Super Social Analysis: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and LGBT in Movies

[Joe]

You make some good points, and that's an interesting article. Stuff to think about. Thanks!

[blixie]

 

Yeah, that was my one real disappointment in a film that I otherwise loved unconditionally.

 

To be fair he did cast Tina Turner, as Auntie Entity and his commentary at the time is that she was at one point a Hero to the people of Bartertown, and he didn't mean for her to be a villain in any traditional sense. Still disappointing especially when you consider he was shooting in Namibia. I'd have killed to see Alek Wek cast and/or Grace Jones cast as one the wives/Vulvalina. I also was surprised that an Aussie movie about kick ass women and no one suggested Claudia Black for any of the roles! WUT?!

[Wiendish Fitch]

From the Dream Costars thread:

 

RAEZEN, ON 19 MAY 2015 - 10:44 PM, SAID:
Bradley Cooper with a 40 year old actress. Any 40 year old actress. *PAUSE* Yeah, like that will ever happen.
No, it actually did. He and Amy Addams had a flirtation/hook-up in American Hustle, when she was 38/39.

He'll also have a former relationship with 36-year old Rachel McAdams, who will undoubtedly give him the blessing to go after the cute and perky Emma Stone, if that counts.

Bradley was actually the boy toy to Christine Lahiti's character on the T.V. series Jack and Bobby about a million years ago.

 

 

 

Older actors/younger actress pairings are nothing new, but comparing how it was done in Old Hollywood as opposed to now, they could pull it off much better then, because people (especially women) matured earlier. Remember, Humphrey Bogart was a whopping quarter of a century older than Lauren Bacall! Hell, she was only 19 when she made To Have and Have Not! But when you watch the movie, it's astonishing how poised she is, she really does seem like a woman with experience. Of course, you could chalk that up to good acting, but I have to credit to the fact that back then, once you were 18, you were a bona fide woman. Today, 18 means "Men can think you're hot and not be called perverts!", but back then? It meant you had to start behaving like an adult, and start preparing yourself for responsibilities like marriage and children. Jane Greer was only 22 when she made Out of the Past, but she is miles ahead of today's twentysomethings (and even thirtysomethings) in terms of womanly grace. For God's sake, I'm 33, and I have resigned myself to the fact that I'll never have that kind of confident maturity or poise. When I watch Bogie and Bacall, or Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in High Noon, or Fred Astaire and Cyd Charrisse in The Band Wagon, I never think of the age difference, because the women in those films are equal to the men in terms of maturity. 

 

Then the youth obsession in the 1960s, the "never trust anyone over 30" bullshit by Timothy Leary (who was way over 30 when he said that, FYI), ruined all that. Suddenly, you had to be an eternal teenager, no matter how old you were. Maturity became an unattractive quality. Then came the man-child craze that became popular comparatively recently, and that's where we are now. That's why big age differences between actors no longer work. No one is particularly mature anymore, adults acting like an adult doesn't appeal to Hollywood's target audience, so when a 40-year-old man is paired a 20-year-old woman, it feels like an icky old pervert getting with an impressionable girl. 

 

Mind you, I think we should move past the whole older actor/younger actress pairing (unless they really are great together, then I might make an exception). Yes, I did hear about the Maggie Gyllenhaal incident, and I find it appalling (but, at the same time, not very surprising).

Edited May 22, 2015 by Wiendish Fitch

[Julia]

To give credit where it's due, the story has been around for years that the studio tried to get Clint Eastwood to choose a younger actress for Bridges of Madison County and he refused, because Meryl Streep was the age of the woman in the book and he was twenty years too old for his part. He's not a favorite of mine, but that rocked.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Julia

[Wiendish Fitch]

To give credit where it's due, the story has been around for years that the studio tried to get Clint Eastwood to choose a younger actress for Bridges of Madison County and he refused, because Meryl Streep was the age of the woman in the book and he was twenty years too old for his part. He's not a favorite of mine, but that rocked.

 

Thanks for that, Julia, and all I can say is, good ol' Clint! 

[methodwriter85]

Petition to Cast to An Asian Mulan Gathers 20K Signatures

 

You would think this wouldn't be needed, but....

