Why we shouldn’t accept Blaine as a POC

alittledizzy:

heavenorspace:

gwladus:

chocoholicannanymous:

Many of us feel that Glee is losing most of its diversity, especially when it comes to race, turning more and more towards a cast almost completely made up of white people - with the occasional POC guest.

Whenever this happens some Blaine stan or other usually pops up to inform us all that “Blaine is a POC”.

I’ve seen two arguments for this, but to me this “evidence” is very thin.

First we have Rachel’s comment in BIOTA about Blaine giving her “vaguely Eurasian looking children”. I’m sorry, but are we supposed to judge everyone on how they look now? Do we also use this for sexuality? Intelligence? Possible criminal tendencies?

Basing Blaine’s race on this one, quite frankly stupid comment made by a girl who barely knew him is, as far as I’m concerned, faulty reasoning.

Next we have the standard argument that Darren Criss is Eurasian, and therefor Blaine also has to be Eurasian. To me this line of arguing is problematic for two reasons, number 1 being the very simple fact that there’s a difference between actors and the characters they play. Blaine doesn’t have to be POC because Darren Criss is, anymore than Darren Criss has to be gay because Blaine is. Taking facts about an actor and/or character traits and applying them to the character is very, very shaky reasoning, and head canon at best.

Reason number 2 is the fact that not everything about an actor is known to the general audience - and definitely not in every country to which a show is sold. For example, where I live? There are basically no newspaper articles about Darren Criss. In order to find out that he is Eurasian someone would have to actively search for that information, something few people outside of fandom will do. Casual viewers are very unlikely to take the time to search actors online in order to find out more about a character.

This makes Blaine’s status as a possible POC something only part of the audience will know anything - for the rest he’s just another priviliged white kid.

Accepting a character as POC based on what should count as inside information, when practically everything shown says otherwise, is selling the principle of representation and diversityshort.

It’s like saying that Harry Potter has LGBT representation, when in fact all we have is J.K. Rowling saying years later that she saw Dumbledore as gay.

It is, to be honest, allowing the PTB to get away much too easily. It’s accepting crumbles instead of the whole cake they should be serving.

Representation matters. So, instead of accepting hints and being okay with scraps, demand that the PTB give us representation.

And this is why we shouldn’t accept the presence of Blaine Anderson as an argument for how Glee isn’t cheating us on POC representation.

Maybe you’ll listen to a Blaine stan that is also Filipina. Hell, just as a Filipina alone I’m so offended by this post that I can barely type in complete sentences.

We don’t get enough representation in American media as it is, so for you reject Blaine because it makes you uncomfortable to hate on a POC is offensive, especially when the Fil-Am community loves Darren. You don’t get to take that away from us by insisting he’s fully white to fuel your hate parade. There’s also the fact that you treat Darren’s Filipino heritage as some sort of news trivia, that because it isn’t plastered over every single newspaper it can simply be erased (fyi, some news sources do mention Darren’s Filipino heritage, and Darren is embraced by the Fil-Am community and media). (Also Darren is never mentioned in news articles? Laughable.) Sure, the casual viewer may not know Darren is mixed race, but you do, so your job is to accept it. 

There have been multiple other references about Blaine’s heritage besides that Eurasian comment, but I don’t think you would be interested in it. And even if there weren’t any references, it’s still not okay to erase it.

x100000ing that reblog. OP can fuck right off with dictating the terms on which a PoC can find their representation.

and more on that point:

“It’s like saying that Harry Potter has LGBT representation, when in fact all we have is J.K. Rowling saying years later that she saw Dumbledore as gay.”

as an actual out gay person, let me correct you on that as well. a lot of people (like me) have in fact been able to find representation in Dumbledore since this fact was revealed. the fact that a prominent and beloved character in a massively popular series is gay has as much an ongoing influence as the entire Harry Potter phenomenon, even though the books and movies are technically over. unless you think no one ever talks about HP anymore lol.

now to fixing OPs missed examples in canon (based off my original longer post here):

• Rachel refers to him as Eurasian to Kurt, and Sue calls him Eurasian (about piano Brad keeping Blaine hidden away somewhere)
• Sue refers to his appearance as Israeli when she mistakes him for a girl (mainly this offensive remark just reinforces that Blaine is seen as a different ethnicity to Glee’s notion of “white*” - as in, Sue would never refer to Brittany as Israeli mmmkay)
• the script for Big Brother had the mini Warbler written in as baby Blaine (who is full Filipino) - this isn’t “insider info” as he was used in promotions for the Glee live movie
• the actor they eventually cast for baby Blaine was half Japanese/half Native American - and that’s not “insider information” that’s on the cast list, on IMDB and on scripts available to the mass public
• Telly Leung originally auditioned for Blaine, though probably this only really means no ethnicity was specified for the role - again, not “insider info”
• most recently in a spoiler, Tina says Sam is the least ‘gay or Asian’ out of a group of guys, only one of which - Blaine - could be considered Asian in any description

so as of current canon - and no, I’m not saying Glee won’t fuck up and whitewash him on a whim at some point though they haven’t so far - Blaine is some version of Darren’s ethnicity. where Glee can pull from the actors’ real lives, it invariably does.

also, and this is a deviation from the Blaine/race argument but I have to deal with it: Darren being Filipino is about as hidden from the general public or your average Glee fan as his mom is “hidden” at most of his major events. his parents support him at literally every event they can possibly attend. Chris Colfer hugged her. even if you’ve avoided all things about Darren, someone will have pointed out the woman Chris Colfer was hugging at Glee live.

Darren is immensely and vocally proud of his heritage. even before Glee when a guy on twitter criticised him for wanting to audition for Prince Zuko and Darren clarified that he is half-Asian (unlike the actor eventually cast). a lot of his original Glee press went toward Philippines media, and he did a show and press in Manila not long after joining Glee. seriously this shit is all in the ‘similar videos’ if you click on anything to do with him on Youtube. he has tweeted back and forth multiple times with prominent Fil-Am actors ever since being on Glee. again, if you block him from your searches and dash then yeah you won’t know that. but that’s your ignorance, not reality.

and if you missed literally all of that, while claiming to so much as watch Glee let alone be a fan, then his efforts to raise money for charity after natural disasters in the Philippines in 2012 and 2013 should have somehow hit your radar.

he has a worn, beloved fucking ‘Hapa’ t-shirt for crying out loud.

but furthermore: stop telling PoCs and members of the LGBTQ+ community how and when they are allowed to find their representation.

either OP is just looking for ways to continue bashing a character with zero accountability for their bias, or they’re being incredibly gross in lecturing people about how to think. all based on flawed and misinterpreted information, and zero legitimacy in dictating their opinions about race.

Reblogging this even though it’s almost a year old, because it’s a really interesting re-read now that there’s renewed discussion on the issue with them having cast Blaine’s mom now.