Just saw this on Tik Tok and it basically sums up why I’ve always disliked the “so they’re not Black enough” argument whenever I bring up dark skinned characters being played by non-dark skinned people.
Storm being the most notable, but apparently, they’re looking at Teyana Taylor for live action Vixen. I LOVE Teyana as an actor, and I wouldn’t care if she were Vixen, but I’m not going to pretend to love it.
Just like I didn’t care that Aaron is John Stewart, even though it’s not accurate. I love both of them as actors, but I want to see dark skinned characters portrayed as… dark skinned 🧍🏾♀️
And though the video is talking more so about real life, it applies there too. You’ll rarely see dark skinned women on the face of makeup promos and whatnot, and a lot of companies don’t cater to brown / dark skinned women (again, like makeup).
It’s really disappointing and annoying bc again again again, any time you try to bring this up, you just get “so they’re not Black enough” or “this is colorism” or or or. It’s exhausting.
Like the video says, I love MOST of those actors (never heard of some or just haven’t seen them), but I’m getting to a point where I dislike watching anything bc I can usually spot what’s going to happen.
White guy in a relationship with a Black woman? She’s either going to be light skinned, mixed, racially ambiguous, or biracial. If she’s dark skinned, she’s going to be the disposable trope (but it will also happen with biracials/etc Black women).
Black woman in general? Probably going to be disposable.
Black female friend? She’s going to be aggressive, loud, and the blunt one out of the friend group.
Dark skinned Black woman? She’ll be replaced by a light skin, biracial, mixed, etc.
Dark skinned Black man? Same thing; whitewashed or replaced by a light skin, mixed, biracial, etc. Doesn’t happen as frequently though.
Black older woman? They’re going to use the mammy stereotype.
It’s just so easy to spy the trope before it happens.
EDIT: Teyana and Aaron are not biracial/etc; I put them on here bc of colorism, guys 🤣 Ik they’re fully Black lol.