Personally I think a large part of the lack of outrage over the first four is that no one who watched the movies had heard of the source material. People who watch Marvel movies don't tend to read the comics, but Ariel was a Disney movie (one of the most famous of all time) remade as another Disney movie.
Correct. Nobody was bothered by Nick Fury’s change for example, even though he went from white to black. That was a wholly unknown character for most Marvel moviegoers. And Samuel L. Jackson is awesome in that role.
Actually, Fury's always been black in the Ultimate Marvel Universe; the character and the design was actually based on Jackson so casting him for the MCU probably was an obvious direction choice.
I also had my boss, when I worked in fast food, list this as one of the issues he had with the movie, when it came out (to quote him, "he's a white character; no offense but that's what he is," which was particularly galling, given the aforementioned fact).
Personally, I think the lack of outrage is because the people who get outraged by black people being cast for roles that were previously white characters, aren't concerned when it's white people being cast no matter the source material.
I dunno. It always felt weird to me that someone named Raz Al-Gul was an Irishman, or that a traditional Buddhist monk looked like a soccer mom that went all in on yoga.
Eh, plenty of people voiced issues with the racial (and gender) recast of the Ancient One when Doctor Strange came out.
Tilda Swinton is great btw.
Most people realized it was done mostly to skirt the Chinese market. I think the major problem with the other groups is the lack of major starpower. I don’t think I can even name a Romani actress.
Considering most Americans lose their shit at the slightest hint of an accent, it's not really surprising.
I think that this is making fun of the people who were upset at Ariel being black in the remake. The people this is making fun of don't care about recasting race until it's done from a white character to a black one. It's pointing out hypocrisy.
Wasn’t it not just the casting of one character, but that they recast the movie to be all black? When I see something that looks like “recast the movie to be X”, I don’t expect very much and usually don’t bother watching. If this was one my favorite movies, I can see being upset that they would remake it just for race or gender (although now that I mention that, it could be hilarious to remake for gender)
That includes “recast the movie to be white”, now that we’re getting lots of well done videos that don’t start as white.
But I suppose it’s white privilege that I never saw an issue with most of these (but wtf, Johnny Depp?). They’re close enough and generally the character is not written overly specific anyway. Ms Marvel must be correct because the entire movie was based on her culture, ethnicity, history. If the movie was written about “generic American teenager” declared to be something other than white, would we care? Should we? Meanwhile, who cares about Scarlet Witch? Aside from”European”, there was nothing in the movie to make her anything specific. From the post about the comics, the source material is horribly muddled
I also thought Liam as ra's al ghul was a really bizarre pick during the movie, too. But I guess I got over it quickly enough, because Liam Neeson.
Am I the only one who thinks the Ra's Al Ghul in the Arrow series was perfectly cast?
She’s great in The Boys too.
"You will not replace us!" shouted the white supremacists after centuries of erasing a multitude of other cultures, histories, and societies.
It has always been about power.
Really shows you that their worldview leaves no room for multiculturalism lol. As soon as brown people are let into their country's borders, bam, suddenly their whole identity and culture ceases to exist somehow, despite still being the majority.
Multicultural is different from multiethnic. One is clothing and holidays and norms, the other is just skin.
In fairness to Tilda Swinton, they decided to entirely rewrite the character to be a Celtic woman instead of a Tibetan man. This was probably to avoid being censored in China, but getting away from the racist 1930s, "oriental mysticism," trope was probably a good idea. It's certainly a lot better than letting Jonny Depp pretend to be a Native American because he's one-eighth Cherokee.
I remember reading he was one third German and sometimes I cannot sleep at night because I am trying to figure out the math. This has been like 15 years ago and it still bugs me.
Liam Neeson is also like Samual L Jackson.
I don’t give a shit was race the character was originally, the character is about to be transformed into a next level badass.
I have mixed feelings about Liam Neeson in that role. His performance is great, and given that they got rid of the whole, "immortal genius from the Islamic Golden Age," backstory, I guess the character's race is less important. It feels very strange that an Irish guy is somehow the leader of a group of Asian ninjas, though.
The Sam Jackson/Nick Fury story is pretty hilarious. When Marvel created the Ultimate Universe in the comics, they changed a lot of characters' backstories. One of those changes was making Nick Fury black, and one of their artists started drawing him looking a lot like Sam Jackson. Jackson talked to his agents, and Marvel was basically like, "Well, instead of suing us, would Mr. Jackson like to play the character in any future projects?"
Well, the Ariel thing is basically the same kind of 'rewrite'.
