Fringe‘s Jasika Nicole: Running Joke About Astrid’s Name Was ‘Tasteless’ — John Noble Apologizes for Role In It
Seven-and-a-half years after Fringe‘s end, Jasika Nicole has shared that as “a black woman with a name that white people seem to find incredibly difficult to pronounce,” she found the running joke about Astrid’s name to be “pretty tasteless.”
As fans of the acclaimed Fox sci-fi series know, John Noble‘s Dr. Walter Bishop had great trouble getting right the name of FBI agent/lab assistant Astrid Farnsworth, addressing her as “Astro,” “Asterisk” “Asgard” and the like. But while Walter’s slip-ups were accounted for by the storyline and obviously had no malice behind them, Nicole says the shtick hit a bit close to home for her.
“As a black woman with a name that white people seem to find incredibly difficult to pronounce, sometimes knowingly using the wrong name for me, I always thought it was a pretty tasteless joke,” Nicole recently shared on Twitter, “and hated that it lasted the whole 5 seasons of the show.”
When a Fringe fan apologized for not seeing it that way but as a term of endearment from curmudgeonly Walter, Nicole explained, “Most white people don’t do things to intentionally hurt the feelings of POC. And that’s the point. No one ever thought to ask how it made me feel cause it was written through the lens of whiteness. Just cause someone doesn’t SEE the harm doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
Having been tagged into the conversation, Noble himself chimed in to say, “I can see that now,” adding: “I apologize for anything I may have done to appear disrespectful.” Nicole, though, quickly made clear that her former co-star had nothing for which to apologize.
“It’s OK,” she tweeted back, “you didn’t write it, John ♥️♥️♥️!”
UPDATE: When asked if she ever shared her opinion with producers at the time, Nicole said, “I didn’t, because I didn’t have a good relationship with the showrunners at all and it was my first show — like many young women of color in TV, I was too nervous to say anything for fear of retaliation or getting fired. It wasn’t a safe space for me.”
To be clear, “the initial spirit of the joke was not lost on me,” Nicole added on Sunday. “I understood it as an indicator of Walter’s mental health, and I even laughed a couple times cause the names WERE funny. I assumed the joke would die out after the first few episodes, as Walter’s hold on reality became less tenuous and he felt more rooted to the present and the people in his life.”
That, however, proved not to be the case, and the joke ran for almost the entire series. “At some point the joke turned away from him being incapable of remembering Astrid’s name to him being fully aware of who she is and just teasing her for fun,” Nicole noted. “THAT part became bullying and racist.”
The name Astrid is of Scandinavian origin though. It certainly isn’t what I would consider a stereotypical black name.
She’s likely talking about her own name, Jasika, not the character’s name.
No, she’s talking about the character, where Walter (John Noble), got it wrong 99% of the time, he probably called her correctly 5 times during the 5 seasons.
Yes, but she is also saying that people have mispronounced her own name and likely deemed it “too difficult.” As such, she saw having the character of Walter mispronounce her character’s name tasteless and dredging up memories of bad and racist experiences in her life.
yes BUT she never ever spoke about it. She didn’t with the production, because she was at her first role and wanted to keep a low profile, which is understandable BUT entirely her responsibility.
And she didn’t tell Noble either. He found out from her tweet years later.
Like others pointed out, Astrid is a Scandinavian name.
How could these people possibly imagine that the joke could be perceived as racially insensitive if she never told her about what happened in her life with her real name?
Btw, my name is constantly pronounced wrongly by people of my own color. And I am 100% sure that even a black person from a Country where “Jasika” does not exist as a name, would get it wrong.
Discrimination is not ok.
But this is NOT discrimination.
Nope. She said “as a black woman with a name that white people seem to find incredibly difficult to pronounce”–she’s talking about how her own experience meshed with what the character had to deal with. She’s making it clear it isn’t JUST a dumb joke on a tv show, it’s something real people have to deal with in their real professional lives.
And it WAS a stupid joke, tbh, that got old fast. And the fact that Astrid was hardly allowed to be more than the “underappreciated helper” (all while being one of only two??? recurring or regular POC characters on the whole show) really underscored how pathetic it was on the writers’ part. They couldn’t think of anything to DO with her besides make silly jokes about her name and have her help the main characters.
Thanks for saying it better than I could, JB :)
:) I should be sleeping but, man, it always annoyed me back when I watched the show!
I adore the Walter and Astrid relationship but I agree that they could have expanded Jasika’s role. I was glad that Alt-Astrid was written to be autistic as that at least allowed Jasika to stretch her acting chops.
And yet she was still My favorite character on the show. Even though she was completely underutilized.
Astrid and Walter are hands down one of the best characters of all time.
They were both class acts, and their strong chemistry amplified their acting genius.
They both felt consistently real to the point I felt Jasika must have just been playing herself as it just didn’t seem like acting. Until she did Alt-Astrid 🥲
Walternate also showed just how subtle Noble’s portrayal of Walter was. You could easily tell the two apart just by the way he played them.
