People here often flip-flop to their own perceived convenience whether “race” is predominantly self-constructed or imposed by society. In most discussions, people seem to claim that what race the individual identifies with matters little.
People of the US also frequently demonstrate little affiliation with British, German, etc culture - yet this doesn’t seem to prevent them from being identified as white European descendants anyway. Telling your average English-speaking Merkun that they are English is likely to be contentious. Also, I wasn’t talking about “a tiny percentage”, which sounds more like a casual dismissal of the idea. It’s hypocrisy to say that in traditional oppressive “race theory” that any percentage of black blood makes one black - but that this is somehow not true of Native Americans. This is how they snuck in through the back door, and why whatever “American identity” people think they have is a synthesis of the European and the indigenous - whether they acknowledge it or not.
From what I’ve heard, George Miller IS the money man. That’s why it’s as crazy as it looks.
As an aside, I love directors like Mr. Miller who can direct films like Lorenzo’s Oil, Babe, and Happy Feet, then turn around and make this. Must be a lot of fun.
It’s both. But in terms of things like “racism” and “race representation” it matters a whole heck of a lot whether people self-identify and are identified by others as a member of a particular race.
If an actor was one-sixteenth Cherokee but looked white, self-identified as white, and was completely integrated into white culture then it would be pretty silly to hold them up as an example of Native American representation in Hollywood.
I am totally more excited for Fury Road than I am for The Force Awakens or Age of Ultron or really any other movie coming up this year. The trailers have totally been worth the price of admission, as far as I’m concerned. I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised by The Force Awakens, but I’m carefully managing my expectations for that one. And as for the new Avengers movie, I simply no longer care at all about superhero movies. I’m just utterly tired of them after the last ten years.
But they are also creating the culture they are “integrated” in, people seem to easily forget it’s a fundamentally two-way process. Their own contribution to culture is still native, regardless of whether or not they think of it as such. So calling it “white” is demonstrated as a label which is functionally dissonant from what it supposedly represents. If Merkuns aren’t European, what are they? I recently had an Ecuadoran guy tell me he was “Spanish”, despite obviously having a negligible Spanish component, if any. Did he convince himself more than he convinced me? I don’t know - I didn’t argue, but I did laugh.
I just can’t be bothered. And the Marvel movies have been good, thoroughly entertaining flicks. But the fact remains that they’re about characters about whom I just don’t give a shit what happens to them. I watched three X-Men movies (first, second, and fifth), three Spider-Man movies (first two Raimi ones and the first of the rebooted ones), both Hulks, the first two Iron Man movies, the first Captain America, the first Thor, the first Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy (to say nothing of all seven Batman flicks, three or four Superman movies including the Brandon Routh one but not the Henry Cavill one, the Affleck Daredevil, and both Ghost Riders, god help me), and if I never see another costumed avenger kicking CG ass in spandex again it’ll be too soon. Again, I enjoyed most of those movies, but Jesus H. Christ, I’ve seen something like fourteen MCU movies and skipped a few that I’m sure were just peachy. I just want movies about characters that aren’t superheroes from now on. I’m totally burned out on them.
That’s just what I was told. And I think water, not petrol, is the Macguffin in this one.
And awful as Death Race was, I still enjoyed the hell out of it. These things totally hit my sweet spot. But I have no doubt Fury Road will be a much, much better movie than Death Race. Hell, it already is.
Good G-D, man - that’s like eating the 72 oz steak. No wonder you’re in a bad mood. I think I’ve seen maybe 1/3 of those. The MCU I can take or leave, I don’t care. But Super? That was good.
Not in a row! Jeez, my cloaca’d never recover. No, I saw all those over the last decade, no more than once or twice each (and I haven’t seen the four old Batman movies since their initial release… life was too short, even in my teens).
But that’s kind of my point. Even one or two super-huge superhero movies a year turned out to eventually be more than I could stand. I’m full. No more capes, no more CG urban explosions, no more three-point landings, no more (please no more) Infinity Gems.