 

See, the Disney Channel is actually pretty diverse now....not as diverse as ABC Family, but there is diversity on the network. So I would like to think Disney would know better than to cast a white girl as Mulan, especially given the treatment she got on Once Upon A Time, but still, I don't blame them.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Mind you, I think we should move past the whole older actor/younger actress pairing (unless they really are great together, then I might make an exception). Yes, I did hear about the Maggie Gyllenhaal incident, and I find it appalling (but, at the same time, not very surprising).

 

I don't know anything about a "Maggie Gyllenhaal incident", but I am slightly troubled by the notion that age differences in movies are only creepy-gross-perverted-whatever if the guy is older. Yes, Emma Stone is twenty-six, but Bradley Cooper is only forty. I'm forty five, and if forty is old, then someone should get me a walker and put me in it Sally Field. Beyond that, Lauren Bacall may have been amazingly poised for her age, but Humphrey Bogart was a bad-tempered alcoholic who was quite comfortable having public tantrums. So perhaps that's not really the best example to use, at least not if one cancels out the other as far as maturity goes. :-)

[topanga]

 

Petition to Cast to An Asian Mulan Gathers 20K Signatures

Great article. Thanks for the link.

 

The Mulan petition, posted by Natalie Molnar, argues that whitewashing implies that people of colour “cannot be heroes” and “perpetuates a standard of beauty and goodness wherein whites are considered the ideal and norm”. The practice also damages the confidence of young filmgoers of ethnic minority origin, it argues, and limits opportunities for nonwhite actors.

Hollywood’s history of casting white actors in east Asian roles runs all the way back to 1956 epic The Conqueror, in which John Wayne starred as a suspiciously midwestern-accented Genghis Khan...

 

But the vile comments that followed reminded me how much racism still exists in the US

[ChelseaNH]

I think the creepy/gross/perverted thing is not so much the age difference itself as it is that this age difference is treated as the norm.

[ratgirlagogo]

 

And then there's Gone Girl, where Ben Affleck's character has an affair and ends up basically facing a life sentence with his psychotic wife serving as his warden who did and will fuck up his life without a qualm if he doesn't do exactly as she says.

I hope it's not considered a spoiler that this is also (basically)  the ending of Ethan Frome.

 

The movies have ALWAYS, right from the very beginning, been more youth -oriented than the stage.  Those harsh lights, those super-tight close-ups projected onto a big screen.  To quote Lillian Gish:

 

"Lionel Barrymore first played my grandfather, later my father, and finally, he played my husband. If he'd lived, I'm sure I'd have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older."

 

And that's from Lillian fucking Gish!!  As Bette Davis said on the set of The Whales of August, that bitch INVENTED close-ups.

Edited May 23, 2015 by ratgirlagogo

[Ambrosefolly]

I guess people were really burned that they cast white actors in The Last Airbender movie. To say the least, I was too. When casting things from books, like Harry Potter or Hunger games, they have the actors look as much like the characters as described the books, it is incredibly frustrating that don't cast specifically to what is drawn. 

[raezen]

 

When casting things from books, like Harry Potter or Hunger games,

Harry Potter yes, but The Hunger Games isn't necessarily the best example of this. There is the crazy "Josh H is too short" complaint  that I still hear pop up even when Mockingjay Part 1 was coming out. But what comes out less is that Jennifer Lawrence really doesn't look that much like the Katniss in the book. Too tall and fair. Hailee Steinfeld, Grace Chloe Moretz and Isabelle Fuhrman look closer to what I imagine reading the book, all auditioned but were considered too young. Along with that several characters races were changed from the book like Cinna and Beetee. They weren't specifically said to be one race or the other but the descriptions of one or both had straight hair, which did make me picture either Lenny Kravitz or Jeffrey Wright but both are fabulous in their roles.

[JBC344]

I don't know anything about a "Maggie Gyllenhaal incident", but I am slightly troubled by the notion that age differences in movies are only creepy-gross-perverted-whatever if the guy is older. Yes, Emma Stone is twenty-six, but Bradley Cooper is only forty. I'm forty five, and if forty is old, then someone should get me a walker and put me in it Sally Field. Beyond that, Lauren Bacall may have been amazingly poised for her age, but Humphrey Bogart was a bad-tempered alcoholic who was quite comfortable having public tantrums. So perhaps that's not really the best example to use, at least not if one cancels out the other as far as maturity goes. :-)

Maggie Gyllenhaal, the actress recently revealed that she was told that at 37 she was to old to play the wife of a potential co-star.  The actor in question is in his 50's.

