The Big Picture: Skin Deeper

[TheSchaef]

"Color blindness", as the euphemism for willful ignorance and passive acceptance of the status quo it has become, is itself racist.

No, it's not. IT'S THE ENTIRE POINT.

Dr. King stood in front of a crowd one day and said he dreamed of a place where people were judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

And now you're saying that if people are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, that's racist. America has a lot of reasons that it has not yet moved beyond race, but I submit that one of those reasons - and a significant one, at that - is that some people WON'T LET IT.

Likewise, it doesn't matter that Cloud Atlas delivered a message that racism was wrong, if it's casting choices furthered the racist exclusion of actors of Asian descent from meaningful roles.

You DO know that Donna Bae is not only of Asian descent, but was actually born IN South Korea, right?

Look again at the cast list, if you can be bothered. The main cast consists of people who are black, white, asian, male, female, who then play blacks, whites, asians, and even males and females interchangeably, in varying roles of power or subjugation. The point of the movie, whether one agrees with it or not, was to demonstrate common threads of humanity along lines of race, gender, status, and even civilizations along spans of time. The idea behind the casting and varying makeup was because the characters themselves represent those common threads. The cast itself is diverse, and the roles played by each are themselves diverse, something I thought you would appreciate given your long-winded complaint about stereotype in minority roles.

 

[Malisteen]

No, it's not. IT'S THE ENTIRE POINT.

Dr. King stood in front of a crowd one day and said he dreamed of a place where people were judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

And now you're saying that if people are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, that's racist. America has a lot of reasons that it has not yet moved beyond race, but I submit that one of those reasons - and a significant one, at that - is that some people WON'T LET IT.

Ignoring the ongoing structural racism in this country won't make it go away, and that's what color blindness has become. It's no longer used as a vision for the future to motivate us to fix the injustice of the present, it's used as an excuse to ignore the injustice of the present and wallow in the status quo. As it has been done here. As it always is whenever the issue of racial injustice is raised, only for those comfortable in the status quo to shout it down with a message of "I don't need to do anything, I don't even need to think about or acknowledge any racial problem, it's enough for me to just choose to be blind to it". When the ongoing racial problems in society are pointed out, those who champion the color blind mantra don't say "hey, society isn't living up to our ideal, we should get off our butts and do something about it", no, instead they shout down the squeaky wheel for so much as mentioning race in the first place.

If you think that's what Dr. King's message was about, if you think that's what his Dream was, then I would posit that you don't know Dr. King very well.

You DO know that Donna Bae is not only of Asian descent, but was actually born IN South Korea, right?

First, the good does not wash out the bad. Casting a Korean actor in a Korean Role does not make it ok to cast a white actor in another Korean role. Likewise, casting colored actors in white roles doesn't make it ok to cast white actors in colored roles. And this is because context is important, and the real world context means these two things are not equivalent.

That Bae's role as Sonmi 451 fell well within Hollywood's accepted stereotypes for Asian women does not stand in the films favor in this issue either, even if the role was meant in part as a criticism of those stereotypes, because we end up an Asian woman playing a role that fits with Hollywood's accepted asian racial stereotypes, while the white actor is playing the typically white role of 'heroic male lead', even when the character in question is Asian.

Look, it's not that I don't understand the fictional context of the films narrative, and it's not that I don't appreciate a cast that is far more diverse than one typically sees out of a big budget production. But that still doesn't make the casting of white actors in Asian roles ok. Furthering the technology for and precedent of white actors playing Asian roles is a bad thing. The things the film does well don't change that. It's not about hating the film or insisting that this one thing makes it bad or even stops it from being good. If I didn't allow myself to like anything with problematic racial or sexual representation issues, there wouldn't be much coming out of popular culture that I could like. But you can appreciate the good qualities of a film or other media offering while still pointing out and acknowledging problems it may have or negative social issues it may be a part of or contribute to.

 

[LiquidGrape]

I would also like to chime in with the people who decry "colour blindness" as an unwillingness of, let's face it, white people to acknowledge the systematic privilege they continue to enjoy at the expense of other groups.

 

[Malisteen]

I would also like to chime in with the people who decry "colour blindness" as an unwillingness of, let's face it, white people to acknowledge the systematic privilege they continue to enjoy at the expense of other groups.

a couple comics I like to show the "color blind" crowd who reject any discussion of race based social injustice, as well as those who decry affirmative action as "reverse racism":

http://www.redbubble.com/people/barrydeutsch/works/5562735-how-bob-benefits-from-racism?p=poster

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5rr52cAlU1r38c2ko1_1280.jpg

 

[Malisteen]

Let's go back to my initial comment, which you were responding

Maybe I didn't ask clearly enough. How are the casting choices in this film racist? You should probably check the cast list before answering and note a lot of the actors in the film, especifically a lot of the protagonists, are not white.

