Critic Accuses Prince of Persia of "Whitewashing"
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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This is one of those times where I would like to be as creatively offensive as I could, but this is not the site to do that *sigh*. What I will say is that Jehanzeb Dar is full of shit and is a racist. The colour of the person's skin should not matter. To make him look the part movies use make-up.
It's a tough call this one.
Hollywood (And Bollywood, Elstree and Hong Kong Cinema, let's not poke fingers here) tend to cast towards their chosen audience from their chosen cast of actors - which - like it or not, is that ethnic group.
I mean: Braveheart, Robin Hood, Highlander, Hunt For Red October and numerous others haven't been cast to race. It's not so much racism as enforced ethnicity - and that carries over past race, religion and all other concepts of difference.
Hollywood (And Bollywood, Elstree and Hong Kong Cinema, let's not poke fingers here) tend to cast towards their chosen audience from their chosen cast of actors - which - like it or not, is that ethnic group.
I mean: Braveheart, Robin Hood, Highlander, Hunt For Red October and numerous others haven't been cast to race. It's not so much racism as enforced ethnicity - and that carries over past race, religion and all other concepts of difference.
True, but then the original characters don't look like Inuits either - they just lived like them. The point is that the movie makes it two white Caucasian heroes and a brown-skinned Indian villain, where they were two brow-skinned Asian heroes and a white-skinned Asian bad guy in the original.TsunamiWombat said:
As I said before, I don't think this is deliberate racism. It does however raise some uncomfortable questions, to say the least. Why the swap? It's not like there aren't any good young brown-skinned actors. Hell, Dev Patel (Zuko) probably would've made a decent Sokka. He's got the skin color, he's got the ears, we know he's got acting experience...
oh shuttup.
Yes, I would prefer someone that looked the part, but bitching about it achieves nothing and makes you look like an ass.
Yes, I would prefer someone that looked the part, but bitching about it achieves nothing and makes you look like an ass.
there's a small problem with hiring persian actors, and it's that persia hasn't existed for quite some years. it's called iran now. Many iranian people choose to call themselves persian, but mainly because saying you're from iran has connotations these days (so my iranian friend told me).
aside from that...often production teams use the tools (or actors) at their disposal. this works in all areas of acting. a small local theatre group in a sheltered village in britain that wants to put on a production of "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" (a classic) isn't going to be able to find mentally / physically handicapped actors to play the parts. therefore the actors they have have to act. the production team for PoP had a pool of hollywood actors, and if no persians are present, then non-persians have to act.
aside from that...often production teams use the tools (or actors) at their disposal. this works in all areas of acting. a small local theatre group in a sheltered village in britain that wants to put on a production of "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" (a classic) isn't going to be able to find mentally / physically handicapped actors to play the parts. therefore the actors they have have to act. the production team for PoP had a pool of hollywood actors, and if no persians are present, then non-persians have to act.
I love that this thread is a bunch of white kids going "who cares if he's white?"
Delicious.
Incidentally, I never liked the idea of Gyllenhaal in this role. I'd suggest a replacement, but can anyone name an actor from the middle east off the top of your heads? Sayid from LOST is all that comes to mind.
Delicious.
Incidentally, I never liked the idea of Gyllenhaal in this role. I'd suggest a replacement, but can anyone name an actor from the middle east off the top of your heads? Sayid from LOST is all that comes to mind.
It does annoy me a bit to see white people cast in ethnic roles.
I mean, hammy acting is the same in any ethnicity...
I mean, hammy acting is the same in any ethnicity...
Nick Fury is black in the Ultimates Universe, and is based on Samuel L Jackson.BarbaricGoose said:
Believe it or not, Sammy J as Nick Fury is quite exactly appropriate:
Wait... are you ACTUALLY saying that Samuel L Jackson in the Iron Man films is based... OFF HIMSELF!?!?Stabby Joe said:I normally don't care so much about such ethnic issues but I did consider it in this case the first time I saw the previews...
...Prince of PERSIA is white... huh.
Samuel L Jackson's Nick Furry is based off the Ultimate Marvel version, which itself is based off L Jackson.Spacefly said:Well I think its racist that Mr. Dar thinks a white actor can't act in a persian role. I mean Samuel L. Jackson does a pretty good job at being this guy:
And care to explain this!
Nick Fury?!?
You're not going to see the movie because the people who made it did more research than you?SomeBritishDude said:
Excuse me? I've played the game, I know my stuff, it's one of my favourite games actually. Regardless of his accent he's still Persian, hence the title and hence the reason Jake isn't the right guy.Eldritch Warlord said:
But that's far from my biggest problem with this film.
Maybe you shouldn't be racist and assume that the prince has to be persian just because he lives in persia? Eh? They had all sorts of people in their empire, maybe the Shah adopted a greek guy he kidnapped and had him become the prince.
