I feel like there's a lot of cherry picking here too, because if we take the MCU, it also does some race swapping that nobody has a problem with.
Nick Fury is one, but Samuel L Jackson is so cool in that role, it doesn't matter.
Heimdal is another one. Norse mythology, probably not a lot of black there, but Idris Elba is also so damn cool in the role that it does not really matter, and I've never heard anyone complain about these people.
I think in general it's more about if the people in the roles do a good job or not. Tilda Swinton did a great job. Johnny Depp... Maybe not so much, but I also do remember people were mad about that one.
Don't forget Alec Guinness playing an Arab in Lawrence of Arabia.
A lot of people will tend to mention John Wayne playing Genghis Khan or Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese man in Breakfast at Tiffany's but will skip over other examples.
Let's not forget this simple aspect:
Interesting character - Seasoned Actor
Interesting character - Seasoned Actor
Interesting character - Seasoned Actress
Interesting character - Seasoned Actress
Interesting character - Just some Chick
In the end studios want money above anything else. And big names rake in bigger money.
Personally I think a large part of the lack of outrage over the first four is that no one who watched the movies had heard of the source material. People who watch Marvel movies don't tend to read the comics, but Ariel was a Disney movie (one of the most famous of all time) remade as another Disney movie.
In fairness to Tilda Swinton, they decided to entirely rewrite the character to be a Celtic woman instead of a Tibetan man. This was probably to avoid being censored in China, but getting away from the racist 1930s, "oriental mysticism," trope was probably a good idea. It's certainly a lot better than letting Jonny Depp pretend to be a Native American because he's one-eighth Cherokee.
I only care when it's stupid, like Medieval Poland being full of black people, not even modern day Poland has that many black people.
You can call me racist if you want but casting a black guy to play the president of the USA in like 1910 would be as stupid as casting a white guy to play Nebuchadnezzar.
If it's bad to use white actors for black (or other colored) roles then it's bad for black actors to do white roles. If it's okay to do those switches then it's okay for all. Forget colors it shouldn't matter.
Having said that, Disney just did the Ariel thing ffor the "look at us being sooooo progressive, please give us your money for this utterly shit movie" instead of trying to just make a great movie
I absolutely remember people being mad about the first one.
The others not so much. The fantasy movies don't really matter the same way as a historical movie about slavery does. The fantasy characters are even gender swapped without a problem at conventions.
And yes that means the racists who got mad about Ariel are dumb.
Yup. Characters should remain consistent if it’s important.
Tonto should not have been played by Johnny Depp. Gross.
The original Ancient One was a poor stereotype of a Tibetan person and Tilda Swinton is cool so I’m ok with this one.
Liam Neeson is a great actor with a ton of gravitas and he pulled off the role well, but yeah shoulda found a middle eastern dude. Maybe that hot Djin dude from American Gods can be the next Ras Al Ghul.
Anything to do with Scarlet Witch’s background is a retcon, she was originally introduced as Magneto’s moustache twirling daughter. Despite her tan in the referenced photo she’s more often depicted as white, but I could see her being middle eastern, but it would make sense that she’s half Jewish at least, given her father’s background.
Lastly, she’s a fucking mermaid. Who gives a shit? How many of the dude bros bitching even watched it?
Wait until you tell extremist, right-wing Christians that Jesus wasn't a white guy! Oooohhh boyyy!
Also, I think it's important to not forget that in the internet age, a very small minority of hateful asshats can appear to have a very large voice. They are still a very small, minority group of asshats.
The only one of these that is remotely acceptable, to me, is Tilda Swindon, because they explicitly detached themselves from the character to avoid getting shat on by the CCP for casting a Tibetan and from Americans for casting a Chinese person.
The others are all crap, IMO.
Every time a character is <color>washed we lose the chance to be exposed to global actors that would fit their profile.
TBH I think the bird and in general the music score ruined TLM more than anything
But I'm against the very concept of using Live Action films to perpetuate Intellectual Property rights while skirting any requirement to pay royalties to the original teams who made the animated films from which the remake was adapted 1:1 script and scene composition.
A lot of the other examples here did give really weak or bland performances, I even think the Lone Ranger would have been better without Depp in it.
My issue is that we are pairing nationality with skin color or ethnicity here. Those are not mutually exclusive. There are 2nd or 3rd generation Asians immigrants in Mexico, just as there are Mexicans living in Ireland, and Irish people in India, etc.. Somebody could be a fully integrated national but not part if the nations major ethnicity. Even saying AFRICAN-American is kind of pointless, like it matters where your grand-grand-grand-grand-parents came from. They're as much American as anybody else. We don't call everybody else European-American for comparison.
