The Off Topic Topic

[garbon]

I don't see where you get off rolling your eyes in this situation.

[Ideologue]

Because forgetting history is wrong, Winston Smith.  You can't just throw shit into the memory hole and be done with it.

I'm also really annoyed because I'm pretty sure you're willfully misinterpreting what I'm saying, because it's not that fucking nuanced: for any fictional person that is supposed to inhabit something closely aligned with the real world--and just like a real person in the real world--race may inform character backstory.

It may be an entirely cosmetic aspect of the character (although that has some value, it's very marginal).  Many if not most characters would not change in any essential way if they were white, black, Asian, etc., e.g. Heimdall in Thor, Perry White in Man of Steel, or whatever Will Smith's character's name was in I Am Legend.  Doesn't matter.

But in some cases--particularly in historical portrayals--it would, because in the U.S. we had a thing called "slavery" and then we had a thing called "segregation" and then we had a thing called "the civil rights struggle" and then we had a thing called "persistent racism."  Remember?

Your stance is patently absurd.  It would permit a production of Do The Right Thing with Jesse Eisenberg as Mookie or The Great Gatsby with Forrest Whittaker as Tom Buchanan.  Fine actors?  Sure.  And this kind of crap is fine in a live play, where a sense of falseness and unreality is both unavoidable to the medium and one of its strengths.  For that reason, it's also okay in, say, Shakespeare adaptations (no one cares that there's a black guy running Verona in Romeo + Juliet) or in films that make no effort or claim to objectivity or realism (no one questions why aliens seem to have ethnicities that map to human ones in the various iterations of Star Trek, even though the default should probably be dark skin because UV rays are bad and light skin is a very peculiar evolutionary response to something humans wouldn't need if they didn't need sunlight for chemosynthesis of various nutrients).

But if you're making something that purports--like most films do--to document a fictional event within a non-fictional setting, if you go that gonzo in your casting, verisimilitude is lost.  If a WWII drama shows black guys and white guys in the same unit, that's revisionist, and without a good reason, it's offensive to the people of the time who lived in a very different real world situation.  You also get less-offensive but somewhat-grating nonsense like 47 Ronin where a white guy is wandering around Japan fighting dragons, alongside a semi-historical story about semi-historical Japanese guys performing semi-historical acts.

Oh, but let me guess.  You're not swayed.  MY EYES ARE STILL ROLLING.

[Ideologue]

For the record, I'm rolling my eyes at Jacob too.

[alfred russel]

Does anyone else think that Ide could have gotten to the point more succinctly by just posting, "segregation now, segregation forever"?

[Ideologue]

...And now as farce.

[LaCroix]

i don't see anyone responding to ide's comments with anything more than knee-jerk one liners. i'd expect that from garbon, but not jacob, who usually can put forth an honest counter-argument without being snarky 

[Eddie Teach]

...And now as farce.

7 paragraphs defending yourself is just asking for it... 

[Grinning_Colossus]

And this kind of crap is fine in a live play, where a sense of falseness and unreality is both unavoidable to the medium and one of its strengths. 

So Dora the Explorer in a high school play doesn't need to be Hispanic?

[LaCroix]

So Dora the Explorer in a high school play doesn't need to be Hispanic?

it's a children's show, so the character probably doesn't need to be mexican even it was a live action film. though, you'd have all sorts of people complaining if dora was cast by a non-mexican. i guess you can't win either way

[LaCroix]

@barrister particularly, but also malthus

how do canucks fair with american law degrees (we're not talking from ivy league or anywhere close to prestigious universities) when they return to canada to practice law? there's a sizable minority of canucks in my class, and most intend on returning to winnipeg/manitoba upon graduation

[Jacob]

Aren't you a writer?  Do you seriously believe that race does not matter to any character, ever?

Of course you don't.  Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does.

You can have a black Peter Parker, because being a loser who can't stay with the tour group doesn't depend on race.  You can't have a black Bruce Wayne, because a mountain of WASPy privilege is inherent to the character.  You can have a black Bruce Banner, because being a gamma ray scientist doesn't depend on race.  You can't have a black Captain America, because the 1940s.

I used to think you couldn't have a black Superman, but now I think that's possible, you just can't put Smallville in Kansas--which it wasn't, originally, anyway (it was nearer the Atlantic coast, probably in Maryland!).  There are small black farms all over SC and Georgia though.  But wouldn't Superman have to be a somewhat different character if he grew up with the disfavored skin color in a country where race, unfortunately, matters?

But,you know, on reflection, you're totally right.  Let's cast Garrett Hedlund as the Black Panther.  Where's the fucking harm?  I'm being ridiculously conservative.

Race matters to some characters sometimes, yes.

But for a white dude to ridicule a Hispanic chick for desiring not to be typecast in a high school play ain't progressive, and that's what you were doing.

[Jacob]

For the record, I'm rolling my eyes at Jacob too.

Seems like you tend to roll your eyes at any social justice concerns that don't adversely impact straight white male Americans from lower income social strata.

[LaCroix]

Race matters to some characters sometimes, yes.

But for a white dude to ridicule a Hispanic chick for desiring not to be typecast in a high school play ain't progressive, and that's what you were doing.

is that what ide's doing, though? i can see your point, but i saw his comment to focus instead on whether dora should be played by an hispanic if there were hispanic kids trying out for a role in the production. ultimately, it doesn't matter because as you said, it's a high school play. however, if it was a real play, and they didn't cast an hispanic in the role, then loads of people would be upset about it. hell, there might be complaints from parents even with a high school play if they instead cast a white chick to play the part

[Jacob]

is that what ide's doing, though?

That's how it came across to me. Perhaps my reading of his post was coloured by the general tone of ridicule from other posters.

i can see your point, but i saw his comment to focus instead on whether dora should be played by an hispanic if there were hispanic kids trying out for a role in the production. ultimately, it doesn't matter because as you said, it's a high school play. however, if it was a real play, and they didn't cast an hispanic in the role, then loads of people would be upset about it. hell, there might be complaints from parents even with a high school play if they instead cast a white chick to play the part

That may very well be true, but that's not what the girl in question said - she (or rather her sign) said that she shouldn't automatically be the #1 choice for Dora the Explorer in a high school skit. Her point is as much about her being limited to only "Mexican" roles due to her ethnicity as it is about who should play Dora. It's about typecasting and expectations of people based on ethnicity. It's not about "staying true to the art" as Ide would have, nor is it about the politics of the PTA as you would, it's saying that we should not assume that Mexican girls are only good for explicitly "Mexican girl" parts.

[Grinning_Colossus]

You can't really infer that from the sign. It only says that she's miffed about being cast as Dora.