Get a grip you beyond pathetic, delusional snowflake
yes and not.
It is indeed insensitive that one of the only two people of color in this show is treated like a grocery girl despite being a trainee FBI Agent.
But she complains about RACISM, not about “dumb joke”.
And there is nothing racist in that joke. She perceived like that because her real name in real life is also often mispronounced, but she never EVER told that to ANYBODY of Fringe. They could never guess.
No, she’s talking about her own name, not the character’s name. Reading is fundamental.
I took it as based on her actual name and trouble people have pronouncing it, the running gag on Fringe hit too close to home for her personally. I don’t think anyone would have thought it was offensive without that context known.
that doesn’t stop her from making accusation of racism towards the writers of the show.
Racism isn’t usually an accusation. It’s just a fact. You aren’t a bad person for doing a racist thing – you live and learn.
I’m curious, what are you basing your interpretation of the term “racism” on? I’m a descriptivist, so as far as I’m concerned, it pretty much means whatever the majority of language users think it means. Which, as far as I can tell, does not match what you are describing.
Obviously, the descriptivist position is a bit of a recipe for problematic results when it comes to terms that themselves touch on issues of majority and minority groups, such as this one. Which is unfortunate, but is also ultimately neither here nor there.
Your view differs, I take it?
Ben, in this case it is not a fact at all.
She did not inform ANYBODY (not even Noble) of what had happened in her life with her name, and of how she was feeling about the joke.
There is no racism there at all.
Not only was she talking about her own name, but…what does that have to do with anything? I can’t even tell if you’re implying that it’s okay to fail to learn a “stereotypical black name” or that if your name ISN’T that (w/e the hell a “stereotypical black name” even IS) but people STILL think they have an excuse not to learn it–because that’s what this is: white people acting like they don’t need to respect a black woman enough to learn her name and say it properly–then that’s okay/not racist? Like…what?
It’s so funny how many people in these comments who don’t want to listen her point are also misreading what she actually said. It’s almost like she’s absolutely right that some people just do not want to actually pay attention and basic respect…
She’s using some very strong mental gymnastic to position herself in the role of a victim
Ok, Yippo
Just like racism isn’t an accusation, nor does stating you’ve experienced racism ‘position yourself as a victim’. You need to learn some stuff.
I don’t understand how this about race. My birth name (which I have left out of this due to how uncommon it is) is extremely difficult to pronounce and have had tons of insulting interpretations of it throughout my life that people have laughed and teased about. If a racial slur was made as part of the mispronunciation then yes it’s racist, but people of all races deal with this. There are plenty of real racial injustices in the world today this is not one of them.
I’m in a white English speaking country and my parents gave me a very common Icelandic name (they are Icelandic), I am white….no non icelandic person can pronounce my birth name and to be honest it’s not that surprising given how different the pronunciation of the alphabets are (and having a non english letter in it). It’s really hard to take it personally when someone can’t pronounce it, other people don’t have any frame of reference for the name, have never heard it before, the letters may be in an order that aren’t common so there’s a whole lot of processing of new information going on there, they’re actively having to determine where syllables are because there’s no frame of reference…it’s like people reading a foreign language, no one’s going to be good at it and likely aren’t going to remember it unless they use it often.
Thank you. I agree, this is not about race. I understand how someone in an oppressed minority group would want to join in and speak out, but using this is just such a stretch, it seems unnecessary to accuse/insult the show writers over something like this.
Thank you! My name is Dustie. I was called Dustie – Crusty – Musty – Busty (once I started to require bras) – Etc etc. Did it suck? Absolutely. But it is part of childhood. Kids are aholes. If they don’t make fun of your name then it’s something else. We survive it. And she clearly made a good life for herself in that she’s an amazing actress so it sounds to me from all I’ve read she made an offhanded comment that so many are turning into a life cause. Ps an interesting side FYI her real sister has autism which is where she drew her inspiration from on how to play that role. I also loved her character on the show. I am sad to hear the show were but holes to her though.
Ps he also got Lincoln Lee wrong
As a black person I agree. I always felt that Walter mispronouncing her name was a crack at how kooky but lovable Walter was. I mean he was high most of the time coupled with pieces of his brain missing. I felt that Walter loved Astrid VERY much and vice versa. I cant tell people how to feel or what they should be offended by but she may be overdoing it. She must not know how much people love Astrid and her.
i guess if black people hadn’t been kidnapped into slavery, she wouldn’t have a European name.
Well, she completely missed the point that Walter knew Astrid’s name all the time and it was only his way of being endearing to her. Completely different situation if someone was forgetting Jasika but that’s not her complaint. Why taint one of the absolute best relationships in tv!
If he was getting her name wrong on purpose, then her point is doubly true: it’s a unconscious microaggression that is hurtful without meaning to be.
