John Oliver Torpedoes Hollywood Whitewashing on Last Week Tonight
- Thread starter JaredJones
- Start date
So, maybe it's a transatlantic thing in part, but how is this an issue? Films, like games and books, are escapism. I don't feel less involved with a character just because the skin's a different colour, or she has two X chromosomes, or even if the character is a fucking earth worm in a musclesuit.shintakie10 said:
EDIT:
Also, escapist: shame on you. What are you? Fucking buzzfeed?
There was an article posted in a previous thread about the subject looking over the numbers. I think it's a mistake to blame the Oscars specifically for their nominees when the problem is a lot more systemic. Not to say I don't think that the Oscars do a great job of highlighting the issue.
The biggest thing is that racism is systemic, it can effect a wide array of aspects in your life, which makes it hard to pin down one specific problem.
Black people are less likely to be employed -> More likely to be poor -> Children get worse education -> Less likely to attend University (good or otherwise) -> Less likely to be qualified for a high paying job -> Less likely to be employed
And at a number of places here we get reinforcement for people's stereotypes of black people. It's hard to really find a leading cause, because I'm not sure if there really is a relevant one anymore. Likewise, it's hard to tell where the issue with under-representation comes from. White people have most of the money, and they're almost unilaterally the people at the top making the big decisions. Maybe they have racist opinions of other races, so white people are more likely to become directors, in charge of casting, etc... Or maybe audiences feel more comfortable with white actors, so it's just more profitable for a movie studio to hire white actors. Or maybe just coming from a lower socio-economic class makes it harder to get into acting (Not being able to afford going to acting schools).
Most likely it's a little bit of each
The biggest thing is that racism is systemic, it can effect a wide array of aspects in your life, which makes it hard to pin down one specific problem.
Black people are less likely to be employed -> More likely to be poor -> Children get worse education -> Less likely to attend University (good or otherwise) -> Less likely to be qualified for a high paying job -> Less likely to be employed
And at a number of places here we get reinforcement for people's stereotypes of black people. It's hard to really find a leading cause, because I'm not sure if there really is a relevant one anymore. Likewise, it's hard to tell where the issue with under-representation comes from. White people have most of the money, and they're almost unilaterally the people at the top making the big decisions. Maybe they have racist opinions of other races, so white people are more likely to become directors, in charge of casting, etc... Or maybe audiences feel more comfortable with white actors, so it's just more profitable for a movie studio to hire white actors. Or maybe just coming from a lower socio-economic class makes it harder to get into acting (Not being able to afford going to acting schools).
Most likely it's a little bit of each
It's probably worth noting the difference in the population demographics. I can't find exact numbers of the number of white people living in India, but it's less than 3%, and most likely a lot less than that, given that the "other" category lists Mongolians first. On the other hand, only something like 65-70% of the United States is white. When you consider how few roles there are for non-white people, it shouldn't be hard to find something like a black actor for 1 in 10 characters.Lightknight said:
I'll reiterate what I've said numerous times before: the Oscar boycott is stupid.
It's like 12 Years A Slave never happened, it's like it was never showered with praise and wasn't directed by a black director and didn't prominently feature black actors who were boosted by their Oscar wins into a new stage of their careers.
It's like Captain Phillips didn't bring attention of Somali actors to Hollywood or anything.
But no, one year when it just so happens that there are white actors and no black actors in the nominations, suddenly the tokenism police emerge out of the woodwork to discuss how important representation is over talent. Because, obviously, good actors aren't good actors who get nominations because they're charismatic individuals and good actors, it's because they felt less intimidated due to 'representation' as described by an arbitrary distinction in skin tone.
As for the 'Hollywood screws minorities out of roles argument', fucking Leo still hasn't won an Oscar(and my bet is, still won't for now, I've 10 Euro riding on that) despite him being a favourite of cinephiles, critics and the public. The Oscars are like the Grammys, no one expects them to do anything outside of congratulating themselves and maintaining a standard of blandness for movie nominations.
It's like 12 Years A Slave never happened, it's like it was never showered with praise and wasn't directed by a black director and didn't prominently feature black actors who were boosted by their Oscar wins into a new stage of their careers.
