Show Don’t Tell

Tackling themes of race and inequality in television can be extraordinarily challenging. Failure can run the risk of misrepresentation and could send a message that is unrealistic and misleading. Oftentimes in television, writers will create a fictional demographic that they can use as an allegory to handle heavier subjects. Marvel has the mutants, in Star Wars it’s sometimes droids and in RWBY it’s the faunus, humans with one animal characteristic. On the surface, this writing technique seems to remove the risks of misrepresentation on the subject of race. If a demographic doesn’t exist, how could they be misrepresented? However, this isn’t the case. Even though the fictional race might not exist, it’s still often an allegory for a demographic in the real world. Failure to responsibly handle themes racial injustice, even fictional ones, can send an inaccurate message to the audience. Although episode 15 of RWBY attempts to show a cultural transmission through the use of a racial allegory, it fails to successfully support its themes and only sends a negative message to the audience.

Typically, when trying to send the message that “racism is bad”, it’s important to portray the race being discriminated against in a positive light. For whatever reason, this isn’t the case in RWBY. Faunus characters are consistently shown to be terrorists, ex-terrorists, or criminals. The main enemies in the show are either monsters or members of the White Fang, an evil terrorist organization comprised entirely of faunus. Even one of the faunus main characters, Blake, was revealed to have been a former member of the White Fang. During an argument with Weiss, Blake accidentally says, “Well maybe we were just tired of being pushed around.” Then to make matters worse, she runs away to avoid confrontation. An action that is often seen as cowardly. It’s almost as if they’re trying to show the faunus in a negative light. Having every faunus character being shown as a terrorist or criminal reinforces the idea that all faunus are villains, which is opposite to the message the writers want their audience to take away from the episode. The clash between what the characters say and what is shown to the viewer makes the message fall flat and this isn’t the only instance in the episode where the writers fail to send the intended message.

This episode also introduces a new character who happens to be a faunus. This is a good opportunity to demonstrate that not all faunus are evil. Can you guess what this character’s first onscreen action is? He gets caught as a stowaway on a cruise ship and precedes to run away and mock the police. Not a great first impression. Even the main cast comments on his behavior calling him a “no good runaway” and “riff raff”. This is yet another faunus character that is shown to be a criminal and thief. This portrayal isn’t uncommon as the White Fang are also shown stealing and robbing numerous stores and facilities. There is a consistent pattern of faunus characters and being associated with negative traits, particularly that they all operate or operated outside of the law. In fact, the climax of the episode revolves around the cast stopping the all faunus attackers from stealing a shipping container. The themes of the episode would seem to contradict these statements, but just telling the audience something only goes so far. The messages shown to the audience and the messages told to the audience are polar opposites. They even mishandle the portrayal of the “racist” character.

One of the main conflicts of the episode comes from the clash between the very vocally racist Weiss and the faunus Blake. Weiss goes around all episode insulting and demeaning the faunus. It’s almost comical how many different derogatory names she uses to describe the faunus. The conflict comes to a head at the midpoint of the episode when Weiss starts aggressively insulting the faunus. The argument goes back and forth until Weiss stops and explains why she is racist. She states, “I’ve watched family members disappear and friends executed…they’re a bunch of liars, thieves and murders.” It’s very clear that the writers want the audience to side against Weiss, but based on what’s shown, Weiss’ statement is accurate. Every faunus character shown on screen is either a lair, thief or a murder. There is never a reason to believe what she is saying is incorrect. The writers are trying to show that Weiss is wrong and that racial stereotypes are bad, but this is directly contradictory to everything shown to the audience. Even worse, at the end of the episode, after a short pep talk, Weiss magically gets over her racism and it’s never brought up again. Sloppy writing like this only perpetuates and enforces the norm of racial stereotypes and sends the wrong message to its audience.

You might be wondering why this is even important. Why does the misrepresentation of a fictional race matter in the slightest? Even though the faunus aren’t a real minority and, in my opinion, extremely stupid conceptually, the way a minority is shown on television can have an impact on how they’re viewed in the real world. If they had introduced at least one faunus character that wasn’t a criminal, this storyline may have actually worked. The blatant inadequacy of the RWBY writers to handle a simple plot line that focuses on prejudice is absurd. The general message, “racism is bad”, is one of the simplest ideas to get an audience to support. It boggles my mind that the writers failed at even the simplest of tasks. The way minorities are portrayed in the media has a much greater impact than most would think. It’s important that demographics are shown in a positive light, even if they might be fictional.