child-sized “tattooed Polynesian skin” costume. (Why are all my examples about children?) I agree it could be phrased better, but I assume this is a quote from an interview? The speaker had seconds to think of a wording.

finnthehuman 5y ago
>Read “whiteness” as describing culture, and it seems more true than racist. No, describing a group of people based on their race instead of a more accurate descriptor for the category you're looking to talk about is just plain old racism. Being more specific might also be, but this is guaranteed to be. And your statement just sounds like the contemporary-palatable version of grandpa explaining that when he talks about black people, of course he doesn't mean all black people or exclusively black people.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Fair enough. There are still people I wouldn't begrudge for using “whiteness” like that, but I probably shouldn't assume good faith straight off the bat. You're right that this kind of thing is important to stamp out. That being said, we don't really have a good word for “originally-European (but kinda American too now) take-everything attitudes”. How would you describe this succinctly?
  - __turbobrew__ 5y ago
    “Western”?
Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
> Your Disney, selling a child-sized “tattooed Polynesian skin” costume. (Why are all my examples about children?) The people who got upset with the Maui costume strike me as the exact same type of people as the characters in the movie who got upset about the titular character's "cultural appropriation" of seafaring.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  There's a difference between children painting Polynesian-looking tattoos on themselves because they think they're cool, and a multinational corporation exploiting whatever fragments of culture seem profitable, and wallpapering “Disney magic” over the rest. Imagine the uproar if Disney made a film about Christian culture – maybe some story about St Paul going on a quest to slay a dragon using Jesus Cant (the tongue of magic) – and then started selling tacky Body-of-Christ merch (or something), and that was the only representation of Christianity in mainstream culture. Some people would get upset, and I don't think they'd be unjustified.
  - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
    I do have a problem with movie merchandise in general for being cheaply made plastic garbage, I just don't think there's anything more egregious about the Maui costume than anything else. And Christians already have the market cornered with tacky Body-of-Crist merch in the form of Mass play sets. If you ask me the Orthodox have the right idea, just give the kids the real Holy Communion from the moment they're baptised, bypassing the whole need for that garbage, but that's besides the point. I think Moana was actually very good, and I was greatly and pleasantly surprised to see something of that quality come out of Disney. It's a captivating story that stands on its own legs without any pandering or preaching, and I see nothing wrong with how it represents Polynesian culture.
    - nojokes 5y ago
      I can confirm that Moana (the movi) induced respect and interest in Polynesian culture in me. Fortunately prevalence of crap merchandise is not wide where we live (in EU).

totetsu 5y ago

not sure of your context, but I often find that concepts from outside (de(post(colonial))) national experience are tricky to translate directly into it. The word racism particularly has a lot of unstated philosophy behind it depending on which country it is used in. To be plain, white people in history did try to 'own' everything in the Pacific, and that history is the base of the present we have today ect.. As for the film thing, maybe Taika is talking about the 'camera on the shore' https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018689851/reuben-friend-and-ioana-gordon-smith-a-camera-on-the-shore https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/201...

nojokes 5y ago
I think I understand. Still this comment made me uncomfortable.