Recently a lot more movies and television shows that focus either on European medieval settings or earlier than that seem to have a casting call of poc to portray a character. Its just as bad when Hollywood hire a white actor to play someone else of a different heritage. I think both are extremely stupid. But there seems to be a double standard. Its probably a reason why most are getting sick of Americans. What are your thoughts ( can't wait fot Americans to say check your privilege etc, typical wouldn't know anything outside your own walls or any other countries history) Examples:Achilles the great Greek hero of the trojan war. Genghis Khan one of the most brilliant and terrifying warlords to ever lived. (more than 10% of the east Asian population are related to him). A celtic warrior fending off the romans but apparently it was a very diverse place back then š“š“š¤A Scotsmen playing a god of Egypt (also a spartan warrior in 300 š¤Ø) I love ancient Egyptian history and mythology and this is ridiculous. Mary Queen of the Scots based in the 16th century Scotland... Are you F'ing serious š¤£š¤š¤„. I think race swapping is ridiculous and disrespectful to all people no matter their heritage and should stop. I know it's only portraying and acting however it crosses a boundary when the youth are being taught lies and history was some how perfect without any issuesš¤„. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Why is black washing (in movies/television) ok when white washing is considered hateful?
301 opinions shared on Entertainment & Arts topic.
Well I could do without the massive ignorance of the USA. I mean your going to tell me this is an American problem when the BBC has been doing it? Pretty stupid. Also I know the history of many nations, predominantly ancient history, but some more modern. Fail to see why that would have an impact on this conversation unless your just pissy about america being better then what ever nation your from (I actualy don't think that but so many europeans who have never been to the US or know anything about the US seem to have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to us, that its hard not to just talk shit back. Probably why your anonymous, your afraid some one will rip you and your nation apart for all the bullshit they do).
As for why they do it, its because in the US their is a culture war (technically every where but because americans fight the government and hate oppression its a lot more vicious here then elshwere with nations that welcome government control). So it started with marxist trying to create a division between economic classes. The problem is, in a free capitalist society you cannot sow class division because you can always move up (and most do). So they went a different route, in order to facilitate the breakdown of society (so these marxist could rebuild it in their image (and then when it failed claim it was real marxism like they always do)), they took the one division that did exist in the US and that we where trying to fix and that was race. So they sowed as much racial division as possible.
So they replaced Bourgeoisie with white and proletariat with black (and later "minority"), and that is how they created their class warfare. Because whites are the majority they are the "bad guy" and as such what ever is done to them is perfectly acceptable and deserved. So they are replacing us in everything, but if the reverse happens its considered racist. This helps continue to create resentment and hate and racial division which they hope will result in a complete societal collapse so they can come in and build the "perfect" marxist nation they have always longed for (but will never get because it cannot work).
It annoys me as well. It makes us sound retarded as black people. However whitewashing is a very real thing that White Folks deliberately did for decades. Just 20-30 years ago Blacks were always the first to die in a movie and such so I guess this is their way of hitting back to get even. Like reparations. Let's hope they get over it soon. Or should I say we get over it soon.
@rcljr I just Googled his name. Yeah he's a bit on the white side. But were they trying to entertain the world or just their white society? I beleive that's where the misunderstanding occured.
One way to look at it is this, either the actor knows his craft SO WELL that he can pull off any role regardless of race or itās just a mismatch of role and actor. I wonāt go into the politics part, I used to admire Hollywood actors. By far the most mismatched Iāve seen is John Wayne as Genghis Kahn, totally out of place, Yul Brenner was ok as Pharoah in the Ten Commandments.
The reason for that wasn't because of "white washing". it was because certain regions (democrat controlled regions, predominantly in the deep south) where very racist. In order for the studios to market to those areas they had to have an all white cast. So in many movies blacks where allowed to be in them but they could never be integral to the plot because they would have to be edited out for those regions.
Now one can argue the morality of that (yeah, one should operate on principle, but its also not a sign of racism because they actually had to go to more work hiring black actors they knew they would edit out so clearly it wasn't discirmination on their part, just prioritization of wealth over their views), but the motives where not to white wash or to discriminate rather to make it more marketable (which is done to this day. This is also why so many movies have love stories, even if they don't fit. It was meant to appeal to women. I don't think any of this works to create a better movie and I think a lot of these things held on longer then necessary, but again, I think its wrong to presume that it was driven by racism rather then driven by profit (we still see it today. This is why modern movies will never show china in a negative light despite them having multiple concentration camps for multiple different groups, having commited genocide multiple times and oppressing there own people, the movie industry (like Disney) wants to makes sure they get china's money so they play ball (and also will have random scenes of the actors in china to appeal to chinese audiences and follow CCP guidlines).
