Can I talk about this modern trend in "diversity casting in TV shows?"
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Okay, so how relevant is this in the GoT world? The Targaryens had a thing about racial purity - perhaps partly because they were mad, and it was something to do with controlling their dragons. Did anyone else? Where do we have a textual basis that this was a significant thing in GoT, at least in Westeros?
Thematically, the NW coast of Essos is closest to Italy/Greece: city states on the coast of an Anatolia-like projection as Greece; medieval, trade-focused city states following the breakdown of a large classical empire (Valyria i.e. Rome) as Italy. NW Essos is effectively the classical European world. Heading east are the Dothraki (horse nomads, i.e. Turks, Huns, Scythians), and places like Meereen and Astapor, which via pyramids / ziggurats are redolent of Egypt and Mesopotamia. These are also the descendant cities of Valyria's great rival - where Valyria implies Rome, this best implies Persia. Done.
But here you've just interjected a sort of randomness. Just because a fantasy nation's culture has been borrowed from real life gives us absolutely no reason to demand the colour of their skin must follow the real life inspiration too. The entire population of GoT could be black or east Asian-like and the entire culture left as European-derived, and ultimately it would not make a jot of difference.
So why exactly are you shitting a brick over it?
I didn't say they were, I disagree with the original assertion.
I don't know, Trunkage was the one who brought it up.
We know the houses are very picky over who they marry into.
I'm not even sure what your point is.
Always assumed Valyria was more Atlantis, but meh.
I mean, sure, okay, those are reasonable parallels, I'm not sure why it's so horrible that the people there generally resemble their real-world counterparts.
I agree. But why is it so horrible when it does?
That's...highly debatable. I mean, not in-universe, sure, the rules of a fictional setting can follow whatever rules they want, but it would raise eyebrows along the board. There's various cases where people have got into a tiff about such things.
I'm not the one shitting bricks, the producers and Trunkage are.
I mean, bear in mind how this started before the thread went off the rails.
Just guessing this movie is the one you are referring to with the black JFK. And if so, I tip my hat to you. If not...then to quote a certain meme, if I had a nickel for every movie that had a black JFK, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's strange that it's happened twice.
OT: My feeling on changing races of characters for the sake of diversity is simple. I'm not against it on principle, but I feel like there should be a reason beyond just ticking a diversity checkbox. For example, Heimdall, in pretty much everything except the MCU, is white. Idris Elba is very much not. But Idris Elba did so good as Heimdall that it didn't matter what his skin color was in terms of being true to the character.
On the other hand...you have the mess that was The Last Airbender movie, where they lightened Katara's skin because a producer's daughter just HAD to be cast as her, and then lightened Sokka's skin because you can't have siblings with different skin colors, and oops, now our cast is too white. Who can we cast as a darker color to be more diverse? The villain, there we go.
Yes, it was indeed Bubba Ho-Tep.
Just guessing this movie is the one you are referring to with the black JFK. And if so, I tip my hat to you. If not...then to quote a certain meme, if I had a nickel for every movie that had a black JFK, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's strange that it's happened twice.
So how is what's going one with House of the Dragon not a "Last Airbender" scenario?
Just guessing this movie is the one you are referring to with the black JFK. And if so, I tip my hat to you. If not...then to quote a certain meme, if I had a nickel for every movie that had a black JFK, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's strange that it's happened twice.
OT: My feeling on changing races of characters for the sake of diversity is simple. I'm not against it on principle, but I feel like there should be a reason beyond just ticking a diversity checkbox. For example, Heimdall, in pretty much everything except the MCU, is white. Idris Elba is very much not. But Idris Elba did so good as Heimdall that it didn't matter what his skin color was in terms of being true to the character.
On the other hand...you have the mess that was The Last Airbender movie, where they lightened Katara's skin because a producer's daughter just HAD to be cast as her, and then lightened Sokka's skin because you can't have siblings with different skin colors, and oops, now our cast is too white. Who can we cast as a darker color to be more diverse? The villain, there we go.
As I've pointed out, there is an ironic racism having some of the Targaryans be casted by POC people, the Targaryans also being practitioners of the Slave Trade.
That's power, not race. They are marrying for financial and political advantage.