Also Ariel isn't even "white"... she's a mermaid
Well, I think it's a bit different. The Little Mermaid takes place in an unidentified kingdom on the surface (it seems vaguely Italian or Mediterranean, I guess?) and an underwater Atlantian kingdom, so race doesn't matter. The original Dr. Strange comics have all sorts of uncomfortable racial and religious tropes; it's about a white guy who finds magical order Tibetan monks, not only learns their magic, but becomes even better than them at it, and moves to New York with an Asian man-servant named Wong who serves him tea. Changing up the races and backstory on that one isn't just acceptable, it's advisable.
Exactly Ariel is basically fish,
Thank you for sharing this. I never know why I feel so annoyed at people who are mad about it, but this is it.
This is why "All lives matter" makes no sense
“All Lives Matter” is like a Narcissist trying to bring the spotlight back to them. They can’t stand not having the attention, and will do anything to get it.
Marketing does matter. For whatever reason, they interpret “all X matter” as “only X matters”, and “X matters too” is not a memorable phrase
We have a movement in Canada called "Every Child Matters" due to indigenous history. The most annoying thing to experience is the same idiots who complain about BLM commenting on this one. "Black Lives Matter? What the hell dude, ALL lives matter!" then 5 minutes later saying "Every Child Matters? No shit, what a stupid movement name!" Can't win with these folks.
I like to think of it like a broken bone. Yes, your overall health is important; no one is questioning that. But if you go into the ER with a broken bone and the doctor tells you that they're going to ignore your injury in favor of telling you to take your vitamins, they're an asshole who doesn't care about your pain or healing your injury.
Systemic racism is the broken bone. No one (except, perhaps, assholes and billionaires) disagrees that all lives have value. Saying "all lives matter" in response to "black lives matter," though, is saying "let's wilfully ignore the problem because I am clearly okay with the status quo."
Edit to fix typo.
My favorite analogy for this, and the one that really made me 'get it', was posted on Reddit a number of years ago, and was something to the effect of:
Imagine you're sitting around the dinner table with your family, and your dad is passing around a bowl of mashed potatoes. However, instead of handing it to you, it gets passed right by you to your sister. And you speak up and say, "I should get some, too!" Your dad looks at you and says, "Everyone should get some," and the family continues passing the bowl around as before. And you're thinking, yes, that's true - everyone should get some, but only one of us is not getting any right now and pointing out that everyone should get some doesn't make me any less hungry.
Those people will tell you they’re not racist, that’s why there is no systemic racism. They think you are being racist for singling that out when there was none. Could it be a large part denial, lack of awareness? Or is that just a claim to explain their outrage?
Some folk annoyed you posting, I hope they have a mildly bad day scrubbbles.
Most of the people who say "all lives matter" in that context don't actually think that black lives matter.
To be fair casting for both Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One and Johnny Depps as Tonto were both criticized when the movies were released. Probably not to the level Halle Baileys casting was, or by the same people, but both were definitely seen as whitewashing.
Its also likely The Ancient Ones casting got as much attention as it did due to the political nature of the change (seen as to appease China over its history regarding Tibet).
So what is white if Romani isn't? I really do not understand the American concept of race, for me they are all humans.
Hating Romani is more a European thing.
I've heard plenty of the usual stereotypes passed along by americans. When it comes right down to it, most people are happy to repeat what they've heard about any 'others.' It really takes someone special to fight against that by trying to not have 'others' in their life (i.e. by accepting all as their in-group).
Whiteness, at least from a racist perspective, isn't really about skin color, it's more like a club for 'approved' ethnicities. There's many Italians with darker skin than Mexicans, but Italians are considered 'white' and Mexicans are not. Same for large parts of the Middle East and Asia.
Romani are white skinned Europeans, but they're not 'racist approved', so they make up rumors they're actually from Egypt and omit them from the White Club.
The determination for what counts as white is highly inconsistent. Before the 1700s Germans were not considered white. Before the 1800s Irish were not considered white. For a time in the 1900s Finnish people were considered Asian (while many Finns were striking for better working conditions, what an odd coincidence). Italians weren't considered white until about a hundred years ago. It goes on and on.
Roma people have historically been very persecuted because of racism and ethnocentrism. Case in point: the holocaust killed up to 500,000 Romani people, but the actual figures are not known. Roma people are among the groups that are rarely talked about when the Holocaust is mentioned, despite losing up to 50% of their total population at the time.
Arab and North African folks are usually considered white on the US census but that isn't really an accurate picture.
Race is a social construct that doesn't have clear borders. Racial categories mostly exist as a way of creating division and limiting access to resources, to flatten the diversity of individual cultures represented by a racial category... or to inflict direct and systemic violence. The experience of being a racialized person is entirely the creation of the society that a person lives within; for example, African folks usually don't self-identify as "black," within Africa, but that's an important racialized experience that people can speak to in a place like the US.