[methodwriter85]

Again, I sooooo think it's Tom Cruise. He's the right age and he also seems to like surrounding himself with younger women to seem young.

[Rick Kitchen]

Michael B. Jordan addresses the racist comments concerning his being cast as Johnny Storm in the new Fantastic Four movie.

 

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/22/michael-b-jordan-fantastic-four-race

[KatWay]

 

but I am slightly troubled by the notion that age differences in movies are only creepy-gross-perverted-whatever if the guy is older. Yes, Emma Stone is twenty-six, but Bradley Cooper is only forty.

The problem isn't that couple with huge age differences are necessarily creepy, but that this is presented as THE NORM in Hollywood movies. To the point it's considered a good step in the right direction, if the actress playing the love interest is only five to ten years younger than the male lead. The other way around is much rarer. That also means actresses from 35 onwards are told they are "too old" to play the love interest of the male co-star - even if that male co-star is in his FIFTIES.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

The problem isn't that couple with huge age differences are necessarily creepy, but that this is presented as THE NORM in Hollywood movies.

 

Wiendish Fitch said:

 

Today, 18 means "Men can think you're hot and not be called perverts!"

 

Is that the standards that extends to movies, with Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone (or Jennifer Lawrence, who turns 25 in August, for that matter) as the example, that if his character thinks they're "hot" despite the age difference he should be considered fairly close to creepy? I mean, I'm seriously asking, and if Cooper was, say, Jack Nicholson's age, I'd probably reconsider, but he isn't. Hell, Leonardo DiCaprio seems to be morphing a little bit more into Nicholson every time I turn around, and he's not even forty-one yet.

 

If it was older women and younger men, like Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman (27 and 47 respectively) in The Paperboy, is that one of those steps in the right direction? That Kidman;s character only has eyes for the more age-appropriate John Cusack isn't the point, and The Paperboy isn't the best movie ever,  If there's a cutoff point once they hit their forties where women aren't considered sexy anymore, is it the same for guys, and if so, isn't that part of the ageism that's the problem in the first place?

[blixie]

 

but that this is presented as THE NORM in Hollywood movies.

 

I have to say I think Tom Hanks for most of his career has almost always been cast with women of the same generation as himself (and when he was younger older an older woman in Sally Field), his romantic leads are younger but not multiple decades younger, and once he was in his 50's none of his romantic costars have been under 40. He was paired with really young co stars in those terrible Dan Brown movies but I don't think either contained romantic subplots between himself/costars.  

 

Okay as sympathetic as I am to the ageism in Hollywood especially with the Rebel Wilson news and Maggie Gyllenhaal news happening with days of each other, I still can NOT believe that CZJ thinks anyone buys her stated age as being two years YOUNGER than Julia Roberts. Oh honey NO.

[Luckylyn]

Kevin Costner's love interests have been at or close to his age mostly.   The only time I remember a major age difference was in Draft Day.  I remember he said that they wanted a younger actress for Dancing with Wolves and how he fought against that.   So Hollywood might push the older man younger woman thing but an actor with clout could resist if he wanted to.   I know Cary Grant could be resistant to having love interests he felt were too young even though he dated younger women in his personal life.

Edited May 24, 2015 by Luckylyn

[raezen]

To me the issue is not that "Bradley Cooper is 35-40 so, ick," the issue is that this only seems to happen with the men being older and the women younger, so when did 35-40 year old women become ick? And when it does happen on film, it's an issue, it's labeled. You are a cougar. What are the men? 

Along with that, the age was changed for JL character in Silver Linings Playbook,(which eliminated the 10yrs to her marriage that she was mourning) but this would never have been considered, in my mind, for BC's character because too much about what made his character, his experience and maturity before his breakdown, would have to be rewritten. It would be a different character. This happens all the time for the female characters though. So, in my mind, either the female characters story doesn`t really serve more of a purpose then 'love interest' therefore details about them don't matter, or (and this one really disturbs me) that the writers, directors, producers don`t expect that the difference of time would change enough about a woman`s life to really alter her character enough. This bothers me more because it shows a real lack of expectations for a woman`s future. No real accomplishments professionally that would change your confidence, maturity or standing with others. In a sense, it feels like men are characters that experience change and growth, but the women are just bodies that age.

