Quick head’s up: Liesmith is currently on sale for the low-low price of 99c!
Do you like feathered dinosaurs? Queer urban fantasy? Geeky pop culture? Incomprehensible Australian in-jokes? Then this is the book for you, my friends! 99c. Dooooo eeeeeeet!
But to me, after over 13 years in the industry, these do not seem like victories anymore. Playing more interesting and larger roles is, but squeezing us unrealistically into a white box is a subtle form of ethnic erasure, and it is not a win. It is saying to the audience and to brown actors that people with white names are more interesting and relatable, and people with brown names are one-dimensional and obsessed with and/or defined by our brownness. Not only does this contribute to the continued stereotyping of brown people, it is false.
Amir Talai on brown actors playing white characters.
This reminds me that I first encountered Malek playing Brodude McBlandname #5, a.k.a. Josh Washington, in Until Dawn.1 So… yeah. About that “white names” thing.
Happy start-of-NaNoWriMo, to anyone who’s doing such a thing!
True story: I’ve never actually completed a NaNo, but the month still has a special place in my black little heart, given that Liesmith was a “failed” NaNo project from 2009. Why “failed” you ask? Well, because I did manage to write 50,000 words of it… in October ’09.
My wordcount for November ’09? Zero.