"Not white enough" would be my guess.
So what is white if Romani isn’t?
Race science is less a formal science and more a series of excuses for doing social murder and war crimes.
Romani people are Indo-Aryan, more closely related to modern day Indian people than Europeans. They typically have darker skin than Europeans as well. It's not really an American concept either; I've generally seen a lot more anti-Romani sentiment in Europe than the US.
Other people have longer explanations which are great. I just wanted to point out Romani people are not Romanian even though many Romani people have settled in Romania. It's just a coincidence.
The American concept is deceptively complex. At first it's just literally skin color. The Simpsons meme with the cop holding the color swatches is absolutely true. Then it's about stereotypes. So yeah your skin is light, but are you anything they have a stereotype about? Their entire concept of self relies on stereotypes being true. Otherwise they can't be smarter just because they're of pure European descent.
I only care when it's stupid, like Medieval Poland being full of black people, not even modern day Poland has that many black people.
You can call me racist if you want but casting a black guy to play the president of the USA in like 1910 would be as stupid as casting a white guy to play Nebuchadnezzar.
The Witcher isn't in Medieval Poland though, it's in a fantasy land.
Rings of Power was far more dumb because there's black people, but only in a few extremely important roles. Almost as if there's some sort of reverse curse going on, where a baby pops out black, and they immediately make it their king/queen. Or more likely, they realised very late on that they'd made a very white cast, and made a few last minute changes.
I sometimes think the token representation is on purpose. Riles up the “anti-woke” and means that internet discourse about your show is all about how there’s some black people, not about how shit the writing is.
Like I really don’t give a rats ass if the dwarves are brown or purple or pink. (Although the lack of bearded dwarf women is unacceptable.) The other changes in Rings of Power are actually bad.
It'd be as bad as having people of color play Hamilton and associates!
Meanwhile middle age fantasy had black knights and it was fine.
Racists are gonna be racists is all there is.
The actual Middle Ages had black knights in Northern Europe and Scandinavians in the Middle East. Forget fantasy. That actually happened.
You can call me racist
As tone deaf as it gets.
That depends on what you're doing with it. If Abraham Lincoln is a vampire hunter by night then I don't think anybody's going to care who plays the character. It's obviously beyond reality. If you're doing the story of Black World War 1 veterans fighting the KKK then you're going to want representation before the NAACP starts picketing your studio.
sounds like some men in black 3 setting
Representation matters. Giving the few traditionally non-white roles that get written in Hollywood to white actors is an actual problem.
Getting mad about the existence of black characters in fiction fucking stupid. Really fucking stupid. Unjustifiably fucking stupid. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
100% agree, but what should be done would be to green light projects by writers of other races based on different cultures and folklores diversifying the pop culture space (for lack of a better term).
What is done instead is treating minorities as a checklist that needs to be checked in every piece of art even when it doesn't make sense for them to be in that story.
Oh the sweet voice of a reason, they don't take well to that around here. Good on you.
"Here are three examples I made up to prove how not racist I am!"
To me, the weirdest one was Johnny Depp as a Native American. Like I couldn’t wrap my head around it in the movie. I kept thinking the plot was that he was a delusional person who believed he was Native American.
I only watched the German version, but I never knew that the character was based on a real person.
I though he was some kind of "ally", like a white guy that jumped the fence and joined the Native cause or raised by natives.
I also thought it was basically Jack Sparrow 2.0
Would've been funny
If it's bad to use white actors for black (or other colored) roles then it's bad for black actors to do white roles. If it's okay to do those switches then it's okay for all. Forget colors it shouldn't matter.
Having said that, Disney just did the Ariel thing ffor the "look at us being sooooo progressive, please give us your money for this utterly shit movie" instead of trying to just make a great movie
A big issue here, especially with the MCU stuff, is that it's not a skin color thing with those changes. They updated the whole character in order to make them into races that are more friendly to China. They've done this repeatedly and stripped identities and character traits from characters over and over again.
Every single Romani character that's appeared in an MCU movie has had their heritage removed and replaced with generic white. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are good examples (since they're the ones in the meme) but I don't see any way that Robert Downey Jr is going to be able to do the complicated Romani backstory of Dr Doom very well.
I agree that Ariel was swapped for marketing reasons (and arguably specifically to cause outrage and get people talking) Ariel doesn't have a racial heritage that plays into her life and identity... She's a mermaid from the sea... Not a member of a group with a large history of being discriminated against.
