Board Thread:False Info and Speculative Discussion/@comment-25184427-20140722165407/@comment-19765459-20140726180358

Grahamburglar wrote:

It can't be a world without isms if ther aren't other cultures for people to be prejudiced against. He didn't build a world without isms, he built a monocultural world. That's not helpful to anyone's representation (even though Jeff claims that's the reason he built the world the way he did.) That would require character development. You see, the Fantastic Racism trope is what is actually shown in Beacon Hills. The population is small and culturally homogenous (despite the apparent size of the town) so that no screen time need be spent on mundane "-ism's".

For example, the complete and total absence of homophobia is not really "propaganda" - it's a time saver. Homophobia would require that more screen time be spent on gay characters who are only extras anyway. Danny is not Kurt from Glee. He's not a main character, or even a supporting character. He's an extra. Whole episodes went by without him even being seen! Mason promises to be no better. So homophobia would simply demand that more attention be given to these characters, and the writers don't want to spend time on that.

The "-ism's" are instead represented by the Fantastic Racism that the Hunters exhibit towards the werewolves (and other supernaturals). The Argent's, and now the Calavera's (ironically enough non-white themselves), act as the privileged race/class engaging in Klan-like behavior towards a minority that they revile. They are human supremecists in a world where there really are "part-human" people. Bigotry is exhibited in their behavior. Such as the S1 scene of Chris and his thugs holding up Derek at the gas station and breaking his car window. Remove the supernatural element, adjust some of the skin tones and that could have just as easily been a scene of a conventional hate crime. The same goes with Scott getting a gun shoved in his face for daring to date Allison. You could take the werewolf thing out of the story, replace it with bigotry by Chris (a white man) towards Scott (a part-Hispanic) boy and it would essentially be the same.

As for the rest: stereotype much? Why would Melissa drop the occasional Spanish word or phrase? Considering how long Mexican's have lived in what is now California, it's entirely possible that none of her ancestors spoke Spanish as their first language in generations! Likewise, why would Danny wear some kind of charm? Are all people of Hawaiian descent supposed to be superstitious? His parents or grandparents might be native to California!

It's not expected that white people will drop indicators of ethnic culture. Somebody with English ancestry isn't expected to take afternoon tea every day or speak with an accent unless they literally just came from England! As I said, I don't go around wearing some kind of Polish symbol or using Polish language (except when somebody sneezes) - because I'm not from Poland! I grew up in NJ and now live in CO. Humorously, like many people from NJ, I do use occasional Italian or Yiddish words and phrases, even though I am neither Italian nor Jewish. I picked them up from the people I lived around. Both groups are considered "white" (even though Italians have very mixed ancestry and Jews are technically Semitic, not Indo-European) and have a lot of cultural overlap in places like NJ even though they are very different ethnicities (although all do intermarry a great deal).

Why is it that only non-whites are expected to exhibit specific cultural or linguistic traits that exactly match their ancestry?