It's like Captain Phillips didn't bring attention of Somali actors to Hollywood or anything.
But no, one year when it just so happens that there are white actors and no black actors in the nominations, suddenly the tokenism police emerge out of the woodwork to discuss how important representation is over talent. Because, obviously, good actors aren't good actors who get nominations because they're charismatic individuals and good actors, it's because they felt less intimidated due to 'representation' as described by an arbitrary distinction in skin tone.
As for the 'Hollywood screws minorities out of roles argument', fucking Leo still hasn't won an Oscar(and my bet is, still won't for now, I've 10 Euro riding on that) despite him being a favourite of cinephiles, critics and the public. The Oscars are like the Grammys, no one expects them to do anything outside of congratulating themselves and maintaining a standard of blandness for movie nominations.
One issue that occurred to me, and this is specifically to do with the Oscar's debacle, is the nature of "Oscarbait" which seems almost destined to ensure a rather underwhelming number of minority actors are nominated, and that's the number of period dramas, biopics, and "based on a true stories" of various accuracy, which simply due to the nature the genre's are rather exclusionary. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons that should be fairly clear to all of us, this means that there are fewer stories (and fewer still that haven't been told) in which minorities can play a big part, whilst sill maintaining verisimilitude. Looking back at past and current best picture nominees, the following are ones set in era/circumstances where actors of a different ethnicity to that cast would not be suited as main characters due to being biopics of a particular person or in inappropriate historical contexts (I am including all circumstances where it would be inappropriate, in my eyes, hence some of these will include minority actors where it would have been wrong to cast a white dude):
The King's Speech
The Fighter
The Social Network
Hugo*
Tree of Life
Warhorse
The Help
Moneyball
Argo
Beast of the Southern Wild*
Django Unchained
Les Miserable
The Life of Pi*
Lincoln
Zero Dark Thirty
12 Years a Slave
Captain Philips
Dallas Buyers Club
Philomena
Wolf of Wall Street
American Sniper
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
The Big Short*
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
The Revenant
(*I know so little about these films that my view comes from looking at little more than the wikipedia page. So I may be wrong)
That actually leaves very little where colour blind casting would be appropriate (in fact, it was only after doing that list I realised my life would have been easier if I did it the other way around!) Yet, the Oscar's won't nominate the most succesful film of, what the decade, which stars a black British actor: Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Indeed, sci-fi is one of those genres - along with super hero movies - where colour blind casting is almost completely feasible, yet it is a genre which finds its films rarely nominated
The King's Speech
The Fighter
The Social Network
Hugo*
Tree of Life
Warhorse
The Help
Moneyball
Argo
Beast of the Southern Wild*
Django Unchained
Les Miserable
The Life of Pi*
Lincoln
Zero Dark Thirty
12 Years a Slave
Captain Philips
Dallas Buyers Club
Philomena
Wolf of Wall Street
American Sniper
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
The Big Short*
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
The Revenant
(*I know so little about these films that my view comes from looking at little more than the wikipedia page. So I may be wrong)
That actually leaves very little where colour blind casting would be appropriate (in fact, it was only after doing that list I realised my life would have been easier if I did it the other way around!) Yet, the Oscar's won't nominate the most succesful film of, what the decade, which stars a black British actor: Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Indeed, sci-fi is one of those genres - along with super hero movies - where colour blind casting is almost completely feasible, yet it is a genre which finds its films rarely nominated
I've read the manga. It's stated that there were more Asian people in the city, but it seems they have been largely culled from the city for reasons of plot. Mikasa is the only character that is Asian in the cast and she's only half Asian. Every other character is white.Fox12 said:Apparently, 95% of the cast of Attack on Titan is supposed to be White. I'm pretty sure it's canon that there's only one Japanese person in the world.Lightknight said:
That being said, I watched the movie. It was okay. While it did slightly bother me that everyone is Asian in the cast, it was mostly due to the fact that Mikasa's heritage is a plot point more than anything else. However, it didn't ruin the movie.