Maybe that's for the best? It's a bit weird that MCU went so big on Romani people in specific. That said unless a Romani person identifies themselves, you're going to have trouble picking them out of a crowd. They are as diverse as the regions they've traveled through.
It's definitely a cynical move by Disney no matter how you slice it.
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"If you think we're super woke, you go support the movie. We get money."
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"If you hate it (because we thought a superficial change would cover the fact we barely tried), it's because you're a nasty racist bigotface, your opinion is disregarded, galvanizes our first crowd into giving us more money, and angry actually-racist bloggers probably hate-watch it while advertising it for free. We get money."
Ain't the culture wars grand (if you're selling to both sides like a proper arms dealer)? :D
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I personally think it isn't wise to use an actor of any race in substitute of another, if that character's race is part of the story. The only reason I could think of to change the character's race, gender, status, etc. would perhaps be to tell a different story, but then it should be renamed and be a different story. But if a character's race, gender, status, etc. is tied to that character's story, then it shouldn't be discarded frivolously.
From what I see, I feel that a lot of the disconnect is based on whether people find an attribute (in this case, race) important or not as part of the character's story.
I feel I half agree with you. The other half of me thinks, there's a lot of things we change for an actor acting a character. After all, it's an actor, playing a character. Someone called Ben can play a guy called John; your grumpiest aunt can play a sweet grandma; often we have actors in their 30s and 40s playing ternagers and 20s; and men playing women even used to be a thing.
I think you have a good point, but I also think it's okay to have an acceptable disconnect of, this is people acting out a story, not the real thing happening in front of me.
Can I be upset at all of them? The little mermaid should probably be
DutchDanish, and all the rest should be their canon ethnicities. White Disney princesses don't bother me because most of those stories are European folktales, but that cuts both ways.Isn't she a fucking mermaid who comes from the ocean? Why should she be any real nationality/ethnicity?
Her ethnicity should be Innsmouth.
Trace her back to her origins, and she's literally based on a Danish folktale. I can guarantee you no one in Denmark when the story first was told was thinking of her as black.
But then I think all of those examples were bad and should never have been cast that way. A black Anne Boleyn is exactly as bad a choice as a white Mansa Musa, for example.
Dutch not Danish?
Danish would be my guess
Yeah it'd be a similar reaction if Jasmine & Aladdin were recast as northern Europeans. Sure it's a fantasy tale, but the story is set in a fantasy version of Arabia.
I absolutely remember people being mad about the first one.
The others not so much. The fantasy movies don't really matter the same way as a historical movie about slavery does. The fantasy characters are even gender swapped without a problem at conventions.
And yes that means the racists who got mad about Ariel are dumb.
Yeah Marvel characters' identities don't usually feel important. Nick Fury was race swapped for the movies and it was well-received.
I think people were mad about the avatar one or whatever that movie is.
Yup. Characters should remain consistent if it’s important.
Tonto should not have been played by Johnny Depp. Gross.
The original Ancient One was a poor stereotype of a Tibetan person and Tilda Swinton is cool so I’m ok with this one.
Liam Neeson is a great actor with a ton of gravitas and he pulled off the role well, but yeah shoulda found a middle eastern dude. Maybe that hot Djin dude from American Gods can be the next Ras Al Ghul.
Anything to do with Scarlet Witch’s background is a retcon, she was originally introduced as Magneto’s moustache twirling daughter. Despite her tan in the referenced photo she’s more often depicted as white, but I could see her being middle eastern, but it would make sense that she’s half Jewish at least, given her father’s background.
Lastly, she’s a fucking mermaid. Who gives a shit? How many of the dude bros bitching even watched it?
Lastly, she’s a fucking mermaid. Who gives a shit? How many of the dude bros bitching even watched it?
They also chose to set the entire movie in the Caribbean because there's not fuckin colorful tropical fish off the coast of Denmark, it's not like they randomly made her black for no reason
Shoulda gone with something like this
Some Romani people have white skin, and in rare cases, even blonde hair and blue eyes.
I think in case of Ra's Al Ghul in Nolan movies, the title is passed from one leader to another. He's not a 1000 year old warrior.
I really don't think it would have hurt to cast an Arab actor as Ra's Al Ghul. And then you wouldn't need a convoluted explanation like that.
No, I don't thinking would work since his daughter's called Thalia Al Ghul, indicating Al Ghul is a family name.
Also,we don't need to make up apologies for whitewashing.
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He literally says 'we have been around for 1000 years and since Nolanverse is devoid of any fantastical elements, passing the torch is the only possible explanation.
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Her name is Talia Al Ghul from Doylist perspective but not from Watsonian.
