Importance of white representation in fiction

[Valka D'Ur]

Because Abigail Van Buren is Jean Phillips now and before her mother wrote it.

I know that whoever originated Dear Abby and Dear Ann Landers is dead, and the next generation took over. I didn't notice the advice improving or the problems being any more interesting.

I just don't get what this has to do with C3PO in drag.

 

[Sommerswerd]

C3PO in drag.

C3PO in drag.

That's already been done

 

[Valka D'Ur]

That's already been done

Yeah... saw it, was moderately amused for about 3 seconds (this ridiculous movie turned up on PBS' Saturday Night Cinema, of all the weird places).

 

[NovaKart]

Anne Landers wasn’t continued as a column for very long. Jean Phillips wrote Dear Abby for a long time with her mother and then took over completely when her mother got too old to do it.

The C3PO in drag is a different subject.

 

[Lexicus]

That scene... (with the CGI Jabba in the "remastered" Ep 4) was so bad Utter garbage. Its one of the worst additions to the OT. That scene was wrong for so many reasons, too many to count really but Han's interaction with Jabba was way off, he wasn't respectful/fearful enough, and Jabba is made to look like a clown and a softie which is totally contrary to the badass ruthless gangster that he is depicted as in EP 6. Plus... Jabba... walking around??? No

Yep, terrible. An (imo) even worse edit made by Lucas was digitally adding a scream to the brief scene of Luke falling down the shaft in Episode V after dropping off that...uh...thing he was holding on to after Darth Vader cut off his hand. Turned his stoic act of self-sacrifice into an incoherent mess.

 

[aelf]

I'm getting the sense that most people in this thread would at least internally reject authorial intent that goes against their understanding of the story or character. That's fine.

But it does make the insistence that authorial/original intent is vital for casting decisions even more inexplicable.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I don't reject authorial intent.

Thing is if the author is not explicitly asked what he/she intended by that, and
their answer is recorded somehow, the authorial intent is often conjectural.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I thought Jabba was seen in one of the original scenes shot as a human dressed in Tatooine clothes, similar to what the Rancor's tender wears, just with a shirt instead of bare chested... but that scene was later cut from the theatrical release and they decided to make Jabba a slug-creature later.

My understanding is that that scene is the one in the hacked version, and they CGI'ed the slug into where the human was. Hence Han walks over Jabba's tail, because there was no tail.

That scene... (with the CGI Jabba in the "remastered" Ep 4) was so bad Utter garbage. Its one of the worst additions to the OT. That scene was wrong for so many reasons, too many to count really but Han's interaction with Jabba was way off, he wasn't respectful/fearful enough, and Jabba is made to look like a clown and a softie which is totally contrary to the badass ruthless gangster that he is depicted as in EP 6. Plus... Jabba... walking around??? No

I could go on and on... It was just... bad.

Another problem with that scene is most of the dialogue is repeated from the scene with Greedo.

Yep, terrible. An (imo) even worse edit made by Lucas was digitally adding a scream to the brief scene of Luke falling down the shaft in Episode V after dropping off that...uh...thing he was holding on to after Darth Vader cut off his hand. Turned his stoic act of self-sacrifice into an incoherent mess.

That edit was removed from the Blu ray editions, but one new change added for the Blu rays is Darth Vader saying no at the end of the Return of the Jedi.

 

[RobAnybody]

I'm getting the sense that most people in this thread would at least internally reject authorial intent that goes against their understanding of the story or character. That's fine.

But it does make the insistence that authorial/original intent is vital for casting decisions even more inexplicable.

I don't see it as inconsistent. What I see, & I don't wish to speak for others, so I'll just put it how I personally feel, is: When the author comes out long after the work has been released, as opposed to within the actual text/movie, & says "oh, yeah, years ago, when I wrote that, I totally meant X", it's pretty meaningless.