Edited May 25, 2015 by raezen

[JBC344]

I have to say I think Tom Hanks for most of his career has almost always been cast with women of the same generation as himself (and when he was younger older an older woman in Sally Field), his romantic leads are younger but not multiple decades younger, and once he was in his 50's none of his romantic costars have been under 40. He was paired with really young co stars in those terrible Dan Brown movies but I don't think either contained romantic subplots between himself/costars.  

 

Okay as sympathetic as I am to the ageism in Hollywood especially with the Rebel Wilson news and Maggie Gyllenhaal news happening with days of each other, I still can NOT believe that CZJ thinks anyone buys her stated age as being two years YOUNGER than Julia Roberts. Oh honey NO.

I agree with the Tom Hanks comments but what is funny is that Sally Field has been used as the prime example for the opposition.  The fact that she played Tom's love interest in "Punchline" (?), and then a few years later played his mother in Forest Gump.  Hell, even Amy Schumer used Field as a reference point in her famous skit on when Hollywood labels you too old and non desirable.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPpsI8mWKmg

[JBC344]

Michael B. Jordan addresses the racist comments concerning his being cast as Johnny Storm in the new Fantastic Four movie.

 

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/22/michael-b-jordan-fantastic-four-race

Part of me actually wishes that they didn't mention adoption, and just left it that they were still siblings in this version.  I guess I have always had a chip on my shoulder with the constant need to always explain any kind of interracial relationship. 

 

I guess what is the most disturbing to me has been the ideal that you can allow your imagination or suspension of disbelief enough to believe in these fantastical worlds but it is ultimately the use of "race" that still seems to baffle people. 

[Cobalt Stargazer]

I agree with the Tom Hanks comments but what is funny is that Sally Field has been used as the prime example for the opposition.  The fact that she played Tom's love interest in "Punchline" (?), and then a few years later played his mother in Forest Gump.  Hell, even Amy Schumer used Field as a reference point in her famous skit on when Hollywood labels you too old and non desirable)

 

On a similar note, Glenn Close was thirty-five when she played Robin Williams' mother in The World According To Garp, and Williams was only four years younger than she was at thirty-one. Five years later, she played Michael Douglas' stalking squeeze in Fatal Attraction, and Douglas was 43 to her 40. So has the older man/younger woman thing always been the norm when it comes to romantic relationships?

[Rick Kitchen]

Eileen Herlie was eleven years younger than Laurence Olivier when she played his mother in Hamlet.

[Julia]

Eileen Herlie was eleven years younger than Laurence Olivier when she played his mother in Hamlet.

 

Hully gee whiz.

 

How did I not know that Myrtle Fargate was Laurence Olivier's Gertrude? 

[topanga]

 

Along with that several characters races were changed from the book like Cinna and Beetee. They weren't specifically said to be one race or the other but the descriptions of one or both had straight hair, which did make me picture either Lenny Kravitz or Jeffrey Wright but both are fabulous in their roles.

But people also got upset that Rue was black in the movie--although she was just as black in the book.

[raezen]

 

But people also got upset that Rue was black in the movie--although she was just as black in the book.

People are weird. That's the only thing I can really think of to respond to that.

[Joe]

Back on Max, Anita Sarkeesian discusses Fury Road. She makes some interesting points. The three that really stand out to me are
   

Fury Road is different from many action films in that it lets some women participate as equal partners in a cinematic orgy of male violence.

    Feminism doesn't simply mean women getting to partake in typical badass "guy stuff". Feminism is about redefining our social value system.

    Sometimes violence may be necessary for liberation from oppression, but it's always tragic. Fury Road frames it as totally fun and awesome.

I completely see her point here, and yet I love the movie. I'll see it a third time, I'll love it then too. Does that make me a hypocrite? I approach these things as women are awesome, action is fun. Action starring women is awesome fun. While I don't support it in real life, I like action and fights and violence when it's either fictional or consentual. See women's MMA.

[Janet Snakehole]

I haven't seen Mad Max yet (want to though!) and have mixed feelings about what Anita is saying. Ideally, yes, to me a feminist sci fi/future world would not consist of women having to escape sexual victimization. To me, that is an overdone trope and it would be nice to see some imagination used by filmmakers who create new worlds and see something different from a patriarchal society. And I am with her on not needing to see women take over stereotypical "badass cool guys don't look at explosions" male action archetypes, because well, that doesn't really seem to be a realistic characterization for either sex. We have seen women doing that already too in a lot of action movies, and it would be nice to see something different.

