Race Choice and Transformation in Pop Culture
Fictional studies of race choice and transformation have often occurred in drama and literature and especially in works of science fiction. In Greg Bear's books Eon and Eternity, new human consciousness is created in a virtual realm and the parents choose the race of their children when it is time for them to be 'birthed' into the real physical world. In this work as well, many humans do not conform to the standard human shape and choose a variety of form and sizes in which to exist both in the physical world and in the virtually.
In an episode of the animated TV show South Park, Kyle tries out for the basketball team, but is not very good. Wanting to be better, he goes to a plastic surgeon and asks if there is a surgery to make him tall and black. The doctor recommends a "negroplasty" for Kyle. The surgery is done, but Kyle's knees break during the basketball game. The doctor decides to revert him back to his normal white self, for a "small fee".
In another example, the movie Soul Man from 1986 involved race transformation of a white applicant to Harvard Law School. Unable to pay for tuition, the main character received a scholarship under the pretense of being black.
The cast of the MTV reality TV show Jersey shore openly voice their preference for having darker skin/ tanning. They openly discuss their dislike of having light/ pale skin, so they tan themselves to a more ethnic skin color. They happen to be "Italian" or portraying the state's large Italian American community, although most of the staff are not of Italian descent.
Read more about this topic: Racial Transformation
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“There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)
“Home? I have no home. Hunted, despised, living like an animal. The jungle is my home. But I will show the world that I can be its master. I will perfect my own race of people, a race of atomic supermen, which will conquer the world.”
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“There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)
“The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you’d never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.”
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