Critic Accuses Prince of Persia of "Whitewashing"

[Vrex360]

To be fair though, there wasn't a similar outcry when Clash of the Titans cast only white actors to fill the role even though it was Greek Mythology.

Still I can sort of agree that a white guy being the Prince can seem a little offensive but to be honest if it wasn't a problem to have non greeks playing greeks then it shouldn't be a problem here. Yes if they cast a non black guy to be a black guy that would be offensive but as it stands I don't think its that big of a deal.

 

[mkg]

Lol we are all aware that "Persia" is no longer a country right? He would have to be an Iraqi or Iranian if you want to get technical.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

Prince of Persia was miscast but not because of whiteness...it was miscast because the lead should have been David Belle http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1042642/

Exhibit A:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x98jCBnWO8w (if someone can tell me how to embed the video I would appreciate it)

David Belle IS the prince in real life. If you haven't already see B13, IMO the best action movie of the 00s

Totally agree, when I was playing PoP I was thinking about district 13, wicked movie and the dude has more impressive jumps than the game

 

[UnravThreads]

Meh. No different to Jamie Foxx being cast as Lynch (or is it Kane? I forget), the retcon of Kingpin in Daredevil and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in the later Marvel films, and there's probably other instances of it around.

I don't think it's truly racism as such. I think it's a case of it's a western film made for western audiences, and due to that it'll have predominantly western actors. If the film was made in the "correct" region, it'd be made for that audience with the appropriate nationality/race/whatever actors.

 

[Mechsoap]

who gives a shit, so long its well acted

 

[Con Carne]

The only thing that made the Prince Persian in the games is the title of the game.
SO the prince was white washed long before the movie was even thought of. And if you wanna debate his complexion. Any white guy under the Persian sun for a long enough period of time, can get a tan too!

 

[Mr Companion]

I agree with his opinion but I think he may have chosen the wrong movie to aim this argument at.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Hollywood owned by white ppl. White ppl will always star as the hero in movies. tis the way of the world.

If u want to split hairs than why does all Ballywood movies star indians?! even when it takes place in a western place?! XD

More angry about Avatar(the last airbender) than anything else i mean like its really that hard to fine a kungfu fighting asian kid? <.< (the Karate Kid had no trouble XD) But whatever i do like how they represent each 'faction' as a different 'race' of ppl.

/unrelated rant

WHY IS THE MOVIE CALLED THE KARATE KID WHEN THE MOVIE IS ALL ABOUT KUNGFU!?!?!?! WTF! >.)

 

[Count Igor]

If he was the best one for the role, I'm ok with it.

 

[Arawn.Chernobog]

Quit yer bitchin'

That is all I have to say

 

[Legion]

It's a real credit to the users of this site when people have explained half a dozen times why they don't need a darker skinned person to play the role and you still get people claiming that they should.

 

[katsabas]

Modern day Persians are blowing each other to bits every day and this moron here decided to dig up racism. Swell...

 

[shadow skill]

There is in fact a such thing as looking the part. I dare you to do a movie about Idi Amin and cast Toby Maguire as Idi Amin. Please go do it.

Hollywood owned by white ppl. White ppl will always star as the hero in movies. tis the way of the world.

If u want to split hairs than why does all Ballywood movies star indians?! even when it takes place in a western place?! XD

More angry about Avatar(the last airbender) than anything else i mean like its really that hard to fine a kungfu fighting asian kid? <.< (the Karate Kid had no trouble XD) But whatever i do like how they represent each 'faction' as a different 'race' of ppl.

/unrelated rant

WHY IS THE MOVIE CALLED THE KARATE KID WHEN THE MOVIE IS ALL ABOUT KUNGFU!?!?!?! WTF! >.)

Quoted and bolded for truth. The commercials for Karate kid trip me out since it is quite obviously Kungfu rather than Karate being done. What in the hell were they thinking?