@rcljr Sure, but you have to understand that the actors where the draw. At the time the idea was that the actor was the draw so you get big name actors to play the lead and you will get more people to watch it. That is why for example, Humphrey Bogart actually did several movies which where specifically designed to transition him to a lead actor. That is he played villains, but you couldn't be a lead actor who played villains, so they gave him a roll where he was an empathetic villain and had almost as much screen time as the lead, then transitioned him into the maltese falcon where he was the lead but maybe a little shady, and then from their was able to be the "hero". They had very specific ideas on how things would be done, how you had to act how you had to look and the companies had a big role in what you did as an actor. The actor was as much the selling point as the movie and story line was (in fact their was concern from Humprhey Bogart in one movie (I believe it was Dark Tunnel) where they have a POV to start and then for half the movie he has bandages over his face, and he was concerned that it would drive away people because again, it was believed people wanted to see their favorite actors at least as much as they wanted to see the stories.).
The culture around movies and shows was quite different back then (quite interesting too). I mean the Lone Ranger's first episode was in 1949, in the show they had an anti racism episode, Rod Sterling was quite famous for being outspoken about fighting discrimination, You even get anti racist superman comics and ads in that time period. That is rather incongruous with the idea that racism was rampant (it existed, their where a lot of racists, but their was also a lot more push back (which a lot of people don't like talking about).
Again, it was all about profit (for the most part, obviously on an individual level their where still racists and racist groups).
@rcljr Also Yule Brenner was russian, so technically Asian, don't know if that actually helps any. But like I said I think the majority of the issue was with "appeal" and following rather then discrimination (though again, not saying it didn't happen, I just don't think it was the primary reason). Their where Spanish actors as well though I couldn't tell you any off the top of my head though (in the magnificent seven the main bad guy is actually played by a British actor but he looked hispanic, so much so that even the mexican actors who played the banditos mistook him for being mexican.).
I also think that it wasn't discrimnatory at least as a whole, because you actually had the magnificent seven which is based off of seven samurai which is a japanese film by Akira Kurosawa (which is also a fantastic movie, highly recommend). So seems odd that they would be influenced by it while also intentionally discriminating against them.
Depends on if the characters race is a huge part of the story or matters that much. Like if Mulan was played by someone who wasn't Asian that matters. If it's just a random character from old Europe I actually don't really care too much if they're white... unless we're going far back enough to the point of racist Europe. Then it sorta gets messy for me
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Racist Europe explain that to me please? Because im pretty damnn sure every group in history of time have disliked each other. So it's not racist when the Japanese invaded china yelling slurs at them while having a competition who can cut of the most heads using a samurai sword in Ninjang. The Pakistanis murdering Indians and raping women because they refused to convert to islam. Mongolians introducing the black plague to Europe (first people to use bio warfare) by throwing diseased bodies into odesa in Ukraine. The Moors who conquered all of northern Africa and west Africa and Spain and southern France forcing the natives out. The Germans over taking other European nations in ww2. The current CCP having Concertraion camps to convert the wigga population or they're exterminated? I could go on for pages but of you think Europeans ( wrong term to use because like any group from a continent we have huge differences in history and social economic backgrounds. Just like there is a bigger wealth gap between Western Europe and Eastern Europe between white America and coloured America) so its not ok for other cultures to have replacement in presentation in media but its OK for Europeans to have it? Just goes to show you the state of the American education system and how you are taught history
Itās kind of dumb I feel like when they draw attention to it (like purposely casting a black person as a white character) it makes matters worst and not helping at all
I was a huge fan of the witcher games and was waiting for the show but then I find a show about polish folklore with only 3 white actors and all the others are different races. That just breaks the lore for me and I can't take it seriously anymore.
And places that really annoy me is when a long running franchise swaps out the race or gender of a character or replaces them entirely. Like the MCU for example: black captain america, woman thor, woman hulk, iron man dead removing yet another white guy and all the new additions are either men of color or women of any color white included.
I'm not even white myself, but I don't like when political representation and diversity checklists take precedence over a story.
Because not only are these things being forced and misplaced, they are also killing the quality. Basically if you go to a see a movie today you know before it starts that the woman won't lose or even be hurt in any way, you know that any black guy will be shown as better than the white one, there's nothing to expect anymore.