For all we know, she doesn't have any last name/family name in-universe and uses the alias of Miranda when she's globetrotting for a bit of terrorism.
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Wait until you tell extremist, right-wing Christians that Jesus wasn't a white guy! Oooohhh boyyy!
Also, I think it's important to not forget that in the internet age, a very small minority of hateful asshats can appear to have a very large voice. They are still a very small, minority group of asshats.
I agree, they're small groups of asshats but they're loud and effective groups of asshats. Take kiwifarms for example; despite being a pretty small community, they can inflict a lot of damage to a lot of people in short periods of time.
The only one of these that is remotely acceptable, to me, is Tilda Swindon, because they explicitly detached themselves from the character to avoid getting shat on by the CCP for casting a Tibetan and from Americans for casting a Chinese person.
The others are all crap, IMO.
Every time a character is <color>washed we lose the chance to be exposed to global actors that would fit their profile.
The only one of these that is remotely acceptable, to me, is Tilda Swindon, because they explicitly detached themselves from the character to avoid getting shat on by the CCP for casting a Tibetan and from Americans for casting a Chinese person.
That makes it worse tbh
TBH I think the bird and in general the music score ruined TLM more than anything
But I'm against the very concept of using Live Action films to perpetuate Intellectual Property rights while skirting any requirement to pay royalties to the original teams who made the animated films from which the remake was adapted 1:1 script and scene composition.
A lot of the other examples here did give really weak or bland performances, I even think the Lone Ranger would have been better without Depp in it.
People would have been pissed if some of those were racially accurate
My issue is that we are pairing nationality with skin color or ethnicity here. Those are not mutually exclusive. There are 2nd or 3rd generation Asians immigrants in Mexico, just as there are Mexicans living in Ireland, and Irish people in India, etc.. Somebody could be a fully integrated national but not part if the nations major ethnicity. Even saying AFRICAN-American is kind of pointless, like it matters where your grand-grand-grand-grand-parents came from. They're as much American as anybody else. We don't call everybody else European-American for comparison.
In movies meant to be historically accurate though it would be very weird to switch things up. Especially when so much was based on appearance at certain times.
Tbh I'm perfectly fine with other races picking up any roles, except for historical movies.
Another thing on historical movies that irk me to no end is the perfect posh English for every effing Roman or Greek movies
Somewhat relevant to your second point, I don't like it when they speak English and it doesn't make sense.
Breaking Bad bothered me so much with how often the native Spanish speakers were talking in English, while in Mexico, with other native Spanish speakers. It isn't like they didn't allow Spanish in the show, there was a fair amount, they just arbitrarily decided that the scenes where it made the most sense to speak Spanish that English was the right language.
AFRICAN-American
Well, that started out as a euphemism for "black" because some people decided that made them uncomfortable... Of course in the literal sense, Elon Musk is African American, even though everyone knows that's not what's intended...
Scarlet Witch wasn't originally Romani.... she was originally still Jewish. You know, since she was Magneto's daughter. The Romani thing came later. So that's kind of a mischaracterization. The Johnny Depp as native american was super wierd, like the black face RDJ in Tropic Thunder. It was cringe @.@.
I don't know how people got that take from Tropic Thunder when they explicitly make reference inside the movie to how messed up and wrong it was. Like, that was the joke. RDJ was playing a character so full of himself that took method acting to it's extreme. Am I missing something? Id love to be educated
No, you're right. RDJ's role on that movie was a joke/commentary about both method acting and black face.
No, you're not, people are taking good intentions too far like usual. The entire joke of that character was that he crossed the line
like the black face RDJ in Tropic Thunder. It was cringe @.@.
Did you actually see Tropic Thunder? It's pretty good. His character is meant to be looked down on and the movie makes that clear. It's more of a criticism of actors doing things like black face and playing disabled characters to chase awards.
I did! I will admit I don't remember as much of it as I should have as I was not paying full attention at the time. Might give it a more genuine watch again sometime.
Every aspect of Tropic Thunder was absolutely hilarious and if you found that movie offensive or cringe then clearly the jokes of that movie flew wayyyyy the fuck over your head.
Scarlet Witch wasn't originally Romani.... she was originally still Jewish. You know, since she was Magneto's daughter. The Romani thing came later.
She could still be both from each parent's side?
That would make her... Jewmani? Rowish?
Wouldn't her being Jewish depend more on her mother?
No wonder they changed her to Romani, they got tired of all the questions from The Tribe asking for her mother's geneology to prove she was Jewish.
Probably so.
You had a point then you said something incredibly stupid, so now I disagree with your existence.
