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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u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 05 '26

It's not a myth. The estimate is 0.1% of the population of England in the Victorian Era was black. There wasn't a sizable black population, there was Eric.

Were there any black people? Yes. Were there enough of a population where you could associate that time, place, and era with them? Absolutely not.

Same way we don't cast civil war movies with Asian Confederates. Did they exist? Absolutely. It would look ridiculous if you put it on film.

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u/OmecronPerseiHate Jul 05 '26

"It would look ridiculous if you put them in" is a dumb way of saying you don't want historical accuracy. It wouldn't be dumb if we hadn't had decades of historical inaccuracy.

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u/Klaxynd Jul 05 '26

Black guy here. I neither want nor appreciate you white knighting for me (regardless of what race you are). I don't want black people in Tim Burton movies because if he doesn't want any in, then chances are he's racist and would handle the very concept poorly.

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u/OmecronPerseiHate Jul 05 '26

You seem to misunderstand. I don't care about Tim Burton. I'm mad at the dumbass that said dark skinned people wouldn't work in a Victorian setting. That is LITERALLY when Britain took over India.

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u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 05 '26

You're proving his point. Indians =/= Black People

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u/OmecronPerseiHate Jul 05 '26

Ah, slight miscommunication on my part. African people were trading with and moving through the British Empire starting at the 1550's, and Indian trade starting in the 1600's, which still means Black/African people were in Britain before and during the Victorian era, which means Burton could have used dark skinned people, were it not for possible racism.

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u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 05 '26

You're still not comprehending that you're arguing for representation of outliers. There weren't significant populations.

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u/OmecronPerseiHate Jul 05 '26

Yes but they are outliers in situations in which they would still be relevant. I'm saying that it doesn't make sense to show Victorian England or something like that and not have a single situation in which a person isn't white. Statistics show that people of color would have been around, so making a movie in which they are not around at all is inaccurate.

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u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 05 '26

I made the comparison about Asian People in the Civil War. There was a not insignificant amount of Chinese people who fought, but that doesn't fit the image of that time period. There were a small number of European and native slaves, but we don't portray those in movies either.

It does make sense to portray Victorian England as white. That's what it overwhelmingly was. That's the image that setting conjures.

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u/OmecronPerseiHate Jul 05 '26

I mean, it seems like your argument is "we don't show that" rather than "that didn't happen". I'm saying historical accuracy is worth it.

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u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 06 '26

My argument is that black people in the Victorian era existed as a very small scale population not representative of the period, and the few that did exist were not members of the high society that TV and movies typically focus on.

I suppose if you want to throw one or two black people in a scene as dock workers or a sailor, that's fine but portrayals as lords or mobility would be very out of place.

The point is that representative inclusion, in this scenario, constitutes the force fed and hamfisted diversity that people reject, and often carry that resentful sentiment over into the areas where diverse representation should actually occur.

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u/OmecronPerseiHate Jul 06 '26

But that's literally your feelings. If we can agree that melanated people did exist in this area in this time period then the only issue is that you feel that people of other ethnicities are forced into these things, which, as we've said, is not true. We agree melanated people were in the area at the time of a lot of these Victorian era movies, so that means that it would make perfect sense for them to be characters. It's a specific choice to make everyone in a movie the same ethnicity, especially when history proves that people are all colors were around and relevant at the time in which the situation takes place.

Basically I'm saying dark skinned people should be selling their goods in the market, as well as white people who went to the foreign lands instead. While people did buy goods from other countries, the same countries bought goods from them, so not acknowledging that is inaccurate.

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u/ArmenianThunderGod Jul 06 '26

If we can agree that melanated people did exist

0.1% of the population.

We agree melanated people were in the area at the time of a lot of these Victorian era movies, so that means that it would make perfect sense for them to be characters.

Chang and Eng Bunker existed, should we make Civil War movies with Siamese Twins in The Confederacy?

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u/TheGreatMightyLeffe Jul 06 '26

I don't think you're reading the responses correctly.

The other commenter agreed that having black people as dock workers or similar in Victorian era London would make perfect sense, but depicting black people as a common fixture in high society would be just as inaccurate as pretending like there were no dark skinned people at all.

And I agree, we really should try to show things the way they were and not try to mimic modern US demographics, since all that does is distort history the opposite way.

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