A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Personally I think a large part of the lack of outrage over the first four is that no one who watched the movies had heard of the source material. People who watch Marvel movies don't tend to read the comics, but Ariel was a Disney movie (one of the most famous of all time) remade as another Disney movie.
Correct. Nobody was bothered by Nick Fury’s change for example, even though he went from white to black. That was a wholly unknown character for most Marvel moviegoers. And Samuel L. Jackson is awesome in that role.
Actually, Fury's always been black in the Ultimate Marvel Universe; the character and the design was actually based on Jackson so casting him for the MCU probably was an obvious direction choice.
I also had my boss, when I worked in fast food, list this as one of the issues he had with the movie, when it came out (to quote him, "he's a white character; no offense but that's what he is," which was particularly galling, given the aforementioned fact).
TIL; thank you! I was aware enough of the comics to know of white Fury, but didn’t know there is, in fact, a black Fury.
Your boss is an idiot. I’m white as printer paper and would gladly let SLJ play me in a biopic. Because he’s awesome in every role he’s played. Good actors are good actors.
Personally, I think the lack of outrage is because the people who get outraged by black people being cast for roles that were previously white characters, aren't concerned when it's white people being cast no matter the source material.
"Personally, I just want to chalk this up to racism so I can be upset about it"
Name one outrage among conservatives in the US when a white person was cast for a role that was any other ethnicity in the source material. Sure, it happens on the Left, Netflix is especially accused of white washing (recent example: Three Body Problem). But, conservatives don't give a shit when it happens the other way around.
Regardless, I truly couldn't give a shit who gets cast for what regardless of source material. If the actor/actress is able to play the part well, I come for entertainment and couldn't care less.
"Personally, I just want to chalk it up for people being mad for no reason so I can feel safe in my view that racism is over because Barack Obama or something."
Could this be because people don't tend to get mad over things they don't know exist? Naaaaah, must be racism. Anyone who disgagrees that racism is the most likely explanation thinks racism is fake.
What is it with leftists and making mountains out of molehills?
"You will not replace us!" shouted the white supremacists after centuries of erasing a multitude of other cultures, histories, and societies.
It has always been about power.
In fairness to Tilda Swinton, they decided to entirely rewrite the character to be a Celtic woman instead of a Tibetan man. This was probably to avoid being censored in China, but getting away from the racist 1930s, "oriental mysticism," trope was probably a good idea. It's certainly a lot better than letting Jonny Depp pretend to be a Native American because he's one-eighth Cherokee.
If it's bad to use white actors for black (or other colored) roles then it's bad for black actors to do white roles. If it's okay to do those switches then it's okay for all. Forget colors it shouldn't matter.
Having said that, Disney just did the Ariel thing ffor the "look at us being sooooo progressive, please give us your money for this utterly shit movie" instead of trying to just make a great movie
But Ariel wasn't white. She was a fish person. So they were free to do whatever.
I only care when it's stupid, like Medieval Poland being full of black people, not even modern day Poland has that many black people.
You can call me racist if you want but casting a black guy to play the president of the USA in like 1910 would be as stupid as casting a white guy to play Nebuchadnezzar.
Representation matters. Giving the few traditionally non-white roles that get written in Hollywood to white actors is an actual problem.
Getting mad about the existence of black characters in fiction fucking stupid. Really fucking stupid. Unjustifiably fucking stupid. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Getting mad sure, but it is definitely a dumb creative decision to have characters be random races that don't make sense in the historical context and it's fine to criticize it. If it's a purely fictional world with no basis in reality then no one should care.
No. Fuckin stop it. Its unbearably stupid.
Historical fiction has existed for a long time.
Y'all ain't out here throwing a pouty parade when someone adds technology or magic or monsters into historical fiction.
But black people? Existing? If that's where you draw the line, it's really clear why. Make all the excuses you want.
Historical or alternate history fiction falls under pure fiction imo. That's fine as long as it makes sense. If it's meant to be some super grounded realistic historical slice-of-life then it would just make me think "when are they going to bring up the fact that there's X type of person walking around here" for the whole story.
Not exclusive to black people. If there were a story that took place in 12th century Mongolia and there was some Nordic guy walking around I would be like "huh, what's his story" and then be confused when it was never mentioned. That's how I feel about a lot of these creative choices.
100% agree, but what should be done would be to green light projects by writers of other races based on different cultures and folklores diversifying the pop culture space (for lack of a better term).
What is done instead is treating minorities as a checklist that needs to be checked in every piece of art even when it doesn't make sense for them to be in that story.