Believe me, white folk do get offended about non-white characters being changed to white, in fact they the most likely ones to be offended, especially when it comes to historic figures. All this meme is doing is framing an inaccurate depiction of white folk to suit a biased narrative. Keep in mind also, a minority few cannot represent an entirety. Just as all black or asian folk are not alike, same holds true for white folk. This an era where a difference in race is not the concern, but rather the upper class rich people that use ethnic label stereotyping to have us fight among each other as distraction. Don't fall for their trickery of dividing us.
Fun fact about the Lone Ranger, the most likely real world basis for the protagonist is a man named Bass Reeves. He was black, and an escaped slave. The misrepresentation has been present since the beginning, if I'm not mistaken.
And I only learned about him in the first place because of Watchmen.
I feel like there's a lot of cherry picking here too, because if we take the MCU, it also does some race swapping that nobody has a problem with.
Nick Fury is one, but Samuel L Jackson is so cool in that role, it doesn't matter.
Heimdal is another one. Norse mythology, probably not a lot of black there, but Idris Elba is also so damn cool in the role that it does not really matter, and I've never heard anyone complain about these people.
I think in general it's more about if the people in the roles do a good job or not. Tilda Swinton did a great job. Johnny Depp... Maybe not so much, but I also do remember people were mad about that one.
I was weirded out by Heimdal, but the overall sci-fi aesthetic is also weird so eh.
Why do they only replace characters with red hair?
Many people in ficiton have red hair, but it's a very rare trait in real life, so they figure "hey, since we can't make this character look accurate, let's not even try."
I‘m sure there are some Irish actors but they probably have the wrong accent for big movies
That funny because when I put my non-USA definition of is white and not-white or african, this image as absolutely no meaning.
Do you mean your idea of white is more inclusive or less inclusive and where are you from?
And who qualifies as black or African where you're from?
I would said it is different. Arabic people are not westerner but the ones from middle eat are definitely white. The character drawn doesn't look Arabic whatsoever. I would have thought he is british. Romani are not fully white but definitely westerner, just not the vanilla-type. The Tibetan character is drawn as a white guy with high liner. The actress playing Ariel has definitely some African roots but I would called here mixed-race rather that black.
It just another kind of biais. I don't pretend my way is better or closer to reality but it is funny that my biais clashes so much with OP's.
So were native american, arab, romani people fine with those white actors in those roles?
This is an important point that should always be asked in this discourse. I mean the critique of casting is certainly valid and in this case the actual meme itself is more about pointing towards the actual racists, but still, being upset for a minority without listening to the actual minority isn't really a good look either.
The reasoning behind the Tilda Swinton one has already been mentioned here, but for example in the Johnny Depp one they apparently even had a Comanche Nation adviser to make sure the representation was done well. That doesn't necessarily make it okay, but why isn't that ever even mentioned in this discourse? I would argue it's still different to do stuff out of ignorance or malice, than just kinda fumble and make bad choices while trying to put in some effort.
That doesn't necessarily make it okay, but why isn't that ever even mentioned in this discourse?
Because white saviors need to be mad.
I complain about all of it. Yeah I'm sure it "doesn't affect the story" for most things, but I feel either get someone who is the correct race or make a new character.
A new character? In this Hollywood economy?
You know who's so hot right now? Clark Gable. He should be in the next Care Bears live action reboot
Then this meme isn't about you, is it? Seems pretty obviously about the people who do not care about the first ones and suddenly care when it is reversed.
Some of these might have been to avoid blatant racial stereotypes, particularly with Tilda Swinton and Liam Neeson. Johnny Depp, not so much.
Well Liam Neeson being white was explicitly part of the story and a play a play on blatant racial stereotypes, he had an asian stand in who "looked like" ras al ghul would so he could hide his identity. In fact because it's a rather "realistic" take on the superhero it's implied that Ras Al Ghul is not a single person, it's always just a cover for the current leader of the league of shadows or whatever they are called
What really confuses me about the outrage over casting a black actor to play the little mermaid is that a mermaid is a fictional creature. Why are people so upset that a fictional creature doesn't fit what their particular preference is?
It should be as realistic as possible. My Ariel is fish colored for the same reason fish are. Maybe greenish blue for water camouflage, or grayish for sea floor camouflage, or brightly patterned if she lives near coral reefs or is poisonous. I'd love a cuttlefish mermaid for the flashing colors but I guess that's not technically a fish, not sure if it matters.
i mean there are people who believe jesus was white
White as a concept really falls apart when you look at MENA and the balkans
I honestly don't care at this point. New Ariel sucks not because they switched her to black, but because it just sucks as a whole. The only thing that's actually kinda pissing me off is...
