Reflection and Analysis

Wrinkle In Time - Stop the PJW Tripe (3/8/2018)

A Wrinkle in Time (2018) is everything I hate regarding the move towards making already existing works into politically correct works.

There is an idiom which says, "if it's not broke, don't fix it". In many cases the political correctness isn't done to fix anything except a perceived slight. In fact, studies show both blacks and LGBT characters are now over represented within entertainment media, so no jobs existing for members of the black community in Hollywood is a false claim. Black talent is cast in many main roles. There are even movies where the main-main is black.

The problem is, the roles blacks get cast in aren't the role. By the role I mean roles which are recognizable pop culturally due to the longevity of the franchises existence and how these series have stood the test of time. If there happens to be one thing minorities don't have, it would be many if any franchises which have stood the test of time, yet also remained in the public eye. By this I don't mean mythos, which is the oldest of the old, but works of the modern world.

Woe is me?

Meg says something interesting in the books. "Like and equal are not the same thing at all", but this is emphasized again when the writer says, "like and equal are two entirely different things." What African American's want is not equal treatment, but like treatment, which as the book points out are not at all the same things at all. They want a franchise with a black main character which stands the test of time but remains in the public eye.

However, instead of attempting to create such a series, or give said series the time needed to become such a series, they're attempting to appropriate an already existing series and force the work into being what they want. They wonder why people are getting upset, yet don't get how hypocritical their double standard is – that it is okay to blackwash characters, but not to whitewash them. I'm not arguing here that whitewashing characters is a good thing, but that neither is a good thing.

Blacks argue that saying blackwashing is okay isn't a double standard, because they're simply getting something the other person has. Isn't this though communism, asking for another person to give up something so another can have it regardless of the other party getting hurt? It's asking not for equal treatment, but like treatment, yet the irony behind everything comes down to the fact Meg's comment was the writer's attempt to contrast democracy and communism, and how treating people in a like manner rather than an equal manner ends isn't the same thing.

How apt then that a book making such a poignant statement ends up blackwashed because someone wanted like treatment rather than equal treatment. Ironic, no?

Political correctness does not add anything to the original work, but in many times ends up taking away. The question of whether the person is familiar with the source material comes up. In this case, the director knew nothing of the source material, but actually said, "as long as you're in an environment where the worth of the project isn't based on the project but what its predecessors did, it's not truly inclusive," which makes little sense due to the fact all new works are measured against their predecessors.

No, seriously. How can an artist/writer not expect their work to be measured against the already existing standard? It doesn't matter that the person before you was white, or male, and you're black, and female because white males get compared to white males all the time in an industry. You don't get a pass simply because you're a woman, or because you're black. You don't get treated like some kind of special snowflake, as that only makes things harder for everyone else. By this I mean all women and/or blacks who come after you.