Whitewashing = Argh

[sqbr]

I am So Sick of the way hollywood hollywoodises stories, taking out anything unusual or interesting and making it all bland and same-y. And what I am most, angrily sick of is white washing.

First we have Earthsea.
And then 21.
And now Avatar.

A short synopsis of how the usual excuses are wrong.

The one that most often annoys me is "But they just cast the best people for the part and they happened to be white." Would these people feel the same way if a story about white people was cast all with non-white people? Would the Harry Potter films be an ok adaptation if the main characters were all black(*)? Or played by 50 year olds? Even if they were really good actors? You cast a role like that with certain prerequisites in mind, and in all three of these cases the ethnicities of the characters was important. You shouldn't even be auditioning white people.

If you make a conscious decision to do colourblind casting (which is, imo, a valid choice for certain stories. But not these ones) then statistically,you would very rarely end up with all-white major characters, and you'd get non-white protagonists a hell of a lot more often than we do. (In america, about 1 in 9)

Anyway, to wash the taste out of your brain, Someone makes some better casting suggestions for Avatar. Those are some pretty people :)

All this discussion is making me want to get around to watching Avatar (the tv series!) properly, I've seen a few episodes and thought it was ok but never really got into it.

(*)Actually, I was thinking about it, it would be interesting if Harry or Ron wasn't white, given they're from "old wizarding families" (is it ever said they're old english families?) Hermione not being white is too obvious. So a better example is Pride and Prejudice: I liked "Bride and Prejudice" but it certainly wasn't strictly accurate to the characters as written :)

Comments

[callistra.livejournal.com]

OMG!
Avatar!
I like to watch that when I can get away with it!
They only cast white people?? WTF?

[alias_sqbr]

I know!

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Hollywood sucks
:-(
Pixar, however rock. I saw Wall-E last night, and was hell pleased to see coloured people all over the place, plus in the first ad for the Axiom right at the beginning of the movie gave more screen time to coloured people than non-coloured. Watching Wall-E makes me happy and frothing angry that tripe like Happy Feet gets made. All at once. I'm a mixed up cookie.

[alias_sqbr]

*cough* Actually I heard a bunch of complaints about Wall-E, though they were much less angry, along of the lines of "It's good overall but..". Being aware of this going in, I noticed they were right: there are a moderate amount of black people (good) but none get any lines (bad) and there's no asians, middle eastern people etc (also bad). You could argue that this is just one of many ships, but then you get to the question of "And what did happen to the people from the third world?" etc and then it gets messy :)

Same with the attitude to overweight people, I guess.

But yes, compared to Avatar etc, it's a shining beacon of diversity :)

[callistra.livejournal.com]

:-)

I also heard it was gay friendly. But I didn't read any sort of sexual gender from Wall-E. I saw Eva as female, but Wall-E as neither male or female.

[alias_sqbr]

I'd classify it as "Not aggressively forcing rigid gender roles" which I guess is as gay-friendly as kids films get :/

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

I thought it was common knowledge that the movie's just Bryke griefing us all again?

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

p.s. capslock_atla has better (http://community.livejournal.com/capslock_atla/822036.html) casting (http://www.geocities.com/silverstarx18/zutara.jpg) choices (http://community.livejournal.com/capslock_atla/824261.html).

[alias_sqbr]

I had heard that theory :)

You're right, noone could object to this.

[dr-jekyl.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is kinda.... fail. Then again, Hollywood ultimately destroys pretty much anything good it touches.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, but sometimes it destroys it even more than you were expecting :/ (See, for example, LXG)

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

My only real disappointment from LXG (that I can remember) was that they changed Mina Murray into a full-blown vampire.

[alias_sqbr]

Really? Clearly you went in with lower expectations than me, and I'd set them pretty low :)

[loic.livejournal.com]

I wish they'd filmed The Color Purple with white actors.

[alias_sqbr]

I'm sure you would have found Whoopi Goldburg's character easier to identify with if she was played by Tom Hanks. But nooooooo. It's political correctness gone mad!

[loic.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why they're so conservative with gender assignment. I mean, let's face it, Julia Roberts isn't a great actress, why didn't they give her role in Pretty Woman to a better actor like Tom Hanks?

[alias_sqbr]

You're right, that would have been great :)

[callistra.livejournal.com]

OMG!
Avatar!
I like to watch that when I can get away with it!
They only cast white people?? WTF?

[alias_sqbr]

I know!

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Hollywood sucks
:-(
Pixar, however rock. I saw Wall-E last night, and was hell pleased to see coloured people all over the place, plus in the first ad for the Axiom right at the beginning of the movie gave more screen time to coloured people than non-coloured. Watching Wall-E makes me happy and frothing angry that tripe like Happy Feet gets made. All at once. I'm a mixed up cookie.

[alias_sqbr]

*cough* Actually I heard a bunch of complaints about Wall-E, though they were much less angry, along of the lines of "It's good overall but..". Being aware of this going in, I noticed they were right: there are a moderate amount of black people (good) but none get any lines (bad) and there's no asians, middle eastern people etc (also bad). You could argue that this is just one of many ships, but then you get to the question of "And what did happen to the people from the third world?" etc and then it gets messy :)

Same with the attitude to overweight people, I guess.

But yes, compared to Avatar etc, it's a shining beacon of diversity :)

[callistra.livejournal.com]

:-)

I also heard it was gay friendly. But I didn't read any sort of sexual gender from Wall-E. I saw Eva as female, but Wall-E as neither male or female.

[alias_sqbr]

I'd classify it as "Not aggressively forcing rigid gender roles" which I guess is as gay-friendly as kids films get :/

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

I thought it was common knowledge that the movie's just Bryke griefing us all again?

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

p.s. capslock_atla has better (http://community.livejournal.com/capslock_atla/822036.html) casting (http://www.geocities.com/silverstarx18/zutara.jpg) choices (http://community.livejournal.com/capslock_atla/824261.html).

[alias_sqbr]

I had heard that theory :)

You're right, noone could object to this.

[dr-jekyl.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is kinda.... fail. Then again, Hollywood ultimately destroys pretty much anything good it touches.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, but sometimes it destroys it even more than you were expecting :/ (See, for example, LXG)

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

My only real disappointment from LXG (that I can remember) was that they changed Mina Murray into a full-blown vampire.

[alias_sqbr]

Really? Clearly you went in with lower expectations than me, and I'd set them pretty low :)

[loic.livejournal.com]

I wish they'd filmed The Color Purple with white actors.

[alias_sqbr]

I'm sure you would have found Whoopi Goldburg's character easier to identify with if she was played by Tom Hanks. But nooooooo. It's political correctness gone mad!

[loic.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why they're so conservative with gender assignment. I mean, let's face it, Julia Roberts isn't a great actress, why didn't they give her role in Pretty Woman to a better actor like Tom Hanks?

[alias_sqbr]

You're right, that would have been great :)