She was accusing the writers of this mistake, but this would make it true of the character as well.
Her point is literally, “Just cause someone doesn’t SEE the harm doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
Sometimes the harm is not there because there isn’t any reason for it to be there, other than really wanting it to be there so you can complain.
How convenient of you to ignore the part where she says “Just cause someone doesn’t SEE the harm doesn’t mean it’s not there.” Seems like you’re the one who really wants to find a reason to complain.
No Tom, they (Yuppo) want to be able to say whatever they want regardless of how it affects the person they are saying it to. Definitely doesn’t to take any responsibility.
I mean Yuppi
Wordsmith said it, but I gotta add: damn if someone thought they were being endearing by acting like they couldn’t be bothered to learn my name. FOR YEARS… I think I’d let them clean up their own cow poop.
i don’t think the writer’s meant any harm. I always thought it was so cute how Walter always called her the wrong name. He never forgot her name, that’s not what was going on at all. And in the series finale, he finally calls her “Astrid” and it’s such a sweet and emotional moment. But if it bothered Jasika that much, she said have voiced her discomfort to the crew.
She might not have felt like she could speak up about it, especially in the beginning.
If you read the article she makes clear that, since it was her first show, she was uncomfortable saying anything.
If you read thee timestamp of her comment you’ll realize that it was made before the article was updated with that information.
I’m sorry but Jasika is turning this into a race issue when it never really was.Astrid is not a typically African American name.The mispronouncing of it was never remotely racial in nature.She is choosing to see it in racial terms and I’ll leave it to others to decide why that is.Props to John Noble for being a gentleman about it even though not only was it not what Jasika thinks it was but also it was lines written for John Noble not his own personal expression.
Yeah, she’s clearly not blaming John for it.
Completely missing the point and believe it or not, “choosing to see it in racial terms” isn’t a choice. She knows what she’s talking about.
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Try listening rather than being defensive. Black people and other nonwhite people don’t have the privilege and luxury of seeing things outside of how it interacts with their race.
We can read the so called “point” and easily dismiss it because it was done it bad faith. BIPOC have the luxury as any other human being of not trying to twist the situation to fit some kind of bizzarre scenario when giving a character named Astrid nicknames is a hate crime conspiracy.
Its sad to see that you’re a slave. I hope you get well soon, and find the strength to break out of your delusions, that hold you down. It really pains me to see you like this.
His not learning her name wasn’t about her being black; it was about him being absentminded, and that was the essence of the joke. The fact that this is now being made into a race issue seems like it’s being done in bad faith.
Unlike your argument, which conveniently leaves out the context provided by Nicole regarding the treatment people have afforded the name Jasika in her life, and her reflections upon those feelings because of a recurring character trait of Walter’s on the show, intended as a joke. You’re the one who is falsely equating her real-life feelings with the content of the show, when it is abundantly clear from her statements that the content of the show affected her as an actor. Never does she say or imply that the actions of the characters had any racial overtones within the context of the show. You’re the one conjecturing in bad faith to smear her.
She is smearing the writers calling them racist.
P.S: please read again your first paragraph so you’ll see it as the word salad that it is.
She never used that word. You are lying.
It’s not the best structured sentence in the world but it’s grammatically and structurally sound. Another lie from you.
Jasika Nicole: “At some point the joke turned away from him being incapable of remembering astrids name to him being fully aware of who she is and just teasing her for fun. THAT part became bullying and racist.”
.
Where’s the lie?
I did not see the updated information at the bottom of the article since reading this last night. Apologies.
White people have their names messed up too. Sometimes in baffling ways. The Walter character was crazy, insensitive, sometimes abusive, and offensive quite regularly. I don’t think that anyone appreciated seeing his junk on display in the kitchen. It wasn’t a racial thing, and I think it is absurd to turn it into that now.
That said, I was always confused as to why Astrid was left off of most of the show’s artwork. She was a core member of the team/family since day one. She was like a daughter to Walter.
My mom has a perfectly reasonable name and yet has had people mispronouncing it and misspelling it her entire life, and she is white. Astrid is definitely not a name tied to one race. It’s a microaggression if the character was mispronouncing the name on purpose for sure, but I do feel making this a racial issue is a bit tricky to unpack.
The problem that I have is that it wasn’t a racial issue, it was about the relationship between two specific human beings. Astrid wasn’t ever reduced to being “representation” on the show, and I’d hate for her to be reduced to that now. She and Walter (as with everyone and Walter) had a very specific relationship that took into account his mental illness, his brain damage, and his base personality. He was a complex character, on a show full of complex characters. This was back when characters on shows were allowed to he more than generic templates for social issues. He wasn’t representing brain trauma or the longterm impact of drug use. She wasn’t representing racial issues. Olivia wasn’t representing strong and powerful women. Peter wasn’t representing cis white men. Allowing these characters to just be human is what made them complex and interesting. As a writer, it pains me that it is becoming so taboo to write characters as more than whatever box they easily fit into.
