Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Love, Joy, Feminism

Home
Nonreligious
Ursula Le Guin and the White Default

Ursula Le Guin and the White Default

Last updated on: October 3, 2018 at 5:00 am by Libby Anne

Ursula Le Guin and the White Default 2018-10-01T15:49:18-04:00 Libby Anne

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I recently began reading Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea cycle. I’ve read her other work before, but I’d never picked up her Earthsea books, which are fantasy, rather than her more typical science fiction fare. I read her first book, A Wizard of Earthsea, about a boy named Ged, who becomes a wizard. Ged is described as having red-brown skin.

After finishing this book I moved on to the next in the series, which focused on Tenar, a young girl living in the Kargad lands. The people of Kargad have light skin. Tenar was typical in this respect, and is described as having black hair.

This picture was on the front of my copy of Tombs of Atuan:

It’s a gorgeous piece of artwork. I immediately assumed the girl in the picture was Tenar, and I figured the guy would be introduced later on. But that’s not exactly what happened. The man on the cover never entered the book, but Ged did. I did a double take. That man on the cover—that was supposed to be Ged?

Now yes, in the picture above, the man’s skin is darker than Tenar’s. But would you describe his skin as “red-brown”? I wouldn’t. Tanned, yes. Red-brown, no.

I should have seen it, because my copy of Wizard of Earthsea had an afterward written by Ursula Le Guin, and I had read it. In this afterward, Le Guin wrote that her decision to make Ged a person of color was intentional—that when she wrote the book in 1968, there were few fantasy characters of color, and she wanted to change that.

Le Guin even notes her frustration with illustrators:

His people, the Archipelagans, are various shades of copper and brown, shading into black in the South and East Reaches. The light-skinned people among them have far-northern or Kargish ancestors. The Kargish raiders in the first chapter are white. Serret, who both as a girl and woman betrays Ged [in Wizard of Earthsea], is white. Ged is copper-brown and his friend Vetch is black. I was bucking the racist tradition, “making a statement”—but I made it quietly, and it went almost unnoticed.

Alas, I had no power, at the time, to combat the flat refusal of many cover departments to put people of color on a book jacket. So, through many later, lily-white Geds, Ruth Robbins’ painting for the first edition—the fine, strong profile of a young man with copper-brown skin—was, to me, the book’s true cover.

I read that—I did—and still, when I picked up Tombs of Atuan, I didn’t realize that was Ged on the cover. At that point, in my defense, I hadn’t realized that Ged was a recurring character. The first Earthsea book was about Ged; the second was about Tenar. That was what I knew. Who knew what the third might be about?

After realizing that that tanned white man on the cover of the book was meant to be Ged, I started googling, curious about other depictions. I learned that in the early 2000s, a miniseries was made based on Earthsea. Here—I kid you not—is Ged (with, I assume, Tenar):

The problem posed by this miniseries—which cast a white actor as Ged—was so big that Le Guin herself felt the need to address it in an article titled “A Whitewashed Earthsea.”

On Tuesday night, the Sci Fi Channel aired its final installment of Legend of Earthsea, the miniseries based—loosely, as it turns out—on my Earthsea books. The books, A Wizard of Earthseaand The Tombs of Atuan, which were published more than 30 years ago, are about two young people finding out what their power, their freedom, and their responsibilities are. I don’t know what the film is about. It’s full of scenes from the story, arranged differently, in an entirely different plot, so that they make no sense. My protagonist is Ged, a boy with red-brown skin. In the film, he’s a petulant white kid. Readers who’ve been wondering why I “let them change the story” may find some answers here.

When I sold the rights to Earthsea a few years ago, my contract gave me the standard status of “consultant”—which means whatever the producers want it to mean, almost always little or nothing. My agency could not improve this clause. But the purchasers talked as though they genuinely meant to respect the books and to ask for my input when planning the film.

As it turns out, they didn’t. They didn’t include Le Guin in the decision making in almost any capacity. And so, well, the whitewashing happened. And more, apparently. I haven’t seen the miniseries, but I am left with no desire to.

This, by the way, is the Ruth Robbins painting Le Guin mentions liking.

As I thought about all of this, I was reminded of the fuss over Rue, when the Hunger Games movie came out. Rue was played by Amandla Sternberg, an African American actor. Some fans were shocked—and even angry—to see Rue portrayed as black. But as numerous commentators pointed out at the time, the book specifically identified Rue as having “dark brown skin and eyes.” This was no embellishment on the part of the movie.

Critics of the line of argument I am about to take may point to A Wrinkle in Time. Certainly, that is an example where a white book character—Meg—is played by an African American actress. I am not saying that movie portrayals must always be identical to book portrayals. There is such thing as creative license.

But there is something completely different when an author goes out of her way to write characters of color into her book only to have cover artist and movie adaptors completely ignore her intent and whitewash her stories.

Whitewashing didn’t start in this century, of course. It goes way back. Here is a medieval painting of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, by Guido Reni in 1630. Do either of the characters look even vaguely middle eastern or Egyptian?

Here’s an interesting game—find a medieval painting of Joseph and Pharaoh’s wife in which they don’t both look European. Type “Joseph” and “Potiphar’s wife” into google and hit images. This appears to have been very popular subject matter for medieval artists—there are large number of portrayals, in various shades of dress. All are white.

Anyone who wants complain about the alleged “political correctness” involved in changing characters like Meg in A Wrinkle in Time from white to mixed-race need to grapple with our society’s history of whitewashing—of taking characters of color and turning them white in artwork and film. Doing research is a good idea too—there was absolutely no excuse for complaints about Rue’s completely accurate portrayal in the Hunger Games movie.

Also? Maybe shelve your assumptions and stop assuming that every character whose race isn’t described must be white. The default should not be white.

I have a Patreon! Please support my writing!

Social Justice

race

Previous Post

October 2, 2018

White Evangelical Forgiveness Narratives, Brett Kavanaugh, and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford

Next Post

October 4, 2018 Trump's George Washington Comments Were Worse Than You Think

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Atheism Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism Family Feminism Homeschool Meta Parenting Patriarchy Politics Purity Quiverfull Social Justice Uncategorized Worthwhile reads

Select a Month February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who killed Goliath with a stone and sling?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Samson Saul Jonathan David