However, it sounds to me from reviews the movie is a lot more than that, and the characterization of the wives shows women who are not just emotionless badasses. It doesn't sound like Furiosa has that characterization either. Furthermore, any characterization of a women in an action movie beyond damsel in distress is a good thing. From what I hear, the movie passes the Bechdel test, and while that is not a perfect test, that is unusual for an action movie. And to be honest, I am uncomfortable with anyone saying something is blakently not feminist. My perfect feminist movie is different from Anita's probably, and her's is different than yours. There is nothing wrong with variations in ideals.

Anyway, that is a lot of thoughts on a movie I haven't seen.

[blixie]

 

the characterization of the wives shows women who are not just emotionless badasses.

Sarkeesian made similar dismissive criticisms about Hailee Steinfeld's Mattie Ross in True Grit (that she was NOT a feminist heroine), which I think was a willful misread of the character of Mattie, the performance by Steinfeld(that she wasn't characterized by her emotions, but "male" Revenge), and the overarching themes and message of the Coen's version of the story to fit her arguments then, and is similarly willfully misreading Fury Road now. And it's the same freaking argument,t what I find to be a fairly sexist assertion about gender essentialism, aka womanist/feminist texts can't be violent or they are re-enacting patricarchy because violence is inherently and essentially male? Ironically my criticism of Mad Max is exactly THAT that it agrees with Sarkeesian gender essentialism (women grown things, and give life, and have emotions, men kill things, destroy life, and lack emotion).

 

The triumph of Mad Max is the way it shows female tools of resistance as being cooperation and compassion, as well as several different tones of what a female "hero" looks like, sometimes it looks like gender queer disabled badass, sometimes it looks like pregnant model, sometimes it looks like fat ladies, or old ladies on motor bikes, sometimes it uses a gun and a rig, some times it uses seeds/water/milk.

 

While Immortan Joe and his cronies are caricatures of misogyny, certainly Nux and Max or really important portrayals of the way men have to make a choice about participating in or deconstructing their patriarchal power.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

While Immortan Joe and his cronies are caricatures of misogyny, certainly Nux and Max or really important portrayals of the way men have to make a choice about participating in or deconstructing their patriarchal power.

 

Particularly Nux, since

he ends up sacrificing his life to ensure that the women get away, and I like to think that he actually did end up in Valhalla because of it instead of because of Immortan Joe's blathering bullshit

.

 

I'm never quite sure what to think of the Bechdel Test, and I've been told that I'm missing the point and that it isn't as stringent as I think it is. With that said, I think in this one case passing it should be relatively easy, and it is perhaps worth noting that most mentions of men in the movie are negative, even Max, since he's initially the wild card that Furiosa doesn't know if she can trust. And Nux's status as a War Boy works against him too, as he's a cog in Immortan Joe's machine. He's not just a man, he's a man who represents the women's captor.

 

Do Nux and Max "reject" patriarchy? I don't know if its that simple. In some ways, Max represents another male stereotype, the strong-but-troubled loner who wanders because he has no home to go to anymore, and while Nux does a turnaround,

he doesn't get to live so that he can see the world he ends up wanting the women to have

.

[Janet Snakehole]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/28/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-cameron-crowe-s-aloha-a-hawaii-set-film-starring-asian-emma-stone.html

Emma Stone is playing a part Hawaiian, part Chinese woman named Allison Ng.

Obviously there was no one else available to play that role.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Janet Snakehole

[Trini]

Wow; I was looking at some recent photos of Emma Stone the the other day, and was thinking to myself that she's one of those perma-pale people that can never tan.

[cynic]

It's bad enough that they cast Emma Stone as half-Hawaiian/Chinese, but apparently they didn't even include hardly any Asians or Pacific Islanders in the supporting cast. Considering Hawaii is majority Asian/PI, that's just awful. And yet Cameron Crowe had the nerve to say that the movie celebrates the Hawaiian culture. SMDH

[Rick Kitchen]

Well, Bumpy Kanahele, who is the President of the Sovereign Nation of Hawaii, is in it, playing himself, so I guess he's happy with the Hawaiian culture representation.

