TV/Movies Megathread

[HVC]

I've sidestepped because I'm not interested in playing your game. I think your game is strange because you state you are hung up on blackwashing but don't seem all that concerned about say whitewashing (or at least I don't recall much of that from you).

I will say that I think it is strange to spend time projecting modern thoughts on racial construction to choice of actor of historical figures from 2000 years ago.

If you feel it's a game then fine, I'll just assume you're fine with it and move on from there.  no point arguing since we won't get anywhere.

BTW, I pointedly said I was not calling such hang ups racist.

then I take back my perception of you calling me a racist.

[Barrister]

Read a retrospective review on the Guardian website of the 2003 Master and Commander movie and felt obliged to watch it again. Feels like an even better movie now than when I first watched it 20 years ago.

Master and Commander is one of my all-time favourites.  I have watched it many times.

[PRC]

I have a strong feeling that Napoleon is going to be a terrible film that looks great and has excellent production value.  It will be a series of scenes from the life of Napoleon loosely linked together without a guiding vision.

[Barrister]

It's a very old Western idea that crops up again and again, that local natives cannot possibly have conceived and achieved impressive works and that foreigners, as if by magic often of the person's own race, must have done so. From Great Zimbabwe being the work of Solomon to Germans obviously having helped plan Pearl Harbor, it's a story on repeat.

Did people ever actually think that?  I only know "the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour" as a joke line from Animal House.

[The Brain]

It's a very old Western idea that crops up again and again, that local natives cannot possibly have conceived and achieved impressive works and that foreigners, as if by magic often of the person's own race, must have done so. From Great Zimbabwe being the work of Solomon to Germans obviously having helped plan Pearl Harbor, it's a story on repeat.

Did people ever actually think that?  I only know "the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour" as a joke line from Animal House.

IIRC Fuchida claimed that, when he was at the Tokyo trials (as a witness) and told an American officer who he was and that he had planned the airstrike on Pearl, the response was "Really? We thought it had to be Germans!". I am paraphrasing from memory, I don't have his book at hand.

[The Brain]

Thinking some more I wouldn't be surprised if (lack of) familiarity is a factor in the weird American perception of Africa. Growing up in Stockholm, Sweden, I interacted with people from West Africa, East Africa, and North Africa (no South Africans IIRC until later). My impression is that there are many Americans who don't know any Africans.

[Admiral Yi]

Thinking some more I wouldn't be surprised if (lack of) familiarity is a factor in the weird American perception of Africa. Growing up in Stockholm, Sweden, I interacted with people from West Africa, East Africa, and North Africa (no South Africans IIRC until later). My impression is that there are many Americans who don't know any Africans.

You can't turn around here without tripping over an African.  They're everywhere.  Every Uber driver, every food delivery, every Amazon driver.  A quarter of the football and basketball players in college and the pros.

I have not seen tons of North Africans.

[The Brain]

Thanks. Then the reason lies elsewhere.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Thinking some more I wouldn't be surprised if (lack of) familiarity is a factor in the weird American perception of Africa. Growing up in Stockholm, Sweden, I interacted with people from West Africa, East Africa, and North Africa (no South Africans IIRC until later). My impression is that there are many Americans who don't know any Africans.

You can't turn around here without tripping over an African.  They're everywhere.  Every Uber driver, every food delivery, every Amazon driver.  A quarter of the football and basketball players in college and the pros.

I have not seen tons of North Africans.

North Africans blend quite nicely since they're white.
Just like the Greeks, Italians, Balkan-peoples, Spanish, (Western)-Turks (which are greeks anyways :p) and the Levantines and I guess a majority of the arabs. So not always scandinavian pale or english-touched-by-the-sun-red but more like if you tanned half of the people north of the Alps
And there's of course a not inconsiderable influx of more northern european stock from when the Vandals struck and of course the Barbary pirate slave raids.

[Admiral Yi]

Thanks for the informative lecture. 

[Josquius]

On you wouldn't complain if they were white... I do recall a few years a movie named Gods of Egypt attracted a fair bit of controversy for its cast of north European descent people.

[Grey Fox]

Thinking some more I wouldn't be surprised if (lack of) familiarity is a factor in the weird American perception of Africa. Growing up in Stockholm, Sweden, I interacted with people from West Africa, East Africa, and North Africa (no South Africans IIRC until later). My impression is that there are many Americans who don't know any Africans.

You can't turn around here without tripping over an African.  They're everywhere.  Every Uber driver, every food delivery, every Amazon driver.  A quarter of the football and basketball players in college and the pros.

I have not seen tons of North Africans.

They're here.

[HVC]

On you wouldn't complain if they were white... I do recall a few years a movie named Gods of Egypt attracted a fair bit of controversy for its cast of north European descent people.

That was dumb too. Everyone knows they should have had animal heads

[Admiral Yi]

They're here.

You guys get all the hott immigrants.  Fuckheads.

[HVC]

They're here.

You guys get all the hott immigrants.  Fuckheads.

You get more latinas than us, if that's your thing