Just out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about
images like these? I've never looked at a dark-skin recoloring and thought, "That person is racist!" so I'm really surprised that people think that way for a light-skin recoloring. I'm fine with admitting that I'm not the most racially sensitive person, though, so that's why I'm curious regarding what you think about it.
Second one is kinda NSFW. It's just Lan from Rinne no Lagrange, but her outfit is kinda NSFW anyway so just a warning.
In an idealized world with little to no racism, I'd agree that this would be an equivalent action. However we don't live in that world and it is because of this context that I can say that they aren't equivalent actions. As I've said before, and I hope you aren't denying this, lighter skin is deemed beautiful relative to darker skin in pretty much every Western culture and most cultures that have had significant interaction/influence by Western Media (which at this point is most of the world). As a personal anecdote, an Indian girl I asked out in college straight up told me she couldn't date me because I was too dark-skinnned and her conservative parents back in India would disown her if she did :/
Regarding women specially, Black girls are CONSTANTLY told (via ads and representation) to look more like White girls but the reverse is never true. Black girls are constantly told to straighten their hair and bleach their skin and hairstyles that are comfortable/healthy for Black people in general, like dreads, tend to be demonized. Remember that story in OT a while back where a little Black girl was suspended from school when she wouldn't wear her hair a certain way (a certain way of course being a hair-style best suited for White hair)? How often have you heard someone say "I don't find Black women attractive" or "The only Black women I find attractive are X" where X is always the few who've been propped up in the media that almost always have straight hair, a light complexion, small/narrow noses, etc.? Because I've heard that shit way too often IRL and often times from OTHER BLACK PEOPLE. I wonder what could have shaped those preferences........ I'm sure you seen the occasional OKCupid (or other online dating site) statistics thread that pops up in OT. How do Black women tend to fair (Spoiler: they always come in dead last!)? I wonder why.........
This is not even touching upon issues of representation (which have less to do with fan art but more about general media). In America, I believe those of direct/near direct African descent make up about 12% of the population. Ideally, we would then expect them to represent 12% of all protagonists/antagonists/etc. and could be deemed fit to fill any role. I shouldn't have to tell you how we are both underrepresented and typecast (and hell as bad is it is for us, I think there's a good argument that those of East Asian descent having it even worse!). Why do you think Tyler Perry movies do so well? It's rarely because they are good but mostly because Black people, like EVERYBODY, like seeing themselves represented and he's one of the few directors in Hollywood to do that consistently. Issues of representation are why people tend to get very upset when a White actor if often given a "Black role" but the only (or loudest at least) people upset when a Black actor is given a "White role" tend to be supremacists or skinheads (see the controversy when Idris Elba was cast in Thor). I admit I was initially taken aback when a Black actor was cast as the new Johnny Storm but that would not be the same as if a White guy was cast as Luke Cage or Black Panther. I know Felicia Day wrote about something similar in a recent blog post if you want to hear about this issue from another perspective
I want to be clear these issues aren't exclusively a Black issue - other darker skinned individuals and other minorities - period - run into these problems. I just feel most comfortable talking about it from the Black perspective.
Also is not to say one can never re-imagine or reboot characters - I'm just telling you why the directions aren't equivalent and why it can sometimes rub people the wrong way. As such, given this all this context, whenever I see characters bleached (this Captain Earth example isn't even like a re-imagining or a new take on a character just a straight up bleaching) I always get very suspicious about the intentions. I admit I'm making assumptions about the intentions and feelings of the photoshopper and I'm willing to eat crow if they ever stepped forward and were truthful in that there were other intentions. Without that though I feel I more likely than not have the correct read on the situation. I'm not like livid or furious or anything - it is just a singular image about some niche anime and what not but I recognize what's going on and its not a good feeling.
Because it does little harm. OceanBlue here even just confirmed my suspicions that skin recoloring isn't uncommon. Am I missing something? Did the author say something like "much better!" or "I would've preferred it like this"? If not it's a leap to instantly assume racism.
Read the long post I did in reply to OceanBlue (i.e. look above) for my perspective.
Different styles I'd say. If we look at hair color alone, and I have no data to back me up so don't quote me on it, most eastern people have black/darker toned hair and that tends to be how they're depicted (at least with natural color hair). It'd be easier for an artist to distinguish their characters with a wide range of hair colors, eyes and faces. Probably harder to distinguish them otherwise. When an artist attempts to do it though I applaud them.
It's not the hair colors that puzzle me (I agree when they aren't technicolor rainbow-esque they tend to be realistic) but rather the facial structures.Obviously animation is going to be heavily stylized and what not (Caucasian people in the Simpsons are fucking neon yellow for example) so I don't expect faithfulness to be the norm but it seems to be such a small part of the broader art-form of Japanese entertainment media. Maybe I'm just not seeing the right stuff and what I'm exposed to is coloring my perceptions?