Let's go back to my original original comment that your question was responding to:

"Why the hell should the fictional context of the films narrative trump the real life context of Hollywood's racist casting choices?"

Here "hollywood's racist casting choices" is referring to the pervasive trends in how colored actors in general, and actors of Asian descent in this case, are and are not cast in Studio productions. Cloud Atlas plays into this pattern by casting white actors in the roles of Asian characters - and the real world context of the Hollywood system that the film exists as a part of makes that decision not at all equivalent to its simultaneous casting of colored actors in white rolls. Doing the latter does not excuse the former, and developing new technology to make 'racebending' easier only makes it easier for the Hollywood system to further marginalize colored actors and minimize real colored representation in the future.

Yes, the cast is more diverse than is typical for a Hollywood production, and that's a good thing, but the primary protagonists in the majority of its segments are still played by white actors, and when the colored actors are playing colored characters, they still fall within the racial stereotypes that colored actors tend to be restricted to in the Hollywood system. Even if part of the point of the film is to criticize these stereotypes, it's still playing into them.

The mistake you're making here, the mistake Bob makes in this video, is pretending this film exists all on its own, an island isolated from the trends and patterns and habits of big budget studio blockbusters. That you can look at the casting of just this film, and ignore the wider context of the society and film making industry of which it is a part. In a world where Asian American actors could play any Hollywood role, in a Hollywood where colored actors weren't overwhelming relegated to racially stereotyped side roles, in a world where casting a white man in the role of an Asian character didn't mean that likely the only asian male protagonists moviegoers might see that year is being played by a white man, in that world there would be no problem with the casting of Cloud Atlas.

But that's not the America we live in, and those aren't the movies we watch. What was Bob's rule again? Context is Everything. And because context is everything, you can't just look at the one film on its own. You have to, if you'll pardon the pun, consider the 'big picture', which includes not just the internal context of the film and its individual production, but also the wider real world context that this film is a part of. And in that real world context, casting white actors in the role of non-white characters just isn't cool.

 

[theultimateend]

So Bob since the past is unchangeable and that historical stigma and blackface will always be around in the past, isn't those double standard justifications going to be eternal?

Seriously how would we know when we can drop the double standard altogether? I really want to know.

The answer's probably going to be more non-white roles but roughly how many do we need?

its gonna be a while, slavery wasn't that long ago, i know that's like 200 or so years, but in comparison to the life span of the planet , and humans, 200 years isn't that long.

and then civil rights, those things still have effects on our culture, like in this case people not liking to cast people with color for lead roles.

until enough time has passed where as the cultural balances can be tipped in a way that non white male can get fair say, you gotta deal with the double standards

Are you seriously comparing human history to astronomical timeframes?

Or is this one of those subtle sarcasm deals that is lost on the internet?

People want racism to go away yet everyone keeps insisting on labeling each other like this. Why does it matter what actors got chosen they were obviously the best for their parts. People just need to let this whole race thing drop or it will never go away.

I think the point is that its wonderful to not be racist, that race doesn't matter, that talent is the most important thing. Choosing people who are best for the roles or choosing the best people who audition for those roles is the only correct answer.

Unless they are white, then you obviously white washed the whole thing and are terribly racist, shame on you.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

It seems everyone is so butthurt about race. If you all truly want to move on, shrug. Shrug when these things happen. If they shouldn't matter, don't argue and rant that it shouldn't matter. When your girlfriend or boyfriend does something that doesn't matter to you, you don't spend ten minutes crafting an argument on why it doesn't matter to you, shouldn't matter to them and why they should just stop doing that thing.

The more white heterosexual males (and there were enough here to classify themselves at that) wail and fight against the fact that, yeah, people do want to be respected and feel valued in their manner of choosing, the more the other sides are going to feel they need to fight harder to be valued. If you make it a big deal, you make it seem to others that you don't want to because you might not consider it.

A long time ago, I had a girlfriend with body issues. She didn't think she was womanly enough. Eventually, I knew that my words weren't reaching her and that she needed to do like me and find acceptance from within. So I stopped answering her and told her I wasn't going to play that game with her over and over. That I cared about her, and I wouldn't be with her if I wasn't attracted to her. That wasn't enough. She needed to hear the words. I tried to make a stand for her and me, knowing that she needed this validation from within.

