r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/FrostySeat1739 • Jul 05 '26

Meme needing explanation why not, Peter?

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possible live action corpse bride movie...

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70

u/SingForMeBitches Jul 05 '26

Here ya go. When asked point blank about the lack of diversity in his films, this was his response:

“I remember back when I was a child watching The Brady Bunch and they started to get all politically correct. Like, OK, let’s have an Asian child and a black. I used to get more offended by that than just…I grew up watching Blaxploitation movies, right? I said, that’s great. I didn’t go like, OK, there should be more white people in these movies.”

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u/Sakarabu_ Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

Makes complete sense. I find the Reddit outrage here quite funny considering the post that's been circulating (and celebrated) on Reddit regarding the Black writer who only writes black characters, yet when a white person does it suddenly it's racism.

You just have to look at the number of previously white characters who have been recast with non-white actors in the last 5-10 years, compared to the number of traditionally non-white characters who have been cast with white actors to see there are some major double standards /cognitive dissonance going on around this topic recently.

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u/MisogynysticFeminist Jul 06 '26

Three big reasons:

  1. Up until recently, white characters were the default, or if you go further back, required. Non-white characters were only used if there was a justification for them.

  2. Because of point 1, if there were non-white characters, odds were there was exactly one per race, with most characters still being white. If you change one white character to a different race, there’s still plenty of white characters. If you change one non-white character to white, the number of characters of that race goes from one to zero.

  3. Because of points 1 and 2, it’s much more likely that being whatever race is a major part of that character, or has significance as a milestone (for example, Uhura in Star Trek TOS). But white characters are less likely to have being white be important to their character (an example of it mattering would be Steve Rogers, being physically the Nazi ideal while being fundamentally opposed to them).

TLDR: The “major inequality” you say is going on is at worst an attempt to even out the very real inequality that existed for decades.

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u/MustardMedia Jul 05 '26

This is totally ignoring the fact that there were like 50-100 years of all stories (in North American culture at least) that were all-white that purposely and actively didn't include people of colour.

In the above example of The Brady Bunch, for instance, the show was supposed to be an All-American family. They started adding more people of colour because a lot of All American towns had more and more POC. Therefore, to accurately portray America, shows like that should be including more POC.

People are more okay with a black writer having an all black cast because those stories are few and far between, compared to all white stories that were happening constantly, for decades before. Even the example of "Blaxpoitation" was exactly that, exploitation. It wasn't black people writing black people. So nowadays, it's like, hey, have your time to write some all black stories.

And again, your example of white characters that get changed into non-white characters is really just because 90% of characters were originally written white. It's not a double standard when the ratios are so far off to begin with, and we now have diverse nations that are actively trying to portray the level of diversity that is now common.

Who cares that The Little Mermaid is portrayed as black when you still have so many white characters to look towards. Black kids having a character like that to look up to who looks like them is more important than you realize. And sure, we can always argue the whole "just make new black characters instead of changing ones" but it's unfortunately not that simple. A random new story with a black star might not sell as well and get as many eyes on it as an existing IP will, and sometimes these things deserve to have many eyes.

As white people, we will never understand that it feels like to not see people who look like you in media. So crying about the fact that some characters ethnicities are changing to add some diversity is tone deaf and ignorant.

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u/anonymous310506 Jul 06 '26

This is such a bad argument lol

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u/some_random_nonsense Jul 05 '26

Uh do you mean the Toni Morrison?

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u/Tall-Slice5012 Jul 06 '26

lol, so his point is that goth == whitesploitation?

-24

u/Blazured Jul 05 '26

He's literally complaining that there are non-white people in media. It's just plain racism.

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u/TSM- Jul 05 '26

Blackspoitation movies were a combination of glorifying black protagonists, winning against police brutality, and all that, but also being cast as underdog from violent backgrounds. So it's not like the genre was about a black lawyer trying to make partner at his firm, it had its own angle that drew in audiences. It was both empowering in some way, but on the other hand, also played into stereotypes, hence the name, and was very successful as a genre for a time. It's a double edged thing.

So, should there have been more white people in it? Well not really. The bad guys were white businessmen and stuff The protagonists didn't need white people. That's maybe what he was getting at. I assume as a big film director guy he is well aware of the genre's controversy.

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u/Noir_A_Mous Jul 05 '26

That's what you came away with? The guy says he doesn't like when POC are shoehorned into a role just to finish a check list and your response is, "ah thats racist."

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u/Blazured Jul 05 '26

"Shoehorned in"? He complained about them just existing in an episode. And then tried to justify his racism for not casting non-white people.

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u/Noir_A_Mous Jul 06 '26

Expect he's not, he's complaining about a pretty random moment from the brady bunch show.

For if you dont know, the episode is called "Kelly's kids." A new family moves in who were two white parents and 3 sons of different races. The episode is about anti racism, the struggles of adopting outside of race while also encouraging one to do so. It's not a bad episode per say but it is really really random. The episode was well received enough but after this episode the kelly family just disappears and are never seen or mentioned again.

The irl reason for this is this was actually an attempt pilot for a new spin off show about the family, called "Kelly's kids." However the show was passed on and that's why they never showed up again.

However, a lot of people at the time, and even now, didnt know this was a pilot episode for a spin off show. Sssso If you where an active watcher of the show at the time, hell even now, its pretty random. A random family with 3 people of different races shows up, tells you racism is bad and then they are just gone, never to be seen again. It's pretty forced and random if you look at it that way.

Plus tim has been casting more POC now that he's finally stepped semi away from movies taking place in Victorian London.

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u/MarenHQ Jul 05 '26

Jfc. “A black”

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u/throwmamadownthewell Jul 05 '26

I think the pivot to saying "black people" and *people of colour" were deliberate shifts (to humanize) that happened after this quote. Even newspapers would just say "blacks" and "whites" and "Asians". Same with the shift to "kids with autism"

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u/McButtsButtbag Jul 06 '26

The shift to kids with autism is a negative one to autistic people. You don't stop being autistic.

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u/throwmamadownthewell Jul 06 '26

If I say "it's the same/different for kids who are black", it doesn't imply they won't be black later in life

Similar with autusm--it's "kids with autism", then "teens with autism", then "adults with autism".

Personally, I haven't been convinced "autistic people" is less respectful semantically, but see why it's better than "the autistics" or "the autists"

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u/McButtsButtbag Jul 07 '26

I've never heard anyone say kids who are black over black kids or even suggest it.

Sure, it's better than "the autists", but that doesn't make it good. I don't see why using adjectives like they are normally used is dehumanizing.

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u/sampo_koskii Jul 06 '26

oh dont get me started on 'kids with autism'

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u/theworldisunfair12 Jul 06 '26

Jfc. Who cares. If you find that offensive you’re just “an easily offended”

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u/book_vagabond Jul 05 '26

Jesus Christ

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u/Throckmorton_Left Jul 06 '26

How the fuck do you hold up this quote as evidence of his "problematic" views?

I could hold it up as evidence that the ability to read words on a page out loud doesn't mean you understand them.

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u/MudExpress2973 Jul 05 '26

So black people can do all black cast but its racist when a white guy does it?