Case Study: Anna Diop
This is a more recent photo of Anna Diop portraying Starfire. After the ridicule for the original hairstyle and outfit for the character, it was later changed to a less intense color and a different more tactile suit. While I think this new look is amazing, it hurts to know that it was mostly enforced due to the number of racist comments the original Season 1 look drew in.
As said previously, Diop received an immense amount of backlash for portraying Starfire. I thought her specific case and situation were relevant to my topic and overall point since it connects to multiple things I mentioned before. Starfire is one of the characters people consider “blackwashed” and was also included in the previous “gingercide” post. People also bring up how inaccurate her skin color is due to her not being orange like the comic counterpart. This goes back to the point I made earlier that it isn’t really the orange skin that they want or the comic-accurate hair, but more so to not see a minority play that specific role.
For this specific item, I thought it was important to give another viewpoint and situation where racism can be found in the entertainment industry but specifically from inside of the industry and not from fans. Fans are the easiest form of representation to find regarding racism towards minority actors and actresses, but most cases of racism from the actual industry or companies are hard to find and scope out. So, when I found this video, I knew it was something I should add.