Jason Momoa featured in TV Guide (includes PHOTO)

[wraithfodder]

Jason Momoa of Stargate Atlantis is featured on page 10 of the U.S. June 23rd TV GUIDE on 'top 10 breaking news.' However, most of us know that Jason .... oh, hmm, just in case, under the cut!

Yes, he cut his dreads but his head and neck were hurting from the weight of the dreads. He added that all that hair kept him from wearing a bike helmet and kept ruining his balance on a surfboard. Eek! but SciFi execs didn't want him to cut it so now he's got a wig.

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Comments

[sholio]

... I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt here, I really would, but I'm reading this and just staring in shock. How can you honestly see nothing wrong with comparing a non-white male to a ravening non-human monster?

Alien does not mean bad, and never has as far as I know.

Humans have been killing, abusing and discriminating against other human beings and denying their humanity for being "other" (alien, foreign, exotic) for all of human history. Pulling out the dictionary definition of these words says NOTHING about their connotations or the historical baggage associated with them.

I kinda feel like I'm done here. I just don't know what else to say and I don't think you're listening to me at all. Maybe it's because I'm expressing myself badly. I really do hope that when you calm down and back off and get a little distance from this, you'll start doing some reading and begin to understand why people are getting upset at the things you're saying.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

I am talking about a hairstyle (and not a culture or a race or a color). A hairstyle, which, obviously for worse (not better), was used on the alien male co-lead in ANDROMEDA, and used on the alien in PREDATOR and that up until this very point, nobody had a problem with. Pointed out in many reviews, but never argued. A hairstyle that stuck in my mind from seeing those productions and seeing the similarities. I am not comparing their qualities (as in mind, morals, eating habits, etc.) but simply, by tv/movie hair design standards, his *character* would not look as alien and not as in bad alien. Even Jason has referred to Ronon as an alien.

If you want to continue this, just PM me or whatever.

[sholio]

I am talking about a hairstyle (and not a culture or a race or a color).

NO.

Many people in this discussion have pointed out that dreadlocks are usually worn by, and strongly associated with, people of color.

They are STRONGLY associated with a culture, race and color.

Regardless of what you meant, regardless of what traits you originally meant to compare between the two, when you make or condone comments such as "Dreadlocks look exotic" or "Dreadlocks make Ronon Dex look non-human" these comments reflect on people in real life who wear dreadlocks. AND YOU ARE STILL DOING IT, no matter how many times it's pointed out to you.

by tv/movie hair design standards, his *character* would not look as alien

TV/movie design standards which are essentially set by privileged people and reflect the standards of the dominant, white culture, and in turn influence how people with those hairstyles or physical qualities are treated in real life.

It wasn't any less offensive when the Predator film designers did it. Excusing an offensive action because someone else got away with an offensive action somewhere else doesn't make it any less offensive.

ok still apparently not done. on the topic of keith hamilton cobb...

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

He had been growing his hair in locs for over ten years before he appeared on Andromeda. Q and A about his hair is archived here from his previous website (http://web.archive.org/web/20020804001228/keithhamiltoncobb.com/faq.htm).

Re: ok still apparently not done. on the topic of keith hamilton cobb...

[sholio]

*KHC geekout alert!* I actually still think of Keith Hamilton Cobb as Noah on All My Children, which is where I first saw him (and, er, kinda fell for him a little bit) when I was in high school. And he had the locs then. I've wanted to see Andromeda ever since I found out awhile back that he was in it. Between one thing and another (and having been told by several people that the show was hilariously awful) I haven't watched it yet, though.

Re: ok still apparently not done. on the topic of keith hamilton cobb...

[effervescent.livejournal.com]

-hijack-

NOAH! God, I loved him. Hee! I totally forgot that he was on Andromeda. -/hijack-

Re: ok still apparently not done. on the topic of keith hamilton cobb...

[sholio]

*continues to hijack* Noah/scarred!Julia FTW! I miss early!90s!AMC. (Hmm, I just realized Noah/Julia was that rarest of rare things, a PoC/PoC interracial relationship. Though I don't think Sydney Penny was Hispanic in real life, but she played it on TV...)

