If an ethnic actor is cast to play a historical role that should be played by a white person, it makes a farce of our history. History should be portrayed authentically as young people often learn from productions and it is distorting our past for the sake of DEI and inclusiveness. The same goes in reverse - it would be absurd if white people were cast as African tribes. Where does this ridiculous nonsense end?
When blacks actually accept that they aren't al that they like to think they are. They've offered a great deal less towards the development and advance of civilisation than white, Europeans in particular. Most of us are ok with it, we don't hate them for it. They played some pretty important roles in where mankind has come to and we appreciate their limited efforts. They have certainly played a huge role in us accepting cultural difference, we wouldn't ever to have do it without them. They just need toget over themselves, ego is ugly. Blacks need to get over theirSEEING NEED TO EXHIBIT THIS UGLINESS
Musk is right... once you stray from ‘history’ and how something was written, you're done… especially such a classical piece. Nor was Damon IMO a good choice. But imagine the uproar, if Zulu was remade and all the zulu warriors were played by white guys and the director argued, well, there were white south africans around at the time and now… imagine the cries of racism and imperialism that would come up…
Yep, I couldn't argue with any of that. Colin teased apart various threads that are often bundled together. The examples he used from film, TV and advertising were marvelously illustrative of the mindset of the people who serve up our entertainment. Great post.
They just shouldn’t do it. It is the bigotry of low expectations anyway and very patronising toward blacks. As an Irishman I’d hate it if they did that to us. You can imagine them trying to do a film of the famine where they’d have Africans playing the starving!
I gather that Eurowide Main Stream Media inc film t.v.etc were gathered in Finland(I think) in the past few years and were 'instructed' on highlighting inclusion in nearly everything they produced..the hand of the EU all over this symposium..
which makes sense if the continental demographic is in the process of being changed..radically..
I’m slightly disappointed by Colin Brazier’s approach. Too much stress is placed on historical accuracy to justify criticism of the box-ticking diversity of the Odyssey’s casting. It leaves him completely powerless in the case of the majority of the characters.
Because I do have a problem with the several fictional characters cast as black. It is the most on-the-nose expression of Hollywood’s sanctimonious worldview (and likely the result of the Academy Awards’s diversity criteria). It is a provocation, and you are being dared to object. It is the same phenomenon that led to over half of actors in British television adverts being black - a simply preposterous over-representation that now causes me to grimace every time I see one.
It is a more difficult argument to make, but we should be saying instead that we want casting completely depoliticised. Let it be genuinely colour-blind (except when something is intolerably anachronistic) and stop trying to engineer your desired ethnic colour palette in what amounts to propaganda. In those circumstances, hard as it may be to accept in this decade of over-saturation, I would genuinely be content to see Winston Churchill played by an exceptionally charismatic black actor.
I posted the above before Brazier reached his criticism of advertising. He says that the over-representation is not the result of a conspiracy to make Britain seem more diverse than it is, but I think it’s well-established that there are semi-formal quotas in the advertising industry, enforced by lobbying groups. Part of their goal (and that of the British left more generally) is to demolish the idea that Britain is any meaningful sense a white country.
I’m left wondering quite what Brazier’s point is. He agrees with me that contrived casting is patronising, annoying and propagandistic, but still believes Nolan’s casting was justified.
'He [Brazier] agrees with me...' is an odd way of putting it. It's usually the other way around since you know who he is and heard him first while he doesn't know you from Adam.
Claiming Brazier thinks the casting of The Odyssey was justified might be overstating the case. I think he would say that there aren't such strong grounds to be upset as there are for historical figures. I think his position is that Musk overdid it, not that he was completely wrong.
You have a narrow understanding of that phrase, then. I meant no self-aggrandisement by it. It resulted from the peculiarity of commenting on a previous comment to acknowledge that Brazier went on to say what I had implied he hadn’t.
That final sentence was too tortuous for mere mortals to understand.
But another weird quirk of that comment of yours:
"I posted the above before Brazier reached his criticism of advertising".
Er, no. "I posted the above before I LISTENED TO Brazier reach his criticism of advertising". He had already reached it but you hadn't yet listened to it.
Correct. The Coptics/Alexandrians are considered the true direct descendents. Hence in part why they are largely persecuted by islamists to this day, as well as their adoption of coptic christianity...
Colin actually said that Cleopatra was a Ptolemy, who came from Macedonia i.e. European. But you could probably say the same about pretty much every country e.g. Brits from 4,000 years ago were not the same as Brits today.
Surely they are persecuted because of their religion, not because they are direct descendents of ancient Egyptians. I think they could have arrived in Egypt yesterday and Muslims would still hate them as much.
Does it make a difference? It wouldn't if there wasn't a deliberate effort to push a white guilt agenda.
The storyline of Roots was historic, but the character, Kunta Kinte was fictional. Imagine if he had been played by Ben Affleck in a remake. Imagine all you like. Black Americans would be furious. Rightly so.
If an ethnic actor is cast to play a historical role that should be played by a white person, it makes a farce of our history. History should be portrayed authentically as young people often learn from productions and it is distorting our past for the sake of DEI and inclusiveness. The same goes in reverse - it would be absurd if white people were cast as African tribes. Where does this ridiculous nonsense end?