I was right, but she still was unhappy. If it truly didn't matter to me, if I wanted the best outcome, I should have smartened up and gave her the temporary thing she needed WHILE working on her esteem from the beginning. Even though I was right and I admittedly did get tired of it, I was wrong by not validating someone I supposedly cared about. If you all want to get over these things, you have to work through it with others instead of just being 'done with it'. You'll create more barriers than break down, and that will leave you dealing with it forever.

 

[sleeky01]

How are the casting choices racist?

The overwhelming majority of rolls in Hollywood are written explicitly for white people.

Now hang on for a moment. Can you give a specific example of a role that was specifically written for a white person? Not one that was specifically written for an actor.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Man, I so wish I could see this movie. Why the FUCK am I being expected to wait until next fucking year?!

I'm getting what you're trying to say, but one has to ask the question: why was the context ignored in the first place?

Because people are stupid. Seriously, that's all there is to it. People LOVE to stir up trouble and kick up a fuss over nothing and they regularly don't even THINK about what they're complaining about.

 

[TheSchaef]

As it always is whenever the issue of racial injustice is raised, only for those comfortable in the status quo to shout it down with a message of "I don't need to do anything, I don't even need to think about or acknowledge any racial problem, it's enough for me to just choose to be blind to it".

Or in this case, the message of "stop shouting at me as if I am the problem with the world, and not the person who is ACTUALLY being racist. You know, in the real world, and not in the perpetual-retroactive-butthurt theoretical world.

It's improper for a person to be a dick to another person, full stop. It is immoral to deprive another person of their rights and protections under law, full stop. You seem to think it's racist not to don the Extra-Pious Hat of Racial Indignation whenever someone is being a dick because of another person's skin color. How about if I just don't like the fact that they're being a dick in the first place?

Casting a Korean actor in a Korean Role does not make it ok to cast a white actor in another Korean role.

That's not how the casting of this movie works. People were cast to play a series of overlapping, ambivalent-slash-androgynous roles. In a movie designed to strip away the perceived boundaries of race, gender, status, etc., doesn't it seem like protesting that one sub-role in one sub-story because it is supposed to be a "Korean role"... make you the one peddling race in this situation?

How would you have cast the movie to accommodate your sensibilities? Would you have cast Korean actors for all the roles, so that they would be "properly Korean" when this story was being told? How then would that work when they were all asked to put on negroid makeup and you've suddenly deprived a host of black actors from having proper work in Hollywood?

 

[Milkman]

Suddenly I'm reminded of all the people who think The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is racist.

 

[bunji]

Did you say its ok for a black person to play a white character, but not the other way round? Look Bob, no one gave a crap that the guy in Thor was played by a black actor, what annoyed them was that the character in the comic was white. These same fans would also complain if you made a Blade movie with a white guy playing Blade.

To be honest, if its original content then who cares what colour the actor is and whom they are playing. Have a black guy made up to look Chinese or a white guy made up to look black. A man in female make up. No one cares. Its just the PC crowd that jump on this stuff and paint it as a racial thing when its not and as usual its aimed more at the white people than other races.

Also as Bob seems to really love the Cloud Atlus movie im guessing the next few Big Pictures will be all about how amazing it is.

Damn straight, saying that we all need to place different ruls on different races so that we can all be equal is retarded.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

One person says "Asian descended actors in America are overwhelmingly rejected from general roles, relegated to racially stereotyped supporting roles if that, and in this environment a white man playing one of the few well rounded Asian characters to show up in a Hollywood production has an entirely different and far more negative real world context than an actor of color playing a white role."

This person isn't demanding that you hate the movie. They might prefer you not support it with your money, but they're not even demanding that. They're asking you to simply be aware of the real world context of institutionalized racism that permeates the bones of Hollywood's studio system. To take it into account and consider it.

And what about those of us that consider it, and don't care? Yes I get it, Asian American men are demasculinize and Asian American women are highly sexulaized for those with some fetish. However, I honestly can't be bothered to care when I see stuff like this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sC5qkMGEnE] in the rest of the world. It really just doesn't compare, and as a result the plight of Asian American actors and actresses isn't something I care a great deal about.

That said, I fully support Asian-Americans when I see the crap that spews from Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s mouth.

Context counts for a lot, if not everything, but there's more to context than just the internal narrative of a film. The society and system which produced it is also part of its context. The one cannot wipe out the other. The good does not wash away the bad, nor the bad the good. If you can acknowledge the cinematic talent and innovation behind "Triumph of the Will" while still being aware of and denouncing its horrific social context, then you can like Cloud Atlas as a film and still acknowledge that establishing technology for and furthering a precedent of white actors being cast in non-white roles is handing a racist Hollywood system more tools and excuses to marginalize colored actors and genuine colored representation in media.