...could we stop swapping gingers with blacks? Please? Pretty please? Both are minority, ffs. But one is even kinda rarer than the other. Go on, switch the blondie, but leave the ginger as ginger ;-;
I understand and sympathize with your ginger argument but honestly I really liked the Little Mermaid live action. It's the only one of those that hadn't made me cringe.
I really liked the Little Mermaid live action
Really? Nice to hear someone liked it! Till now I only heard negative things about it - about plot, character, etc. Never heard anyone complain about skin colour, only people complaining about other people complaining.
if white is being used this generically then romani should be listed as white and arab should be middle eastern and tibetan asian if not lumping both as asian.
Romani are actually a group of Indians who traveled up to Europe I believe over 1000 years ago, according to recent dna testing. The history of why the group migrated is lost to time. After so many generations a few white people got in there certainly, but originally people thought they were egyptian.
Even after the white washing debate we got the biggest white wash ever. The Indian ruler of Asia Khan noonien Singh, played by the whitest man in existence. Benedict Cumberbatch.
I feel like that was more a failure of shoe-horning in a reference to the original Star Trek II rather than a casting failure.
Take out the Kahn stuff and keep the same plot and it would be much better.
For sure. Cumberbatch is an amazing villain but having khan in this movie made no sense at all
Valid point. Although I bet there would have been some outcry if they had cast anyone without red hair TBH. Some people are just obsessed with red hair.
But there would definitely have been less outrage if they casted a blond white lady instead of a black lady. Still relevant point.
Did anyone actually care about the casting?
I thought the movie was just bad.Yes. A shit ton of conservatives.
Don't forget Snow White who looks like a white person but is mixed-race white and Latina, so she isn't white enough to play Snow White.
And also don't forget the very light-skinned black woman who couldn't play Cleopatra because Cleopatra wasn't black. (How do we know? We don't? Cool. Cool cool cool.)
And also don't forget the very light-skinned black woman who couldn't play Cleopatra because Cleopatra wasn't black. (How do we know? We don't? Cool. Cool cool cool.)
What's known of her ancestry is mostly Macedonia Greek with some Persian and Sogdian Iranian descent. What's left would probably either have been more of the same or north African, which still isn't black. Her coinage (which she would have approved her depiction on) and her busts that are considered most likely to be accurate (because they agree with the coinage) depict her as Greek, so she at least primarily thought of herself as a Greek.
A very light skinned black woman is about the darkest she hypothetically might have been based on what we know of her lineage. Something closer to half Greek and half Arab is probably closer.
"latina/o" is not a race aso yeah, that doesn't make sense.
There's no race in current humanity, it's a cultual thing with no scientific backing so you can make whatever you want like the USA administration did for their convenience.
I think a lot of la Raza would disagree with you there.
The problem is that it's commercial driven. They want the big stars who just happen to be white. But then want to sell inclusivity for profit that lead to questionable creative decisions.
The rage is misdirected but not wrong. Representation is important but is being exploited by soulless corporate robots.
But one of the points is those big stars don’t just happen to be white. Throughout the years, a variety of conditions made it more likely that big stars would be white. Continuing to cast them for their star power instead of fitness for source, is pretty much the definition of “systemic racism”
Yeah the "happen to be" was meant to be slightly sarcastic. The only answer is to make conscious and smart decisions to be more inclusive and representative instead of profit motive. Unfortunately there seems a lot of pushback with hatewagons that will make producers more conservative.
My problem is her eyes not sharing the same postal code.
I mean tbf, all of the above have people enraged and people who dgaf, it's just those flip flop depending. I'm sure there's no shortage of people here, in this very thread, that aren't cool with say Native Americans being played by white people, or that Scarlet Johansen played that one lady from GITS (can't remember her name, never really got into that series, but she's supposed to be Asian.) Understandably so, really, but still.
I take it a step further personally, stop remaking anything and if you adapt say a comic or book, stick as close as humanly possible to the source material. Race/genderswapping and reboots for a moneygrab is cool or whatever but can we have good original stories again please?
My issue with Scarlet funnily enough is that she's Scarlet. She's too big of a star to really meld into the majors role. I just felt like I was watching black widow on screen. Sorta spoilers for anyone who cares but
Tap for spoiler
the majors body is full on robot so technically she could be any nationality and color but it would have fit better if they picked someone who fit her original motif since it sorta matters. With the whole, ghost in the machine thing. I'm a huge fan of the franchise and I'm sad that this was the big live action debut.
I can get behind that too, but I was referring to the backlash at the time it was released, it was all "cast people of that race to play a character of that race because inclusion is good." Iirc there was one around the same time that played a trans person but wasn't a trans person who received backlash too.
