|
Post by galacticgirrrl on May 2, 2023 19:58:58 GMT
What a great conversation courtesy of The Queen of the Nile.
>Historically, approximately 25% of all cowboys were Black, Hispanic or Indigenous.
Under the one drop theory I am guessing we have many misconceptions and misunderstandings about the DNA of all kinds of historical figures and related movie roles that need to be examined.
And how to decide an actor's race - DNA? Colour wheel?
We can only guess beyond Carol Channing, Ava Gardner, Talullah Bankhead and Dinah Shore who passed in plain sight.
Today - Jennifer Beals, Tom Sizemore, Isabelle Adjani, Vin Diesel, Rashida Jones, Jeremy Renner - what roles can they play?
Bob Marley was half white. Who is allowed to portray him on the screen?
I am all for diversity for diversity's sake. Where is the harm?
What is lost in an Asian Henry VIII? Black Macbeth? Female Bob Dylan? Trans Betsy Ross? I recently watched a slightly multi-racial Catherine the Great tv series and loved it.
As cinema was born so many outside of the white hetero normative were voiceless, valueless and vote-less.
It is so refreshing to see casting expand.
A myopic vision serves so few and is quite dull & uninspired, not to mention painful to many actors and audience members.
|
|
|
Post by kims on May 2, 2023 21:04:43 GMT
Re: the Asian in MAG 7. Born in Vladivostok Russia about as far east as you can get in Russia an right by Korea-Brynner. Oh my, now we can debate who is Asian and who isn't . Does an Asian have to have what used to be called Occidental eyes to be Asian? And just for fun I'll throw in the Geographical fact that Europe and Asia is one continent. The division is arbitrarily drawn to make a "natural" line between, dare I say Aryan people, and those pesky Slavs.
|
|
|
Post by galacticgirrrl on May 2, 2023 21:30:53 GMT
We are going to need at least a few spreadsheets and a database or two to get on top on this math & geography.
|
|
|
Post by gerald424 on May 2, 2023 22:34:53 GMT
Having the character become sheriff was Mel stretching a joke to make it ridiculous. I love Mel's humor. I doubt there were many Black sheriffs in those days. But, western life wasn't as violent as the movies make it out to be. So the job of a sheriff would be very different, I sure.
Remember, Jim Brown played a sheriff in Tick,Tick,Tick(1970), a film set 100 years later. And things were still tense.
|
|
|
Post by gerald424 on May 2, 2023 22:38:12 GMT
What a great conversation courtesy of The Queen of the Nile. >Historically, approximately 25% of all cowboys were Black, Hispanic or Indigenous. Under the one drop theory I am guessing we have many misconceptions and misunderstandings about the DNA of all kinds of historical figures and related movie roles that need to be examined. And how to decide an actor's race - DNA? Colour wheel? We can only guess beyond Carol Channing, Ava Gardner, Talullah Bankhead and Dinah Shore who passed in plain sight. Today - Jennifer Beals, Tom Sizemore, Isabelle Adjani, Vin Diesel, Rashida Jones, Jeremy Renner - what roles can they play? Bob Marley was half white. Who is allowed to portray him on the screen? I am all for diversity for diversity's sake. Where is the harm? What is lost in an Asian Henry VIII? Black Macbeth? Female Bob Dylan? Trans Betsy Ross? I recently watched a slightly multi-racial Catherine the Great tv series and loved it. As cinema was born so many outside of the white hetero normative were voiceless, valueless and vote-less. It is so refreshing to see casting expand. A myopic vision serves so few and is quite dull & uninspired, not to mention painful to many actors and audience members. Remember, we didn't make the rules. We're just forced to play by them. We've always known they were silly. But, we had no power to do anything about them.
It just seems that when those "rules" start to affect others in other ways, the people who made those rules suddenly get very uncomfortable.
|
|
|
Post by kims on May 2, 2023 23:33:59 GMT
We are going to need at least a few spreadsheets and a database or two to get on top on this math & geography. Mostly we could stand to forget all the over-classifying and try to move the people who cast films to rid stereotypes in their decisions.
|
|
|
Post by jamesjazzguitar on May 3, 2023 1:05:36 GMT
Having the character become sheriff was Mel stretching a joke to make it ridiculous. I love Mel's humor. I doubt there were many Black sheriffs in those days. But, western life wasn't as violent as the movies make it out to be. So the job of a sheriff would be very different, I sure.