In the end, I rarely care about an actor's race. It really only bothers me in small cases. Casting a black man as Johnny Storm was problematic considering that Sue is his sister. I would have been fine with both being black, but that seemed like one example of the studio making a change that didn't need to be changed.
The whitewashing of the Avatar cast was more confusing than angering. Like Doug Walker said in his review, it is sort of concerning to take a series where no one was white and make the heroes white. Even more when you realize that the Fire nation was lighter in skin color in TLA and much darker in the movie.
A term that was coined by Spike Lee. Hollywood was so concerned about being racist they sort of made a trope that is racist in a different way.Fappy said:
I think it's well to acknowledge that there's a circular problem. It's difficult to cast racial minorities in leading parts in high-budget would-be blockbusters because there aren't all that many non-Caucasian actors well-known enough to help draw the kind of audience one needs to make money on a high budget movie.
BUT, without a presence in high-profile, high-budget blockbusters, it's difficult for many actors to gain the public prominence necessary for them to be a big draw in future movies.
I can feel a certain sympathy with movie makers working on the top tier; it isn't entirely fair to suggest that someone at the top of their field has an obligation to potentially self-sabotage their own work in the name of promoting someone else's sense of justice.
But there's also far less reason to accept movies working at a lower budget to go for all-white leading casts, nor does that constitute an excuse for excluding non-white actors in other roles. If anything, quite the opposite; there's clearly an audience that's hungry for movies with African-Americans in strong roles, for example, and recognizing that audience could only help many films' bottom line.
"Aloha" cost a relatively paltry (in modern terms) $37 million to make, and only took in about $21 million world-wide; though any number of factors may have played into its failure, the controversy of its casting choice unquestionably played a part. Even casting a talented but relatively unknown actress in the part played by Emma Stone might well have been to its ultimate benefit. And possibly helped lead another non-Caucasian actress into prominence in later films.
BUT, without a presence in high-profile, high-budget blockbusters, it's difficult for many actors to gain the public prominence necessary for them to be a big draw in future movies.
I can feel a certain sympathy with movie makers working on the top tier; it isn't entirely fair to suggest that someone at the top of their field has an obligation to potentially self-sabotage their own work in the name of promoting someone else's sense of justice.
But there's also far less reason to accept movies working at a lower budget to go for all-white leading casts, nor does that constitute an excuse for excluding non-white actors in other roles. If anything, quite the opposite; there's clearly an audience that's hungry for movies with African-Americans in strong roles, for example, and recognizing that audience could only help many films' bottom line.
"Aloha" cost a relatively paltry (in modern terms) $37 million to make, and only took in about $21 million world-wide; though any number of factors may have played into its failure, the controversy of its casting choice unquestionably played a part. Even casting a talented but relatively unknown actress in the part played by Emma Stone might well have been to its ultimate benefit. And possibly helped lead another non-Caucasian actress into prominence in later films.
Ooh! I know this one!Baresark said:
Let's take the specific example of all the massive hate Finn got for being a black storm trooper. Why are storm troopers white? Can anyone even answer this? We never see a single trooper out of uniform throughout the entire series of movies. How the hell is a storm trooper a traditionally white role anyway? Is it because the extra's you can never actually see in the movies happened to be white? For that matter, were they even white? Were there no black storm trooper extras? Are these people just entirely full of shit and looking for the thinnest veil possible so they can go on a racist tirade?
White washing is not a single case of putting a white person in a role of another ethnicity. It is the systematic denial of roles to minorities that could go to minorities and the removal of focus from minorities in favor of white people. Casting Mickey Rooney as a racist caricature is part of the problem, so is demanding that no black person can ever play a storm trooper. So is creating a movie about Japanese culture starring Tom cruise. That last one isn't so bad, but in the context of the first two it is suddenly a lot less acceptable. And most of all, the problem is that these things are happening over and over and over.
Not only are minorities denied white roles based on nothing more than skin color, they are denied roles that have nothing to do with ethnicity, they are denied roles in which their ethnicity would be appropriate, and in the few roles they do get the focus is often pulled away from them toward white actors. That is white washing.
