That looks like a fairly entertaining (cute!) boobie to me.
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One doesn’t watch those films for historical accuracy. It’s for the dance numbers.
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That’s like watching Barbarella for story and plot… It can be done but really it is a movie about sets and costumes.
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Moved to proper thread
Dude!!! Spoiler alert!
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How did I do that? Thought that I was in the fake spoiler thread…
On second thought, you may be right!
Agreed. But we’re “supposed to know better” now, right? What I’m really pissed about is the newer movies, set in the mid east/north Africa THAT ARE FULL OF WHITE PEOPLE!!! Or the movies set in Asian settings THAT ARE FULL OF WHITE PEOPLE… Honestly, I want to have movies, that are set in like Ireland or Germany or whatever, period pieces, that are FULL OF PEOPLE OF COLOR… I’m not being sarcastic here. I actually mean this… a history of the Easter Uprising in Irelend… full of African Americans and Afro-Brits (Idris Elba starring, natch). A movie about Nazis, starring Jackie Chan as Hitler and Michelle Yeoh as what’s her name… Not comedies, but serious dramas. I’d go see these movies in the theater.
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Tangentially related: I watched Mr. Holmes last night, and I am always happy to see older actors in films. But it failed the Bechdel test so hard my ears were ringing. And it didn’t need to!!
The Bechdel test is like the Wilhelm scream, once you know what it is it is everywhere.
Edit
Damn you, lazy morning and wikipedia!
Okay, when I write my book, it is gonna pass the Reverse Finkbeiner test.
(The reverse is at the end)
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Your posts are interesting.
I don’t know about Jackie Chan as Hitler, his heavy accent may be a problem.
One of my next posts will be about how we are all related–literally distant cousins of each other.
The more diversity there is in movies the better-- and the more movies reveal and highlight the beautiful and diverse ethnic cultures on earth, the better.
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Why specifically? I also find films with white people playing POC annoying, but is your idea just pushback on that? It just seems like decontextualisation to me, and replaces a bad justification (white people need to identify with every story by seeing people who look like them) with another (we need to put diversity everywhere, even where it doesn’t fit the story). Or is it that changing the setting highlights more general underlying themes?
Why not Michelle Yeoh as Hitler? Or why not just tell more stories that involve actual Asians, then set Asians in those roles (or better, support international filmmakers and market more diverse stories)?
Well, I think casting POC in roles representing white people can get you some very interesting subtext, but more than that we can change what we consider to be “right” for a role. Actors have differing skill sets and will make differing choices in a role. Idris Elba and Ian McShane are both fantastic actors, but you will get very different performances from them, regardless of the difference in the color of their skin. There are plenty of roles where the best performance available for reading the actual lines of a script would be a POC. We are missing out on the best possible performances a lot of the time.
I think the lack of POC in “white” roles puts the lie to this being the reason white people get cast in roles for POC. It’s going to take a whole lot more Hamiltons before this the “best possible performance” argument works for me when it’s a white person cast As a POC. Hypocritical of me? Maybe. But I’ll live with the hypocrisy.
(And @jsroberts, I don’t think you’re making the argument for paragraph 2 I just wanted to get that in before anybody said I was actually arguing for white people taking POC roles.)
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I think there are certain stories where replacing a canonically white character with a PIC would be a positive step. Shakespeare in a modern seeing should definitely be more diverse. Idris Elba should be James Bond, obviously. Black Annie and Hermione? Great. Retelling the story of the Irish uprising with POC from other countries though? Nooooo. Not unless the whole idea is to decontextualize the story and/or tell a different one. Getting back at other directors for overcasting white people isn’t a good reason to ignore the cultural element of this story, and it would probably flop in any case unless there was some point other than diversity. In any case, my point is that if the only roles we can think of are white ones, that’s the problem. Stop talking about Hitler and explore other cultures and identities and their stories.
As to your second point, white people in non-white roles says more about white people’s instance on being reflected in the protagonist than about the unimportance of the actor’s identity to the story, IMO.
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You can always enjoy Indonesian filmmakers’ portrayals of the Dutch:
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Well, if you’re going to think of the film purely as eye candy, surely Jane Fonda and John Philip Law deserve mention.
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Honestly - because it is pushback. A good story doesn’t need to be told in the race that makes people the most comfortable to be a worthwhile story to read/watch/whatever. Too many white people refuse to climb out of the cultural gutter they live in to see other cultures and ways of thinking about reality (I’m not necessarily talking about you, but about generalities). Race as a social construct has completely and utterly wrecked our heads, and the best way out of that is the find ways to decontextualize what we actually have. The story of the Easter uprising or the rise and fall of the third reich (which were historical events, but become more mythologized the further we move away from them - think about the fact that the people who fought in WW2 are quickly dwindling).
In reality, we’re not going to get more diversity until we have more diversity and hollywood understands that it can sell tickets.
I love this. Let’s make this movie. Michelle Yeoh and Idris Elba for ALL THE ROLES!!!
I’m curious why you think that changing the skin tone of the actors who play Irish republicans changes the story in anyway? It happened nearly 100 years ago, and it can tell us very much about the role that nationalism was playing in anti-colonial movements. I’m not going through texts books replacing Patrick Pearse with Idris Elba - I’m casting an amazing actor for a part. I think maybe some people need to think about how they shrug their shoulders when you have white actors playing Asians, or when black actors are only cast as 'the black friend", but they have a melt down when a black actress is cast to play Hermione (not that you’re doing that, I’m just discussing generalities here).
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Have you heard Hitler? You can’t actually understand what he’s saying half the time? He’s speaking German! (lol! I kid one of the worst mass murders in modern history, I kid) Jackie Chan would be an improvement! 
Seriously, I don’t know what some people’s problems are about these issues. I don’t feel like I need to have all the actors in a movie look like me in order to enjoy it.
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I guess to explain the distinction I’d make, if a school wanted to put on a play about the Easter Rising and refused to give a particular student a part because they were black, I’d consider that ridiculous. You’re interpreting the story for the school and you should use the talent you’ve got.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t cast a black actor in a period piece about Ireland for the same reason that I probably wouldn’t cast Gerard Depardieu as Benjamin Franklin (even though he looks a bit like him and Benjamin Franklin had some connection with France). It’s likely to distract from the story and the French already have a different role in the events, so I’d need a good reason before I’d make that casting. If the Easter Rising were told with black British and US actors, I’d be wondering why Americans need to make every society look like their own.
Where it comes to fictional characters, I’d like to see more black people playing these parts. James Bond is canonically white? Now he’s black. The story doesn’t suffer at all, and fiction has the privilege to be able to challenge assumptions and describe societies that are possible but don’t exist. In historical events, I’d rather tell a story about the many POC who were involved in WWII rather than telling the same story about Hitler again, just with different coloured actors. Whitewashing POC out of the story and acting like colour and gender were irrelevant in those times both seem like poor ways to address this issue to me. I’d much rather tell different stories and retell our current myths more honestly. The Easter Rising and like a prime candidate for this, as it’s often taught with very little nuance.
As for foreign language films or films about other countries, I strongly prefer them to reflect that society and use English subtitles where necessary. Decontextualization can be an interesting strategy though - how about telling the story of the conflict in the Middle East where the west is Russia and Muslims are Evangelical Christians in the US?
ZOMG This is one of the absolutely best ideas I’ve heard in a long time!
The possibilities!
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