And I’m sorry that she has struggled with her name being mispronounced, but her name looks like an alternate spelling of Jessica at first glance, so it isn’t like people are actively disrespecting her. Her parents had to know that this would happen when they chose the name.
Sorry for the rant. I have just always loved Astrid, and I hate seeing her reduced like this. She was not a victim or a target. She wouldn’t have tolerated that from Walter.
You have described it perfectly! I feel sad that an integral supporting player felt disrespected. I would have thought this was an excellent springboard part to a bigger role in the future. Perhaps it has become more important to her in the years after the show ended, as her career appears to have stalled?
Loved your rant. It was very gentle and so well and clearly expressed. I have too left a rant, but its not as good as yours. This is pure Gold. Couldnt have said it better myself.
“Microaggression”. A made-up name for a made-up problem. Toughen up and you won’t get your tender widddoo feewings hurt.
Or you could toughen up and learn to mind your own business.
You could read your own comment and follow suit.
I see you took the time to tell me that, but not Mr. Seven. So only people who disagree with you should toughen up? Sad that differing ideas make you that defensive.
@Steven I see you took the time to only dismiss Mr. Seven’s comment without a counterpoint as well as mine. So only people who disagree with you should toughen up? Sad that differing ideas make you that defensive.
For 37 years everyone get my married name wrong, unless I spell it letter by letter, giving a letter then a common word use for it. My mobile telephone company looked at my driver’s license and my account name ended up being a different last name, in spite of it. Someone won an academy award with that last name, so it is not really out there, just an unfamiliar combination of common syllables and letters, I guess. I agree that Astrid was frustratingly underdeveloped. I never could figure that out. Maybe, some TV movie continuations could emphasize her more. I always wanted more of her science stuff, and it WAS jarring to go from name goof setup, supposed brilliant tech somethingorother, quick cut to the next scene. Maybe, only people with drama majors know what she is talking about.
I loved Fringe. I’m currently watching season 3 for the billionth time. Watching episode after episode, & season after season gives one perspective. Astrid was deeply disrespected & often treated as a throwaway character. “Astrid, milk the cow, Astrid go to the store, Astrid, watch Walter, Astrid, look up this license plate, Astrid break this code. ” She was like one of those doomed Star Trek officers we always knew wouldn’t return from away missions. Only she was there all 5 seasons.
Walter Bishop was a towering intellect. He remembered complex experiments & the names of cortexifan subjects from years past, as well as the names of literally everyone else in the show. Walter chose to use the correct name when Astrid (from over there) came to visit. It was a choice. It was a choice of the writers & therefore a choice of the character. It was disrespectful & lost its comedic appeal immediately.
I have worked in academic spaces alongside folks from Russia, Germany, China, etc., and folks found a way to learn those foreign names, but struggled with African foreign names. They didn’t try. They didn’t feel they had too on a subconscious level.
Racism is about power & who has it. In this dynamic, I can understand Astrid just dealing with it…& I can understand Jasika the actress just dealing with it. It’s a lived experience for me. Jasika didn’t make this about race. She was just existing as a person, & racist belief systems were visited upon her.
Please note that racism is still possible even when the intent is not malicious. I can see writers thinking it rather clever to have this running gag. Especially if the folks in the room are named David, Bob, Lisa, or Joan. RANDOM: season 4 episode 22, is my favorite Astrid episode. There is running, there is bouncy hair, and there is a shootout.
Well said.
Its sad that you see things with so much hatred. I hope you get well soon,
Geez, if Astrid had been a white character, nobody would ever think about seeing anything in this joke.
It’s just PC people looking hard for attention and digging out everything that could bring them some, no matter how old the “Incident”:
Get a life!
So I don’t mean to be insensitive. Really I don’t. And like I get that it can be annoying, as literally everyone mispronounces my name, all the time. First and Last. Perks of being originally from another country, and Jewish, and what not…but I don’t quite understand how this is an issue of black/african american people vs white people.
role development? an obvious lack of it? I understand the feeling of responsibility to speak up about something years after a fact. It is necessary for the future actors, students, workers, etc. It helps mistakes not to be made. It’s not a vs but a sharing.
It’s not anyone versus anyone. It’s just opening a conversation and allowing room to discuss things that one person might see as inconsequential but another would be hurt by. Jasika isn’t accusing anyone of malicious intent or pointing fingers. She’s just being honest and open about her experience. And as a fellow Semite, you and I are both people of color, regardless of our skin tone. At best we are white-passing, but our ethnic origin is Middle Eastern and we owe it to our fellow POC to listen and learn from their insights rather than pretending we’re white and it has nothing to do with us.
That’s not what I’m saying….it’s not like I’m not insensitive, again my name is literally mispronounced every freaking day almost. I just don’t see this situation as uniquely POC issue. People from Poland, Sweden, Germany, Norway, Ukraine as well as China, Taiwan, Japan, South Africa, the UK always get their names mispronounced.
