John Oliver Torpedoes Hollywood Whitewashing on Last Week Tonight

[wulf3n]

I feel like the article should have read:

John Oliver Torpedoes Hollywood Whitewashing on Last Week Tonight. The response of interviewed senior studio executives was collectively "I couldn't care less", despite the epic zing.

This was likely due to the Scrooge McDuck levels of money they were bathing in at the time of the interview.

 

[JimB]

Which version of blackface do you mean? The accurate definition of old theatre creating black characters before the times when black stage actors were available, or the SJW definition of "Everything that overprivileged black supremacists from the US take offense to?"

sheppie, I understand that you are afraid of black people, but please try to see this from the perspective of a people historically oppressed to the degree that they were first barred from acting, and later barred from celebrating their acting (seriously, the first black Oscar winner was not permitted to attend the proceedings), and now are given maybe one speaking role per movie that fits one of a very few stereotypes. Imagine how it feels to live in a culture that values homogeneity to the point that it insists your people cannot be part of the collective and enforces that isolation, then mocks you for not fitting their preconceptions of what your people are and should be, such that your life is often a balancing act of trying to cling to a fractured cultural identity while simultaneously worrying about offending others with that cultural identity.

Or don't do that, and sit here and insist that thinking black filmmakers did something worth of recognition in 2015 is black supremacy. Whichever makes you feel better about yourself.

There's a myriad of explanations, historical, psychological and and metaphorical how the costumes came to be as they are.

Yeah, black people are so unreasonable, expecting people to treat the present like it's the present.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

My industry has problems alright...

Our professional development teacher asked everyone around the room to ask why there was only one female student in the room. A boys club? Film? But we work with actresses all the time! /sarcasm <.<

 

[scotth266]

Oliver (and the article writer) act as though criticism of white people playing other races is something new. I seem to recall a lot of people bitching about white people playing other races in prior years (as an example, the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie was particularly hated for that even before it turned out to be a steaming pile of crap). John Oliver isn't making some new, bold statement or "torpedoing" anything, he's reading the same bullet points that critics have been lobbing around for years. Hell he isn't even doing that good a job of it given that his The Last Samurai joke is a complete whiff.

 

[springheeljack]

You know people always bring up the Last Samurai without seeming to have actually watched the damn movie. The only reason Tom Cruise becomes the last samurai is because all the other samurai fucking die by charging a bunch of Gatling guns.

 

[The Lunatic]

Uh... Are the MOBO and BET Awards going to start giving awards to other races too?

 

[Skatalite]

Ridley Scott's a hack. He hasn't made a good movie since Alien.

Have you seen Blade Runner?

 

[Fox12]

Ridley Scott's a hack. He hasn't made a good movie since Alien.

Have you seen Blade Runner?

I actually mentioned that in another post, haha. Blade runner was pretty good. Scott's early career was decent, but his talent seems to be inversely tied to his ego.

 

[9tailedflame]

Ok, let's be fair here. The fantastic 4 remake was just crap, regardless of the human torch's race. People didn't not like it because the torch was black, they didn't like it because it was paced like a trainwreck and 99% of the movie felt like filler.

 

[Davroth]

Going after the directors and actors is going to achieve nothing. It's the studios who make these decisions at the end of the day, they create the ground rules directors have to work under.

 

[JamesStone]

Oh Escapist. You folks know your audience.

The Tom Cruise as the last samurai bit was hilarious. Although I always thought that movie was supposed to be about a white guy in Japan. I've never seen it.

It is. Honestly, I agree with the sentiment, but I still think the people proclaming it do more harm than good when they descent into hyperbole and straight up lies to make their point. The entire shtick with "The Last Samurai" is that a white dude learns the values of the culture he helped subjugate (he was one of the foreign experts Japan historically hired to train their Imperial Army for modern, gunfire-based combat). It's a pretty good movie, all and all.

I just don't get this. You have so many good examples, why do you have to be a lazy shit and pick one of the few that don't apply for the sake of a tired "That guy is soooooooooooooo white" joke?

 

[Tsun Tzu]

At the center of Last Week Tonight's segment is a rather telling quote that was given by Exodus: Gods and Kings director Ridley Scott, who while attempting to defend the movie's whitewashed cast, said the following [http://uproxx.com/filmdrunk/ridley-scott-explains-why-he-didnt-cast-mohammed-so-and-so-in-his-white-washed-exodus/]:

I can't mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such. I'm just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn't even come up.

Yowza.

"Attempting" to defend?

He defended it. There was no "attempt" made. This is the unpleasant reality of film production.

Sincerely, this isn't an issue limited to Hollywood either- Check out Bollywood.