You can't see the forest through the trees. The whole point of the movie is that a person's identity transcends race and gender, hence Jim Sturgess playing a Korean man and Hugo Weaving playing a English women.

Responding instead with "Well I don't even see race, any actor should be allowed to play any role", is ignoring the issue that any actor isn't allowed to play any role. That actors of color are attacked for even stating that they would like to play a white role, that scripts are frequently rejected or rewritten when they explicitly call for a colored character in the lead role. That the Hollywood system regularly plays to and reinforces racial stereotypes while delivering a message that white = beautiful, white = good, white = normal. There's racism out there, and by refusing to see race, you're refusing to see the ways in which the race of non-white people is still held against them. It's choosing to not notice and not care because noticing and caring is too inconvenient if it comes between you and your appreciation of a movie. And no, I don't have to show the least respect for that sentiment.

Oh, you have it all wrong. Its not that I don't care because I just want to enjoy the movie, its I don't care for two reasons. One, I don't think its as serious as an issue as something like this in the media [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwN2M6ZIIRU], and two, the same people who condemn Cloud Atlas [http://www.racebending.com/v4/blog/cloud-atlas-conversation-yellowface-prejudice-artistic-license/] have nothing to say when they see Lucy Liu playing a role of a white Character [http://www.racebending.com/v4/featured/elementary-dear-lucy/]. Its a double standard and its something that I won't be a part of. You want me to care about Cloud Atlas? Ok, as long as you care about movies like Thor and White Chicks.

It's a self serving mantra that reaffirms the notion that you don't need to do even consider anything. As if ignoring the issue was enough. What problem ever went away by ignoring it? Racism isn't just something that one actively chooses, like a mustache-twirling villain. It's also something you can passively accept by simply choosing not to see, not to care. "Color blind" is just that - willfully blind to the real world issues faced by colored people. It can be a great moral for teaching kindergartners how the world should be, but once you're past grade school, once your world and your influence stretches past the room you're currently sitting in, once it's time for you to start dealing with how the world is, once reconciling the "is" with the "should be" is your responsibility, it's just not good enough anymore.

Very true, which is why a person must have priorities and why I concern myself more with these kinds of issues concerning the media [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sC5qkMGEnE&t=6m27s], than some first world problems like this [http://iamkoream.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/jim-sturgess-cloud-atlas-asian.jpeg].

 

[Uhura]

In regards to the discussion about Asian American actors in Hollywood I thought I'd share these two videos. (I think hearing first hand experiences always helps in these types of discussions.)

 

[Baresark]

I'm chiming in super late, but I only just had the time to watch this video today.

So race. It's a funny subject. I don't buy the whole idea that it's politically incorrect to have white people play non white rolls in a movie where non white people play white rolls. It's just nonsense, the whole idea. People cry and stamp their feet because the world isn't fair and equal while in the same breathe arguing that it's fair for non white people to act as white people and not fair for white people to act in roles for non white people. I also don't buy the idea that just because it was wrong 50+ years ago (you know, a time in America when black and white folks had to use separate bathroom, among other things), it is wrong now. My main issue is that we live in a society where no one is allowed to move forward. Because it was negatively racist (as opposed to just racist which means that it's based on race and not particular thoughts or feelings about someone of a particular race) back in the day it is obviously that now.

And as it was pointed out, in the context of this movie, these accusations shouldn't even exist.

In the context of unified, truly progressive (not the political kind of progressive) and positively changing world, these objections are just base. In that kind of world all the people who cry racism on instances like this hold back society from moving on from it's very checkered past. There are things out there that are racist, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. But crying wolf based on the way the world was 50+ years ago is pretty much nonsense.

 

[LiquidGrape]

I take issue with Bob's defense, because it assumes intention and context somehow excuses anything.
Execution is key, and what I see in Cloud Atlas is probably one of the most depressingly crass appropriations of racial struggle I have seen in a long time.
Regardless of intention, the Wachowskis reduced ethnicity to a costume. And that's not something I find myself inclined to celebrate.

Furthermore, I'd argue without a doubt that race is still the single most divisive struggle in the western world. The only difference between now and 30 years ago is that the issue has become more subliminal as the people in possession of privilege attempt to persuade themselves and everyone else that we inhabit a post-racial society.

...the same people who condemn Cloud Atlas [http://www.racebending.com/v4/blog/cloud-atlas-conversation-yellowface-prejudice-artistic-license/] have nothing to say when they see Lucy Liu playing a role of a white Character [http://www.racebending.com/v4/featured/elementary-dear-lucy/]. Its a double standard and its something that I won't be a part of.

