Thursday, October 18, 2018

Where No (White) Man Has Gone Before!


RACE .. The Final Frontier! Yeah, I can piss off liberals just as much as conservatives. See inside!


Yeah, anytime you do a racial transformation in a caption, you run the risk of being quite insensitive to someone, hence why this is a blog exclusive. Even though it only really picks on white people, sensitivity can be hard to do. Facing facts, lots of TG and sissy captions deal with stereotypes, usually gendered / bimbo / sexual and/or racial. We shouldn't ignore it, but at least acknowledge it's there. My girlfriend barely wears ANY makeup whatsoever, hasn't worn a skirt or dress in probably 5 years, and I walk in heels better than she does. As evidenced by the pantsuit caption from the other day, we in the TG community are all about that, and it shows in the captions. "BAM! You're a girl now! Put on those heels and rock the hell out of that little black dress!" Hmmm, we're all dress racists too!

For the names in the caption, since it's a blog exclusive, were taken from a report by 20/20 in 2006 about sending out identical resumes with the whitest and blackest sounding names attached at the top. Nothing else was changed at all. The resumes with the white-sounding names were actually downloaded 17 percent more often by job recruiters than the resumes with black-sounding names. Honestly, I expected it to be even more, but that's still almost 1 in 5 times someone will look at people and choose the whiter sounding name. So, I looked at the list and picked two names that started with the same sound and used them. Of course, Miss Cleo is from the 90's commercial for fortune telling, with the actress faking an outrageous Jamaican accent.

As a quick aside, I realize she's wearing the red shirt / expendable crew member that visits a planet and is quickly vaporized. It's also been a horror cliché that some person of color is going to die in the 1st half of the movie. These elements are part of the reason how I came to write this caption in its final format subtlety acknowledging those pieces of pop culture.

So, from that, I wanted to have a bit of a goof on the understanding of other races by privileged white people. They can say that they are allies and understand their plight, but unless you've been in that situation, you never can really know just exactly how life is for them. Besides, there is no one typical person of color, no standard Asian person, etc .. just like there is no definitive man or woman. Let's have empathy and support each other, and see each other as equals; not something so simplistic that it you can turn an entire group of people into a Halloween costume.

I hope that I have explained myself well enough; if I haven't, feel free to take me to task in the comments. Also, if you have thoughts on the caption itself, let me know what you think. Lastly, how do people feel about racial transformations in TG captions anyway? I have tried to stay away from all the hideous over-the-top stereotypes ('Me so horny, love you long time!' and 'sucky sucky') Do people still enjoy that sort of change? For those who do like them, what is it that makes you read them? I truly am interested in this, and perhaps I can come to a better understanding which could help me shape future ethnic transformations more realistic.


And don't worry, my friends. The next caption is going to be HAWT! SEXY HAWT!

1 comment:

  1. You have explained yourself well and avoided stereotyping the caption.

    ReplyDelete