Remember, Jim Brown played a sheriff in Tick,Tick,Tick(1970), a film set 100 years later. And things were still tense.
Looks like we view what Mel was trying to do differently. E.g., if the roles were reversed (Wilder playing the sheriff and Little the sidekick), I don't think it would have been as funny. Ie. The black character being an authority figure is key to the overall joke.
|
|
|
Post by gerald424 on May 3, 2023 1:10:06 GMT
Having the character become sheriff was Mel stretching a joke to make it ridiculous. I love Mel's humor. I doubt there were many Black sheriffs in those days. But, western life wasn't as violent as the movies make it out to be. So the job of a sheriff would be very different, I sure.
Remember, Jim Brown played a sheriff in Tick,Tick,Tick(1970), a film set 100 years later. And things were still tense.
Looks like we view what Mel was trying to do differently. E.g., if the roles were reversed (Wilder playing the sheriff and Little the sidekick), I don't think it would have been as funny. Ie. The black character being an authority figure is key to the overall joke. I think both films tried to do the same thing "put the Black character in an authority position". Frankly, I think Mel just wanted to make people uncomfortable and get some laughs, which I wholeheartedly endorse !
|
|
|
Post by dianedebuda on May 3, 2023 14:05:52 GMT
The only time that I can remember where I had a race casting problem was The Dark Tower (2017) where Idris Elba (fine actor) was cast as the Gunslinger. The movie was kind of a scunch of the early sections of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. Problem that I had really wasn't in that movie, but from the source material where there was a significant storyline about dealing with racial prejudices and relations. The Gunslinger not being black vs a major character who was black. If the movie had been successful enough to spawn sequels with the same cast, I could not envision how the early racial tension could have been portrayed to the level it was in the book. But the film was a dud, so dead issue.
|
|
|
Post by sepiatone on May 3, 2023 15:34:52 GMT
I do recall one exception; this was in Wagon Train and featured Sessue Hayakawa as a samurai warrior. The all white Wagon train folks viewed him as just another Chinese semi-slave worker and were disrespectful. It took a while to convince them that such a man was highly regarded in his native land and thus should be given the proper respect. There was also a RIFLEMAN episode that tackled the Samurai / respect subject. Sepiatone
|
|
|
Post by jamesjazzguitar on May 3, 2023 15:39:53 GMT
I do recall one exception; this was in Wagon Train and featured Sessue Hayakawa as a samurai warrior. The all white Wagon train folks viewed him as just another Chinese semi-slave worker and were disrespectful. It took a while to convince them that such a man was highly regarded in his native land and thus should be given the proper respect. There was also a RIFLEMAN episode that tackled the Samurai / respect subject. Sepiatone Correct. But in that one white actors were used and the make-up was really bad. Sessue was the real deal (and my mom favorite). Still the story in the Rifleman showed the Japanese as the good-guys with the racist whites as bozos that were clearly lesser human beings.
|
|
|
Post by marysara1 on May 20, 2023 20:11:14 GMT
I wonder what Jesus looked like. He was a Jew. I've never run into a Jew with blue eyes.
|
|
|
Post by nipkowdisc on May 20, 2023 23:08:26 GMT
the historical depiction of Jesus is quite inaccurate. he did not have a fair complexion especially after 3 years of his ministry spent in the daylight and neither did he have long hair.
|
|
|
Post by nipkowdisc on May 20, 2023 23:20:09 GMT
was not black but a descendant of a greek-macedonian general who served with Alexander the Great. now the left is misappropriating historical figures and making them a race that they were not. the order has been given and the edict laid down that Cleopatra must now be black.
|
|
|
Post by Swithin on May 21, 2023 1:07:26 GMT
I have to confess, at first I was upset when I heard that Rami Malek was going to play Freddie Mercury. I didn't think it was right for an Egyptian to play a Parsi (i.e. Indian Zoroastrian). Parsis are Indians of Persian lineage who fled Persia/Iran, due to the Arab conquest and forced conversions. But then I learned that Malek is a Copt, i.e. an Egyptian Christian, another group that has been persecuted by Moslems. So I decided it was ok for Rami Malek to play Freddie Mercury.
I consider the near-wipeout of the Zoroastrian religion in Iran to be one of the great tragedies of world history.
|
|