Believe me, white folk do get offended about non-white characters being changed to white, in fact they the most likely ones to be offended, especially when it comes to historic figures. All this meme is doing is framing an inaccurate depiction of white folk to suit a biased narrative. Keep in mind also, a minority few cannot represent an entirety. Just as all black or asian folk are not alike, same holds true for white folk. This an era where a difference in race is not the concern, but rather the upper class rich people that use ethnic label stereotyping to have us fight among each other as distraction. Don't fall for their trickery of dividing us.
People would have been pissed if some of those were racially accurate
Scarlet Witch wasn't originally Romani.... she was originally still Jewish. You know, since she was Magneto's daughter. The Romani thing came later. So that's kind of a mischaracterization. The Johnny Depp as native american was super wierd, like the black face RDJ in Tropic Thunder. It was cringe @.@.
I honestly don't care at this point. New Ariel sucks not because they switched her to black, but because it just sucks as a whole. The only thing that's actually kinda pissing me off is...
...could we stop swapping gingers with blacks? Please? Pretty please? Both are minority, ffs. But one is even kinda rarer than the other. Go on, switch the blondie, but leave the ginger as ginger ;-;
Don't forget Snow White who looks like a white person but is mixed-race white and Latina, so she isn't white enough to play Snow White.
And also don't forget the very light-skinned black woman who couldn't play Cleopatra because Cleopatra wasn't black. (How do we know? We don't? Cool. Cool cool cool.)
The problem is that it's commercial driven. They want the big stars who just happen to be white. But then want to sell inclusivity for profit that lead to questionable creative decisions.
The rage is misdirected but not wrong. Representation is important but is being exploited by soulless corporate robots.
I mean tbf, all of the above have people enraged and people who dgaf, it's just those flip flop depending. I'm sure there's no shortage of people here, in this very thread, that aren't cool with say Native Americans being played by white people, or that Scarlet Johansen played that one lady from GITS (can't remember her name, never really got into that series, but she's supposed to be Asian.) Understandably so, really, but still.
I take it a step further personally, stop remaking anything and if you adapt say a comic or book, stick as close as humanly possible to the source material. Race/genderswapping and reboots for a moneygrab is cool or whatever but can we have good original stories again please?
It's honestly really gross how the U.S. film industry works. There's a widely held belief that you basically have to have a white lead character in most films for it to be successful. Look at marvel, just as an example. Every single main character was a white man or woman. Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, etc. All white people. Black Panther was the exception, not that he was even really part of the avengers officially. He wasn't really in their crew at their headquarters. But even the person who played vision, which was heavily dawdled in makeup... White person. That role could have been anyone! The dude looks like an alien, why did it have to be a white guy? Now look at Star Wars, another extremely popular franchise. Every single lead character is white without fail. Luke Skywalker, Anakin, the emperor, Leia, Han Solo, Kylo Ren, you name it, they are white. Mace Windu was the exception, and they just killed him off needlessly Like he was some inconsequential character even though he was literally the most important person in the entire Jedi order. Then Star Wars The Old Republic launched a video game and guess who is the leader of the Republic now? White woman.
Leeroooooooooy Jenkins
I mean, I'm kinda on their side with this. They majorly changed an iconic character who had a distinct appearance. Ariel is pretty much an icon of the 80's kids back before the internet, so the public zeitgeist was a lot more common and shared, rather than fractured with a girth of media options like it is now. Everyone knew and had an image in their head of Ariel.
Normies don't know who tilde Swinton's character in dr strange is, especially before but even after the movies.
To point out such things online is racist, or being a weirdo who's mad about a kids show. Yet here we all are, posting about it again.
The Last Airbender's racebending is still one be one of the best.
It's not a 'casting coincidence' either, the whole thing is a remarkable soap opera with things like nepotism and explicit calls for a Caucasian cast, one the franchise is still feeling.
Wait, are the snowflakes still crying over this years later?
Idk who any of these are except the last one but
In defence of the first they appear to be in make up. If they’re playing a First Nations character that’s fine
Just like the last one would be fine if she was in make up to be white
But I assume the Little Mermaid wasn’t a remake, rather a completely separate story/character so it doesn’t matter
But we don’t wanna see a trans man little mermaid, wait he is not a male?
