User talk:86.10.57.139

March 2021

Please do not add commentary, your own point of view, or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles, as you did to White savior narrative in film. Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and breaches the formal tone expected in an encyclopedia. Thank you. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:46, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, as you did at White savior narrative in film, you may be blocked from editing.
Your edits have been automatically marked as vandalism and have been automatically reverted. The following is the log entry regarding this vandalism: White savior narrative in film was changed by 86.10.57.139 (u) (t) ANN scored at 0.865098 on 2021-03-26T12:55:02+00:00

Thank you. ClueBot NG (talk) 12:55, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

If you would like to have a conversation about why this topic is appropriate, please let me know. Your opinion and my opinion do not matter in the scheme of reliably-sourced coverage about a topic. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 13:50, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I would like to discuss it. The issue is not with the term itself, the issue is with the list of films connected to that term. The term White Savior is established, but the descriptions of the films themselves and how they are associated with the term are not. They are flawed to the point of incorrectly describing the basic plot, some entries on that list don't even state how the films are White Savior Narratives and just list the film names. Your opinion and my opinion don't matter, alright, but the opinion-based reasoning of the ones who made the initial entries does? The opinion pieces that are used to justify them do? How? How is this beneficial to the site in any way. How is this in keeping with your own standards? You ask for donations yet you can't even feign objectivity. If all that is required for a wikipedia entry is an external source then why not include the contents of the UrbanDictionary, or RationalWiki, or Conservapedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.10.57.139 (talk • contribs) 09:07, March 28, 2021 (UTC)

One of your arguments is that because films are based on history that they cannot be white saviors. Matthew Hughey writes in The White Savior Film the following:

Many of these films (nineteen out of fifty, or 38 percent) claim they are based on a true story or directly refer to historical events of a highly racialized nature such as the U.S. Civil War, the atrocities of Nazi Germany, apartheid in South Africa, the incident at Wounded Knee, or the U.S. civil rights movement...

Many defend the supposed lack of ideological slant or racial politics in these films by noting that they are based on actual, historical events. Such reenactments may seduce audiences into an uncritical appraisal of these films. How could one critique the film if it is real life? However, these films link the supposed authenticity of history with the standpoint of the white savior rather than with the points of view of the people of color supposedly being helped. These films do not simply retell history from an apolitical and ideologically neutral place, but subtly rewrite historical events so that white colonizers, paternalistic controllers, and meddling interlopers seem necessary, relevant, and moral.

Such an approach is tricky, as many have become savvy to the white savior trope in recent years... and are wary of an overdrawn plot device that makes characters of color little more than background props for the heroic action of the central white protagonist. Accordingly, many films go to great lengths to portray the story as anything but a white savior film, instead framing it as a needed expose of the supposedly hidden or exotic lives of people of color...

In an era of backlash against civil rights and in which increasing numbers of people (including nonwhites) believe racism and racial inequality are things of the past, these films assist in a watered-down retelling of history. Such films reegineer the past to fit within our contemporary moment of conservative racial politics. White savior tales of interracial reconciliation that warn people of color to be thankful for their select white allies while helping whites alleviate feelings of white guilty for their racist past. Stories about apartheid, slavery, colonialism, war, and many forms of racial inequality are distilled into romantic and sentimental tales of one person's heroic and well-intentioned actions rather than the actual legal, political, and social structures that reproduced racial inequality and oppression in the face of good intentions and individual heroic deeds. In so doing, these films tell a dangerous myth--that racial inequality would simply go away if more white people simply tried to save black people from themselves (read, assimilate) rather than examine and challenge the laws, customs, and traditions of a white supremacist nation-state with still-entrenched racial inequality and discrimination.

For a film like Blood Diamond, the current source is Critical Rhetorics of Race as part of the Critical Cultural Communication series, and it's not the only source to write about the film. It looks like The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Films covers Blood Diamond. Same with Race in American Film: Voices and Visions that Shaped a Nation. They're not "just" opinions. We can personally disagree with these assessments, but they are likely working in frameworks that we are not familiar with, and they are the ones published, not us. We're the ones more likely to have armchair opinions. If you don't think a particular listing is clear as to why it is there, then we can refer to the existing citation and look for more (because there rarely is ever just one source) to expand on the particulars. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 12:10, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

It's concerning to me that you chose to post that excerpt first, it does not make me believe that you are objective in this matter since you decided to use it to contradict my criticism rather than discuss the wikipedia editing process, which was the point of this conversation. I do not contest that Critical Race Theorists have a framework of analysis, but the existence of a framework does not necessitate its inherent value in a supposedly objective space. There are many faulty frameworks of analysis that are not permitted on wikipedia, let alone argued for. Just because an opinion can be stated or published, does not make it effective or reliable. You know this, because there are published works that are racist, incorrect or logically faulty that would not be acceptable as sources on wikipedia. Would it be acceptable for instance to create a page on Eugenics linking to published works arguing for eugenics as evidence? I would say no. I would be interested to see a page on this site that uses such highly disputed works as The Bell Curve not in an objectively referential capacity, for instance "This book exists" but rather in a capacity similar to how sources are used on the White Savior Narrative page, that is, as justification for an argument, i.e "The Isle of Dogs is a White Savior narrative, here is an article justifying my opinion." How exactly is any wikipedia page that operates in this way worth considering as legitimate? What separates the White Savior Narrative Wikipedia page from any old blog post that argues for its validity? I thought the point of Wikipedia was to state something's existence, not to state why it is valid. The White Savior Narrative is part of the disputed Critical Race Theory which as your own wikipedia page displays, is a theory with heavily contested logical cohesion. Which makes me wonder why "scholarly" works from practitioners of the theory are being used as sources at all. It doesn't benefit Wikipedia's legitimacy in any capacity when it treats works on social theory with the same weight as scientific works when it comes to sourcing. The issue here is not that the White Savior Narrative Page exists, but that there is a part of the page that argues an opinion that certain films fall within this category.

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