Just because an issue is not entirely unique to POC doesn’t mean that it isn’t racist when applied to POC, because usually the instances are much more severe and common with them.
It’s like how incarceration rates point towards a racist justice system even as some white people still get incarcerated (or like how some white people still experience police violence even as it’s disproportionately POC).
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I think this is a very important distinction to understand, to understand what is meant when POC talk about ‘racism’. It’s not that we can’t experience their stuff. It’s just not nearly as constant and it doesn’t mount up over all the areas of our life like it does for them.
So does that mean anyone who mispronounces my name is implicitly xenophobic and antisemitic? Or
“Just because an issue is not entirely unique to POC doesn’t mean that it isn’t racist when applied to POC, because usually the instances are much more severe and common with them.” I completely get this. However, this article makes it sound as though, she thought it was. She had an issue with the jokes with her name on the show; as well as what she has gone through with her own name. Unfortunately real life met up with character’s life. She makes it sound as though they did it because she was a black character & black people have names hard to pronounce. Now perhaps it is whomever wrote this, unfortunately made it sound that way. To me it just sounds as though fake life met up with real life. As a side to her: many white people nowadays seem to have just as hard to pronounce names as anyone. At least that’s what it seems when I listen to people butcher names. My mom’s name was Carolyn(last part pronounced LYNN). All her life she had people say Caroline. Just people not bothering to observe the spelling. Mine is Mary, how many times I hear the different nursery rhymes, & I’m not talking about how they’re supposed to go…..So hearing people not bother to learn an unusual name, really not all that unusual….but I don’t think the majority is about them being racist….just lazy.
Ben you are soooooo forcing this. That’s hardly fair at all.
And it’s completely pointless to talk of abstract generic situations of if and but and maybe and who knows.
She is talking of a SPECIFIC situation.
And this SPECIFIC situation is not even remotely racist, neither directly nor indirectly.
It’s just a person with a personal issue, who decides not to inform anybody of that issue, but afterwards complains that they did not realize by themselves, although there was no freaking way to realize it.
This is just not ok. And making it a racist thing, is even worse.
It’s very much abuse of “victim role”.
She HAD to give these people a chance.
If she had told them, and they had ignored, she could now complain.
But not telling and then complaining, that’s on her.
Well said! “Much ado about nothing.”….I love Fringe. The “Mad Scientist” and Astrid assisting him was what gave it that extra something. People always had a hard time with my moniker too. Never did I feel it was racist. Somebody must be lookin’ for a fight.
🙄😒
I loved Fringe, but Ms. Nicole is right. It was tasteless and demeaning to a POC. It might’ve been cute, if he had done it to all kinds of peoples names—Like some sort of brain fart that the genius just couldn’t get over.. Not just the black person on the show.
How utterly ridiculous.
I am sorry she felt that way. I really do but, it was not a racial. Walter, the character, literally had part of his brain taken out since he only meet her after this, he had trouble remembering her name. He had trouble remembering lots of things. It was literally a main part of the story
If everyone else on the show had forgotten or misstated her name there might be a point, but it was entirely centered on Walter, what had been done to his brain, and his memory. The show was never ambiguous about why he had trouble remembering her name and a way to test that it was not a racialized joke is to see If the joke would work the exact same way were Astrid white, which it absolutely would have. Considering the genuinely troublesome depictions of race on other shows, this seems like an odd thing to focus on.
Yeah, if he had been a mentally sound person, then this behavior would have made him a jerk. But he wasn’t. His mental damage and social ineptness is literally what the entire show pivots around. I understand that Jasika is relating to the joke from the context of a long history of “black people aren’t important enough to learn their names,” and there’s a whole other context of a long history of “important men thinking young female subordinates aren’t important enough to learn their names (unless they want to sleep with them),” too. But there’s also the context of “absent-minded mad-scientist genius who knows the secrets of the universe but cannot tie his own shoes” as a well-established trope, and that’s CLEARLY what they were going for here. Like, Walter couldn’t be ANY MORE stereotypically that. The joke may be dumb, but it isn’t even insensitive, Jasika. I’m sorry you aren’t enough of an actress to understand why it was written into the story.
My first thought on seeing this article was, “whatever happened to Jasika Nicole?” I, honestly, do no believe I have seen her in anything since FRINGE, and looking at IMDB, it appears I do not watch what she has been in.
Also, according to IMDB, her name is pronounced Jah-SEE-kuh. I would have pronounced it jah-sih-kuh. Is she honest in stating only white people mispronounced her name? That seems hard to believe. Getting a name wrong isn’t strictly racist, it’s just stupid, or disrespectful, if they do not politely ask how to say it when not knowing or if genuinely difficult. If she had people really off the mark from the two ways to say it above, or outright offensive like calling her something like “jack-ss”, then she has a complaint. If not, and they were honest mispronunciations, then speaking about it now, if at all, seems petty.
