Soundwave said:
Funny how there's only an outcry about this when PoC get a few blockbuster lead roles (this year specifically one of the few in Hollywood's history where you can probably point to more than 2 blockbuster movies headlined by a PoC actor). But when Jake Gylennhal was Prince of Persia, and Emma Stone was cast to play an Asian woman, and Robert Downey Jr. was in blackface that was no big deal and/or hilarious or just "get over it". Curious how when the shoe is on the other foot there's a group of people (not saying people in this thread but we know the types that are out there) that are having a meltdown like a toddler. A black Ariel and a black-latino Spider-Man is just too much to cope with. The demographics have shifted far more than that too, for Americans under 18 (ie: the future generation of content consumption), that crowd is now actually so-called "minority majority", meaning there are more non-white kids in the US than white kids. For 30 and under the demographics are very diverse still. If anything, as I've said Latinos are very underrepresented on screen, and they are the no.1 theater going demographic in the US but they barely get any love. Hollywood is only now realizing black people not named Eddie or Will can be a lead in a movie, it will probably take another 15-20 years for Latinos to get the same treatment. The fact is though most big budget or even mid budget or even low budget Hollywood movies are still white-leads. Indiana Jones, check. The new Star Wars had Finn and then embarrassingly sidelined him after teasing him as a Jedi type in the trailers. The Flash, check. Barbie check. Oppenheimer check. Guardians of the Galaxy check. Mission: Impossible. Even the Fast series became minority drive less by design and more by tragedy, Paul Walker passing away made the franchise Vin Diesel centric instead of the two of them being co-leads (and the original movie itself being basically a "white dude becomes cool with inner city types" fantasy to begin with). For the person out there that's getting hysterical over dark melanin in their blockbusters, relax and breathe. There's plenty of white bread in movies and TV still, the majority thereof in fact. It's just going to be going forward you're going to have to learn to share rather than having everything tailored exactly to just one demographics over and over again ... it's like a child that's gotten used to being an only having it explained to them that with a new brother or sister they're going to have to learn to share things and can't be the center of everything all the time anymore. |
There was plenty of criticism over white actors playing POC roles, the term "whitewashing" itself was coined out of widespread criticism of the practise, the phrase goes back to the 1990s.
I don't think any reasonable person would say that Black people, or Asian people, or Latinos, or for that matter women or gay people shouldn't get representation, just that representation should be authentic and reflective of society rather than lazy tokenism.
