John Oliver Torpedoes Hollywood Whitewashing on Last Week Tonight
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My point is that I'm not going to spend huge amounts of time on a post so that you can simply ignore the message as whole and argue with points as if the exist in a vacuum. I'm fine with defending my points, I'm just not going to do it in a way that wastes my time.Richard Gozin-Yu said:
I was born in the US but I'm Chinese, and I actually don't give a crap. I don't cheer verbally or mentally any time an Asian person gets a non-minor role. In fact, when hearing about seasoned Chinese actors getting any notable role in an English-speaking movie, my first instinct is to wonder whether their English fluency or anything else about their presence will be distracting to the overall movie.
I haven't seen a lot of movies the last year, so I can't recall how many of them had black actors where the movies could be considered as "Oscar worthy". Generally action movies or comedies don't get nominated, at least not for Best Actor/Actress. It would probably take an industry insider to answer this question, but, are black actor applying for dramatic roles in movies, or are they sticking with action/comedy movies?Baresark said:
I think they just made some bad choices to be honest. Creed was great, for example. I don't see how Sly gets a nomination but Michael B Jordan doesn't. There were previous years that went the other way though. For example, a few years ago when 12 Years a Slave was first out, there were people on selection committees who basically confessed to nominating it because of it's content not having seen the movie themselves. I think that is a terrible disservice to that movie.008Zulu said:
This whole argument already went on in another thread, but I still feel compelled to post this again.
The Economist decided to actually do some research on the whole "Oscars so white" hoopla, and what they found was surprising:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-race
Bottom line: not only are blacks actually nominated for Oscars roughly in-line with their population %, they are actually OVER-represented as Oscar winners compared to their population %.
In actuality, it's Asian and Hispanic actors who are the groups most severely underrepresented for both being nominated and winning Oscars.
The Economist decided to actually do some research on the whole "Oscars so white" hoopla, and what they found was surprising:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/01/film-and-race
Bottom line: not only are blacks actually nominated for Oscars roughly in-line with their population %, they are actually OVER-represented as Oscar winners compared to their population %.
In actuality, it's Asian and Hispanic actors who are the groups most severely underrepresented for both being nominated and winning Oscars.
Because, you need to state what 'trying something new' is when you're comparing Slumdog Millionaire to... Oh dear, I've been mixed up! I read the bit you replied to and for some reason my brain switched out 'Exodus: Gods and Kings' for 'Gods of Egypt'. I feel a bit silly. Still, now I must ask what context you're trying to get across when bringing up Slumdog next to Exodus: Gods and Kings. You can't just throw a movie's title out there and say 'debate over, I got my point across impeccably!' As for the whole 'Educate yourself' bit, I wasn't saying you were like that, I was saying you were close. Just by the way you type, you seem like the kind of person who saw the phrase 'Brevity is the soul of wit' and assumed that meant no explanation was needed for your views at any point in time. You've still failed to prove me wrong, since I'm not really seeing your idea of how Slumdog Millionaire in of itself can help the team behind Exodus: Gods and Kings 'try something different'.Richard Gozin-Yu said:
And on your very first sentence you forgot the very basis of this whole discussion. Remember, the title of the segment is "Why is this still a thing?" If it didn't happen any more it wouldn't be a problem, but it does. The question at hand is how is this still a thing?Baresark said:
I agree. And nothing about the current system is even minded
Neither is happening at all right now. Minorities are screwed on both fronts.
We also get to see examples if this happening literally this very year. Most of the examples provided in that clip were within the last decade, a few in literally in this or the last year.
The point of bringing up old examples along side new ones is to demonstrate that the same shit is still happening, that we have failed to address the problem adequately. Some overt racism has been eliminated, true. Thank god we have managed to move past black face. But the problem is no where near solved.
Did you even watch the John Oliver segment? He spends about 20 seconds on the award show and immediately moves onto addressing the deeper problem of white washing in general. It isn't just the award show, it is everywhere.
Please, I have seen multiple people on this very site complaining at the so called forced diversity in the new Star Wars movies, Thor movies, and even Hermione being played by a black woman in a god damn play even with JK's blessing. Don't tell me this attitude isn't prevalent.
The funny part is, that movie is pretty popular in Japan. Each hostel I stayed in when I would travel away from Tokyo would have it in their dvd library.shintakie10 said:
Yeah, I think they chose a bad name for that movie, as the title character is Ken Watanabe's character, not Tom Cruise. I don't think many Japanese people have a problem with that movie, I think it was mostly Americans. But that scene bit was F-ing hilarious I have to admit.Zhukov said:
I don't care what anyone says about it, I still maintain that Idris Elba would be an incredible Bond. The accent is perfect and he can really pull of the likable smugness thing that make Bond's shit puns work.
You refuse to address issues point by point? You don't break down complex issues into their simple parts in order to effectively address the issue? That is an... interesting way to do things. It is completely counter to efficient discussion and massively increases the chance of miscommunication.Baresark said:
You're mixing terms though your numbers are pretty darn close, 64% is non-Hispanic white and around 9% is Hispanic White. And Hollywood absolutely hires Hispanic White people.The Almighty Aardvark said:
We just don't notice because White Hispanics can look like this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/AlexisBledelSept11TIFF.jpg/220px-AlexisBledelSept11TIFF.jpg
Alexis Bledel is a pretty good example but we have a ton of very skilled White Hispanic people in the movie industry if you ever look it up.
So the approximately remaining 27% is comprised of all other races. That's not really that diverse.
However, this also isn't necessarily fair. The demographics of actors may not line up with the national demographics.
Likewise, while India may have a much less diverse population, they have such a large population that their 3% other population would be something like 15% of the US population. That's only around 7% different from the situation we're facing numerically.
Additionally, I don't know what the actual rates of casting are for lead roles. For example, how many movies have minority cast members and is in comparable for the population?
wasn't the entire movie about how the japanese samurai picked him up (as he was an enemy) and tried to raise him in their culture so he could know what he was fighting agaisnt, and he ended up joining them in defending from the foreign assault?Fox12 said:
IIRC it was kind of a personal story
I can see what they were going for, but it's still a little absurd that he's mastered both swordsmanship and the Japanese language over the course of the summer. He even kills three guys single handedly with a sword, and when the battle comes, he's the only survivor. It would have been more plausible to have him be a war time reporter working for the government, who happens to be fluid in multiple languages before the story starts. Then he gets captured, and the Samurai keep him around so that he can tell their story. But then we couldn't have a scene where Tom Cruise fights with a Samurai Sword.teh_Canape said:
Also, the film tries to tie the death of the Native Americans to the death of the Samurai, but the comparison falls flat when you remember that the Samurai were basically slave owning war lords.
I don't think the film was white washing Japanese history. In fact, I thought the premise was really cool. I just thought it was a little silly that an American masters the Japanese culture in about two months, all so that we could have an American action hero.
The samurai keep him around so that they can learn about western battle tactics in order to combat them.Fox12 said:
Yeah, but more for plot convenience than anything else. It's not like he was able to survive because he was superior to the Samurai, the story just needed the Samurai dead and Cruise alive. Plot armour I think it's called.Fox12 said:
Not really a foreign assault, nor defending. The Samurai attacked the newly formed Japanese army who were using western weapons and tactics. I suppose you could argue they were defending against a foreign assault on Japanese culture?teh_Canape said:
Yes, I understand that. I was offering an improvement.wulf3n said:
The plot convenience is the issue. It would make more sense for him to observe the battle from a hill as a reporter. Instead he goes to battle, and manages to be the only survivor, despite having the least amount of training with swords and armor, because plot convenience.