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Originally Posted by getbak
How have you been using it? It has a few different meanings depending on the context.
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That led to using the term to describe any kind of cover-up to hide or ignore flaws. In entertainment, that usually occurs when an historical character is depicted as a fully-good hero type with no negative character traits.
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As opposed to...
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There's the other use of the term whitewashing in entertainment that is racial, That involves using white actors to play non-white characters. This can go back to the days of blackface, but also includes things like Mickey Rooney's Japanese landlord character in Breakfast at Tiffany's, and even recent movies like Johnny Depp playing Tonto in The Lone Ranger.
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My intuitive sense is that this use of the term is in fact a misuse of the term; an instance of "this seems like a plausible meaning for this term so I'll just use it here". Conceptual onomatopoeia? Can I call it that?
However, this is of course true:
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This sort of whitewashing doesn't have racial connotations, but sometimes racial issues can be whitewashed.
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We'd better stop before jayswin gets in here and accuses me of pedantry again...