The Penumbra Podcast and the Case of (Accidental) Racism
That’s right folks, I’m here to discuss racism today. Shout out to the Penumbra server for having a discussion about this with me and adding additional details that I’ve included in here. Also, warning this is Long, so get ready.
First off, we’ve got the nearly all white cast, especially the main ones who show up a lot. You might already be going “But what about Anjimile, Simon, etc? They’re POC!” and yes they are, but I refer mainly to the core cast such as Noah, Josh, Kate, Stefano, etc. who are the most reoccurring cast members.
The fact that the cast of Penumbra has the only POC playing minor, usually one-time characters conveys the message that POC are insignificance in narratives especially queer ones. Though no one likes to admit it, white queer people can be the most harsh and oppressing of POC. Many people are so easily ignoring of this, especially in media such as Penumbra, though because of what I consider pinkwashing. Pinkwashing is mainly used in the context of Israel at the moment, but the basic definition is “The practice of… presenting… as gay-friendly and progressive, in order to downplay… negative behavior.” [x]
I’m sure it’s not intentional, but it often feels like people overlook the lack of true diversity in Penumbra because they’re so distracted by all the LGBTQ+ representation. And it’s fantastic, really, as a queer person myself, it’s so exciting to see. However, no level of “everyone’s gay” can hide the fact there’s hardly any brown characters or actors around.
And with that lacking representation within the Penumbra universe, it helps support another racist viewpoint, that POC don’t exist in Sci-Fi/Fantasy (beyond the occasional “look at this exotic non-European” which is terrible). You might be thinking, “Ly, but Sir Caroline is dark and Juno is almost universally HC’d as Black especially after Mikaela’s art!” to which I say, but it’s not explicit in canon. In fact, nothing really is, when it’s not about queer people. Sure the whole “race is no longer relevant” schtick is going here, but that’s not really the point. It’s basically the equivalent of “oh I don’t see color :)”, which dismisses the real life significance and sweeps the issue under the rug of queerness super lazily. If you can make ways to explicitly have queer characters, it doesn’t take much effort to put the same energy towards including POC (and properly, might I add).
Even with the current “rep” from the fandom view, it’s not really that great. For one, with the Juno as Black HC, and therefore Sarah Steel being Black, it fits into some pretty harmful tropes you might not even have considered. Dour, grumpy Black man (who is then contrasted with happy, nicer and lighter Peter Nureyev, but that’s for another time) who came from the Bad Area and tends to get hyper feminized? Just a thought. And particularly towards Sarah, by having her subsequently being Black helps play into the “crazy Black person” stereotype that’s often cast onto real Black people with mental health issues, the idea that Black mothers abuse their children (or, if HC’d as non-Black, the “non-Black guardians who abuse Black children” pattern), and that she’s that “tragic Black woman who thinks she’s better than everyone else but isn’t.” (Disclaimer, I am not Black and cannot provide any further commentary towards this particular area.)
There’s also small details within the podcast that really don’t bode well with me. For one, a lot of people in the Cerberus Province and their accents were… kind of racist. I understand the need to portray that they’re in someplace that’s Other, but poor people and “bad guys” all talking in those accents and with grammar like that doesn’t sit right. You know how people mock immigrants whose first language is something else like Spanish, Chinese, etc.? Talking exactly like that. Especially the line of “learn to talk right” in Time Gone By Pt. 1, it didn’t sit right. It portrays that there’s xenophobia in Mars towards Outer Rim people, sure, but that phrasing combined with all the accents and such? Not too great. There was also that really weird bit about Jack in the “podcast” Juno listened to where skin peeled off and the skin beneath was much paler, which I suppose is supposed to help show he altered his appearance but it read more like brownface to me. No one’s perfect, of course, but catching racist undertones and actually acknowledging them is kind of important.
Along the lines of how damaging completely dismissing race, it clashes immensely with some of the themes of the podcast, particularly in the Junoverse. Class issues, ableism, sexism, the justice system, and especially homophobia have been tightly tied to people of color for a long time. It’s unfortunate but true. The biggest victims of these problems are people of color, and it should at least be acknowledged even if “this world doesn’t care about race” or whatever the excuse is. I understand that they don’t want to cross a line and try to speak for POC about issues relating to them, but the way to avoid that is not by ignoring it completely.
Sophie and Kevin have discussed how they wanted to do research for mental health topics and queer identities to portray them right, so once again I ask, why can’t you put that same energy into including Brown and Black characters?
And here, I don’t mean “look this character is randomly brown, weehee!” but actual, real POC. Not a basically white person with a nonwhite name and brown skin. Let them have a culture, do some research to make it non offensively portrayed especially with stereotypes, but at least let them exist. In podcast, in canon. If you’re just going to keep “confirming” things using the “out of pod, word of god” tweets/official art/whatever that not everyone will actually see or know about, that makes you about good as J.K. Rowling, “wizards shit their pants” or not. And no one wants to be JKR.
They’ve got a platform and they’re white— which is a pretty large platform boost since people don’t like to listen when POC say something, just when a white person regurgitates it— so why not use it to be truly inclusive of everyone? Why not acknowledge their faults and work to improve? Just some food for thought.
End notes/TL;DR
The solution here is not to “cancel” Penumbra or anything of the sort, I personally will still be consuming it for a long time. You can love something and still be able to critique it. The takeaway here is that there are some issues in the podcast, ones that some people aren’t ready to face but that we need to acknowledge. We live in a society that has ingrained so many racist ideologies into everyone— this includes nonwhite people!— and the way to make a change to it is not by vehemently denying if we’ve done something racist but doing research, having conversations, and learning. Given the heightened activity in BLM, people are beginning to pay more attention to racism in the world around us, and an important place to inspect as well is fandom and the media we consume.
As for the Penumbra crew themselves, I encourage them (even though they probably won’t even see this) to do their research and make a real effort to show that they do in fact care about people of color, particularly Black people. The explicit support of BLM was a great show of support, but it’s not enough. You want to show that you care, then directly let them exist in your podcast as well.
1) I am aware that Sophie Kaner is half Japanese (?), however that does not give them a get out of jail free pass. People of color are not immune to racist tendencies, even if they weren’t aware it was even happening. Especially in East Asian culture, it’s a bit complicated.
2) I am a nonBlack person of color so please take some of what I say with a grain of salt. Don’t forget to listen to Black people, please.
3) This all does not mean I hate TPP or that you should either! I love the podcast to death, but it is healthy to be able to acknowledge the flaws in something you love.
