The French city of Orleans has for the first time named a mixed-race teenager to play folk heroine Joan of Arc for annual festivities, prompting a torrent of racist abuse from far-right social media users. Mathilde Edey Gamassou was chosen among 250 girls Monday to play Joan for a spring festival marking the victory of the Catholic warrior saint in breaking the English siege of Orleans in 1429.
The 17-year-old, whose father is from Benin and whose mother is Polish, is set to ride horseback through the central city dressed in armour for an annual celebration dating back nearly six centuries.
But the announcement has been met with a flurry of posts on Twitter and on far-right websites branding her nomination an exercise in "diversity propaganda" and an attempt to re-write French history.
This is what we get for entrusting the state with the responsibility of maintaining culture.
Nathaniel Wood
You wouldn't believe how they are trying to justify this on Reddit.
> "Do you have any definitive proof she was white!?!?" >muh oppression apology. >Race isn't important to Jeanne's story!!!
Only a few posters has the courageous to defy the rhetoric.
Elijah Long
>"Do you have any definitive proof she was white!?!?" This is fucking farcical
Matthew Sullivan
Lol same fucks complaining about using white actors for fictitious Asian roles lel
Brody Bailey
The Major is literally a white woman in the GITS canon
Isaac Clark
> People can get wrecked. If someone wants to be Jeanne d’Arc they can do it. Unless these same people riot every time Jesus is played by a pasty white guy they can shut the hell up.
>The story of Joan the arc does not have a racial characteristic, race does not matter in the story, the only thing important to Joan of Arcs character is that she is a French peasant girl.
What wrong with having a mixed race person if they are French?
>It's a fine thing to tell your people that they can't be a part of their own country's history.
It's also a lot less accurate than you think to use only white actors for historical periods. You need only look through the art of the renaissance, medieval, and classical periods to see that.
>The problem with white people playing people of other races is that the people they would portray generally have already had their histories overtaken and erased already. Not only that, but because of how people of certain races are and have been treated in the past, the race of certain figures who belong to those groups of people are inseparable facets of their characters. MLK's impact on history was his Civil Rights advocacy and the place he holds from back people who suffered because of racism. Cleopatra could be played by nearly anyone from the Mediterranean however. It would make sense to have her played by an Egyptian though.
The case of a mixed Jeanne D'Arc in New Orleans is actually poetic. The Creole history of New Orleans is part of its lifeblood and having a character from the French Orleans portrayed by a Creole person provides New Orleans with a special portrayal that most other places can't. New Orleans celebrates its French roots, but it also recognizes how its own culture has developed. A Creole representation of a historic heroine encapsulates that dichotomy.
Connor Morris
>european is neither an ethnicity nor a race, race is just a social construct based around the colour of peoples skin.
>I don't need to prove she wasn't white because I'm not trying to suggest that. Since you have made the claim she was white you need to be able to prove that fact, because if you can't then all we can do is say we don't know ethnically what she was and so the question of who portrays her becomes a non-issue.
Why are they like this?
John Cruz
>In the case of portrayals, I don't think it's all about righting wrongs. White-washing injures the history of people who have already had their histories co-opted by colonialism and racism. I don't believe that making it so that no one can portray someone not of their skin color or race will help, but I do think proscribing the portrayal of an important character in either fiction or history as a race or ethnicity they were not will be a step forward in keeping the pasts of oppressed people important.
>Adaptations are new forms of an already familiar story. Johnny Storm being blac k in the newest Fantastic Four didn't really change much about the character. Whiteness was never an important aspect of his character. Ghost in the Shell changed the Major' s race in the film because they wanted Scarlett Johanssen on board (most likely) but as Asian representation in Western film is incredibly low, it was a misstep in that they ignored an opportunity to cast an Asian actress. The Ancient One in Doctor Strange was originally portrayed as a wise, Asian man in the comics. While I personally think having a wise, Asian man is unproblematic, the studios did not want to bring back the racist portrayal "Fu Manchu" Asians.
>According to the post, the girl portraying New Orleans' Jeanne is mixed. The thing about mixed individuals is that they have the blood of more than one race in them. I think it works in this scenario as previously explained.
>I don't think white-washing would be as distasteful as it is if not for the racist portrayals of non-whites in history. I believe it is incredibly distasteful because portrayals by white people of different races have particularly been used to dehumanize, ridicule, and humiliate the races those "actors" were pantomining.
But...It's easily refuted with Jeanne being a real white woman and not the conjurings of a Jew writer.
Jayden Davis
It's an important issue to what iconic figures did and were, the same figure of Joan has been used for every political campaign since she herself started her political career.
Luis Cruz
The city or Orléans is run by Les Republicucks for your information. We're dealing with "conservative" traitors, as usual.
Christian Green
La créature de France...
James Richardson
the truth is that reddit and other site of the genre are just filled with a youth that has been thoroughly washed out with racism = nazism. There is nothing to defend on reddit, the reality will come to catch them directly.
Colton Johnson
>17-year-old
She looks 45.
Angel Hill
MOHAMMIS OF ARC
Jeremiah Clark
This is Orleans, France, not New Orleans, Muttmerica.
Landon Hernandez
Does that mean they're going to throw her in a rape dungeon and then burn her alive?
Jayden Carter
Reeeeeeee
People being offended because a mixed race child wants to partake in her societal heritage and culture... what an outrage? What a travesty!!!!
This is the kind of racist bullshit that will never allow the alt-right to have a real platform.
Dominic Reyes
>mother is Polish
eternal slav
Grayson Powell
Her father is from Benin and her mother is Polish
William Brown
"w-white g-genocide is a lie"- Every idiotic leftist
Meanwhile...
>By "genocide" we mean the destruction of an ethnic group…. Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups…. -Raphael Lemkin, Juror at Nuremburg and official coiner of the term Genocide. This definition is the official UN defined term.
Aiden Hall
Both should be shot and the half breed sterilised.
Brayden Hernandez
Why do they choose the ugliest ones?
Easton Phillips
I'm literally shaking afraid that you Nazis will meme Anne Frank into a black woman
Nathan Peterson
Of course not, they aren't anglos.
Mason Evans
Why is it always a polish roastie, jesus christ
Adrian Ward
...
Angel Phillips
>be nigger jeanne for pc purposes hmm, really makes sense why they would burn her at the stake
Daniel Miller
Communism won the Cold War
Every proponent of Cultural Marxism should be exterminated.
Dylan Scott
Obviously the US, Canada, and Australia are total gone fores. But the saddest thing to me is that Europe is actually following our same retarded path.
Literally every continent on earth will be majority shitskin by 2100.
Will the history books even believe that such a light skinned race of people ever existed?
Justin Bell
She will play the part after she's burned alive.
Austin Long
...
Easton Gutierrez
>Joan of Arc >New Orleans, Louisiana I guess they only teach the Holy Koran in British schools now...?
Jaxon Watson
Who cares, the average "French" man looks like an Italian or a Spaniard. Most of us aren't white.
Josiah Hernandez
STOP She's a catholic and a french patriot, she has no business with the current propaganda, she just wanted to be an important historical character for one day, ride a horse in a shining armor and call it a day, she do not deserve getting called el creatura,or el goblino etc please don't do this ever again. Its only fun when its an online meme alright ? you are not allowed to apply it to real life people because it becomes just mean.
