This Nessa (from Pokemon SwSh) whitewashing controversy is kinda blowing up in the art community right now
- Thread starter vestan
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If someone wants to draw them as anything thats fine. Its their own time and effort they are using to do so. We are all free to criticize it.
This happens with a lot of fan art of characters with dark skin—those tips in the OP seem useful to keep in mind skin tone to other elements in the art.
Reminds me of Splatoon 2 Marina art and that one claw machine doll:
Please tell me that abomination is a knockoff.
Nope. Official collaboration between Nintendo and Sanrio. It showed up in real toy shops and claw machines.
Depends on the level of representation of the races in question
(this is why the lightening of dark skin tones is being taken so seriously)
Yeah, this. Nobody is saying it's right to harass the artist but it's certainly fair to raise some constructive criticism.
I appreciate whitewashing concerns, but this seems like it's just one fanartist, and it looks to me like they did try to keep the character dark-skinned even if it's not the same shade. So I'm a little surprised that it blew up. The fanart looks like about my shade and the in-game art doesn't strike me as so much darker that I'd appreciate the difference.
Q: Does the concept of white washing exist in japan and as a cultural negative like it exists in America?
Bonus Q: Do the Japanese think of white people as being "higher class" as I've heard/read some people describe?
Bonus Q: Do the Japanese think of white people as being "higher class" as I've heard/read some people describe?
I agree with the point that's being made, but I don't agree with the idea that people are justified in taking a Japanese person's art and stating that they have the right to modify it and upload it without credit just because they've "transformed" it, or to show up the artist or threaten them like is being shown in the opening post of the thread. Japanese fan artists often have their art basically taken from them and their ownership and rights as creators ignored or trampled upon them, so exacerbating that is more than a bit of a problem.
In general, how this discourse is being handled is showing a terrifying resemblance to the incident in the Steven Universe fandom that led to a young artist being hospitalized for nearly committing suicide. I can understand situations where one is not willing to pull punches, but each issue should be proportionate to the impact of the matter of hand.
In general, how this discourse is being handled is showing a terrifying resemblance to the incident in the Steven Universe fandom that led to a young artist being hospitalized for nearly committing suicide. I can understand situations where one is not willing to pull punches, but each issue should be proportionate to the impact of the matter of hand.
The problem is, even if this art was literally the only whitewashed Nessa fanart on the web, it still happens plenty with other dark skinned characters.
Jesus Christ, these things are getting ridiculous. It's fucking fan art. People really find something to be offended by in everything nowadays, huh?
Ding ding ding.
The artist drew it that way because lighter skin is generally viewed as more beautiful in Asian countries. That doesn't make it right though.
Funny how you assume they can't understand english lol.
Erasing people of color is such a silly thing to get offended by huh?
No, I get that, I do think it's a legitimate concern. But I'm surprised that this art in particular is a focal point because it doesn't strike me as a particular prominent case of it. It's close enough to the original tone that I might not have noticed that it was different at first, as opposed to, say, the Pearl and Marina plushies that were shown off a while ago where Marina didn't look like she had a different skin tone than Pearl.
On this particular subject, you'll find many JP artists on Twitter who don't have a full grasp of english or can just barely understand it or speak it. That language barrier has been an issue for them in how often many western accounts steal their art though they do not allow reposting of their art of any kind.
It was horrible the amount of vitriol she was getting, and even after getting into a hospital for help people were still tackling her down. Criticisms on the art is fine but people should stop once it starts moving towards targeting the artist. We don't want another real life example of this:
Edit: Adding article for people not in the known.
I know right? Erasure of dark skin characters in media is such a silly thing to get mad about. C'mon guys, can't we get back to talking about vidya games?
This. It continues to happen again and again. Artist have had it pointed out them over and over again. Some learn and others clearly don't care knowing full well what they're doing is a problem. So I have no problem with people being called out for this before it gets out of control. As soon as I saw Nessa's design I knew full well some artist were going to try their best to lighten her skin tone as much as possible as soon as possible. They did it with other Nintendo characters as well that came out that were finally darker skinned.
Nobody is stating that Nintendo/Gamefreak have changed the character's skin colour and it being fan art doesn't remove it from criticism.
This is just a recent example of a darker skinned character being whitewashed and in this instance it's lead to a broader discussion on the topic. You may not give a shit but it doesn't make the subject ridiculous.