Has she never been called “Jas”, “Jazz”, or “Jazzy”? Particularly by family or friends? Many names, unique and common, have been turned into nicknames. How many people have been playfully teased over their name in good fun that’s understandable as opposed to those being truly mean-spirited? Learn to recognize the difference and how to laugh at yourself with others you trust or fight against the purposeful ignorance of those trying to hurt you.
The crew and cast are blameless here. If “Astrid” variations bothered her that much for five years, she really should have said something and explained her reasons. In turn, maybe, the producers, and writers, could have explained what they were going for, if they never did, or felt they had no reason to, and that it had nothing to do with Jasika herself. Regardless of why she did not, it’s her fault, and she has to live with the regret of not doing so or stop taking this so seriously and/or personally and move on.
Um, I don’t see her blaming anyone in particular. She’s just using her experience as an example to shine a light on microaggressions and hurtful behavior we might engage in accidentally. Why is it wrong to talk about it? Also she says she didn’t bring it up because she didn’t have a great relationship with TPTB and was afraid of getting fired off her first big gig. The whole point is to share these types of stories so that we no longer create environments in the workplace where people of any color feel obligated to suffer in silence for fear of retribution.
She literally blames the white writers of the show.
She blames their ignorance and privilege, she doesn’t assign personal animus or malicious intent. Nor does she name anyone in particular.
Scroll through her Twitter feed. Saying that the joke was a constant act of racism from the white writers and it is still traumatizing is definitely implying malicious intent. Unless racist behavior is no longer malicious, conscious or unconscious.
I think unconscious racist behavior is generally not malicious because it’s a result of years of programming by family, society, etc. A big reason I think we’re struggling so much with the present racial reckoning is because people automatically freak out at the idea that they might be racist on some level because they think it implies they are a bad actor. But that’s not the case. As long as people are willing to reflect, learn, and grow, then calling out implicit bias shouldn’t be such a big deal. It’s only when it starts a denial spiral with the person doubling down on the behavior that it becomes toxic. We all have some amount of inner racism that we’re grappling with I think and it’s okay so long as we commit to working on it.
@DL I don’t necessarily agree with your POV completely but since she has said it was a conscious effort of the show’s part that required years of therapy after it ended it’s now moot.
My post was written before the UPDATE.
By default she is blaming the writers and creators of the show – or the showrunners specifically. Now calling it racist is ridiculous. She’s over-personalizing a creative character trait that went on for far longer than it likely needed to because they thought it too cute or did not realize they were over doing it. Nothing more – nothing less. I only remember it a couple of times and not during the entire time she was on. It’s fairly forgettable.
If she can prove it was racial, or if anyone of the writers and crew credibly admits to it, then we can all have another discussion. Right now, she, and some others here, seem to be reading far more into something that seems pretty trivial, if not meaningless.
BY the WAY: They gave her the name “Astrid”. Apparently it means divine strength or beauty.
Names do not have a standard pronunciation. You pronounce them the way the person tells you to, but if they say nothing then the most common one will probably be used. I know a Marie who pronounces her name Maar-ee, and 3 different Michaels have 3 different pronunciations. No-one can get those names right unless someone tells them.
Can you please tell me how to pronounce Scott?
I am confused. While I agree the joke was not funny and honestly quite stale as the show progressed, the parameters by which it is offensive remains unclear. If Walter had done the same thing to Olivia instead of Astrid would that still be offensive. If was done to a male of color would that be offensive? What if it was a common name like Zoe or Jen?
My personal position is that people have the right to feel about something however they want to, but given the context of the show I find it hard to make the case that Walter was racist or using micro aggressions against Astrid based on race. It was more a play on Walter’s old age and terrible people skills. Also, it allowed the writers to show affection between the two when Walter addresses her by her proper name. If anything it was insensitive to older people with memory problems and to the mentally infirm.
Allow me to clarify: It wasn’t that the joke, in a vacuum, was offensive. It was that it reminded Jasika of hurtful experiences in her own life revolving around the pronunciation of her name, and she had to relive that every time the joke was reused. She’s sharing her story in pursuance of the goal that workplaces like hers will be accepting enough that if an actor or worker of any stripe is in emotional distress over something, they can feel comfortable and confident in being heard and having the issue resolved quickly and compassionately.
In the law there is a concept called the egg shell doctrine. You take the victim as you find them. I understand that her life experience may predispose her to sensitivity, but her argument that the writers should have known about her sensitivity and avoided the joke makes little sense. Putting aside the rest of my point about it being more insensitive to the elderly and mentally infirm, I doubt the average POC would be triggered by that. We all need to take responsibility for self advocacy. If it triggered her she needed to tell someone with the ability to make it stop. Whether that be John Noble, or one of the producers or writers. Again I very much believe that everyone has a right to their own feelings and opinions, but I also think that when you over generalize racism you lessen the very real impact of the term.