 

[Danny Ocean]

I'm actually with him on this one, which surprises me. Would it have been that hard to trawl Bollywood or Europe or even parts of America for a couple of months to get an ethnically correct cast?

It's not a case of non-white actors not being good enough, either (Just look at SlumDog Millionaire.), the producers just didn't bother looking. It's probably more laziness and greed than racism, but there's still a little nugget there.

Was the Prince in the Sands of Time games Persian or white? He looked pretty white to me. It doesn't really make sense with the setting, but maybe a white actor was chosen in order to be accurate to the games? jake Gyllenhaal does look rather like the prince from Warrior Within to me.

It's hard to tell with all the stupid angles. What I can say is that he looks a hell of a lot like me and the men on my Mother's side of the family. I'm still only a 2nd generation immigrant here, so the genes haven't been diluted so much, so we still look pretty Persian.

So yeah, I'd say he looks Persian.

 

[DTWolfwood]

There is in fact a such thing as looking the part. I dare you to do a movie about Idi Amin and cast Toby Maguire as Idi Amin. Please go do it.

Hollywood owned by white ppl. White ppl will always star as the hero in movies. tis the way of the world.

If u want to split hairs than why does all Ballywood movies star indians?! even when it takes place in a western place?! XD

More angry about Avatar(the last airbender) than anything else i mean like its really that hard to fine a kungfu fighting asian kid? <.< (the Karate Kid had no trouble XD) But whatever i do like how they represent each 'faction' as a different 'race' of ppl.

/unrelated rant

WHY IS THE MOVIE CALLED THE KARATE KID WHEN THE MOVIE IS ALL ABOUT KUNGFU!?!?!?! WTF! >.)

Quoted and bolded for truth. The commercials for Karate kid trip me out since it is quite obviously Kungfu rather than Karate being done. What in the hell were they thinking?

yeh i guess its one of those Name recognition / cash in things. Guess no1 would watch a movie called The Kungfu Kid? XD

 

[shadow skill]

There is in fact a such thing as looking the part. I dare you to do a movie about Idi Amin and cast Toby Maguire as Idi Amin. Please go do it.

Hollywood owned by white ppl. White ppl will always star as the hero in movies. tis the way of the world.

If u want to split hairs than why does all Ballywood movies star indians?! even when it takes place in a western place?! XD

More angry about Avatar(the last airbender) than anything else i mean like its really that hard to fine a kungfu fighting asian kid? <.< (the Karate Kid had no trouble XD) But whatever i do like how they represent each 'faction' as a different 'race' of ppl.

/unrelated rant

WHY IS THE MOVIE CALLED THE KARATE KID WHEN THE MOVIE IS ALL ABOUT KUNGFU!?!?!?! WTF! >.)

Quoted and bolded for truth. The commercials for Karate kid trip me out since it is quite obviously Kungfu rather than Karate being done. What in the hell were they thinking?

yeh i guess its one of those Name recognition / cash in things. Guess no1 would watch a movie called The Kungfu Kid? XD

Guess not...On topic though I took a look at the trailer for Last Airbender.....How did all of those white people get cast when at least two of the principle characters are pretty dark especially for an Anime? I hope the movie doesn't suck because the show was actually pretty good given the little I saw of it. What is even weirder is that it aired on Nickelodeon and really wasn't that "kiddy" of a show from the little that I saw.

 

[sosolidshoe]

Really? Really? Wow, I guess this shows how poorly educated people in the film industry are these days. Persians ARE Caucasian. They have a slightly different skintone due to environmental factors, but complaining about casting a tanned American as PoP is like complaining about casting an African American as a Zulu Tribesman.

 

[jaing1138]

Does it matter? I don't think the di'kut Jehanzeb Dar ever complained that Leonidas (a greek) was played by a scotsman, does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? I suppose he'd complain that the Na'vi in avatar weren't played by actual 12 foot tall blue aliens or that chewbacca was not played by a bear