this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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[–] AhismaMiasma@lemm.ee 113 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Eh, plenty of people voiced issues with the racial (and gender) recast of the Ancient One when Doctor Strange came out.

Tilda Swinton is great btw.

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 49 points 3 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] AhismaMiasma@lemm.ee 40 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This is a good point. Casting a genuine Tibetan actor would cause the house of mouse to lose all that sweet china money.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They could've still got someone vaguely Asian.

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't think anyone had an issue with Benedict Wong as one of the head monks so I think your theory is bad.

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

Supporting character

[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

They have talked about that, and said they fucked up. The went with a white chick because they didn't want to make it seem like Asian is just interchangeable

[–] match@pawb.social 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

that's a self-reinforcing problem

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don’t think I can identify a Romani phenotype. Which just goes to show how little representation they get on mass media.

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I thought they were just slavicish. I know Romanian is different but the archetypical gypsy in my mind is a black haired slavic woman.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 1 points 3 months ago

From what I read, there’s a North Indian ethnic component, especially their language. But that’s what I remember from reading Wikipedia years ago, so 🤷‍♂️

[–] TheSambassador@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Uruanna@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Ultimate Nick Fury came first and was openly based on SLJ, so people actually liked it.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I'm fully onboard with the "mean people are offended" smokescreen when they produce bad product that also is very visibly "progressive". It also works because a lot of people do fixate on that when it's the least of the problems in a reboot/remake.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

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

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] GeorgimusPrime@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Am I the only one who thinks the Ra's Al Ghul in the Arrow series was perfectly cast?

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

She’s great in The Boys too.