Re: ok still apparently not done. on the topic of keith hamilton cobb...

[effervescent.livejournal.com]

Totally FTW!!! I think they're still one of my favourite couples, though for ages I adored Edmund and Mari and Ryan and Greenlee.

Wiki says that she's part Cherokee, evidently - which I had no idea about. But yeah, totally rare - the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is Cristina/Burke on Grey's Anatomy.

Re: ok still apparently not done. on the topic of keith hamilton cobb...

[effervescent.livejournal.com]

Just communicating the fact that I didn't know that :) We'd just been talking about how she played a Hispanic on AMC.

Re: ok still apparently not done. on the topic of keith hamilton cobb...

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

oh no prob. i just meant that there are a lot of them. *points to icon*

[fractalreality.livejournal.com]

TV/movie design standards which are essentially set by privileged people and reflect the standards of the dominant, white culture, and in turn influence how people with those hairstyles or physical qualities are treated in real life.

It wasn't any less offensive when the Predator film designers did it. Excusing an offensive action because someone else got away with an offensive action somewhere else doesn't make it any less offensive.

Actually, in this case, I think Sci Fi just realised the monetary branding potential of Ronon's look (I have a sneaking suspicion Joe Flanigan wouldn't be allowed to change his look either; you have to have permission to get a hair cut these days...)

For me, the fact they didn't want him to have them in the first place speaks more about their prejudices and opinions.

But I don't disagree with you; the majority of shows are hugely discriminatory - subconsciously or no - because of the ingrained prejudices of the middle-aged, middle-class white men pullnig the strings.

[sgatlantislight.livejournal.com]

I have a sneaking suspicion Joe Flanigan wouldn't be allowed to change his look either; you have to have permission to get a hair cut these days...

Actually, Flanigan was offered the chance to get to fly in an Air Force jet of some sort (I don't remember now) if he'd cut his hair to regulation length. He was all for it, but had the idea nixed by TPTB. So, yeah, it's not just Momoa.

And given that it was Momoa who wanted the character to have dreads in the first place, you can't exactly claim TPTB decided dreads were equivalent to "alien" and "dangerous", at least to start with, though it may be the case now.

Which says nothing about members of fandom regarding a perfectly normal human hairstyle as alien, non-human, or dangerous.

As an aside, I always figured Teyla's wig was an attempt to make her more exotic, set her apart as not being from standard Earth genetic lines because while she had dark skin, it was not accompanied by "typical" dark and possibly kinky hair as it would be on Earth, suggesting that in the Pegasus, dark skin pigment isn't always accompanied by dark hair. I'm not sure how to feel about this.

[trixiesfic.livejournal.com]

I was giving you a lot of credit for most of this discussion, but it's pretty clear at this point that you are *deliberately* missing the point.

The use of the same hairstyle on other ass-kicking dark skinned aliens in previous science fiction is NOT a valid defense of the Sci Fi Channel's actions with regard to Ronon. It is called a PATTERN. And I hate to break it to you, but it did not start with the Predator alien. Things like dark skin and dreadlocks have been used as shorthand for "other" or "alien" or "exotic" as long as science fiction has been around. Both Telesilla and Darkrosetiger do a pretty good job of explaining this down below. This thing with Ronon and his dreads is not a new thing. Not even within the Stargate franchise.

No one in the comment threads ever called you or the commenter who used the "non-human" term a racist. All they did was try to calmly point out that the trend, the trope, the lazy shorthand that science fiction writers and producers use (which is the direct cause of their decision to not allow Jason to cut off hair that causes him pain) is pretty fucked up.

Neither is anyone asking you to change this problem. We know it's a problem and has been for a very long time. We also know that writing a few letters to producers or advertisers or whathaveyou is not going to solve the problem. Because the thing is: as long as people continue to consciously or unconsciously think "dreadlocks=alien" or "dark=other" the PTBs will continue to use that as shorthand.