Race swapping and whitewashing

[Soundwave]

shikamaru317 said:

Soundwave said:

Hollywood has been white washing parts for 70 years, so I'm not going to get bent out of shape over there being a black Little Mermaid (the actress was fine in the role anyway) or a black Nick Fury (Sam Jackson is great in the role) when you've had white people playing black parts (in black face), Asian parts, Middle Eastern parts, etc. etc. for decades prior. And this is not even like "well that happened in the 60s and 70s" ... this was happening as recently as Jake Gyllenhall playing the Prince of Persia and Emma Stone being cast as an Asian woman not that long ago. 

The demographics of North America and Europe are very different from 40-50 years ago. If anything Latino people should complain that they are underrepresented in movies and TV shows. For box office the Latino audience is the no.1 movie going demographic in the US, for example the Super Mario movie, Latino audiences were the no.1 audience for that movie. If those people want to ask where is their representation, it's fair IMO, Hollywood still has major problems putting a Latino actor in a lead role.

Eh, I can think of several recent movies with Latino/Latina actor/actress main characters, including Coco (Anthony Gonzalez), Encanto (Stepanie Beatriz), The Book of Life (Diego Luna), Vivo (Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ynairaly Simo as co-leads), Alita Battle Angel (Rosa Salazar), and the upcoming DC movie Blue Beetle (Xolo Maridueña) among them. You've also got Zoe Saldana appearing quite often in Hollywood blockbusters these days, from JJ Abram's Star Trek trilogy as Uhura, to the MCU as Gamora, to the Avatar series as Neytiri, so many blockbusters in fact that she is now the #2 grossing actress in Hollywood behind only Scarlett Johannsen, and #4 on the combined actor/actress grossing chart behind only 2 men, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. Are the levels of Latino/Latina leads equal to white leads? No, but they have definitely risen considerably over the last decade or so. Hollywood is definitely getting there with their Latino/Latina representation, another decade and you probably will see about as many Latino/Latina leads as white leads.

I don't think it's risen, if anything it's probably gone backwards, Antonio Banderas had a phase in the 90s where he was becoming a legit leading man but that fizzled out. Zoe Saldana is usually in make up or behind Avatar CGI in her better known roles, she's not even as big of a star as Banderas was trending to be. 

But movies have become more diverse than like the 2000s sure. Pirates of the Caribbean? Largely all-white cast. Spider-Man 1/2/3? Largely all-white cast. LOTR all white cast except for New Zealand natives being allowed to play the orcs, Star Wars prequels, all-white cast basically aside from Sam Jackson who had to beg to get the role. Batman Begins/The Dark Knight/Dark Knight Rises, largely all-white cast. Harry Potter movies, principle leads are all white but there are some background supporting characters of color. Transformers had Bernie Mac as a side character, but largely an all white cast for the principle leads. 

And I liked a lot of these movies, but lets be honest ... that's a whole lot of white people, lol. 

The demographics for the US and even global demographics today are quite different, it doesn't really make sense to make movies with all-white casts unless the subject material absolutely demands it. Half or even more than half the audience is non-white. Like for the Super Mario Bros. movie (this year's biggest movie), the demographic split was like 70% non-white for the opening weekend, with Hispanics being the no.1 portion of the Mario audience for its opening at 40%.

If a Hispanic person asks why they aren't seeing more representation for themselves in movies, they have a fair point.  

Last edited by Soundwave - on 21 June 2023