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Dorothy Updated (and final?)
🕑 Added 2022-04-12 00:44:40 +0000 UTCDear Insane Children,
Here's an update to yesterday's post where I shared details about our Dorothy character from OZ: Adventures. Omri had a look at your comments and made changes - resulting in what I think (?) is a final design for this character.
Let us know in the comments below what you think! For my part: I love her!
Excellent work, Omri!
Controversy
And a point of interest generated by some of the comments over on my Instagram in relation to this Dorothy design. Some people suggest that the "race swapping" going on here isn't called for. Some heated exchanges (as you'd expect) around those comments.
A couple of points I find interesting:
First, I murder Alice's parents and wrap the narrative of Alice: Madness Returns around child abuse and the psychological manipulation/destruction of Alice... and no one bats an eye. Or I change "Red Riding Hood" into a native islander/Japanese person in Akaneiro... and again no one says anything about it. But people don't like a black Dorothy? What's going on here?
Second, among the first characters presented for OZ: Adventures was a Spanish Conquistador. And he brings with him (across the Atlantic on his trip to explore the New World) a kidnapped Aztec woman (Necahual) who is pressed into service as a guide/interpreter. And we saw a few complaints - mainly from Spanish people - who dislike the constant negative attention given to their ancestors. (There's an entire topic here to be explored - The Black Legend or Myth of Spanish Conquest).
What can we take from this?
Well, first, these are obviously sensitive topics. But so is child abuse... and not once did I get an email from an actual child abuser saying, "Hey, I don't appreciate the characterization! Leave us child abusers alone!" Because child abusers don't have a sense of righteous indignation. They know they aren't being falsely portrayed... they know they are what we say they are: monsters.
Around the equally sensitive topics of race and slavery - the situation has been made much more immediate and personal for everyone alive today (esp. in certain countries).
But I want to make clear that my goal here isn't to paint a simple picture of "Spanish bad" and "Americans racist" because I believe there's more to these issues than the end results of slavery and/or racism.
As I asked in my comments over on Instagram: Who benefits? (Cui bono)
Because I do not believe that we - human beings - are predisposed to racism. Nor do I think we're all sitting around thinking, "Man, I'd really like to enslave some people today!"
People make excuses for these behaviors. And more often than not those excuses are manufactured by others and fed into a population to attain particular goals.
Look at the author of "The Wizard of Oz" - he infamously wrote anti-native-American screeds calling for war and genocide against native people. His motivation appears to be fear - fear of violence from "the other" and fear that if settlers don't "strike first" they won't live to regret it. Along the way, he "othered" or dehumanized the native population (literally called "savages" in those days).
There's a history to this business of "othering" and it points to powerful money interests who used American settlers on the frontier as the "tip of the spear" against native Americans. They pushed those native Americans further and further west (like my ancestors, Choctaw Indians, who ended up near Texas/Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears) - while simultaneously incentivizing settlers to push further west into those same territories. To no one's surprise, conflict and violence followed.
The fear and hatred were manufactured. And it was enforced via laws that forbid association between blacks, natives, and settlers. Division, fear, and hatred were used to control those populations - who generally outnumbered the ruling elites back in the big cities. The greatest fear for the ruling class was that those populations might band together and rise up as one.
Well, I don't know if you are aware... but those same tactics of "othering" and control by fear and division are still very much in use today. The difference is that the methods have been turned into a science - and huge amounts of money have been invested in perfecting the ways in which we are all convinced that other people (those, over there!) are less than human.
We are made to feel righteous in our beliefs. Our morality is hijacked. Our sense of empathy is turned against us so that we think hating The Other is justified on the grounds that they deserve it for X, Y, Z reasons. What's more, they need a good bombing!
And that brings us back to the indignation that people feel when we bring up American racism or Spanish conquest. Because we - the people of today - want other people to know... we're not like that. We're good people!
So...
How far would we go in our desire to prove that we're good people?
That brings me to one of the core issues I'm exploring in Oz:
- How far would Dorothy go to protect Oz from the sorts of harm she's endured?
- How far would the Spanish Captain go to prove to his Aztec captive that he's only trying to protect her?
- How far would our WW2 pilot go to get back to his superiors with the information he thinks will win the war against the monstrous enemy?
- How far would our scientist from the future go to prove his theories right and save Earth from destruction?
And at what point do they cross a line - forfeiting their humanity for the sake of a distorted ideal?
Curious to hear your thoughts on this theme. Let me know in the comments below!
From Shanghai in Semi-Lockdown,
-American
PS: Yesterday, they lifted the lockdown for our local area. But it's a sort of bittersweet event - since if we do leave our micro-community, we're only allowed to do so on foot. And there's nothing to do outside... the shops are all closed, etc. So... we'll basically remain inside anyway!
Comments
She looks amazing!!!
I adore her design 💙 I just hope people give it a chance and that we get to see a great representation of a black female lead. I understand the frustration of companies being performative rather than being genuine.
Saleh Abu-Rashid
This is nice and all. But, is there an illustration of her wearing the iconic Dorothy dress? She looks like an evil witch here.
ChocolatePyrusArt
OMG Her design is beautiful! I can't! <3 Also, I can't believe that people are complaining about her ethnicity (i mean, i can! but its still sad) Dorothy has literally been a black woman before, anyone heard of The Wiz???
Stephanie Groth
She's perfect!
Why not make Dorothy green? I think in the original movie the witch was green? And those complaining about skin color and what not, Don't pay attention to it. Today it's often enormous elaborated for no particular reason aside from petty thoughts, or so I think. Else make a character with 2 colours? With their halves each a colour, just for fun? Aside from my opinion, truly looking forward to both the games and series.
This is a beautiful Dorothy. Omri has done a fine job.
Thank you very much! Dorothy character design is really good. American Alice character was Gothic and black hair and everybody was fine with it, new Dorothy character is black although every is used with little blond girl. That's great! It's mean we will discover lot of new things, new world around Oz history, a lot of change! I'm so proud to be parts of this adventure.
Persephone Autumnborn
She’s beautiful although I have to admit that I wouldn’t have known she was Dorothy Gale at first glance. It’s really all in the details.
I love her, she looks great and toto is sooo sweet with the wings 😍
Sarah McKeegan
I’m cool with whatever you go for! Any way that you tell the story is gonna be great!! I’m very much looking forward to it!! You can’t make everyone happy, so don’t try.. do what YOU feel is right!! You have nothing but good intentions and it will show!!!
AniFae Kusanagi
Dorothy Looks sooooooooooooooooooo cool!!!!!!!!! I love the staff design alot, and the iridescent colours are perfect, and will be amazing to see when the dress catches sunlight! As for those complaining about Dorothy's race swap, do they even realise that you are not born racist? Racism doesn't exsist in a child. They never saw lines between races and the word segregation meant nothing to them. Hell, when i was a kid, seeing somebody different than myself made me want to get to know them even more! Like you said American that Fear and other such things are injected into our lives, sometimes subliminally, into media or even passed down by backward thinking of our adult peer's influence's. I know others, who would not necessarily call themselves racist, but simply do not like change, especially if a description is given in source material. One example of this is Snow white, and people are going insane over Disneys up-coming race-swapped version. But why should it matter if the spirit of the charater is there? The very eccense of their personailty breaks any fictional borders adults have created and injected into us about race to proove that diversity is very much alive! Racism can be destroyed, the future civilisations are embedded in the idea of cutural diversity. All tactics out there all lead to the same word: CONTROL. I for one American applaud you for what your doing, and will support you and your team with important themes such as this.