One show that did shock me in recent years from Netflix was "You". I won't spoil it but let's just say that for once Netflix chose a coherent story with a daring plot twist that I didn't see coming. But aside from thag 99% of the industry is now political bias bs
The entertainment industry is largely run by wokes with a woke agenda. Look at what Kathleen Kennedy at Disney did to the Star Wars franchise. No worthwhile story, but diversity as far as the eye can see. Of course, the bad guys are all white males. Kennedy had a personal hatred for Luke Skywalker. A white guy who's wise, does good, brave, strong? She couldn't have that, so she turned him into a pathetic POS, so Rey could take his place, and be a 'strong' woman. Kathleen Kennedy got an Oscar for her wonderful work, George Lucas didn't.
I know that in the past, white actors were cast for roles that just weren't right, like Charlton Heston as Moses, John Wayne as Atilla The Hun, or some white blond cutie as queen of some African tribe. I didn't like those choices either, but that was more or less just ignorance. The blackwashing is calculated agenda against whites.
ok so the reason itās different is because black people were never really allowed to play normal roles and as a white person itās hard to understand how important me as a kid seeing a black man as a lead and not just the side or comical character in a movie or show can be. i remember how important static shock was as a cartoon to a lot of black boys. now i also see that at this time their may be an over correction and thatās what america does we over correct lol but the fact you notice it means it was uncommon in the past. hopefully you can get what i meant ā🏽
Race swapping is stupid and I am so sick of the Gingercide going on in Hollywood. It's stupid when they do it no matter what but it's ESPECIALLY stupid when they do it and its not even logical to the historical time period its set in. Like Idris Elba playing a NORSE god in the Thor movies or that black Anne Boleyn sh*t the BBC did.
They do this on purpose though; to anger whites and to get stupid people (of any race) on their side through wokeness. It seems to be working...
Some white people also hate white people. It's always ok to oppress us because it's not racism if it's directed at white people. I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing it.
Producing movies or writing stories is an art form. There is no explicit rules about what you can or can't do and generally speaking the more proficient someone is the more they can "bend the established rules" and still produce a positive product.
No one of importance says you can't "white wash" something, just that it is difficult and it is specifically harder than the other way around because of the historical context of people having done it badly. Furthermore the intentions behind the choice of white/black washing something becomes important and people generally dont white wash for good reasons.
Iād like to see them use a black actor to portray Abraham Lincoln, just to showcase their hypocrisy, mob mentality and retarded ā wokenessā, they aināt woke, their racists, a high percentage of blacks are. More so than whites, but you wonāt see that on cnn.
If itās a historical person then it should be accurate but if itās fictional I donāt think it matters unless that characters race is vital to the character. I donāt think it matters if Achilles is black or not it changes nothing. Achilles could be a woman and nothing would change. But say if movie makers have to change the movie to fit the actors then thereās a problem. Like Light Yagami from Death Note becoming Light Turner in the Netflix movie.
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Im confused you said it's not ok for netflix to swap the ethnicity in a netflix show (death note, im not sure about that show since i know nothing about the story) but at the same time it's okay to replace a character that has represented the greek mythology /heroism for nearly 3000 years? That's rather contradicting. And that's what the whole discussion is about.
Yea. The story of Achilles isnāt about the man himself itās a story with a lesson when I think of the name Achilles I think of the immortal person who got hit in their weak spot and died. That person could be anybody with any name itās just a story. But with my example of Death Note itās based on a manga/ anime that someone wrote in which a Japanese teen finds notebook that can kill people. Him being Japanese is kinda big in the story, now yes it technically can be swapped as they did but since it was based off a manga/ anime where they couldāve just found a Japanese actor to portray the Japanese teen in Japan instead finding a white actor and changing the characterās race and name and where the story takes place while being based on the other thing just blows my mind. Thereās another character named L who is a detective and they made him black in the Netflix show which I didnāt have a problem with because L couldāve been anyone he was just a detective that was his whole character it didnāt even say where he was from so itās implied heās also Japanese but he couldāve been from anywhere. That doesnāt change anything from the source material
The media is irrelevant to anyone with a brain. Apparently they think Black people don't have brains, so they are playing to them as a mechanism of control
usually for most movies where a white person is the main character, then being white doesnāt make up their identity or cause them to face adversities. whereas for Black characters, then being Black is usually very important to their characters identity. only recently are there more movies coming out w Black characters, even a few years ago it was rare to see more than one Black person in a big box movie, that is also why itās wrong that a white person would replace a Black person for the role that was destined for a Black person.