Are you honestly going to suggest you see no difference between modern characters of colour being cast as white, and a classically white character being repurposed as a woman of colour in a modern adaptation?
Really?
You're just going to ignore the centuries of systematic erasure which characters of colour have gone through? How even today, explicitly non-white characters cannot be guaranteed a faithful representation?
Okay.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Are you honestly going to suggest you see no difference between modern characters of colour being cast as white, and a classically white character being repurposed as a woman of colour in a modern adaptation?

The difference is quite small because the response it garners when a White person plays a role in movies like 21 comes from the same people who would condemn Cloud Atlas. And to be honest, said people have a double standard. They are more than willing to start up a website dedicated to the fact that a certain movie [http://www.racebending.com/v3/about/] had a Asian character replaced with a White character, but they have nothing but praise for when the reverse happens and an White character is replaced by a Asian character. Its a double standard and it makes their complaints about movies like The Last Air Bender quite hollow.

You're just going to ignore the centuries of systematic erasure which characters of colour have gone through?

Well unless we are living in 1930's Germany and Sippenhaft is in affect, the actions of other people from the past don't qualify as justifications for replacing White characters with non-White characters.

How even today, explicitly non-white characters cannot be guaranteed a faithful representation?

The solution isn't to replace White characters with non-White actors and actresses.

 

[Terragent]

The weirdest thing about this is that Cloud Atlas isn't supposed to be about race at all. It's a story about power and the relationship between the strong and the weak. Almost all of the critical relationships and events in the novel have absolutely nothing to do with racism, real or perceived, and if the film is even halfway faithful to its source material then the same holds true there.

Ethnic tensions play a role in about one and a half stories out of the six. Get over it, people.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

I'm surprised you didn't bring up the Mandarin [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/10006-Lets-Watch-The-Iron-Man-3-Trailer.2] when you were talking about "yellowface" racial acting. Hell, just us responding to that article had an interesting conversation on how to adapt the character to the modern hair-trigger racial response...

Forget the Mandarin dude! We have NICOLAS CAGE playing a "wise" Chinese man in what's supposed to be the biggest movies ever, imagine how that will get people pissed? Ok the movie is called Werewolf Women of the SS (by Rob Zombie) hahaha, Nicolas Cage as that wise china dude looks so damn fun!!!

Wait... Werewolf Women of the SS is actually being made? Wasn't that just a joke trailer? I mean, I know it happened with Hobo With a Shotgun, but I didn't think it would happen to another fake trailer from Grindhouse

Also, unless they changed it from the trailer, that "wise China dude" is Dr. Fu Manchu. Getting a Chinese actor wouldn't make Fu Manchu less racist, so it's probably a good idea to just run with the political-incorrect-ness of him existing in the first place and hope that Cage is crazy enough to overshadow everything else.

 

[LiquidGrape]

The difference is quite small because the response it garners when a White person plays a role in movies like 21 comes from the same people who would condemn Cloud Atlas. And to be honest, said people have a double standard. They are more than willing to start up a website dedicated to the fact that a certain movie [http://www.racebending.com/v3/about/] had a Asian character replaced with a White character, but they have nothing but praise for when the reverse happens and an White character is replaced by a Asian character. Its a double standard and it makes their complaints about movies like The Last Air Bender quite hollow.

It's not a double standard because the racial dynamics and implications are completely different.
How many creative works with overwhelmingly white casts can you call to mind? Probably quite many. Regardless of whether we look at it in a historical or contemporary context, white remains the assumed default, and culture reflects that quite clearly.
Remember how a depressingly large amount of Hunger Games fans cried foul over that one character being cast as a black girl in the film adaptation, even though the book explicitly states that she is, in fact, black? Perfect example of how race factors into our cultural expectations.
Now, comparatively, how many popular creative works with overwhelmingly poc casts can you name? While there are a few examples, I think you'll agree the figure is significantly smaller. Hell, even finding prominent, non-stereotypical or non-exoticised characters of colour is a relative rarity.

So white actors being made up in a way which is historically suspect at the very best, or utterly whitewashing a work renowned for its non-white cast is quite strikingly different from taking a century old character, already duly and frequently accounted for in all his white malehood [http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0026631/], and subvert expectations by making him an Asian woman. It contributes diversity and the potential of additional theme to a character and pairing which has been virtually identical for the past 120 years.

As for your other concerns, you don't need to assume responsibility for the actions of previous generations to recognise how their actions have impacted ours. Positively and negatively. Acknowledging the societal privileges and disadvantages it has generated is the very least we can do if you ask me.