#im just glad to see the exact number and also explicitly in the show

[5hrignold]

glep being like thousands of years old has me wondering if that’s a critter thing like they either can be immortal or live to an absurd amount of time like that or it’s just a glep thing like it would be the case for him regardless of species

[normal-thoughts-official]

I was reading ur post about the Brazilian education system (which sounds fucking incredible by the way) and it reminded me of smth

I have no intention of becoming a teacher, but my sister is one and she works in a primary school (her class is ages 5-6), and when she was in university she showed me loads of things about the reflecting realities study

I think it was made in 2017 and it was a study on how well children's books reflected the world around us, ie how many books published had protagonists of colour and obviously the results were dire

I'd have to look it up but there were very few people of colour and a hell of a lot of white characters, but what was especially interesting was that when Black Lives Matter got more prevelence last year a lot of publishing houses got put under pressure to add more people of colour in their books

And when the 2020 reflecting realities study came in and while there was more people of colour and less white people, the number of animals being the main protagonists completely jumped up

And it's just terrible because of stories with main casts of animals still fall into the exact same racist stereotypes. Like often they follow the protagonist of a cute fluffy animal as they struggle against the predetory snake or bear, both of which are completely different to them physically and explicitly a threat - this could also be stranger danger

And I mean, what's worse is when they're consciously trying to use animals as an allegory - I mean Zootopia? Anyone? Disney making the allegory for people of colour into literal predetors really wasn't the woke moment they thought it was

And I was just thinkinf about how this kind of follows through into the fantasy genre. I'm gonna be tentative here because Im no expert on this so call me out if you think I'm wrong. Like I'm glad that the shadowhunters cadting directors hired more actors of colour to the team because othereise it would be overwhelmingly pasty, I can't help but notice the decision to cast Luke, the only black man, as an animal and how they changed his character entirely as well

Because (this is not pro cc) Luke in the books was a gentle white bookshop owner, and the show changed him into a cop, and the second time we see him or so he's been injured from fighting (ie not depicted as gentle) ? For some reason (this could just be for plot purposes but u know) There's whole essays online about how media uses black cops in shows and movies to prevent criticism against them but that's a whole other post

(tentative again but do you think that it was kidn of to distance itself from real world issues? Like shadowhunters can obviously be read as the fantasy police force, but by making Luke a downworlder and a cop I feel like maybe they're moving as far away from being properly critical as they can)

That being said, I love show Luke I think he's fantastic, and I way prefer his competancy instead of wimpy white book Luke but I think he can fit the trope in media where characters of colour are depicted as animalistic, ie TWILIGHTs wolves being all native people!!! and I feel like often it just helps to reinforce a lot of the aggressive stereotyoes against poc

Idk how to finish this. In conclusion publishing houses seem to find it easier to publish stories about animals than people of colour and that's a big fat problem. Also how instead of you know publishing books by authors of colour several responded to criticism by just rereleasing collections of classics with black people on the cover - like that solves anythung

Idk I thought you might find the study interesting, it obviously goes more in depth that I have talked about so I can link it to you if you'd like (however it is a study based in Britain based upon British publishing houses so no worries if you aren't interested)

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that does sound pretty interesting! id like to see it if u have it easily, but if not, no worries. i think understanding the specifics of the context in other places always helps u understand ur own better, and we have similar studies in brazil with pretty much the same results

the whole animals thing is so crazy. like both in the sense of animalization and just that genuinely animals are more appealing to have as mc than poc for publishing companies diajasoidja god

also i've never seen zootopia or heard of it being a racial allegory and id like to unlearn that information

about luke: yep. i'm not sure they cast isaiah because he was a werewolf, i think it's genuinely just because he was a good actor (especially because so many other originally white characters got actors of color in the show) but sh and tsc did pick the race of the downworlders in the most cursed way. the two most important black characters were both werewolves (i know ur in s1 but maia also exists in tsc so), literally ALL the werewolves except for russell were either black or latine, even the minor ones (bat, alaric, gretel), the only jewish character drinks blood (COME ON), raphael is also animalized a lot "on account of being a vampire" whereas simon is not (and even camille isn't and she was supposed to be white so)

the decision to make luke a black cop will always be something i'll hate. can we stop trying to make cops diverse. cops are oppressors. get out of here with the propaganda

im not sure the thing about luke being hurt is supposed to imply he's violent tho, i think it's more supposed to be like "poor him, a great serviceman of the people, risking his life at the job" which is copaganda and therefore still racist, but, in a different way daoidjsaj

i think there could have been a good critique/parallel there with luke being black and a cop and an ex-shadowhunter downworlder, but that would have to be handled REALLY carefully so im actually kind of glad sh didn't even try to do that. also it would require luke to have actual growth as a character instead of just being clary's caretaker #4, and his internalized anti-downrorldism and bootlicking tendencies to be addressed and become a liberation plotline. which again, sh could never

but yeah same, in the end i love show luke, mostly because of who he could have been, but at least he's not useless like book luke. but like... why make him a cop when you could, very easily, do Anything Else