TV/Movies Megathread

[Oexmelin]

Not being American, and being from a small town, all these talks of racial diversity sound weird to me.
What is the importance of having a black/asian/female character for the sake of it?

It's not uniquely American - Quebec shows are also highly problematic in this regard.

To Sav's brief answer, I'll only add this:

Fiction shapes powerfully the collective imagination. If certain characters, certain archetypes are always portrayed as white, and others as, say, others (white princesses, black thugs, latina maids, etc.), the range of expectations of what a "proper" X (proper princess, proper thug, proper doctor, proper rich guy) looks like narrows considerably. It's is true for works of fiction (i.e., only hire black actors when you want to portray thugs), but it also has an impact in society at large (e.g. my friend being denied actually helping a man suffering from a stroke on an airplane because she was *gasp* an African-American physician: the flight attendant couldn't actually register the fact that such a person may exist). It's not the only factor, to be sure.

You can see it even among little kids: my nephews were ecstatic that a "proper" superhero, at last, was black - Black Panther (they don't care much for Green Lantern). And there has been studies showing (alongside some experience I can corroborate) that little girls deem black girls dressing up as princesses as "incorrect" - because all of their models were white princesses. 

Think of it this way: you complain (rightly) that so many Quebec TV shows are centered around Montreal, and that no show seem to take place in a region you may recognize as yours. It sends a message: your stories are not important / not interesting enough to be shown. And if, in TV shows, people from the Bas-du-Fleuve were *always* shown as the typically retarded rural cousin, you may think that, at some point, it would be nice if they showed rural tech savy entrepreneurs in a positive, serious light as opposed to constant comic relief or as a foil for the sophisticated Montrealer. Now, even in those shows centered in Montreal, we are light years away from having 30% of the characters being "non-white", yet, that is the proportion of Montrealers who self-identify as "visible minority". (I am aware the analogy is not perfect).

[katmai]

In the Captain America movie the Captain fights with an integrated unit, something the United States didn't have until 1948. (Although, once again, it is in a movie with flying cars in 1942.) I think it would be a disservice to have an ahistoric racial make up in a period piece.

It did?

Or do you mean the brief attempt in beginning of film?

[Barrister]

Not being American, and being from a small town, all these talks of racial diversity sound weird to me.
What is the importance of having a black/asian/female character for the sake of it?

It's not uniquely American - Quebec shows are also highly problematic in this regard.

To Sav's brief answer, I'll only add this:

Fiction shapes powerfully the collective imagination. If certain characters, certain archetypes are always portrayed as white, and others as, say, others (white princesses, black thugs, latina maids, etc.), the range of expectations of what a "proper" X (proper princess, proper thug, proper doctor, proper rich guy) looks like narrows considerably. It's is true for works of fiction (i.e., only hire black actors when you want to portray thugs), but it also has an impact in society at large (e.g. my friend being denied actually helping a man suffering from a stroke on an airplane because she was *gasp* an African-American physician: the flight attendant couldn't actually register the fact that such a person may exist). It's not the only factor, to be sure.

You can see it even among little kids: my nephews were ecstatic that a "proper" superhero, at last, was black - Black Panther (they don't care much for Green Lantern). And there has been studies showing (alongside some experience I can corroborate) that little girls deem black girls dressing up as princesses as "incorrect" - because all of their models were white princesses. 

Think of it this way: you complain (rightly) that so many Quebec TV shows are centered around Montreal, and that no show seem to take place in a region you may recognize as yours. It sends a message: your stories are not important / not interesting enough to be shown. And if, in TV shows, people from the Bas-du-Fleuve were *always* shown as the typically retarded rural cousin, you may think that, at some point, it would be nice if they showed rural tech savy entrepreneurs in a positive, serious light as opposed to constant comic relief or as a foil for the sophisticated Montrealer. Now, even in those shows centered in Montreal, we are light years away from having 30% of the characters being "non-white", yet, that is the proportion of Montrealers who self-identify as "visible minority". (I am aware the analogy is not perfect).

I do get that.  I am supportive of attempts to increase diversity on tv and movies.

The issue can be when you're rooting stories in past historical realities.  You can't just drop a black princess into a period drama set in 18th century France - there was no such thing!  Or at least if there was, their uniqueness demands some kind of explanation.  The only example of which I can think of was the very generally dull Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  When they decided to add Morgan Freeman, they at least took the steps to explain what a black Moorish character was doing in medieval England.

Now the setting in Thor is, on the one hand, based on norse mythology so it does make some sense to have norse-looking actors in those roles.

On the other hand it has any number of ways it diverges from the original mythology, so who cares what else they do.

[Oexmelin]

On the other hand it has any number of ways it diverges from the original mythology, so who cares what else they do.