Right I guess racism is just no big deal then. Minorities should stop complaining.
It's fan art. It is one artist taking something and making it their own. You know, for fun. No one's the original character.
Uhh, Lenora isn't a mammy character. She's literally a museum director and fossil expert. Not to mention B/W also had other dark skinned characters such as Iris and the E4 member, Marshal
Drawing a character in a slightly different skin tone than the official art is racist?
From my personal experience, "white is right". The majority of women tend to favor having lighter skin and men see it as a plus when it comes to attractiveness. Now this isn't just a white skin thing, this is just lighter skin in general over here. There is sunblock that bleaches your skin as well. A lot of people go out of their way to make sure they do not get tanned.
As for whitewashing part, I cannot really answer that properly because I do not think that concept is fully understood here. They have a tendency to stereotype black people. Right now the popular thing is to use half Japanese for modeling as well. Got to remember the population is 99% Japanese and they tend to go with what is pleasing to them first.
Except she's not a person.
I think there's people who has a lot of free time and just explore twitter to find something to be mad.
I can understand the outrage if this fanart was from a real person, but from a npc ? Please Thanos, exist to snap this people from the existence.
I mean... compare that fan art to like every gym leader in Pokemon except like Brock - they're all pasty white... PASTY. This fanart's got lighter tones, yeah, but clearly not white-skinned to me, and the in-game model isn't exactly "dark-skinned", either.
The bias here is not really racially motivated, though, in my opinion. It's a skin-tone discrimination. My buddy grew up in India and told me a story that his parents would never let his siblings touch him for fear that his darker skin tone would "rub off" on them - same parents and all. Sad, but I have heard that this is a common mentality in Asian countries - it's part of the reason why you'll see people carrying parasols in the bright Sun, so that they don't tan and look "bad". It's interesting to me (as a 3/4 white person who looks white) that among many groups lighter-skin white people are perceived as lesser than darker-skinned, or tanned white people - "GTL" and all that. I've never really thought about this much, so I think this may come across poorly, but it's good to discuss.
The bias here is not really racially motivated, though, in my opinion. It's a skin-tone discrimination. My buddy grew up in India and told me a story that his parents would never let his siblings touch him for fear that his darker skin tone would "rub off" on them - same parents and all. Sad, but I have heard that this is a common mentality in Asian countries - it's part of the reason why you'll see people carrying parasols in the bright Sun, so that they don't tan and look "bad". It's interesting to me (as a 3/4 white person who looks white) that among many groups lighter-skin white people are perceived as lesser than darker-skinned, or tanned white people - "GTL" and all that. I've never really thought about this much, so I think this may come across poorly, but it's good to discuss.
It's white washing the characters as a symptom of our racist society associating white skin with more being attractive as well as artists not learning how to draw people of color.
"People really find something to be offended by in everything nowadays, huh?" is a very transparent dogwhislte. I'm just translating
Black Panther isn't a real person either but you'd be utterly stupid to cast Tom Cruise in the role.
Y'all suddenly acting like fiction means nothing now in regards to representation concerns are fucking wildin' right now.
Serisouly, when is the last time you guys have played a Pokemon game? It's had a multicultural cast since the B/W. And SMDH, the in game model isn't dark skinned? What do you call her skin tone then? Tanned white?!
"iTs JuSt FaNaRt."
These are the same people that will defend obvious racial bias and the lack of diversity in gaming because "it's the developers vision". They can't mentally handle someone being critical of something they like...
OP
OP
I mean, you aren't exactly being constructive. All your posts in this thread have been needlessly aggressive and dismissive of the legitimate concerns surrounding this.
Perhaps take a break for a bit and come back when you're calmer. There's a good discussion to be had here but you dismissing it is yet another thing for people to get mad about helps no one and just muddies the conversation that's being had in this thread and elsewhere on the internet. Thanks.
Should be open to criticism as long as it isnt harassment or such of course. It is some nice art but the skin tone definitely looks too light. That person who re-uploaded the art was damn rude through.
I meant not really dark-skinned as far as black skin tones, go. Dark-skinned for a Pokemon game, yeah. And I haven't really looked at every single gym leader in Pokemon series. I just googled, "pokemon gym leaders" and saw a sea of pasty whiteness.
I mean, you're literally using terminology used by bigots to dismiss concerns about issues.
Maybe you should do some soul searching if your response to something involving racial issues is the same as the internet racists.