Like "Dumbledore is gay" when there's no indication in the text, or even mentioned at the time. Or, "Han's a hero, he wouldn't shoot first!", or "Hermione could be black". If that was actually the intent, they'd have written it into the text, or at least mentioned it at the time of publication. When the author comes out years later & retcons their "intent", that they, the author of the work, didn't include in their original work, it's hard to take it seriously, no matter how admirable the retcon might be. It's, to reference a term used upthread, "virtue signaling".

Either they were afraid to actually write it into their work originally, or they've changed their mind since they wrote it, trying to retro-fit their current views into their previous work. Neither explanation is to be applauded. It's more a "have your cake & eat it, too" thing.

 

[aelf]

I don't see it as inconsistent. What I see, & I don't wish to speak for others, so I'll just put it how I personally feel, is: When the author comes out long after the work has been released, as opposed to within the actual text/movie, & says "oh, yeah, years ago, when I wrote that, I totally meant X", it's pretty meaningless.

Like "Dumbledore is gay" when there's no indication in the text, or even mentioned at the time. Or, "Han's a hero, he wouldn't shoot first!", or "Hermione could be black". If that was actually the intent, they'd have written it into the text, or at least mentioned it at the time of publication. When the author comes out years later & retcons their "intent", that they, the author of the work, didn't include in their original work, it's hard to take it seriously, no matter how admirable the retcon might be. It's, to reference a term used upthread, "virtue signaling".

Either they were afraid to actually write it into their work originally, or they've changed their mind since they wrote it, trying to retro-fit their current views into their previous work. Neither explanation is to be applauded. It's more a "have your cake & eat it, too" thing.

You're getting into the business of interpreting the author's original intent and contradicting what the author says about it. Not sure if that's solid ground, if you do think authorial intent is all-important.

But, regardless, if we apply your logic (i.e. that something was not written into the text) onto a character that is assumed by many to be white but is later on depicted by a non-white actor, some people here would certainly disagree. That was part of the earlier contention, right? There are some who maintain, for example, that place xyz is implied to be like medieval Europe and therefore the characters have to be white, even though it is not written anywhere that they are white. So your line of reasoning has previously been rejected by some people who hew to authorial intent as the ultimate source of truth for character depictions, and it's basically a moving goal post.

Easier to reject the notion that authorial intent is all-important.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I don't see it as inconsistent. What I see, & I don't wish to speak for others, so I'll just put it how I personally feel, is: When the author comes out long after the work has been released, as opposed to within the actual text/movie, & says "oh, yeah, years ago, when I wrote that, I totally meant X", it's pretty meaningless.

Like "Dumbledore is gay" when there's no indication in the text, or even mentioned at the time. Or, "Han's a hero, he wouldn't shoot first!", or "Hermione could be black". If that was actually the intent, they'd have written it into the text, or at least mentioned it at the time of publication. When the author comes out years later & retcons their "intent", that they, the author of the work, didn't include in their original work, it's hard to take it seriously, no matter how admirable the retcon might be. It's, to reference a term used upthread, "virtue signaling".

Either they were afraid to actually write it into their work originally, or they've changed their mind since they wrote it, trying to retro-fit their current views into their previous work. Neither explanation is to be applauded. It's more a "have your cake & eat it, too" thing.

My understanding of her claim that "Dumbledore is gay" was borne of frustration when fans tried to pin her down about Sirius and Remus (based on the hug they shared in The Shrieking Shack in The Prisoner of Azkaban). For those unfamiliar with what's going on here... Sirius Black was the Potter's best friend, accused murdering them, Peter Pettigrew, and 12 muggles, and sentenced to life in Azkaban, a maximum-security wizarding prison guarded by evil magical lifeforms that drain away all joy and happiness, force you to relive your worse memories over and over. And if your crimes are heinous enough you can be sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss, where they literally suck your soul out of you, leaving your body alive but your mind gone. Sirius has escaped and is determined to protect Harry (his godson), find the real murderer and at least commit the murder he already served 12 years for (Sirius by this point is not entirely sane and it has to be pointed out to him that if they kill Peter now there won't be any way to prove he didn't do it before):

The hug in the first video and Snape's line in the second about Sirius and Remus "quarreling like an old married couple" spawned more thousands of Wolfstar fanfic stories than I can fathom. It's what led to fans asking if Sirius is gay, since he was never given any love interest other than casually mentioning one or two women in the original OOtP who didn't survive.