That, to me is the core. At its base, movie-making is make-belief. You are not watching an actual 16th century princess being wooed by a dashing prince in a deliberately vague early-modern France - you are watching Drew Barrymore speak English to a Welshman dressed in silly clothes, somewhere on a studio set in California. The amount of movies that pretend to scrupulous historical accuracy is microscopic, and in those which pretend to be rooted in history, there are myriads of compromise being made about which kind of accuracy is important (usually superficial things), and which kind is not. Obviously, in a historical movie where race plays a fundamental part (12 Years A Slave, Indigènes, etc.) it makes sense to pay a lot of attention to it. Otherwise, the convention (and the studio requirements) is to pay a lot of attention to race casting, so, a "historical" movie that would cast Winston Churchill as a black man would probably appear weird, yet no one bats an eye at everyone speaking 21th century English in an 18th century French village of signing peasants off to kill a humanoid monster who lives with talking furniture.  Theatre/Musicals have done better in that regard.
There were similarly no black people in medieval Elsinore and I am almost sure Victor Hugo did not imagine Cosette as black - but the soul of Hamlet, or Cosette, or any other character, goes well beyond their bodies.

[Syt]

Let's not forget that Thor had its token ethnic actors: Idris Elba as Heimdall and Tadanobu Asano as Hogun of the Warriors Three.

[garbon]

On the other hand it has any number of ways it diverges from the original mythology, so who cares what else they do.

That, to me is the core. At its base, movie-making is make-belief. You are not watching an actual 16th century princess being wooed by a dashing prince in a deliberately vague early-modern France - you are watching Drew Barrymore speak English to a Welshman dressed in silly clothes, somewhere on a studio set in California. The amount of movies that pretend to scrupulous historical accuracy is microscopic, and in those which pretend to be rooted in history, there are myriads of compromise being made about which kind of accuracy is important (usually superficial things), and which kind is not. Obviously, in a historical movie where race plays a fundamental part (12 Years A Slave, Indigènes, etc.) it makes sense to pay a lot of attention to it. Otherwise, the convention (and the studio requirements) is to pay a lot of attention to race casting, so, a "historical" movie that would cast Winston Churchill as a black man would probably appear weird, yet no one bats an eye at everyone speaking 21th century English in an 18th century French village of signing peasants off to kill a humanoid monster who lives with talking furniture.  Theatre/Musicals have done better in that regard.
There were similarly no black people in medieval Elsinore and I am almost sure Victor Hugo did not imagine Cosette as black - but the soul of Hamlet, or Cosette, or any other character, goes well beyond their bodies.

[Berkut]

On the other hand it has any number of ways it diverges from the original mythology, so who cares what else they do.

That, to me is the core. At its base, movie-making is make-belief. You are not watching an actual 16th century princess being wooed by a dashing prince in a deliberately vague early-modern France - you are watching Drew Barrymore speak English to a Welshman dressed in silly clothes, somewhere on a studio set in California. The amount of movies that pretend to scrupulous historical accuracy is microscopic, and in those which pretend to be rooted in history, there are myriads of compromise being made about which kind of accuracy is important (usually superficial things), and which kind is not. Obviously, in a historical movie where race plays a fundamental part (12 Years A Slave, Indigènes, etc.) it makes sense to pay a lot of attention to it. Otherwise, the convention (and the studio requirements) is to pay a lot of attention to race casting, so, a "historical" movie that would cast Winston Churchill as a black man would probably appear weird, yet no one bats an eye at everyone speaking 21th century English in an 18th century French village of signing peasants off to kill a humanoid monster who lives with talking furniture.  Theatre/Musicals have done better in that regard.
There were similarly no black people in medieval Elsinore and I am almost sure Victor Hugo did not imagine Cosette as black - but the soul of Hamlet, or Cosette, or any other character, goes well beyond their bodies.

Excellent post.

[The Brain]

Mannerheim was black in a Finnish TV production some years back.

[LaCroix]

Mannerheim was black in a Finnish TV production some years back.

this is actually what came to mind reading the last few posts.

I'm not sure how I feel about being OK tossing in a different colored actor to play a role in a fantasy/mythology/whatever flick (where the actor's color isn't explained in-universe) yet at the same time not being OK with doing the same with historical flicks. it seems a bit inconsistent.

[Syt]

There was also an all-black African production of Julius Caesar. The plot worked surprisingly well when transposed to an African dictatorship.

[The Brain]

Shakespeare productions are less problematic because no one actually believes they're literally true. Not everyone spoke like a total fucking fag back then.

[11B4V]

Sully: I liked it.

[Liep]

Trailers

Baywatch: Surprisingly it doesn't look as bad as expected.
The Mummy: Lacks Brendan Fraser. And John Hannah.
Assasin's Creed: A game that played like a movie turned into a movie that can't be played.
Spider-Man: Homecoming: A promising Spidey, too much Downey.

[Admiral Yi]

Brendan Fraser is too fat now to play that role.

[Liep]

Transformers: The Last Knight:  I don't even. It has Anthony Hopkins, John Goodman, Stanley Tucci and John Turturro according to imdb but no. And the female lead seems to be too young for even Michael Bay to explain how she could be the love interest of Mark Wahlberg.