I think it's important to note the difference between outrage over castings simply from a racist view because the actor is a certain race (E.G. Finn and Rey in The Force Awakens being newly introduced characters, there is no reason they couldn't be black or female)
Or because previous established material make it a strange or unsuitable choice to give that particular casting role to that particular actor (E.G. Michael Jordan as the Human Torch, not just because the Human Torch is a previously established white character, but because the Human Torch is supposed to be the biological brother of the (white) Invisible woman, which really messes up the continuity unnecessarily.)
One is definitely racist and sexist, the other can be just a legitimate concern for the character's continuity and place in the previously established universe, which I don't see as wrong.
It should also be noted that people on the internet love to complain about any casting choice for any character for whatever reason. Heath Ledger was chastised for taking the Joker role.
Jared Leto was chastised for taking the Joker role.
Ben Affleck was chastised for taking the Batman role.
Jesse Eisenberg was chastised for taking the Lex Luthor role.
Andrew Garfield was chastised for taking the Spiderman role, as has been the steadily younger Aunt May actors, and the new teen Spiderman, whoever he even is.
All these actors were white, all were chastised because they didn't perceptibly fill the shoes or fit the concept of the pre-established character they were playing. Most proved the doubters wrong, some have still to be proven, but all hit on controversy over their physical appearances, if the actor happens to also be a different race from their pre-established character such as Idris Elba as Heimdall (Who was awesome in the role) it will raise eyebrows and lead to questions over the actors suitability in the role simply because it's a deviation from the source material, and too many deviations lead to terrible adaptions.
It can and should, however, be used as an example to prove that non-white films can do excellently in America and beyond; Slumdog Millionaire made $141 million in U.S. Box Office sales, whereas Exodus made $65 million (US sales only). There is a clear sign that a movie set in the Middle East, without white actors can be much more successful than an all American cast movie, but then it's not the Escapist commentators we have to convince about this, it's the Hollywood Execs.
Or because previous established material make it a strange or unsuitable choice to give that particular casting role to that particular actor (E.G. Michael Jordan as the Human Torch, not just because the Human Torch is a previously established white character, but because the Human Torch is supposed to be the biological brother of the (white) Invisible woman, which really messes up the continuity unnecessarily.)
One is definitely racist and sexist, the other can be just a legitimate concern for the character's continuity and place in the previously established universe, which I don't see as wrong.
It should also be noted that people on the internet love to complain about any casting choice for any character for whatever reason. Heath Ledger was chastised for taking the Joker role.
Jared Leto was chastised for taking the Joker role.
Ben Affleck was chastised for taking the Batman role.
Jesse Eisenberg was chastised for taking the Lex Luthor role.
Andrew Garfield was chastised for taking the Spiderman role, as has been the steadily younger Aunt May actors, and the new teen Spiderman, whoever he even is.
All these actors were white, all were chastised because they didn't perceptibly fill the shoes or fit the concept of the pre-established character they were playing. Most proved the doubters wrong, some have still to be proven, but all hit on controversy over their physical appearances, if the actor happens to also be a different race from their pre-established character such as Idris Elba as Heimdall (Who was awesome in the role) it will raise eyebrows and lead to questions over the actors suitability in the role simply because it's a deviation from the source material, and too many deviations lead to terrible adaptions.
Slumdog Millionaire cannot be used as a direct counterpoint to Exodus: Gods and Kings in regards to Ridley Scott saying he would not get Hollywood execs funding his movie if it was all unknown Middle Eastern actors, because Slumdog millionaire cost $15 Million and was bankrolled in the United Kingdom (The lead actor is actually a British national - Not a native of India!). Exodus cost $140 million and was bankrolled by Hollywood in America.Richard Gozin-Yu said:
It can and should, however, be used as an example to prove that non-white films can do excellently in America and beyond; Slumdog Millionaire made $141 million in U.S. Box Office sales, whereas Exodus made $65 million (US sales only). There is a clear sign that a movie set in the Middle East, without white actors can be much more successful than an all American cast movie, but then it's not the Escapist commentators we have to convince about this, it's the Hollywood Execs.
