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The question looks obviously provocative, but if you rephrase it, it is of interest.
Can an author be considered a racist on the basis of the fact that there are no black characters in the leading roles in his work?
Both yes and no. I do not agree with Anna Andreeva, who develops the argument through infringement of rights. Yes, racism is a violation of rights, but not only that. These are also views and a person can be considered a racist, even if it does not infringe on anyone. An anti-Semite on a desert island is still an anti-Semite, even though there are no Jews around. And a person who is put in solitary confinement for racially motivated murders remains a racist, even though we have deprived him of the opportunity to infringe on the rights of other people.
How can we judge the author's views? Based on his works. If the author is definitely promoting an idea in his books, it is reasonable to assume that he adheres to this idea.
What are Martin's ideas? The obvious focus, at least in the series (and the script of the series is agreed with Martin) is on strong heroines (Cersei, Arya, Brienne, Daenerys, Sansa), at least two of them are fighting for the right to male roles (Arya, Brienne). Daenerys directly opposes slavery and one of her associates in the series is an obvious black man-a Gray Worm. That is, it is difficult to accuse Martin of sexism or racism by this criterion.
If the author persistently avoids certain characters, although he describes the reality where they belong, it is reasonable to decide that he avoids them for a reason. And what is this reality? A Soviet author who describes the life of the USSR describes a place where there are not many Negroes. And it is normal if it describes only the life of the USSR. A European author who has made medieval Europe or the world that is copied from it the theme of his works describes a reality in which there are not many Negroes and it is normal that they do not fall into the focus of the narrative. But an author describing the United States could raise a racial issue that has remained relevant there for many years.
What kind of reality does Martin describe? Westeros is copied from Britain, the north is Scotland, the Stark – Lannister war is the War of the Roses, the Targaryen invasion is the invasion of William. In this reality, there is little room for blacks. But in the whole world, they do exist. That is not to say that Martin purposefully avoids blacks.
So, of course, he is not a racist, although when he gives a realistic description of a world like ours, he also shows examples of racism, using them to speak out against it.
Racism is the infringement of a person's rights on the basis of their race.�
Being able to appear in a film is not a human right.�
I don't know if George Martin is a racist or not, but the choice of actors for a film, play, or video has nothing to do with racism.
Strange question. Why didn't you ask a similar question about films in which (almost) all the roles are played by black people — “Black Panther”, “Friday” (1995), “For Life” (2010), “Authority” (1992)?�
I understand that you are a supporter of the OscarSoWhite movement, which calls for giving awards not because of the excellent performance of the actor, but because of the color of the skin?
Let's imagine that this series will have black main characters. And, let's say, they will be killed, which is perfectly normal for a given series. There will be more lamentations: “A minor white character killed a good black main character in a barbaric way — that's racist!”
Because the plot is written off from the EUROPEAN Middle Ages-Renaissance. There were no non-whites at all. Especially among kings and their immediate entourage. I wonder if someone will make a film about the internal wars of African tribes a year ago, and someone will be outraged: “Why are there no whites there” – will they consider him an idiot, or will they say “a fair claim”?
Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Negroid race, by definition, originated and mainly lived in the southern parts of the world, and given the low development of the transport system at that time, the Negro would look in the series ….eh, странно strange
Actually, there are also black ones there, how could you not notice? Although not the main ones, they are quite significant. Agree, it is absurd when in some TV shows some characters are made black against common sense, but for the sake of a very strange law. And when all the positive characters in the film are black(for example, “Away”, “We”, “After our Era”), there are no accusations of racism.
“A Song of Fire and Ice”, which is the basis of the series, is a story about a fictional world similar to medieval Europe. Where do Negroes come from in such a world? It's like putting a horde of Nigerian migrant workers in Tolkien's saga instead of a horde of orcs.�
The problem for the creators of such films is precisely that there can't be Blacks in the plot, but they must be there, otherwise the film will lose a huge black part of the potential audience. Therefore, they introduce black actors to various very dubious from the point of view of reliability, but at least episodic roles.
And there are also Chinese, Jews, Indians, and women who defend the modern views of feminism by their role.�
Don't create problems where they don't exist.�
In any movie, you can find any problem.
It's like asking why the Orcs in Draenor from the Warcraft movie are mostly brown, while the Elves are thin and light-skinned in Tolkien's Middle-earth.�
The peoples of Westeros and Essos have a history, and since the creator laid down in their appearance, say, their features (hair color, for example, as a symbol of the genus), it is logical that other options are not particularly appropriate. The Andals, around whom the plot mainly develops, mostly have white skin — this is their characteristic feature based on their history. The first people also have distinctive features and a reasonable skin color, and they are the second most popular characters in the plot.
This is a common move in fantasy universes, so that you can tell something about a character just by looking at it.�
And so there are representatives of peoples with completely different skin colors (other peoples of Essos), and in general there are races in the series that are not peculiar to our world (Children of the forest).
It is important to keep in mind that of course it would be possible to use marketing techniques, including representatives of different races, genders, and orientations in the main plot and bringing them to the main characters… but this should not be forced, this is the author's desire, and if he did not want or did not see the point in this, then this is his right.
It's worse when they do everything according to the checklist, forgetting about the integrity of the plot, and deliberately trying to please the entire audience. This is how TV shows likeThe chilling adventures of Sabrina and Charmed, where it's super-intrusive and doesn't make any sense.�
*this is not tolleracy (you should not think so superficially and bomb on this topic), it is a popular marketing ploy today to attract as much audience as possible, which is aimed at the idea that if, for example, there are gays in the series, then gays will watch it.