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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
So what is white if Romani isn’t? I really do not understand the American concept of race, for me they are all humans.
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.
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.
Hating Romani is more a European thing.
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.
“Not white enough” would be my guess.
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.
Well, the Ariel thing is basically the same kind of ‘rewrite’.
Also Ariel isn’t even “white”… she’s a mermaid
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.
Sprinkle in a little incest and we are good to go.
I also have no idea, I thought it was all halves of halves.
You can get some odd fractions by two parents having similar lineages. Like, if your mother is Irish, and your great-grandmother on your father’s side is Irish, you would be five-eighths Irish. I’m having trouble finding a combination that gives you thirds, though.
Doesn’t exist, 3 is prime. No combination of 2^-n will get you a 3 in the denominator.
…unless somewhere along the tree there’s a person who shows up twice.
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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.
Meanwhile middle age fantasy had black knights and it was fine.
Racists are gonna be racists is all there is.
You can call me racist
As tone deaf as it gets.
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.
The Witcher isn’t in Medieval Poland though, it’s in a fantasy land.
So by that logic it’s fine to make Wakanda full of white people because it’s fantasy land right?
I mean yeah. If the writers wanted to make Wakanda have white people, that would be fine.
Wakkkanda it is.
Sure it would, if the writers had written it that way. South Africa is full of white people, it might have even made sense.
But since they didn’t do that, and then wrote their entire storyline around having not done that, this is a poor argument.
Wakanda is supposed to be in Africa, where Uganda is irl.
It’d be as bad as having people of color play Hamilton and associates!
“Here are three examples I made up to prove how not racist I am!”
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.
Getting mad sure, but it is definitely a dumb creative decision to have characters be random races that don’t make sense in the historical context and it’s fine to criticize it. If it’s a purely fictional world with no basis in reality then no one should care.
No. Fuckin stop it. Its unbearably stupid.
Historical fiction has existed for a long time.
Y’all ain’t out here throwing a pouty parade when someone adds technology or magic or monsters into historical fiction.
But black people? Existing? If that’s where you draw the line, it’s really clear why. Make all the excuses you want.
Historical or alternate history fiction falls under pure fiction imo. That’s fine as long as it makes sense. If it’s meant to be some super grounded realistic historical slice-of-life then it would just make me think “when are they going to bring up the fact that there’s X type of person walking around here” for the whole story.
Not exclusive to black people. If there were a story that took place in 12th century Mongolia and there was some Nordic guy walking around I would be like “huh, what’s his story” and then be confused when it was never mentioned. That’s how I feel about a lot of these creative choices.
That’s literally just a longer way of saying that it’s okay if it’s magic but it’s not okay if it’s black people.
& yeah, I’ll hold my breath for people getting equally upset about white people in fiction. Any day now. I’m sure.
I can’t disapprove a hypothetical, I guess, but a hypothetical isn’t proof of anything either.
But magic doesn’t have any grounding or association with the world as we know it. Neither does aliens. We can only use the world as we know it as a frame of reference for a story.
I’d argue in lbaudia’s example that it is confusing if in 12th century Mongolia, there was some Nordic guy walking around. I’d imagine there to be a backstory of some kind. If there wasn’t, then that would definitely be an example where I’d be annoyed at white people in fiction.
I thought a great example of casting was the TV show “The Expanse”. To be able to cast someone as specific as Bobbie Draper so well - these studios have no excuse to whitewash as they do except laziness.
People made these exact same arguments about the inclusion of a black samurai in an Assassin’s Creed game.
A black samurai who was based on a real person who actually existed in history.
The game they’re playing is very obvious to anyone who’s actually paying an ounce of attention, and it has nothing to do with caring about historical accuracy.
It’s bullshit. It’s an excuse. It’s foolish. I do not suffer it gladly.
Oh the sweet voice of a reason, they don’t take well to that around here. Good on you.
How was Highlander not included?
Spanish and Scottish accents are basically identical.
My problem is her eyes not sharing the same postal code.
Like Anya Taylor-Joy
I swear Hollywood has an addiction to those big eyed weirdos because they are a kinda pretty that isn’t exactly normal pretty and it makes you remember their face for triggering your uncanny valley reflex.
if you’re making fun of her looks, I’d like to see the women you pull.
ones with eyes where you can’t project a film between.
pics or you’re a eunuch living in a relatives basement.
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
Eh, they weren’t happy about it but were caught between a rock and a hard place, I can sympathise.
More like a revenue loss and a bigger revenue loss place.
The people who made the casting choice were told by Disney they couldn’t cast either, it was that or get replaced by someone else who would play ball.
It’s ridiculous to expect them to remove themselves from a multimillion dollar project that would get done anyway with or without them.
Earning less money is haaaaaaard
The entire point of making a movie, yep.
Because there’s not enough diversity in marvel, nope
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?
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.
Her ethnicity should be Innsmouth.
Oddly enough, the Harry Potter franchise handled this well.
Dutch not Danish?
Danish would be my guess
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.)
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Yes. Because the noble lineage was passed through her father. We don’t know who her mother was.
How would cleopatra not be white?
Because we don’t know who her mother was.
But she ruled so it would be presumably nobility and thus not black?
Sorry… what are you talking about?
Well I was going by the logic that illegitimate child wouldn’t tule Egypt, but that may in fact that be the case, but the argument that her mother isn’t known for sure as an argument that she was black is not very strong, when the only depiction of her being black comes from Jada I cheat on my husband then make him talk about it on video Smith
You’re still making no sense.
What does illegitimacy have to do with it?
Why can’t her father have been legitimately married to a dark-skinned woman?
Edit: Wait, you know the Ptolemys, like all pharaohs, had multiple wives, right?
Probably went into it thinking with a too European, bloodline, mindset
There has been unmistakenly black pharaohs, they came from what is now Sudan, but ruled the whole Egypt of the time. I’m not saying Cleopatra is related to them, but black pharaohs did happen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Dynasty_of_Egypt
Yeah I know about them, also there were some pretty powerful rulers and kingdoms in Africa, I don’t have an issue with that, but when Jada Smith makes a “documentary” about how she was black, without scientific consensus then that’s kinda wrong imo, it would actually be cultural appropriation unlike copying some haircut
“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.
You do realize that that is mainly from a USA point of of view and mostly directed towards mexico, right? So this isnt’t only kinda xenophobic but you’re basically telling me I should consider myself a different race because random yankees think I am? Yeah, no thanks. The country you were born in does not determine your race.
you’re basically telling me I should consider myself a different race because random yankees think I am?
Race doesn’t really exist*. No one can tell you you’re a race you don’t think you are
*I mean it exists, but it’s a social construct that only has any meaning because we give it meaning culturally. Any person with a particular racial identity, in a different cultural context, could have a different racial identity. Would have a different racial identity, most likely. But that doesn’t mean the concept is meaningless, just that its meaning is derived from its use, rather than the other way around.
You do know that there is no scientific definition of race, right?
Also, she’s from the U.S., so…
Who is “she”? The acress in the live action mermaid movie? I literally never talked about her, so…
No, the actress in Snow White. The one I called mixed-race. And then you said that she wasn’t mixed-race because Latina isn’t a race. Caught up now?
“You will not replace us!” shouted the white supremacists after centuries of erasing a multitude of other cultures, histories, and societies.
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.
It has always been about power.
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.
