death note – Nothing but My Aching Soul

olallieberry:

tadasgay:

‘the new death note is an (american) adaptation/reimagination’ ‘netflix is allowed creative license!’ ‘it’s just a movie’ ‘L is black so it’s ok!’

1. american =/= white. asians are the most underrepresented group of people in us television. light would’ve especially given them a unique role to break stereotypes in that he’s presented as intelligent, sexy, and ruthless, which contrasts how asians are actually represented (men are desexualised, women are sexualised)

2. do you not think it’s highly suspicious that they’ve set it up so that the White Guy With The God Complex kills the Ominous Hooded Black Man

3. this ‘adaption’ falls so flat because japan shapes light’s sense of justice. it specifically comes down to japan’s justice system in which most cases don’t make it to a prosecutor/court whereas in america money makes a huge difference in yr defense. basically light’s sense of justice is based heavily on the fact that many criminals never got a conviction (like misa’s parents?) & he deemed them guilty based on the facts that were available to him, whereas an american light’s solution to injustice will be very different to light’s initial screening-his-victims approach ya feel (tldr: light’s sense of justice involves acting as the prosecution whereas an american light would just be going against rich ppl)

4. also like the above: japan is very racially & culturally homogeneous country. the crime narrative does not necessarily rely on race, whereas in america… yeah. it kind of does. so basically you’ve got, again, a white guy with a god complex killing people who aren’t white.

true true true true ^^^

death note is a story that’s almost contingent on japan’s justice system; light’s father and his squad (and L) are specifically and inherently japanese in their handling of crime. imho it could never translate to the united states in any way and maybe not even any other country’s, honestly

beyond that, whitewashing light (especially in the context of the united states, a non-homogenous country where white straight cis boys have the most privilege per capita and hold that privilege over nonwhite communities) turns the narrative from a sorta-grey-moral story of a young man who spirals into a complete, egotistical lack of control to…

…the story of a young white man who serial murders because of his own twisted sense of justice? as in…the story of most american serial killers, with a supernatural twist? yawn

beyond that, if they’re true to the original narrative and its nuances (which is a big if), we’ll see a brilliant, autistic-coded black man in L…defeated and ultimately killed by this bored, megalomaniac of a white child

like…wow…you really did that! i gotta go