So intentionally replacing white characters isn't racist but replacing black characters with white actors is, because of their race? So when Hamilton presented the founding fathers as all minorities, this was in direct conflict with who they actually where but its okay?
Also we have had black actors for decades so not sure where you got that from.
So basically the take away is that its only bad when it affects some one who isn't white, but its okay to discriminate and erase white people because of the color of their skin i. e. race? Sounds rather. . . racist.
There were less black people in TV because there are less black people in those first world areas, the majority is white. So of course there are more white people in western TV.
Yeah had the same thing here recently with a talented young black actress playing Ann Boleyn nothing against the actress but blackwashing is just as stupid and offensive as white washing
Because the sheer amount of work for white actors outnumbers that of any other race, right? So when a job that would be ideal for a black actor is given to some white guy it's a bigger deal, because work for POC is already scarce
How is the work scarce? We are not allowed to replace minority actors with the ethnic majority actors in those ethnic majority nations, but we are allowed to do the reverse. That would mean that not only are black actors able to play black characters and whites cannot, it would also mean that black actors can play white characters meaning that they are advantaged when it comes to work not disadvantaged.
Creating rules that apply to one race but not another is by definition racism.
Forget about race. My all time favorite is Frida Kahlo who was portrayed by Salma Hayek around 18 years ago or so. They went to great pains to make sure Salma had that nasty unibrow that Frida had, yet I'm willing to bet a fair few bucks that Frida didn't have the bodacious tatas that Salma was rocking (and that she showed off in the movie).
1.5K opinions shared on Entertainment & Arts topic.
The U. S. apparently need a re-worked set of movie laws :D How about: all genders (real and fictional), sexualities, skin colours and nationalities must be covered by an equal number of actors for each category.
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Anonymous
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Eh one was because most Hollywood actors happened to be white in the early days of film. The latter is because people are being intentionally obnoxious.
Hate to break this to you guys but being white isn't a race...
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We are all one yes. However we all have different histories come from different backgrounds. I think it woukd be ridiculous if someone like Jackie Chan play the lead role of a zulu warrior nation. Do you think it's ok for tom hanks to play MLK in a TV show or movie? Because im sure that woukd discredit the struggle. Or have germanic warrior played by idris elba fighting the romans that would be disrespectful towards the people who were oppressed by the romans for hundred of years. Modern roles and films have a diverse range of characters which is great (as long as its based on merit).
I don't care about whitewashing or black washing. Whoever brings the best energy do their role should get the part. I could care less about historical accuracy.
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Anonymous
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I've noticed that those loverly Brits have started using black actors in their TV ads. The next step will be giving them something to say - that's still all white. I reckon it'll happen in about another 10 or so years
People been casting white people only for a long time. Thatās why. Only racist have a problem with hiring more black people in movies. Because theyāre racist.
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Anonymous
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Representation matters.
And frankly, it's just fucking movies. Calm down and eat some popcorn.
It's not really the same. Black people barely get any mainstream representation in media outside of the "token black friend" role and other stereotypical roles.
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So do Kenyans getting any representation in bollywood? Ill explain the logic behind that shortly
explain that to me please? Because im pretty damnn sure every group in history at one point of time have disliked each other. So it's not racist when the Japanese invaded china yelling slurs at them while having a competition who can cut of the most heads using a samurai sword in Ninjang. The Pakistanis murdering Indians and raping women because they refused to convert to islam. Mongolians introducing the black plague to Europe (first people to use bio warfare) by throwing diseased bodies into odesa in Ukraine. The Moors who conquered all of northern Africa and west Africa and Spain and southern France forcing the natives out. The Germans over taking other European nations in ww2. The current CCP having Concertraion camps to convert the wigga population or they're exterminated? I could go on for pages but of you think Europeans ( wrong term to use because like any group from a continent we have huge differences in history and social economic backgrounds. Just like there is a bigger wealth gap between Western Europe and Eastern Europe between white America and coloured America). so its not ok for other cultures to have replacement in presentation in media but its OK for Europeans to have it? Just goes to show you the state of the American education system and how you are taught history
Ok ill ask you it another way can SofĆa Margarita plat Martin Luther king? She is a women from a oppressed minority, being awomen she's had things tougher than men and she's also from a minority community that had been historically discriminated against.
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