Most of us know what it means to “whitewash” a character in the context of fandom. Generally speaking, to “whitewash” is to recreate a character in fan art with a lighter skin tone or more white-centric anatomy such as a differently shaped nose, straightened hair, or modified body proportions. This is generally considered “problematic” due to its tendency to uplift a standard of beauty most commonly associated with white culture and white supremacy which can have negative affects on the perception that especially Black women have on their own beauty and the value of their body type. Erasing the cultural and aesthetic importance of Black representation in canon works is rightly considered to be a sometimes inadvertent aspect of white supremacy, as many artists who are white often draw aspects of themselves into characters or aspects that they personally find appealing, which can reflect socially ingrained racism. This is a kind of offshoot effect of the historical “whitewashing” that originated in Hollywood when white actors were cast in BIPOC roles, a practice that has unfortunately persisted even into the present day.
With all this in mind, and armed with the knowledge that white supremacy is the reason behind a lot of inadvertent and purposeful whitewashing in art or fiction, we can now take a look at what many in fandom communities call “Blackwashing” which is, essentially, the opposite of whitewashing but inherently differing merely due to the social structure in which it is based and the reasons behind it happening. The process by which a white character is made Black is usually something we see in adaptations of popular works which were originally created with very few POC characters and these choices are made by creative teams searching to widen the demographic of consumers for their new project. These are not choices made in tandem with supremacy but choices made despite it and are, to their very bones, not comparable.
So why are we talking about this? Where do “Gingers” (people with red hair) come in? Well, we’re here because of a subset of white rage that rears its ugly head every time a new media adaptation emerges and reimagines a character in that show or franchise to be a POC. Many—a strange number—of previously white, red-headed characters have ended up being reimagined in their film or tv show adaptations to be Black or ambiguously POC. We’ve seen this with Velma from Scooby Doo, Mary Jane from Spiderman being played by Zendaya, Ariel from The Little Mermaid portrayed by the adorable Halle Bailey, and Triss Merigold from The Witcher played by my personal mega-crush, Anna Shaffer. Twitter user bizlet7 recently made a post lamenting that April from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series called “Mutant Mayhem” was being reimagined in this very manner, stating, “And one more character is added to the Ginger Genocide list,” while posting an image displaying famous red-headed comic and television characters and their adaptations.
Even the simple term “Ginger Genocide” is enough to raise eyebrows and bizlet7 has a difficult time maintaining their argument, as it is pointed out by Twitter user _1Andrew_, they neglected to include Matthew Murdock from the adaptation of Daredevil in which they erased his canonically red hair though keeping him white, and when confronted that plenty of the characters keep their red-headed status, bizlet7 insisted that “gingers” were a “subset” of white people. Our brother in Christ should run this by us again considering that real life BIPOC are not at all precluded from the “ginger” category, the genetic mutation resulting in red-headedness a universal trait though rarer in Black communities than white (famously, Malcolm X was a red-head). Black or POC individuals who have this gene mutation have the exact same traits as white individuals, including freckles, heightened pain sensitivity, and often light-colored eyes along with the signature red hair.
Not only this, but the character about which bizlet7 was most upset (April from TMNT) was, in some of the original comics portrayed as a Black woman and villain mad scientist Baxter Stockman indeed was, in later adaptations of the franchise, turned into a white man from his original depiction as Black which does not, to bizlet7, seem to be at all problem. In fact, so much of the argument against “Ginger Genocide” is couched in white supremacist rhetoric that it’s probably quite safe to say that it is very much a product of white rage—that is, the inability of white supremacy to ever allow for any concessions in their zero-sum race war.
Ultimately what this boils down to is the systemic devaluation of Blackness among societies that uphold white supremacy and the cultural impact on white or white passing people who feel threatened by any effort to alter the status quo. This is how we get movies that are only halfway comfortable with Black leads tending to transform them for over 50% of their film into an animal so that primarily white audiences will feel somewhat more comfortable spending money on that media (with bonus points for them not even realizing that this is why this happens). Examples of this are movies such as Disney’s Princess and the Frog with our beloved Princess Tiana as a frog for 90% of her film and the hit movie Soul with jazz musician and teacher Joe Gardner who spends most of his time sans his body and a comedic amount of time as a cat. It has been a hell of a time for animation companies to slowly but surely undermine the stranglehold white supremacy has had on audience perceptions and of course, as is always the case, we’re seeing a fair amount of pushback from many who don’t even understand why they’re upset when their milquetoast white media norms are shifted toward integration.
In regards to your faves, blorbos, and skrunklies, or whatever else you might call them: it’s important to note that they’re still the same character. Limiting how they can appear whether that be with red hair, white, freckled, what-have-you, limits the possibilities for those characters. This is why it’s fascinating to imagine James Bond as Idris Elba or Dr. Who as Roxane Gay (sorry, that’s a personal fancast I can’t help but daydream about when I’m on long drives), because allowing a character to be malleable enough to shift not just their hair color but their skin color is allowing for them to be even more than they ever were before—more than just the token red-head with no other defining features from the rest of the mayonnaise-flavored cast but instead a fully-formed character with broader or differing perspectives than other personalities around them.
What if you hate it? What if you can’t get over the fact that they’re just not the same character to you anymore? Well honey: don’t watch that adaptation. It’s completely and utterly okay to realize that you are not the intended demographic for a piece of media. Whoa, what a wild thing to imagine, right? That you’ve been dearly in love with a franchise for however many iterations and adaptations, all of them catered to your cultural norms and suddenly there’s one single iteration of a show or film with a target demographic that isn’t you? Do us all a favor and imagine that scenario if it were the other way around. If you spent your whole life never seeing a single piece of media that had you in mind and then one day suddenly a character not only looks like you but has similar cultural and life experiences that you’ve had. Do you get it now? If you don’t like it, don’t make that anyone else’s problem, just go rewatch all the ones that were made with you in mind—there’s plenty, I don’t think you’ll run out.