The original storm troopers were clones, they'd be whatever color the original was. The original was Jango Fett who was played by a Maori. Once TFA got released (or close before in some book I'm sure) we found out the new storm troopers weren't clones.ThatOtherGirl said:
Weren't all stormtroopers kind of retconned into all being Jango Fett clones like their prequel versions? Finn suddenly being a storm trooper rather than, say, a rebel plant or anything else is kind of weird when it was already established in the prequels that clone troopers went on to serve the Empire. The weird thing about the retcon is that it was easy to do, since you never saw a stormtrooper out of uniform, like you said. But then to double down on your retcons so that you can make your new lead into a defector without having to hire a most likely older actor as one of your male leads is... pretty strange, actually. Other than that, I honestly believe the hate that Finn got was manufactured. Isn't J.J. Abrams incredibly outspoken about that sort of thing?ThatOtherGirl said:
In my opinion there's a big difference between casting a white actor that has the background, the talent and the presence to fit a part and make us believe he is that character; and casting a white "star" that basically just plays himself with makeup and effects that are entirely reminiscent of blackface, and it's the second of those that's being called out.
Dominic Cooper is English and was born in London but is completely believable as Uday Hussain in the Devil's Double, Oscar Isaac is Guatamalan and appears to have a role in every single film I watch I lately - he'd have been completely believable for any of the roles in Exodus: Gods and Kings, despite not being technically the "correct" ethnicity. There are any number of talented actors of all colours around that can pull off a variety of roles. Meanwhile, In Exodus: White Gods and Kings, Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton just look like they wandered onto the wrong film set by mistake. They are laughably awful casting. Even better, the palest, whitest, most scottish man in existence Ewen Bremner, Spud from Trainspotting, actually plays an Egyptian in that film too! That shit should practically be a meme - your argument that this isn't racist is invalid, he cast Spud from Trainspotting as an Arab!
Dominic Cooper is English and was born in London but is completely believable as Uday Hussain in the Devil's Double, Oscar Isaac is Guatamalan and appears to have a role in every single film I watch I lately - he'd have been completely believable for any of the roles in Exodus: Gods and Kings, despite not being technically the "correct" ethnicity. There are any number of talented actors of all colours around that can pull off a variety of roles. Meanwhile, In Exodus: White Gods and Kings, Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton just look like they wandered onto the wrong film set by mistake. They are laughably awful casting. Even better, the palest, whitest, most scottish man in existence Ewen Bremner, Spud from Trainspotting, actually plays an Egyptian in that film too! That shit should practically be a meme - your argument that this isn't racist is invalid, he cast Spud from Trainspotting as an Arab!
Please, do tell me how we are supposed to quantify what happened in the past and turn that into some sort of catch up system? We can't. We can either choose to be even minded going forward or not to. Even minded in this case means not cherry picking for one side over the other. It means either freedom of expression or strict adherence to some system of racial or cultural guidelines.ThatOtherGirl said:
I love how we got to see examples of this going all the way back to 1950's and everyone is like, "That's offensive". No shit it's offensive, but there was segregation back then and any kind of Asian actors in the US were entirely non-existent, it was cool call Native Americans "Injuns", must I really go on?
It doesn't actually make sense to take examples from a completely different era of how things were done, done in ways that are not considered acceptable in the modern world circa 2016, and then try to make the argument that it's so horrible because look at this thing that happened. It honestly just actively ignores any amount of progress since that era, and that progress has been substantial in ways that I don't think people are entirely cognizant of. No one said it's done either, but John Oliver's video ignore any progress treating today as if it were still 1950.
If anything, this is just proof as to why award shows are completely useless, but everyone flocks around their televisions to watch them like lemmings. If anyone is offended by what happened, they only have themselves to blame because anyone who watches those shows are the problem, no matter how offended they may find it.
So far as the Storm Trooper thing is concerned: That arose from an era of people who grew up on the prequels. Older people like myself know that by the time episode 4 came out, on the timeline there were no more clones. Those people argued from a place of complete ignorance to Star Wars, which was completely ridiculous. The media clamped on it hard though because it's awesome to find any example of racism so people can go, "AH HA! SEE IT! IT'S RIGHT THERE!". Even though the people who made those arguments represented very small minority of the people who are fans of Star Wars.