It's not. But the creators of a TV show decided they wanted a little more diversity for their potential audience, which is for some grouchy culture warriors a problem, just like the same sort of people decided that a black actor playing a science fiction alien loosely based on the Heimdall of Nordic myth was some unthinkable affront and cooked up a ton of ultimately irrelevant waffle about why it should not be so. Because all that stuff about artistic freedom apparently doesn't matter when it means making a character black that they'd prefer to be white.
There's no way of knowing until the thing is fully made and people can see if it's good or not. If it's a good end product, who cares what race of people they cast. If changing the entire Fire Nation to Indian comedians had worked, and people loved them as the villains, the decision would be praised as a stroke of genius. Since they didn't end up with good writing... or acting... or good anything, it's hard to say that they made the decisions they did for the good of the end product.
If the writers here are inspired and they believe they can make something great, let them try. If it ends up a load of crap, chances are they weren't quite as well inspired as they thought. Then you can mock them all you want, just like the Airbender movie. And lets be real, as crazy as the casting decisions were in Airbender, they don't even approach the worst things that movie did.
I tend to waffle between centrist and violently liberal depending on the issue, beauty of free speech and all that. When it comes to hollywood I tend to side on the extremists in that I think, right now, at this moment, diversity in casting needs to be normalized, and its still not. If they wanted to be like "ok enough white people, only black people for the next 10 years" I'd be totally ok with it. If only to force the 30-35% of Americans that just don't watch anything with black people in it, that live in white haven communities, to absorb it and become desensitized to it clockwork orange style.
Is it racist? Sure idk, so are 71 million Americans. Let them eat cake.
Is it racist? Sure idk, so are 71 million Americans. Let them eat cake.
In this scenario, it certainly is leaning towards the problem I have with being diverse above anything else. Apologies, forgot to make it clear I'm not on the side of the creators here. I think that, in a setting with original characters, the people should be cast based on who's best for the role, and skin color shouldn't play into it one way or another. No one should be rejected for being white, just as no one should be rejected for being Asian-American/black/Native American. If they have the right X factor for the character, something that makes them fit the character more than the others, that should be the end of the conversation.
ETA: It's a bit dicier when it comes to recasting pre-established characters, hence why I specified original characters. It's not impossible (again, Heimdall), but there are roles where color does play a major part. Candyman, for example, would not work if the titular character were white, because his race is key to his background and the overall cultural mood of the movie.
The film Candyman granted but he was originally an white brit (albeit still in an poor neighborhood) ghost who hypothetically have been played by Colin Baker apparently. /nitpick
In the MCU, it was nonsensical because Bucky was not only an extremely widely accepted replacement in the comics, (which is probably helped by the fact that they didn't remove Steve Rodgers in the bargain to do it, just moved him to head SHIELD) Bucky spent much of his time in the first movie being envious of Steve for the fact that he was getting all the attention and doing practically everything himself, which was a reverse of their roles before Steve got the Super Soldier Serum. Bucky having to deal with filling Captain America's shoes while dealing with his violent past had limitless character development potential.
Meanwhile Falcon in the comics had been a long established superhero with his own record, who's role and relationship with Steve in the MCU was minor at best. The sole reason to make Falcon Captain America was for the diversity points, not because it made sense. Now instead of having "Captain America and the Falcon" two superheroes and beloved characters, we've got only "Black Captain America" and that's all Sam Wilson will be known for, a big net loss. Obviously Steve's actor had to go but they could have handled things MUCH better than they did. Even then, it shows how bad it was that the MCU passing the torch to Sam was still a vast improvement. Either way it obviously wasn't all that well thought out or planned for in advance since they never made any real attempt to set the Falcon up as even a possibility prior to Endgame or push him harder to make Sam more notable and relevant.
No. Steve Rogers is Captain America. It is the ideals Steve embodies in a way no one else can match that makes him Captain America. Steve has stepped away from or been forced to give up the Captain America identity before, and the only time it stuck for any length of time was when Bucky was Cap. That was because as Captain America's longtime sidekick and their history afterward Bucky came to embody those ideas just as much as Steve to the point that many didn't even WANT Steve back as Captain America, it only happening to coincide with the MCU.
We all know in comics that "the old guard passing over their mantle" never really lasts for long anyway, it's a cheap gimmick to drive up comic book sales.
I personally do not care. As a white person in a majority white culture I have enough representation that I don't think it's worth getting worked up about. And I don't think I'm the right person to talk on minorities' behalf so I don't; I prefer to listen to what the minorities have to say.