It’s valid to say that the writers wouldn’t have known. But the crux of the issue is that she felt her employment was so tenuous that speaking up for herself could cost her her job. And that’s despite being a fairly beloved character. It was not a safe workplace for her to tell someone to make it stop. That’s the problem.
When you dismiss others’ explanations of how racism impacts their lives, you lessen the real impact of the term.
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She has to meet your definition of racism for you take her seriously?
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She’s the expert on racism in her life and has seem more of it than you have, based on your comment.
Also, fellow lawyer and find the eggshell doctrine reference completely misplaced. Talk about twisting a term.
Since my comment seems to be misunderstood let me clarify. The use of the egg shell doctrine is not to suggest that nothing offensive happened. It was to point out that everyone has their own inherent sensitivity and vulnerability. She is entitled to feel offended by anything that triggers her. But, by not telling people until 7 years later she denied those around her the chance to remedy the situation.
Moreover, my original question stands. Would it have been racist if done to Olivia, or Bryoles, or September?
This was clear and obvious racism. You want to say it was. a trigger, I am fine with that. It was not done based on her skin color it was done despite it. Based on this principle, I believe self advocacy is even more important. You need to be willing to speak for yourself and hopefully the lesson will be well learned so the next person doesn’t get triggered at all.
If Fringe was not a safe enough work space for self advocacy that is a problem in and of itself.
No edit button so edit to correct third paragraph
This was not clear and obvious racism. If You want to say it was a trigger, I agree with that.
Umm, the eggshell skull principle is literally that you are responsible for the damage you cause no matter the person’s inherent weakness (or ability to advocate), ie the very opposite of what you seem to suggest it means.
Correct. You take the person as you find them. Thus you can harm someone with an action that would otherwise not harm another. Thus I accept she was triggered by the joke. But, in order for the offending action to be a crime it must be something reasonably likely to cause harm or outright bad action (illegal.)
I am not saying she has no grounds to feel offended. I am saying this was not race based. Racism would be if someone said or believed that black people do not deserve to have their name pronounced correctly. If people had been intentionally mispronouncing her name to demean her that is racist. Yet in Walters case it is a function of age and brain damage. The joke would not have offended anyone if it was about Olivia. You can argue that Anna has never had anyone mispronounce her name intentionally and thus she would be less sensitive to it. I would counter argue that is sexist. Everyone deserves the respect of having their name pronounced correctly regardless of race.
Bottom line, if someone does something you find offensive and instead of telling them so you ignore it, you haven’t given them the chance to fix it. Telling people 7 years later that you found something offensive meant that they may have done it again to someone else for 7 years. Self advocacy is the only way to improve society. She has a responsibility to speak up. If she fears repercussions than that speaks to the culture at fox and with that production company. Both should be investigated for hostile work environment and several people need to lose their jobs. If however, it is not a hostile work environment, then people need to speak up and take responsibility for helping to fix the problem. Do you honestly believe if she said something to John, or Josh, or Anna, or any of the writers or show runners that they would have retaliated against her? If they would then that is a bigger problem.
We called our English bulldog Astrid in part because of our love for her character in Fringe.
While I understand that it must suck to have people mispronounce your name all the time I struggle to make the connection to the show itself. Yes, Astrid was a POC, but I don’t think it was a matter of racism. It had more to do with Walters brain imo. Hell, if the same had happened with Olivia no one would have batted an eye. Not everything is about racism. She could have said something about it back then if she was annoyed by it…instead of throwing the writers under the bus on twitter…years later.
I, a white man, have family members that purposefully mispronounce ethnic names and refer to those of similar ethnicity background the same name because they can’t tell them apart.
While it is not always about racism, a lot of times it is. It’s a shame we’re placing the burdens on those who have been legitimately victimized to tell us the difference instead of taking the time to be sure we don’t act like racists do toward PoC.
This is stupid! Walter had a memory problem and thats why he called her different names! Does no one remember?! It wasnt because shes black, it was because walter had a memory problem! The cast including jessika loved it and joked about it
She probably also enjoyed keeping her job. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t going to rock the boat over this at this time for a reason. Look at how the comments on here are going in 2020.
An update has been added, on that very topic.
On The Office it’s pronounced A**turd.
Lol I don’t know if she is aware that mispronouncing names happens all the time. Being Indian with an anglicized name, I have been called multiple variations of my own name even after I teach people the correct pronounciation. I doubt that is racism since they are also Indian.
Try names like Kartikeyswamy, Chitrangadha or Abhalakshmi. I’m pretty sure they have more to complain about mispronouncing of names than anyone else.
