Our Flag Means Death as a Show About Race

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With the rise in popularity of Our Flag Means Death also came much discussion about how race, racism, and colonialism are portrayed and discussed within the show and fandom at large. Fans have analyzed several scenes through this lens, particularly those which feature Blackbeard (played by Taika Waititi, who is Māori and Jewish), Stede Bonnet, and Izzy Hands.

[chuplayswithfire]

our flag means death is having a conversation about race. about whiteness. about the ways that violence is not just physical, but emotional, is not just loud, but silent. if izzy is the overt violence, stede is the silent genteel pressure that comes after the colonization is complete, that asks why are you still so angry, aren’t we past that? don’t pay heed to a man without a single tureen on board (never mind that you also don’t have a tureen ed, that you may have never heard of them, that this is a product of uppercrust whiteness (french uppercrust whiteness, to be specific)

Much like the show’s nuanced depictions of queerness, disability, and body positivity, the show’s understanding of how people of color can find solidarity with one another in a racist society has also been praised and discussed by fans. The show's many characters of color are at the center of these discussions, including Frenchie, Oluwande Boodhari, Fang, and of course Blackbeard.

[knowlesian]

it’s about the Rule of Cool, yeah, but it’s about more than that. it’s about looking the realities of a shitty world and shitty behavior in the eye and saying, but why can’t we imagine better? we can so, so easily imagine worse. why is it so hard to think: what if people were kinder and more honest? what if you got to exist in a stacked system where you are the one it’s stacked against and still win?

and then it’s also about deconstructing pirate (and colonizer) narratives and fucking around in the murky waters of identity and finding solidarity and how to live out solidarity in the first place and a million other things silly and serious and on this day, the day of our rainbow capitalism overlords FINALLY GETTING THEIR SHIT TOGETHER

i am very, very glad this show exists. because fuuuuuuck me running, did we need a win right now.

Harassment

As time went on, discussions of race turned from friendly to hostile. Fans on Twitter and Tumblr faced harassment for disagreeing on whether the character Izzy Hands was meant to be read as racist. Several fans were called racist apologists and one was doxxed for creating and/or interacting with the character in a positive way.

Historical Stede Bonnet

One of the big criticisms of the show lies in the character of Stede Bonnet, based off the historical figure of the same name. The real Stede Bonnet owned slaves, leading to many criticisms of the show's portrayal of him with little to no mention of this fact.

This was made more troublesome when fans of OFMD allegedly went to the real life Bonnet's grave, and placed flowers on it.

Further Reading

• Edward Teach knows who he is by chuplayswithfire
• Izzy Hands and the White Man's Burden by knowlesian
• story structure nerd moment, because i finally found words for something that’s been bothering me. by knowlesian
• who wants to get incredibly granular about the 'they're such dicks about spoons' scene? by queerspacepunk
• A Biracial Reading of BlackBeard by lunaescribe
• here’s why I find the whole “colonizer-coded” take re gay pirates so profoundly unsettling by jod1ewhittaker formerly cherry-blossom-nats
• white men don’t want MOC to be violent by uselessheretic