That being said, I am reminded when Ghost in the Shell became an American movie starring Scarlett Johansson. There were people displeased with that casting, and I followed a bit of that debate. My understanding is that people in Japan was pleased with that casting, since that was adding a certain level of prestige to the adaptation with having a major Hollywood star in the leading role while acknowledging that as a cultural adaptation some changes made sense, whereas the Asian-Americans of the US was not not pleased, since it was an example of their group being white-washed and denying one of them a rare opportunity for a leading role.
What I'm saying is that the perspective is dependent on your position in society.
That being said, I am reminded when Ghost in the Shell became an American movie starring Scarlett Johansson. There were people displeased with that casting, and I followed a bit of that debate. My understanding is that people in Japan was pleased with that casting, since that was adding a certain level of prestige to the adaptation with having a major Hollywood star in the leading role while acknowledging that as a cultural adaptation some changes made sense, whereas the Asian-Americans of the US was not not pleased, since it was an example of their group being white-washed and denying one of them a rare opportunity for a leading role.
What I'm saying is that the perspective is dependent on your position in society.
Green Lantern? Robin? Clayface? It happens all the time. But for some reason we get far fewer moans when it's a white dude passing the mantle to a white dude.
I'm reminded of this monologue. One of the last times Bill Maher was relevant.
"Darth Vader was voiced by a black man, but when they took off his helmet the character was white. How many points is that? I want to know so I can be good!
We're talking about a world where if you want to make the next Schindler's List, the first thing you're going to need to do is give a racial breakdown of all your employees. Does anyone see the irony in that?"
"Darth Vader was voiced by a black man, but when they took off his helmet the character was white. How many points is that? I want to know so I can be good!
We're talking about a world where if you want to make the next Schindler's List, the first thing you're going to need to do is give a racial breakdown of all your employees. Does anyone see the irony in that?"
What if they choose to ignore 10 years of nothing but all black casting in that case?
That was not them adding diversity as the character of America Chavez was already hispanic in the comics. They actually lightened her up quite a bit in the movie and straightened out her hair, so one could maybe argue there was actually a bit of colorism going on.
As for the topic itself... I'm absolutely, totally, and utterly fine with this. You can call it racist or ironic racism (though I certainly won't), as it has to do with race, but to at all compare this to the time when people of color where tokenized or just left to the side (which they kinda still are), yeah no. In most popular media white is still very much the default. Look at all the movies and TV shows that have come out this year and the vast majority have white people in the starring role. Heck, I don't even feel the need to look that up, because it's pretty much been that way since always.
I'm not familiar with the lore of A Song of Ice and Fire, but just like with Lord of the Rings, which is getting its own more racially diverse adaptation, you're dealing with a very popular and lucrative IP that seemingly excludes non-white actors. Maybe if there were equally popular IPs that feature only black people or asian people this wouldn't be as much of an issue, but there aren't. So now we're in a situation where whenever the next GoT or LotR project is decided on it's basically 'Yeah, sorry everyone who's non-white, but you can't be part of this unless you want to play an orc or something.'
You can say that these characters are supposed to be white and you'd be right, but then these characters are almost always white. And most of the recurring franchises are from a time when white was unquestionably the default, which would make most non-white actors shit out of luck everytime a new movie or show gets made, unless someone manages to make something on the same scale with the same franchise potential. This type of casting in the new GoT and LotR show feels like people deciding not to wait on that any longer and just make it a bit more fair for non-white actors to actually play in popular fiction. And I'm very much alright with them no longer waiting around and just doing it.
I think this is key, but articles like this don't serve the show any better because it makes the show sound racist as fuck. Saying you don't want a bunch of white people on screen is racist, period.
Diversity is fine, hire actors that can play the roles and do a good job while also being diverse. But those actors shouldn't get the job just because their skin is a different color because you end up with a shitty show as the actors can't sell the performance.
I don't think viewers care when the cast is diverse or not, I think they only care if the show is good. When a show is bad it only highlights the wokeness that went involved with the production. That's how I interpret the "go woke, go broke" phrase, it's not that I think diversity and things like that are bad in general, it's that they BECOME bad when your first objective is to be as woke as possible without any consideration for the final product.
Audiences can tell when this is happening and they do not like it.
So you're saying I'd get 10 years of the right not complaining about Diversity in TV and movies?
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