[ribboninthesky1]

Was Bumpy paid for his appearance? It's possible he doesn't give a damn. I think this quote says it all:

 

 

A scathing statement issued by the Media Action Network for Asian Americans fired the first shot. “60% of Hawaii’s population is [Asian American Pacific Islanders]. Caucasians only make up 30 percent of the population [of Hawaii], but from watching this film, you’d think they made up 99 percent,” said MANAA President Guy Aoki. “This comes in a long line of films—The Descendants, 50 First Dates, Blue Crush, Pearl Harbor—that uses Hawaii for its exotic backdrop but goes out of its way to exclude the very people who live there. It’s an insult to the diverse culture and fabric of Hawaii.”

 

Also, I shouldn't have read the comments.  

[Raja]

It's bad enough that they cast Emma Stone as half-Hawaiian/Chinese, but apparently they didn't even include hardly any Asians or Pacific Islanders in the supporting cast. Considering Hawaii is majority Asian/PI, that's just awful. And yet Cameron Crowe had the nerve to say that the movie celebrates the Hawaiian culture. SMDH

That's odd since she, Emma Stone seems to be playing a USAF Captain in the movie thus the character least necessary to show a local Hawaiian flavoring

[cynic]

The impression I get is that Stone's character enlightens Cooper's character through her deep connection to her Hawaiian heritage and it's through her that he learns more about Hawaii and himself or some such BS. Apparently Crowe really wanted the character to have deep cultural ties to the island...well, without actually having to cast a Hawaiian actress apparently. That's just a bridge too far!

As for Bumpy, isn't he just an activist that started that sovereign Hawaii group? And while he's probably the most recognized and has accomplished quite a bit with his group, he's just one of many activists working towards different visions of the future of Hawaii. When he's referred to as the President of the Sovereign Nation of Hawaii, it makes it sound like he's got the mandate of the people and actually holds a real position of power. And the cynic in me suspects that is why he would be in a movie like this. If the movie treats him as the defacto leader of Hawaiians, it lends him legitimacy if such a position ever came into being, since people who don't know any better would think that's what he actually already was, since it said so in that movie I watched that one time. Also, as Ribbon mentioned, he got paid. Good for Bumpy, I guess, but it doesn't change my opinion that hiring a white actress and then making her mixed solely so the movie can mine the local heritage to further the white male lead's story is crappy.

It's like when someone tells an offensive joke and then excuses it with, "but my black/gay/disabled friend says it doesn't offend him, so it's okay!" Also, self-appointed activists who claim to speak for everyone annoy me. It's great that they are working for change, but I don't have to agree with them, even if I am in their demographic.

Edited May 30, 2015 by cynic

[Luckylyn]

White Man Saves the World Again: The Problems with "Aloha"

[Janet Snakehole]

And not to beat a dead horse, but it is not exactly like the military is an organization devoid of people of color.

[xaxat]

The impression I get is that Stone's character enlightens Cooper's character through her deep connection to her Hawaiian heritage and it's through her that he learns more about Hawaii and himself or some such BS. Apparently Crowe really wanted the character to have deep cultural ties to the island...well, without actually having to cast a Hawaiian actress apparently. That's just a bridge too far!

 

So Hawaiians can't even be cast for Magical Hawaiian roles?

[methodwriter85]

So Hawaiians can't even be cast for Magical Hawaiian roles?

 

Well, Norah in Warm Bodies was whitewashed despite being the sassy black friend in the book, so...

 

There's a DAMN good reason why people are being wary about a live-action Mulan actually having an Asian protagonist.

Edited June 6, 2015 by methodwriter85

[raezen]

 

Well, Norah in Warm Bodies was whitewashed despite being the sassy black friend in the book, so...

While I don't applaud whitewashing, are people upset about the loss of 'the sassy black friend' trope being used again in a film? Because the issue of race in film isn't just a numbers issue.

[xaxat]

Oh dear. Another "White people go to "exotic" land and die in or overcome overwhelming danger" movie that apparently ignores the POC of that country that also died in or overcame overwhelming danger. 

 

 

It's especially egregious in this case since climbing Everest is possible only because of the efforts of the Sherpas.

Edited June 11, 2015 by xaxat

[ChelseaNH]

Nobody ever thinks of the sherpas.

