Let me be your white saviour … please!
As a white male, the last few years as a science fiction fan have been like looking into an unflattering mirror (and believe me, I have experience with unflattering mirrors).
Here’s how I thought we fans saw the world …
Talk to any fan of the original Star Trek series, and would say how important that diverse crew was — because it was all of mankind going out into space. This was continued in subsequent series.
In Star Wars, humans and aliens mixed together to take on a totalitarian regime. There was a space princess who led a rebellion (okay she needed rescuing a lot, but that’s heroines for you), Luke was mastered by a green alien, Han Solo’s best friend was a Wookie (friend, and not pet).
The Doctor of Doctor Who was an almost ageless alien, who explored all of time and space, and saw much of what we squabbled about as petty. He frequently travelled with a smart female assistant, who increasingly would challenge him, and try and keep him connected.
“That Star Wars backlash”
Science fiction I was sure was a pretty tolerant and forgiving place. Since 2015, I’ve been learning how wrong that idea was.
It seemed to start off with the trailer with Star Wars The Force Awakens — there was instant hostility to seeing John Boyega in the trailer. Was the main character going to be black?
It was then I began to notice how some prejudice was being veiled, the argument would go “I’m not racist, I’m just worried that a Star Wars film won’t do as well because white male fans won’t be able to connect as well with a black male hero”.
Then of course the film came out, and it turned out that the new Luke Skywalker wouldn’t be the black male, it would be the white female of Daisy Ridley’s Rey. And somehow, that was much, much worse.
There are whole pages on the internet devoted to a hatred of Rey (BTW — considered linking a few, but I don’t want to give them the traffic. Reach out and use your Google skills … you know it to be true).
I have my own (minor) issues with Rey — simply that as a character she’s a carbon copy of Luke, but female. Which means any criticism you might have about her character, also applies to Luke. But somehow that doesn’t come across from much of the fan bile.
With The Last Jedi, things got even worse for this poor bunch of people with the addition of Rose, a heroic female Asian. So there’s a whole bunch of fanboys frothing at the mouth going “Social Justice Warriors are ruining Star Wars, we have Finn, we don’t need another non-white central character”. I found a couple of YouTube videos on this by accident … again, life’s too short.
“That Star Trek backlash”
Then of course there was Star Trek Discovery which was announced last year. Again, a similar backlash against casting when it was announced that the focus of the series would be Sonequa Martin’s Michael Burnham, a black female raised on Vulcan, as second in command to Michelle Yeoh’s Captain Georgiou.
Looking at the teaser trailer, again a lot of fans decrying it showed a future of “white, male genocide” (guys, do you even have an idea of what genocide really is?). Frequently a somewhat familiar argument was given that “I want the new Star Trek to work, but it needs a white male character for people to identify with … or the series is doomed”.
And when the main white, male character turned out to be gay … yeah lots of “oh, they’re just doing this on purpose”.
“That Doctor Who backlash”
And finally, of late we’ve had Doctor Who — a role which has been played by a huge variety of actors of different age, but all somewhat “white male”. Each time the Doctor changes, the actor will take the character in a different direction — why should it be kept to a small boys club?
A few years ago, there was talk about the next Doctor potentially being either black actor Colin Salmon or Chiwetel Ejiofor — these guys are both amazing actors, who would have been fascinating to see in the role, but reminds you in a program like Doctor Who which is about time travel, a ship which is bigger on the inside and a character who regenerates to look completely different — why bind yourself to a narrow set of rules?
So when Jodie Whittaker was announced, I was relatively okay with this — relatively because I haven’t ever seen her in anything, so to be she’s an unknown quantity, but I have faith. [I absolutely loved Pearle Mackie’s character, and was somewhat hoping in some timey-whimey twist she’d turn out to be a future version of the Doctor with amnesia]
However, in what’s a similar theme here, same old fanboy backlash. Again that argument “I’m just worried this is the end of Doctor Who, white boys won’t have anyone to identify with”.
Of complex ego
All this somewhat baffled me — all these series are known for having mixtures of human beings from different cultures, strong women, co-existence with aliens. So why all the objections?
Then illumination came in the form of the gospel of Matt Damon! In the midst of all the #meToo campaign where women talked about men who had sexually manipulated and abused them, Matt argued “why aren’t people talking more about men who aren’t abusing”.
It was an odd thing to say — a really odd thing. Then I remembered a film from earlier in the year called The Great Wall — it was about the Great Wall of China, set about a thousand years ago. What was odd was the Matt Damon starred in the film as the main character — a white European who just happens to be in China at the time.
It was an odd choice — whilst it’s true that the Roman and Chinese empires did unknowingly trade with each other, throwing a white European into a film about medieval China to be the hero is an odd piece of whitewashing.
But that’s the core of the problem isn’t it — white men need to see other white men in the heart of any film and TV as the hero. We can stand to see peoples of other colours, feisty/sassy women, just so long as at the end they’re all bowing to us going “thank you for saving our village/country/planet”. As long as they acknowledge the white male as the one who knew best, and who can be thanked for saving everyone.
This need to be seen as being superior, this act of ego has a name — the white saviour complex. Forms of it are almost as old as civilisation — Rome talked about conquoring areas of the world and “bringing civilisation” to save them. An odd claim when it comes down to “we’ll give you heated baths, olives from far away and in return just let us brutally exploit you and turn some of you into slaves”.
The British Empire made similar claims, with similar enticements.
The white saviour complex exists today in obvious, and also more subtle ways. At University I had two friends who had done a period of voluntary service in Africa. It was something they did out of a sense of compassion — but when they told stories about it there was a sense of “we white Britons are here to teach you backward Africans how to farm” which always made me uncomfortable. There was a sense of smug superiority over the people they’d helped, not a sense of being with peers.
Likewise — Band Aid, a compassionate initiative to help a famine struck country in Africa had great intentions. But in an age where we were protesting against the racist apartheid in South Africa, it was setting up the idea that “black people can’t look after themselves without white intervention”.
It seems far too many of my white male brethren feel threatened when we don’t see a white male in charge, being thanked profusely for saving everyone. This mentality is toxic — we can go online and blame SJW (Social Justice Warriors) all we want. But the people it hurts and alienates the most is yourself and other white males.
Because what you’re saying is that it’s fine for people who are black or Asian or female to identify with your white male hero, but you’re completely unable to do the same when a hero isn’t white or male enough for you.
And that’s sad because ultimately you’re only able to connect to others based on their whiteness and their maleness — it means you will never be able to connect with Sun Tzu’s amazing writings about strategy in The Art Of War (“he’s just a Chinese dude”), better avert your eyes from that Rumi quote (“he’s too Islamic”), and I won’t even try you on the words of Maya Angelou for obvious reasons. You may even believe you’re a dedicated Christian, as long as your icons all depict a white European Jesus, who was born in the Middle East.
Ultimately your prejudice becomes your own prison — and until you can get over it, maybe it’s a good idea for the white male hero to take a break.
