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Hey everyone !! Your Admin Team here to address a few things and let you know of a slight change we've made to our rules !! If you've read this please like the post !!

As you know we have a rule in the FAQ that states:

"You are invited to choose a faceclaim you feel fits the character. However we will not allow the whitewashing of canonically POC characters. Furthermore, if a character has an iteration where they’re a POC, we will only be accepting POC faceclaims for them." -- FAQ 12

This rule was originally created with characters like Iris West, Wally West and Nick Fury in mind. You may notice that the one commonality between these characters is that they've all been represented as white in most comics. However, they have all have been POC in their cinematic iterations. We felt it would be wrong to allow that representation to be erased.

We then quickly realized that the rule encompassed much more than what we had initially thought, extending to include characters such as Mary-Jane Watson (who appears as both incredibly white and as a WOC in the Marvel movies). To be entirely honest we appreciate the particular nuances afforded by the iteration-rule and feel that we must now expound precisely what we meant by the rule and how we intend for it to be interpreted.

The goal of this rule is to help provide good representation, regardless of whether in the comics a character is portrayed as white. By good representation, we mean representation which is devoid of negative harmful stereotyping and appropriation whether this be cultural or linguistic.

It's important to recognize that stereotyping frequently leads to prejudice and often racism and in addition that it's important to look at things from a contextual standpoint.

Context is everything within the realm of representation. For instance, speaking as a Vietnamese person, it's okay to have a Vietnamese person know martial arts of it's culturally accurate and relevant to plot. If you're writing a Vietnamese person who knows Kung Fu or karate, that's not really a Vietnamese martial art and if you're doing it to make the character more 'authentic', that's racist. Moreover, that's cultural appropriation as it's taking a cultural aspect out of it's historical or traditional purpose. An example of linguistic appropriation would be if your character was Southern Vietnamese and you used words from Google translate that were only Northen dialect Vietnamese.

We understand this is a difficult and sensitive topic to handle but it's important that we try our best to do so, as our goal here is not to promote representation regardless of it being poor or good representation; our goal here is to promote good representation without the appropriation of marginalised culture.

For instance;

You may have noticed that Zatanna Zatara's faceclaim was changed from Priyanka Chopra to Katie McGrath. The Admins are human, we make mistakes, we were genuinely unaware that as of issue #5 of DC Bombshells Zatanna had been portrayed as a Jewish-Romani woman. And while I attempted to find a suitable faceclaim for her, I realised something very important. DC Bombshells is essentially a WWII AU entirely separate from DC continuity and while none of the admins are current on the comic we can only assume the majority of her history has not been revealed.

Within the context of the main canon of DC comics, and by extension the canon I am playing Zatanna from, if I were to place Zatanna as being Romani, what I would end up with here is a significant plethora of ethnic stereotyping. To explain: Zatanna's canon, regardless of what that canon is, heavily features:

Magic/mysticism

Fortune telling/palm reading/tarot

Criminality

Performance artistry

Animal cruelty

The hypersexualisation of Zatanna by others

Abuse

Substance abuse

All of these are pervasive and negative stereotypes of the Romani people. Let’s explain.

Magic/mysticism & Fortune Telling: ties to the occult or magic as well as fortune telling (which later ties into criminality) have long been used against the Romani historically to keep them oppressed and abused by the general population. And while Zatanna being magical alone is not necessarily horrible within context we have to remember that this does not stand alone. Please keep this in mind while we highlight the other points.

Criminality: this has been used as propaganda to imply that Romani people are immoral and can not or will not make 'honest' livings and has been once again, used against them. Now within the context of Zatanna, magic/mysticism/fortune telling are generally seen as con-artistry, despite the fact that some of her magic is real. She still makes a living through illusion work as a magician.

Performance Art as a career: it is a well known fact that many Romani people have made a career of the performing arts, and while it's not necessarily racist, it's still a pervasive stereotype and combined with the rest of this list it does not paint a flattering picture for representation.

