Can I be upset at all of them? The little mermaid should probably be Dutch, 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.
Oddly enough, the Harry Potter franchise handled this well.
I could be convinced that mermaids should have dark backs and light bellies
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.
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
You really don’t understand what blackface is.
I think you’re the confused one
No I’m not. A white actor putting on dark-skinned makeup to play a black person is literally blackface.
I have no idea what you think blackface is, but you’re wrong.
It has to be a racist depiction
If it’s just a black character then it doesn’t matter
It is racist just by virtue of being a white person playing a black person. FFS. Where are you even getting this from?
- 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.
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 entire point of making a movie, yep.
Because there’s not enough diversity in marvel, nope
Earning less money is haaaaaaard
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.
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.
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.
Is Johnny depp white?
Yes.
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.
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She’s great in The Boys too.
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.
True, but it is not done in a very genuine way. Each role had people complaining about the changes, the only real difference is the few times a white character is casted black the movie ends up being bad anyways.
only real difference is the few times a white character is casted black the movie ends up being bad anyways.
Shawshank Redemption. In the source novel, Morgan Freeman’ character was a white irish guy. The reasons nobody complained were probably that a. there was no Xitter when the movie hit theaters and b. nobody knows it’s an adaptation anyway.
Same with Samuel L. Jackson playing Nick Fury or whatever The Boys is doing with characters. When the adaptation is good no one really cares.
I have a feeling Hollywood companies intentionally do this to stir discourse and interest in the film when they know the script is weak. You never hear about these things when the movie is good, only when it’s the Ghostbusters reboot or The Little Mermaid.
Ultimate Nick Fury came first and was openly based on SLJ, so people actually liked it.
I’ll say that when people notice the white character is recasted as black, it generally means the source material was absurdly popular and any follow up is likely to be pretty meh. The live action disney adaptations. of their biggest animated properties have been generally bad.
Rinse and repeat for almost any reboot/remake of some iconic movie or show. The chances of getting it at least as right the second time around are slim. Even slimmer than bolted on sequels that generally do poorly even with the benefit of the original creative teams at the helm.
They could have preserved the race of every character and it still would have sucked.
You’re probably correct, however I believe Disney and everyone else knows this and are choosing to cast black actors in order to claim the movie failed due to racism and not a weak script.
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?
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 don’t think I can identify a Romani phenotype. Which just goes to show how little representation they get on mass media.
I thought they were just slavicish. I know Romanian is different but the archetypical gypsy in my mind is a black haired slavic woman.
that’s a self-reinforcing problem
I suppose, then again it appears the main reason race was changed is to increase star power in a prominent role. Which is not the case in The Little Mermaid, as Halle Bailey is not a star. Doesn’t matter much now since the movie is bad.
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They could’ve still got someone vaguely Asian.
No I think people would have been more angry if they got someone Asian but not Tibetan to play the character. Changing an Asian Male character to a White Woman makes it more obvious and direct.
I don’t think anyone had an issue with Benedict Wong as one of the head monks so I think your theory is bad.
Supporting character
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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.
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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.
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
“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
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.
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).
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).
Megyn Kelly said that stupid shit on TV 10 years ago and she is even more popular today.
TIL; thank you! I was aware enough of the comics to know of white Fury, but didn’t know there is, in fact, a black Fury.
Your boss is an idiot. I’m white as printer paper and would gladly let SLJ play me in a biopic. Because he’s awesome in every role he’s played. Good actors are good actors.
Turns out Jackson is also a master at reading bedtime stories…
Fury was white!? I think it’s one of the perfect castings, along with J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. So good that I wouldn’t be able to read the source material without picturing the actor!
He was (but not always, as I’ve learned). He first appeared in 1963 and had his own comic, Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Fury,_Agent_of_S.H.I.E.L.D.
And yes, agreed on Simmons and Jackman. Also, we obviously can’t forget RDJ as Tony Stark. An actor so perfectly cast, he basically launched the entire MCU. If it had been anyone else in that role, I feel confident in saying that it would’ve fizzled out long before we’d ever get to an Endgame.
Huh. Interesting. And yeah, totally agree about RDJ! Damn, I knew I was forgetting one of the best examples of casting so good they sort of “retro-canonically” re-cast the character in other media…
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.
“Personally, I just want to chalk this up to racism so I can be upset about it”
Name one outrage among conservatives in the US when a white person was cast for a role that was any other ethnicity in the source material. Sure, it happens on the Left, Netflix is especially accused of white washing (recent example: Three Body Problem). But, conservatives don’t give a shit when it happens the other way around.
Regardless, I truly couldn’t give a shit who gets cast for what regardless of source material. If the actor/actress is able to play the part well, I come for entertainment and couldn’t care less.
People made a big deal over Sean Connery in The Highlander, although no one was really offended. It was just another joke
There aren’t many conservatives on Lemmy. Why bother talking about what they think?
The best example I can think of where the race choices really got stupid to the point of offensive was the first “The Last Airbender” movie where the director race swapped the entire fire nation to Indian, made the water nation white when they probably should have been Innuit or something similar, then chose to mispronounce the main characters name to make it sound more ethnic when the source material was in English, so they knew exactly how it should be pronounced.
Then for whatever reason, people got mad that the main character was white when it was the only character animated in such a way they could be white, and the tribe was a nomadic collection of people making it somewhat possible albeit not relevant to the nation theming of the other nations.
Anyways, this triggered my annual Last Airbender rant, so sorry about that.
That poor movie was a travesty on multiple levels. Why Shyamalan was chosen to write/direct that movie, I care not to look up. My off the cuff theory was that he had kids obsessed with the animated show and he wanted to destroy something they loved after they accidentally broke his one and only Golden Globe award.
“Personally, I just want to chalk it up for people being mad for no reason so I can feel safe in my view that racism is over because Barack Obama or something.”
Could this be because people don’t tend to get mad over things they don’t know exist? Naaaaah, must be racism. Anyone who disgagrees that racism is the most likely explanation thinks racism is fake.
What is it with leftists and making mountains out of molehills?
I am a silly little ignorant guy therefore everyone else is a silly little ignorant guy, I am the very model of a modern human.
I’d pull up statistics on movie ticket sales versus comic book sales and point out that the movie outsold the comics by (conservatively) 200 to 1, but there’s no point bringing facts into an argument against a troll.
Most of the media, leading the charge on the outrage, are people who consider themselves fans of the material, and claim they aren’t racist for being upset over the change, just mad that they didn’t respect source. Then you look over their channel and there is not one single video, where they do this, when source material is whitewashed. Even though there is plenty of that, in the stuff they claim they are only upset over, because the source material wasn’t respected.
These are the people who stoke this outrage, they often started as straight fan media, but found out ranting about people of color, and gay people, being in media made a lot more money. Communities centered around the fanbase, for these things, are hotbeds of this behavior. There is no way you can make this argument, about these people. The people introduced to the media, by the movies, get mad because of these people.
I don’t know how you can not know this, and claim enough familiarity with audience statitics to make your argument. So I agree with others saying you are likely going out of your way to make this seem not racist.
Personally, I think you are correct, but the person you replied to might also be correct. One likely amplified the other.
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.
I hate it because it’s disney and we all know that it’s just a braindead money grab virtue signaling and has nothing to do with actual representation or inclusion. Make another Miles Morales, not this.
Only if it turns our he is a distant cause of Black Panther or has ties to so.e super rich people. Disney does not care about the poors.
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