When blacks actually accept that they aren't al that they like to think they are. They've offered a great deal less towards the development and advance of civilisation than white, Europeans in particular. Most of us are ok with it, we don't hate them for it. They played some pretty important roles in where mankind has come to and we appreciate their limited efforts. They have certainly played a huge role in us accepting cultural difference, we wouldn't ever to have do it without them. They just need toget over themselves, ego is ugly. Blacks need to get over theirSEEING NEED TO EXHIBIT THIS UGLINESS
I didn’t notice colour before BLM & BBC crap. Now I notice it. And I don’t like what I see my country turning into to.
Musk is right... once you stray from ‘history’ and how something was written, you're done… especially such a classical piece. Nor was Damon IMO a good choice. But imagine the uproar, if Zulu was remade and all the zulu warriors were played by white guys and the director argued, well, there were white south africans around at the time and now… imagine the cries of racism and imperialism that would come up…
Yep, I couldn't argue with any of that. Colin teased apart various threads that are often bundled together. The examples he used from film, TV and advertising were marvelously illustrative of the mindset of the people who serve up our entertainment. Great post.
They just shouldn’t do it. It is the bigotry of low expectations anyway and very patronising toward blacks. As an Irishman I’d hate it if they did that to us. You can imagine them trying to do a film of the famine where they’d have Africans playing the starving!
brilliantly expressed as usual.
what makes me truly sad is that by the day i am in fact becoming a lot less tolerant.
tonight I am going to see a mixed race Eliza Dilittle, i will try to bear in mind that it is fiction 😉
finally, if i lived in Nigeria, for example, would i expext to see white people in adverts? No I would not.
I gather that Eurowide Main Stream Media inc film t.v.etc were gathered in Finland(I think) in the past few years and were 'instructed' on highlighting inclusion in nearly everything they produced..the hand of the EU all over this symposium..
which makes sense if the continental demographic is in the process of being changed..radically..
lo &behold it's happening..
I’m slightly disappointed by Colin Brazier’s approach. Too much stress is placed on historical accuracy to justify criticism of the box-ticking diversity of the Odyssey’s casting. It leaves him completely powerless in the case of the majority of the characters.
Because I do have a problem with the several fictional characters cast as black. It is the most on-the-nose expression of Hollywood’s sanctimonious worldview (and likely the result of the Academy Awards’s diversity criteria). It is a provocation, and you are being dared to object. It is the same phenomenon that led to over half of actors in British television adverts being black - a simply preposterous over-representation that now causes me to grimace every time I see one.
It is a more difficult argument to make, but we should be saying instead that we want casting completely depoliticised. Let it be genuinely colour-blind (except when something is intolerably anachronistic) and stop trying to engineer your desired ethnic colour palette in what amounts to propaganda. In those circumstances, hard as it may be to accept in this decade of over-saturation, I would genuinely be content to see Winston Churchill played by an exceptionally charismatic black actor.
I posted the above before Brazier reached his criticism of advertising. He says that the over-representation is not the result of a conspiracy to make Britain seem more diverse than it is, but I think it’s well-established that there are semi-formal quotas in the advertising industry, enforced by lobbying groups. Part of their goal (and that of the British left more generally) is to demolish the idea that Britain is any meaningful sense a white country.
I’m left wondering quite what Brazier’s point is. He agrees with me that contrived casting is patronising, annoying and propagandistic, but still believes Nolan’s casting was justified.
'He [Brazier] agrees with me...' is an odd way of putting it. It's usually the other way around since you know who he is and heard him first while he doesn't know you from Adam.
Claiming Brazier thinks the casting of The Odyssey was justified might be overstating the case. I think he would say that there aren't such strong grounds to be upset as there are for historical figures. I think his position is that Musk overdid it, not that he was completely wrong.
You have a narrow understanding of that phrase, then. I meant no self-aggrandisement by it. It resulted from the peculiarity of commenting on a previous comment to acknowledge that Brazier went on to say what I had implied he hadn’t.
That final sentence was too tortuous for mere mortals to understand.
But another weird quirk of that comment of yours:
"I posted the above before Brazier reached his criticism of advertising".
Er, no. "I posted the above before I LISTENED TO Brazier reach his criticism of advertising". He had already reached it but you hadn't yet listened to it.
I take great exception to being parsed by someone so mediocre.
Of note, current day Egyptians are not in general the same race as ancient Egyptians, if I am not mistaken.
Correct. The Coptics/Alexandrians are considered the true direct descendents. Hence in part why they are largely persecuted by islamists to this day, as well as their adoption of coptic christianity...
Colin actually said that Cleopatra was a Ptolemy, who came from Macedonia i.e. European. But you could probably say the same about pretty much every country e.g. Brits from 4,000 years ago were not the same as Brits today.
Surely they are persecuted because of their religion, not because they are direct descendents of ancient Egyptians. I think they could have arrived in Egypt yesterday and Muslims would still hate them as much.
Yes it does, because anything else is a lie.
BS
I agree in fact I’ve never seen a white actor playing Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King.
Does it make a difference? It wouldn't if there wasn't a deliberate effort to push a white guilt agenda.
The storyline of Roots was historic, but the character, Kunta Kinte was fictional. Imagine if he had been played by Ben Affleck in a remake. Imagine all you like. Black Americans would be furious. Rightly so.
No, if Moana live action must ensure cultural integrity so should the Odyssey.
cast a Chinese guy to play Einstein and hear what happens
I haven't seen this yet, but the decision to change the skin colour in prominent roles seems like changing the story.