Apparently Rowling was determined not to allow Sirius to have a SO at all, so she simpered, "No, Sirius isn't gay... but Dumbledore is."

At which point I just roll my eyes and mutter who cares? I certainly don't, not when it's a character I don't even like. As for the hug... good friends do hug like that if it's been a long time since seeing either other, and Snape is a jerk who has no idea how friendship even works anyway.

 

[Hygro]

Dumbledore was always gay, I spotted it before the last book.

 

[Traitorfish]

You're getting into the business of interpreting the author's original intent and contradicting what the author says about it. Not sure if that's solid ground, if you do think authorial intent is all-important.

The issue here is that "the author" and "the author" are not quite the same person, that they are not entirely fixed over time, so whatever later commentary an author passes on their own work does not quite carry the authority of coming from the same hand that produced the original text. We can readily grant that their commentary will be authoritative for very obvious reasons, but it is still ultimately commentary. I think that it's still possible to privilege authorial intent without automatically deferring to the person who was once, at an earlier point in their life, that author.

 

[aelf]

The issue here is that "the author" and "the author" are not quite the same person, that they are not entirely fixed over time, so whatever later commentary an author passes on their own work does not quite carry the authority of coming from the same hand that produced the original text.

This sounds like a flimsy argument. So does the authority of the author start to diminish as soon as the work has been published? If not, when? And if the author's commentary came a few years after publication, would that carry more weight than if it came 10 years later? This argument opens itself up to such questions that amount to reductio ad absurdum.

Again, it's easier to reject the notion that authorial intent is all-important.

 

[Hygro]

This sounds like a flimsy argument. So does the authority of the author start to diminish as soon as the work has been published? If not, when? And if the author's commentary came a few years after publication, would that carry more weight than if it came 10 years later? This argument opens itself up to such questions that amount to reductio ad absurdum.

Again, it's easier to reject the notion that authorial intent is all-important.

Well it’s probably pretty realistic that if they tell you their intent in writing it that they’ll be closer to their original thoughts sooner than later.

 

[RobAnybody]

Yeah, "Han shot first" is easily the best example of how an author much later "clarifying" their intent is dubious at best. If Madonna came out today saying "Like A Virgin" was really about waiting until marriage, I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock into it.

 

[NovaKart]

Yeah, "Han shot first" is easily the best example of how an author much later "clarifying" their intent is dubious at best. If Madonna came out today saying "Like A Virgin" was really about waiting until marriage, I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock into it.

Many years ago I remember her saying something like she doesn’t like that song anymore or she’s just moved on to where she doesn’t perform it.

Reminds me, I heard David Bowie say in an interview that he didn’t like some of his old songs and people would sometimes tell him they liked them and he’d think to himself privately, this person has terrible taste.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Many years ago I remember her saying something like she doesn’t like that song anymore or she’s just moved on to where she doesn’t perform it.

Reminds me, I heard David Bowie say in an interview that he didn’t like some of his old songs and people would sometimes tell him they liked them and he’d think to himself privately, this person has terrible taste.

Just ask Radio Head about some of their songs..........

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Many years ago I remember her saying something like she doesn’t like that song anymore or she’s just moved on to where she doesn’t perform it.

Reminds me, I heard David Bowie say in an interview that he didn’t like some of his old songs and people would sometimes tell him they liked them and he’d think to himself privately, this person has terrible taste.

Of course the courteous thing to do would be say "Thank you," and move on.

 

[aelf]

Well it’s probably pretty realistic that if they tell you their intent in writing it that they’ll be closer to their original thoughts sooner than later.

It is realistic, but if your entire position on the interpretation of a work is dependent on authorial intent, then you'd have to come up with some practical way of measuring how late is too late to be considered, which is an exercise in absurdity.

There are simply better ways of interpreting a work, in which authorial intent is but one factor to consider.