You make movies that put the most asses in seats because they put the most asses in seats. This is a business, whether you like it or not and big names in Hollywood, who are mostly (puzzlingly, given the 72-77% white demographic of the country) caucasian, put the most asses in the most seats, thereby turning the most profit for investors.

This isn't a race issue. It's a business issue.

I mean, fuck, use your heads, folks.

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.

Also, this.

Nailed it.

On another note; I'm personally annoyed at talk of ScarJo playing the Major in Ghost in the Shell.

Rinko Kikuchi, pls.

 

[Gronk]

Ridley Scott's a hack. He hasn't made a good movie since Alien.

I thought Kingdom of Heaven was pretty good.

Dialogue was a bit cheesy and unnatural and the cinematic cut butchered it, but the director's cut was legit.

And part of it is about a white dude going to jerusalem and teaching the locals *how to dig a well*. Like how the heck did they survive down there for thousands of years before Legolas got there, if they don't know how to find water?

 

[Zhukov]

Ridley Scott's a hack. He hasn't made a good movie since Alien.

I thought Kingdom of Heaven was pretty good.

Dialogue was a bit cheesy and unnatural and the cinematic cut butchered it, but the director's cut was legit.

And part of it is about a white dude going to jerusalem and teaching the locals *how to dig a well*. Like how the heck did they survive down there for thousands of years before Legolas got there, if they don't know how to find water?

Yeah, that was pretty dumb.

Apparently people who live in a desert needed a blacksmith/engineer from France to tell them to dig for water.

 

[Karadalis]

The funny thing? Compared to their overall representation in the populace the amount of black or "PoC" (because aparantly mexicans and asians dont count) winners of the oscar award are over represented.

Yeah... "oscars so white" is nothing but another virtue signaling nonsense outrage culture diatripe.

Also people who belong to scientology should not act as if they have any moral highground. Being part of a sect that uses slave labor forces is not something to brag about.

Maybe it's just me but I personally remember there being plenty of angry people when those whitewashing actors were announced to play these roles.

Yeah there was. Sadly I think there were just as many people saying "Shut up SJWs/White Knights/Keyboard warriors" whatever the term of the day was.

Actually there werent... atleast not here on the escapist when this topic came up. The opinion of the majority was pretty much: WTF? Why does this white guy play an agyptian?

Thing is though that non-slactivist types do not obsess over these things and create a giant shitstorm and cry for peoples heads. They simply are irritated, shake their heads, and move on, not that the movie will be anything but forgettable anyways.

 

[tzimize]

The first time I saw a trailer for Gods of Egypt I cried laughing. Not only does the movie just look plain pants-on-head-retarded, but every fucker is white! Like, seriously??!?! It's 2016, guys! We can cast people who at least look Egyptian, can't we?

Christ's sake.

The Last Samurai part of the segment was amazing, and the quote from Ridley Scott was... disheartening.

Truth be told though, I might be remembering Last Samurai wrong, but Tom Cruise was never supposed to be the last samurai in that movie at all, no?

And the Ridley Scott quote, while it might be disheartening, is it surprising. Or even racist? Its just common sense. And has nothing to do with racism tbh. Want to make a blockbuster with several tens of millions for budget....you cant expect to cast some unknown egyptian guy. Is it sad? Maybe, but lets be honest. Big names tend to make big money. And thats true for everyone. Will Smith is black, and he's a good "earner". Its about popularity and earning potential, not skin color.

That said, I find it retarded when you cast anyone unfit for their role. I didnt much care for the casting of Idris Elba in Thor, since its based on northern mythology (or a version of it) and should feature white people. It turned out fine though.

I didnt like Samuel L. being cast as Fury, even though I LOVE S.L.J., and that turned out fine.

But neither would I want Spawn to be cast as a white guy. Or Black Panther (imagine the outrage). Or Luke Cage.

I like my characters to look as they're supposed to. And that shouldnt be a problem, and it has nothing to do with racism. I wouldnt like a Joker with Orange hair either. Because thats not how the joker should look. I didnt like the Jared Leto design with tattoos, and I wasnt alone.

When it all comes down to it, its about making money. Not about hollywood people refusing to aknowledge black actors. Its possible to not like something without being racist. I hate rap and its entire culture, but it has nothing to do with the color of someones skin. I hated the homie-bots in Transformers 2 too. And they certainly didnt have a skin-color. Racism is slowly becoming watered out as a word, and while white people playing historical people from other cultures is fucking retarded I choose to vote with my wallet in those cases and simply skip it.

The rest is a gray area containing a lot more stuff that supposed racism.