[proserpina65]

Having read Into Thin Air, I can say that it is mostly about the mostly white climbers on those expeditions, although there were a couple of sherpas on both the Mountain Madness and the Adventure Consultants teams who figured prominently in the events of that climb.  So, since the movie is based primarily on Krakauer's book, the minimal presence of sherpas isn't entirely unexpected.

 

However, with very few exceptions, the casting for the movie isn't particularly impressive.  I saw the tv movie, and while I had a lot of problems with it, I think the casting for it was absolutely perfect.  Still not much attention to the sherpas, though, if I remember correctly.

Edited June 12, 2015 by proserpina65

[xaxat]

From the Onion.

 

Comic Book Fans Adamant That Human Torch Be Played By Actor Whose Body Actually Engulfed In Flames

[Cobalt Stargazer]

From the Onion.

 

Comic Book Fans Adamant That Human Torch Be Played By Actor Whose Body Actually Engulfed In Flames

 

First of all, heh.

 

Secondly, because its related, when Eddie Redmayne was cast in The Danish Girl, which is now is post-production, transgendered people were angry because Redmayne is 'cisgender', a word I'm not overly familiar with. This despite the fact that Redmayne also doesn't have ALS, even though he portrayed Stephen Hawking, another real person, in The Theory of Everything and won an Oscar for it.

 

Now, obviously The Human Torch is a comic book character, and so they should be able to cast whoever they like. I remember Michael B. Jordan from [Friday Night Lights, and he's a good actor. But to give the purists their due, Chris Evans portrayed the character in 2005 and 2007. Is it really prejudice if they protest Jordan's casting, which I don't know if they have, or is it just wanting the people BTS to stick to the source material? Given that I don't recall any outcry over Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall, I doubt there's going to be that much noise over this either.

[Joe]

 

I don't recall any outcry over Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall, I doubt there's going to be that much noise over this either.

There was some, I remember. It came from Heimdall being a particularly white god in the mythology. Of course, there are also people who want everything to be exactly how the original material has it, and don't like change.

[JBC344]

 

First of all, heh.

 

Secondly, because its related, when Eddie Redmayne was cast in The Danish Girl, which is now is post-production, transgendered people were angry because Redmayne is 'cisgender', a word I'm not overly familiar with. This despite the fact that Redmayne also doesn't have ALS, even though he portrayed Stephen Hawking, another real person, in The Theory of Everything and won an Oscar for it.

 

Now, obviously The Human Torch is a comic book character, and so they should be able to cast whoever they like. I remember Michael B. Jordan from [Friday Night Lights, and he's a good actor. But to give the purists their due, Chris Evans portrayed the character in 2005 and 2007. Is it really prejudice if they protest Jordan's casting, which I don't know if they have, or is it just wanting the people BTS to stick to the source material? Given that I don't recall any outcry over Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall, I doubt there's going to be that much noise over this either.

Oh they definitely have protested Jordan's casting.  I'm assuming you haven't seen those racist viewpoints spread around.  Jordan himself made a public statement about it, and the director has made statements defending his decision.

 

The problem with the whole "source material" debate is that if said "source material" is from an era where "people of color" weren't written/celebrated/acknowledged than how can you realistically ever have POC characters?  Hell if we used old history books as "source material" all we would know about Black people is that we picked cotton.

 

I've never had an issue with changing a character if said character's "race/gender/sexuality" isn't a specific character trait, in order to promote more diversity in our entertainment.  Hell, people went absolutely nuts when a lot of people (myself included) petitioned for Donald Glover to be considered for the Spiderman reboot (the Andrew Garfield one).  Even though Peter Parker being white is not something that is intrinsic to the character.  The only qualification is that he is nerdy.

 

Then you have a case like X-Men which is based on the civil rights movement, with Professor X and Magneto being based on MLK and Malcolm X.  Can you imagine the outcry if Black actors had been cast for those roles despite the fact that the characters that inspire so much love and devotion are based on Black men to begin with?

 

I've said this before and I continue to make this point that when it comes to imagination and letting go.  Some people can go their and enjoy these fantastical elements (dragons, wizards, superheroes) but the one thing that keeps pulling them out is race.  Really?  You can believe enough in this world that a man with powers can become a literal flame but the fact that he is played by a black man is what you can't believe?