It's honestly really gross how the U.S. film industry works. There's a widely held belief that you basically have to have a white lead character in most films for it to be successful. Look at marvel, just as an example. Every single main character was a white man or woman. Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, etc. All white people. Black Panther was the exception, not that he was even really part of the avengers officially. He wasn't really in their crew at their headquarters. But even the person who played vision, which was heavily dawdled in makeup... White person. That role could have been anyone! The dude looks like an alien, why did it have to be a white guy? Now look at Star Wars, another extremely popular franchise. Every single lead character is white without fail. Luke Skywalker, Anakin, the emperor, Leia, Han Solo, Kylo Ren, you name it, they are white. Mace Windu was the exception, and they just killed him off needlessly Like he was some inconsequential character even though he was literally the most important person in the entire Jedi order. Then Star Wars The Old Republic launched a video game and guess who is the leader of the Republic now? White woman.
Mace Windu getting killed was the turning point and point of no return for the three film character arc of Anakin Skywalker. That's a long way from "needlessly". Sure the character didn't have to be killed, but the impact of him being betrayed and killed was enormous. The plot of the third film (and the entire prequel trilogy) culminated with his death scene.
To be fair in star wars, it's one big unhappy family.
I'm pretty sure the Supreme Chancellor in SWTOR is a green woman after the white guy preceding her was offed.
The other side has a white woman queen, but to be fair, they are racists.
That said, I would agree white people are overrepresented among humans in SWTOR.
How was Highlander not included?
Spanish and Scottish accents are basically identical.
Leeroooooooooy Jenkins
I mean, I'm kinda on their side with this. They majorly changed an iconic character who had a distinct appearance. Ariel is pretty much an icon of the 80's kids back before the internet, so the public zeitgeist was a lot more common and shared, rather than fractured with a girth of media options like it is now. Everyone knew and had an image in their head of Ariel.
Normies don't know who tilde Swinton's character in dr strange is, especially before but even after the movies.
To point out such things online is racist, or being a weirdo who's mad about a kids show. Yet here we all are, posting about it again.
Don't forget Alec Guinness playing an Arab in Lawrence of Arabia.
A lot of people will tend to mention John Wayne playing Genghis Khan or Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese man in Breakfast at Tiffany's but will skip over other examples.
Is Johnny depp white?
Yes.
Let's not forget this simple aspect:
Interesting character - Seasoned Actor
Interesting character - Seasoned Actor
Interesting character - Seasoned Actress
Interesting character - Seasoned Actress
Interesting character - Just some Chick
In the end studios want money above anything else. And big names rake in bigger money.
I feel like characterizing Halle Bailey as "just some chick" is disingenuous at best.
...gonna be real honest. Just some chick is actually less of a description than I'd give in this case.
She was in two romantic comedies, I guess? A lotta Last Holiday fans? She wasn't known for anything beforehand other than one sitcom spinoff, unless she's a pop star or influencer or something, in which case... lol?
This is a common problem when studios want a seasoned non-white actor: they find out they haven't seasoned any. If you fail to cast minority talent in small roles through the years, you end up with only white actors with the chops for big roles.
Wait, are the snowflakes still crying over this years later?
Idk who any of these are except the last one but
In defence of the first they appear to be in make up. If they’re playing a First Nations character that’s fine
Just like the last one would be fine if she was in make up to be white
But I assume the Little Mermaid wasn’t a remake, rather a completely separate story/character so it doesn’t matter
In defence of the first they appear to be in make up. If they’re playing a First Nations character that’s fine
How is it fine? Would it be fine for a white actor in makeup to play a black character?
But I assume the Little Mermaid wasn’t a remake
It was a remake of the Disney animated film that a bunch of people lost their shit over because, as everyone knows, real half-fish daughters of the god of the sea are white.
Would it be fine for a white actor in makeup to play a black character
Yes, black face is its own thing where the representation is offensive. The problem is the portrayal being offensive but acting is acting
It was a remake of the Disney animated film that a bunch of people lost their shit over
Then yeah put the girl in make up if she’s playing a white character. She would have gotten the role for being the best candidate and that would hold true either way
real half-fish daughters of the god of the sea are white.
Disney’s original character was but that doesn’t mean everyone is
- Tonto?
- Raz al goul from Batman Begins. His mentor. No idea the spelling lol.
- The Ancient One from Dr. Strange and a few other MCU films.
- Wanda Maxinof/Scarlet Witch from various MCU media. First appearing in Avengers Age of Ultron.
- Ariel from The Little Mermaid.
Yep, the first one is Johnny Depp as Tonto in a Lone Ranger movie almost no one saw. Me included.