As someone who has experienced a lifetime of racist comments about their name and gross mispronunciations, I am offended by this whole controversy. I was a fan of Fringe. Walter’s memory is a key plot point on the show. And he doesn’t mispronounce her name. He calls her other words that start with A because he is grasping for the right one. There’s a big difference. When my grandpa with dementia calls me Julie instead of Jaime it’s not offensive. When a boss says my last name Kawamoto ‘Kameloto’ followed by ‘I have trouble with foreign words’ that is offensive. It is supposed to highlight his memory issues. It is also this gruff, rude man’s way of showing affection for his assistant the few times he does it purposefully. Lastly, this running joke was written into the show before Astrid was cast with a POC. I personally know two white actresses who were up for the role. So it was never an unconscious microaggression since it was not a white writer creating a black role.
This right here, makes all the sense in the world. It was always about Walter. Not about Astrid.
Really well-reasoned argument. We need more commentary like this. Playing devil’s advocate though, I don’t think she was claiming the joke itself was racist. Rather it was that it evoked racially charged experiences in her own life, but she didn’t feel comfortable as a POC on the Fringe set with bringing it up to TPTB and asking them to stop doing the joke. That’s the aspect that needs to change. The joke made her feel distress but she didn’t feel like she could talk to anyone about it without risking her job.
+125 TVLine Power User points (no cash value)
“Thanks! Glad you’re enjoying the rewatch! FYI as a black woman with a name that people CONSTANTLY get wrong, I think that joke was pretty racist myself and it still makes me uncomfortable 🤷🏽♀️”
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Tell me again how you “don’t think she was claiming the joke itself was racist.”
When you’re right, you’re right, you win this round, J.B.!
I agree with that – the culture needs to change. Having been an actor in Vancouver while Fringe shot there, I can assume there were issues on set. Not just around race but sex as well. I do still feel strongly that there is a huge difference between someone mispronouncing my name and forgetting it and worry about making change happen if we can’t communicate these differences better. Evoking past experiences isn’t the same as committing fresh ones. This running gag might remind me of something racially charged from the past. But in context of the show it isn’t so. Rather than attacking the writing it would make more sense to discuss the toxic atmosphere on set and in the industry as a whole that didn’t allow for an actress to ask questions or express concern. Too often we are quick to accuse instead of reaching out. It is much more enlightening for people when I gently explain why their comment could be offensive instead of going home and tweeting about it. It starts a dialogue instead of a war.
As I write this after the update, she has made no mention of any other issues concerning discrimination on set. Her whole point centers on the “running gag”. This also leads me to believe this was not racially motivated, or became so. See my posts above.
Now, if she starts coming out with other issues she had, or how else she was poorly treated, then we have another new discussion.
Perhaps she didn’t like it, but the writers don’t write the show for the actors, they wrote it for the fans and most of us found it endearing. Complaining about it 7 years later makes her look petty and attention seeking, not brave.
When doing so means she’s subjected to the criticism of legions of keyboard warriors like yourself, I’d say that’s pretty brave.
The reason Walter can’t catch her name every time is not to make a funny. It’s a part of his characterization. STORYTELLING. Jeez. And of course, she dragged over her life experience, which I’m sorry but I gotta say Jasika and Nicole or even Pruitt are not that uncommon for names. Not in America, Europe, or even Asia.
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She seems to have a LOT of complaints these days. She sure likes to cancel everything, too. Eating healthy food be on diet and have a healthy routine, nope, cancel it! Supporting characters to support main characters, nope, undeserving! Complimenting one’s youthfulness, nope, degrading! Good thing that her performance and crafts are so great that I love them. But, complaining is never inspiring. Being a representation is not about outrage and complaints and canceling.
I’m a minority. Always the one who stands out in a room. But I’m just so sad that this was even translated from thought to words. This is so so so so stupid. As someone said before, the writers don’t write for the actors! It was a running gag that genuinely entertained. Think about it this way – they could have cast a white woman for the role instead given that race didn’t play a part in the character’s arc.
Twitter really is the dumps. Anyone with an opinion can be validated in some way for some purpose. What exactly is her game here?
Her mentioning that she didn’t like the showrunners speaks volumes….
I get what she’s saying about her real life name – my name is constantly mispronounced and misspelled and teachers used to try to call me nicknames that weren’t so “ethnic.”. But I’m not so sure about the issues between two fictional characters. Walter was not only a “mad scientist”, he was actually mentally ill. Astrid, the fictional character, could have corrected him a million times and he wouldn’t have paid attention.
we have more important things to worry about !! in terms of ”astrid ”
sorry for Jasika for people get her real name wrong but a tv character ?
i remember about Landry on Friday Night Lights and was funny all the time coach got his name wrong
Mad scientist who’s literally missing chunks of his brain gets name wrong. Unfathomable!
Also, check out this compilation video, especially the first minute. Walter gets corrected multiple times, including by the Astrid character herself.
youtu(.)be/AfLnPS-Le4A
She seems to have convieniently forgotten that, including a couple of times where she intentionally called Walter by the wrong name. I’m beginning to see why she was written off of The Good Doctor.