Fear of animals/animal cruelty: the Romani have been known to have a history in the performing arts as mentioned. You may not even be aware of this stereotype, but the idea that Romani people fear dogs or mistreat pets or performing animals comes from two places. Dogs have been historically and frequently used to attack or frighten Romani and that some Romani communities equate pets in the home to a lack of cleanliness. As for animal abuse, it comes from a history of having performance animals which is unethical and usually abusive and while that may have happened it does not mean that it is pervasive or even happening now. However once again due to her profession as a magician/stage performer she's been known in even recent canon to have performance animals.

Sexualization of Romani Women: this is a really sensitive subject both personally for many as well as culturally. The long and short of it is simply that Zatanna has been known to be promiscuous and have multiple partners and while that is perfectly fine, in the context of Romani culture it is not my place as a Non-Roma to broach a subject that has lead to sexual assault, abuse and even sex trafficking. This is a narrative that belongs to Romani women and should be voiced by them.

Domestic Abuse/Spousal Abuse: This is a sensitive topic no matter which ethnicity or culture we are discussing. However, it is also a very racist stereotype that has been used by various governments to strip away the parental rights of Romani people. On context Sindella, Zatanna's mother who is Romani would have faked death during child birth and abandoned her child to 'rejoin her people'. And to a lesser extent Zatanna's father also abandons her though at a much older age, which, while Zatara is not Romani still perpetuates a Romani person being the victim of abuse.

Substance abuse: Much like what was just discussed substance abuse is also a harmful stereotype and while Zatanna deals with addiction of magic, it still depicts a Romani person dealing with addiction and watching a parental figure i.e. her father struggle with addiction.

Once again one or two of these stereotypes, if handled with the correct mindset and due respect, would not be horrible. It’s the combination of all of these stereotypes that have historically helped to oppress the Romani that causes this to be racist. Regardless of intent or caution in writing, there is simply no way to depict this as anything other than a racist caricature.

To put it simply, Zatanna Zatara would be a sexualized, mystical, Romani performance artist with performance animals who steals and has reoccurring history with substance abuse and child abandonment. This is an inaccurate and racist representation of the Romani people, and as such, the iteration rule should not apply. Zatanna Zatara being represented as a Romani woman would be a prime example of poor representation which we are trying to avoid, and I would be forced to play a (based on her preexisting background, appropriation-free) character as a caricature of a culture that is not mine. Zatanna Zatara is not a racist caricature until you turn her into one.

In order to improve on clarity and further explain the iteration rule, and on the subject of a previous anon (regarding our choice of Enchantress' faceclaim), we would like to reiterate once again that while we understand the choice of actress in the film was white, the entity of Enchantress was strongly implied to have pre-Columbus South American roots. While an entity can not have a race, it does embody specific cultural magics and practices solely from and specific to pre-Columbus South America. As such, we consider this to be a POC iteration of Enchantress, despite her being portrayed by a white woman, considering this a show of cultural appropriation. Therefore, regardless of comic or cinematic canon we will only accept a POC faceclaim for June Moone.

Nothing is being removed culturally from the character of June Moone or Enchantress by having June be latinx/first nations. As stated, the entity itself has no race, and while it does embody specific cultural magics, there is nothing to say that a latinx/first nations 'host' can't exist in Europe or be culturally European. The reverse (a white woman being overtaken by the afore-described entity) would be appropriation. This is the poor representation which we choose to avoid in having Zatanna not be Romani, and in having Enchantress be Latinx/First Nations.

So, to summarise, we’ve updated the rules in line with a more coherent and clear phrasing of our character iteration rule:

You are invited to choose a faceclaim you feel fits the character. If a character has a playable iteration wherein they’re a POC, and the establishment of the character as a POC does not cause the character to become a poor representation of a group of people ( be this in the form of becoming a caricature or reinforcement of negative stereotypes ) then we will only be accepting POC faceclaims for them. It is our goal to boost respectful representation. Not poor representation.

We’re so so sorry for how long this post is, oh sweet lord above, it’s so long, but it was something that needed to be addressed and explained as thoroughly and clearly as we’re capable of doing. Still, we appreciate your patience and understanding, and would like to thank you for the absolutely ridiculous amount of time that you must have spent reading this. Once again, thank you so much for your time and for reading this, please like this post so we know that you’ve done so, and if you need any clarification or a tl;dr, please don’t hesitate to ask.

xoxo gossip admins

#atlasadmin

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