So what is white if Romani isn't? I really do not understand the American concept of race, for me they are all humans.
Can I be upset at all of them? The little mermaid should probably be ~~Dutch~~ Danish, and all the rest should be their canon ethnicities. White Disney princesses don't bother me because most of those stories are European folktales, but that cuts both ways.
Isn't she a fucking mermaid who comes from the ocean? Why should she be any real nationality/ethnicity?
Scarlet Witch wasn't originally Romani.... she was originally still Jewish. You know, since she was Magneto's daughter. The Romani thing came later. So that's kind of a mischaracterization. The Johnny Depp as native american was super wierd, like the black face RDJ in Tropic Thunder. It was cringe @.@.
I don't know how people got that take from Tropic Thunder when they explicitly make reference inside the movie to how messed up and wrong it was. Like, that was the joke. RDJ was playing a character so full of himself that took method acting to it's extreme. Am I missing something? Id love to be educated
No, you're right. RDJ's role on that movie was a joke/commentary about both method acting and black face.
like the black face RDJ in Tropic Thunder. It was cringe @.@.
Did you actually see Tropic Thunder? It's pretty good. His character is meant to be looked down on and the movie makes that clear. It's more of a criticism of actors doing things like black face and playing disabled characters to chase awards.
To me, the weirdest one was Johnny Depp as a Native American. Like I couldn’t wrap my head around it in the movie. I kept thinking the plot was that he was a delusional person who believed he was Native American.
I absolutely remember people being mad about the first one.
The others not so much. The fantasy movies don't really matter the same way as a historical movie about slavery does. The fantasy characters are even gender swapped without a problem at conventions.
And yes that means the racists who got mad about Ariel are dumb.
Yup. Characters should remain consistent if it’s important.
Tonto should not have been played by Johnny Depp. Gross.
The original Ancient One was a poor stereotype of a Tibetan person and Tilda Swinton is cool so I’m ok with this one.
Liam Neeson is a great actor with a ton of gravitas and he pulled off the role well, but yeah shoulda found a middle eastern dude. Maybe that hot Djin dude from American Gods can be the next Ras Al Ghul.
Anything to do with Scarlet Witch’s background is a retcon, she was originally introduced as Magneto’s moustache twirling daughter. Despite her tan in the referenced photo she’s more often depicted as white, but I could see her being middle eastern, but it would make sense that she’s half Jewish at least, given her father’s background.
Lastly, she’s a fucking mermaid. Who gives a shit? How many of the dude bros bitching even watched it?
I think in case of Ra's Al Ghul in Nolan movies, the title is passed from one leader to another. He's not a 1000 year old warrior.
The only one of these that is remotely acceptable, to me, is Tilda Swindon, because they explicitly detached themselves from the character to avoid getting shat on by the CCP for casting a Tibetan and from Americans for casting a Chinese person.
The others are all crap, IMO.
Every time a character is washed we lose the chance to be exposed to global actors that would fit their profile.
Wait until you tell extremist, right-wing Christians that Jesus wasn't a white guy! Oooohhh boyyy!
Also, I think it's important to not forget that in the internet age, a very small minority of hateful asshats can appear to have a very large voice. They are still a very small, minority group of asshats.
Believe me, white folk do get offended about non-white characters being changed to white, in fact they the most likely ones to be offended, especially when it comes to historic figures. All this meme is doing is framing an inaccurate depiction of white folk to suit a biased narrative. Keep in mind also, a minority few cannot represent an entirety. Just as all black or asian folk are not alike, same holds true for white folk. This an era where a difference in race is not the concern, but rather the upper class rich people that use ethnic label stereotyping to have us fight among each other as distraction. Don't fall for their trickery of dividing us.
Don't forget Snow White who looks like a white person but is mixed-race white and Latina, so she isn't white enough to play Snow White.
And also don't forget the very light-skinned black woman who couldn't play Cleopatra because Cleopatra wasn't black. (How do we know? We don't? Cool. Cool cool cool.)
My issue is that we are pairing nationality with skin color or ethnicity here. Those are not mutually exclusive. There are 2nd or 3rd generation Asians immigrants in Mexico, just as there are Mexicans living in Ireland, and Irish people in India, etc.. Somebody could be a fully integrated national but not part if the nations major ethnicity. Even saying AFRICAN-American is kind of pointless, like it matters where your grand-grand-grand-grand-parents came from. They're as much American as anybody else. We don't call everybody else European-American for comparison.
People would have been pissed if some of those were racially accurate