Weeks 5-6

In the past two weeks, the showrunners of Game of Thrones announced that their next show would imagine a world in which the South won the Civil War and slavery still existed. In the Confederate, the South successfully secedes from the Union with the newly formed country on the brink of a Third Civil war. The announcement of the series was met with severe backlash from the general public. The show continues to feed into the ever growing list of slave movies; the only films/tv shows that Hollywood seemingly wants to make about black people and their stories. Moreover, the announcement seems hypocritical considering the amount of criticism that Game of Thrones has received for its own treatment of people of color characters on the show.

The huge public backlash towards the Confederate has even resulted in a social media protest against the creation of the show. During today’s (07/30) episode of Game of Thrones, people on twitter will be tweeting at HBO with the hashtag, #NoConfederate to protest the show. I feel that these recent turn of events demonstrate one of the key ideas expressed in the Digital Activism podcast. The podcast mentions how social media has really helped for people to voice their own personal experiences when contributing to social justice movements or even protests; in a sense, social media has helped to better convey that idea that the personal is political. Ever since the show’s announcement, people have been taking to twitter and facebook to express personal stories and beliefs about how the show is incredibly triggering to and commodifies the brutalization of black people.

Therefore, we see digital activism in people’s expediency to mobilize and protest through social media.

Weeks 3-4

In the past two weeks, the search for the new leads of the live-action remake of Aladdin have been the subject of a wide array of articles suggesting POC leads of primarily South Asian/Middle Eastern decent and discussions about representation in films. As of yesterday, Disney announced that its new leads will be Mena Massoud, an Egyptian-Canadian actor, as Aladdin; Naomi Scott, an English actress of Indian descent, as Jasmine and Will Smith as the Genie.

I think the sheer number of articles, tweets and social media posts made about the casting demonstrates a key argument from Leo Mirani’s article in the Guardian on the impact of twitter in spreading news and helping political revolutions. With the emergence of social media, in particular Twitter and Facebook, and entertainment reporting sites, such as Buzzfeed and The Hollywood Reporter, the majority of Americans have been privy to casting information from sources close in Hollywood.

When films egregiously cast or are in the process of casting actors that would white wash roles, we (the consumers) can learn about it through twitter and the voice our opinions and specifically @ those involved to let them directly know. For example, when Emma Stone was cast as Allison Ng, a person of Hawaiian and Asian descent, in Aloha (2015) or more recently, when Tilda Swinton was cast as the Ancient One, originally a Tibetan Man in the Marvel Comics, in Doctor Strange (2016). So when several reports suggested that director Guy Ritchie was having difficulty casting for Aladdin, there were several articles and tweets that suggested various actor and actresses that would be perfect for the role. Moreover, as consumers, we have the power to stop white-washed films from profiting. The previously mentioned Aloha as well as Ghost In the Shadow (2016), both tanked heavily at the box office.

Therefore, just as Mirani argues in his article, the ability of social media to inform those who aren’t directly involved can have huge impacts on the course of an ongoing protest or casting in Hollywood.