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
I think people need to figure out if the race of a character is culturally significant in any way in the context of the story and IRL. Like, part of Black Panther’s whole deal is he’s from Africa. Hard to budge on that character’s ethnicity. Ariel from the Little Mermaid could literally be any ethnicity and the story would remain the same. Crying about white erasure is pathetic when no actual culture relevant to white western people is being lost.
A big issue here, especially with the MCU stuff, is that it’s not a skin color thing with those changes. They updated the whole character in order to make them into races that are more friendly to China. They’ve done this repeatedly and stripped identities and character traits from characters over and over again.
Every single Romani character that’s appeared in an MCU movie has had their heritage removed and replaced with generic white. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are good examples (since they’re the ones in the meme) but I don’t see any way that Robert Downey Jr is going to be able to do the complicated Romani backstory of Dr Doom very well.
I agree that Ariel was swapped for marketing reasons (and arguably specifically to cause outrage and get people talking) Ariel doesn’t have a racial heritage that plays into her life and identity… She’s a mermaid from the sea… Not a member of a group with a large history of being discriminated against.
It’s definitely a cynical move by Disney no matter how you slice it.
“If you think we’re super woke, you go support the movie. We get money.”
“If you hate it (because we thought a superficial change would cover the fact we barely tried), it’s because you’re a nasty racist bigotface, your opinion is disregarded, galvanizes our first crowd into giving us more money, and angry actually-racist bloggers probably hate-watch it while advertising it for free. We get money.”
Ain’t the culture wars grand (if you’re selling to both sides like a proper arms dealer)? :D
The original actress/singer for Ariel absolutely dominated that role as well, and really the whole cast was damn near perfect. It’s one of the few Disney Princess movies that should have been left alone.
Literally every single live action remake that Disney has created has been inferior in every single way to the originals. Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, all terrible cash-grabby productions (esp. TLK, good lord it’s bad).
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
I think people need to figure out if the race of a character is culturally significant in any way in the context of the story and IRL. Like, part of Black Panther’s whole deal is he’s from Africa. Hard to budge on that character’s ethnicity. Ariel from the Little Mermaid could literally be any ethnicity and the story would remain the same. Crying about white erasure is pathetic when no actual culture relevant to white western people is being lost.
A big issue here, especially with the MCU stuff, is that it’s not a skin color thing with those changes. They updated the whole character in order to make them into races that are more friendly to China. They’ve done this repeatedly and stripped identities and character traits from characters over and over again.
Every single Romani character that’s appeared in an MCU movie has had their heritage removed and replaced with generic white. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are good examples (since they’re the ones in the meme) but I don’t see any way that Robert Downey Jr is going to be able to do the complicated Romani backstory of Dr Doom very well.
I agree that Ariel was swapped for marketing reasons (and arguably specifically to cause outrage and get people talking) Ariel doesn’t have a racial heritage that plays into her life and identity… She’s a mermaid from the sea… Not a member of a group with a large history of being discriminated against.
At this point, I’d be surprised if there was anybody outside of China that actually watches Marvel content.
It’s definitely a cynical move by Disney no matter how you slice it.
“If you think we’re super woke, you go support the movie. We get money.”
“If you hate it (because we thought a superficial change would cover the fact we barely tried), it’s because you’re a nasty racist bigotface, your opinion is disregarded, galvanizes our first crowd into giving us more money, and angry actually-racist bloggers probably hate-watch it while advertising it for free. We get money.”
Ain’t the culture wars grand (if you’re selling to both sides like a proper arms dealer)? :D
The original actress/singer for Ariel absolutely dominated that role as well, and really the whole cast was damn near perfect. It’s one of the few Disney Princess movies that should have been left alone.
Literally every single live action remake that Disney has created has been inferior in every single way to the originals. Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, all terrible cash-grabby productions (esp. TLK, good lord it’s bad).
I enjoyed Beauty and the Beast. shrug
It’s fine. I like plenty of movies that aren’t criterion level cinema. The remakes are cashgrabs meant to capitalize on your nostalgia though.