Throughout this year I've seen at least 3 instances where films that have a primarily black or all black cast are berated and some even have the audacity to call it racist, and the most recent one seems to be this ridiculous backlash about Hermione Granger being played by a beautiful black woman, Noma Dumezweni. I'm no Potterite, but what I do know is that there are several books that have pieces of information that contradict Hermione being being white, and one of these is the texture of her hair, which is described as very frizzy, and in The Prisoner Of Azkaban she is described as "very brown." So I'm not entirely sure why people are so salty and pressed about JK Rowling adhering to her vision of Hermione. Another thing people seem to have problems with is the all black cast seen in The Wiz, which is strange because the original version of this film starred the likes of Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. And I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when people had the audacity to call the casting in this film "racist", when there have been white people cast in the roles of historical figures who were Egyptian, Asian and other non white groups. Even the tired ass Aaliyah Lifetime film was whitewashed to some degree. And if the casting for The Wiz is indeed biased and racist, then so is the majority of the film industry for having majority white or all white casts for productions. Stop. Acting. Oppressed. What do you think of people complaining about minorities being represented more?
I don't care what skin colour or gender any actor is. I think both sides are ridiculous. Whether it be people saying minorities should be represented more or people saying minorities should be represented less.
Yeah, I agree that actors should be selected based on how much they fit to the character, and how good they are as an actor. Obviously if a character is black, the actor should be black. If a character has no specified race, it doesn't matter. It's quite simple in my eyes. I think it's not racist to cast black people, if they are good for the roles. It is racist if you do something like George Lucas when he cast Mace Windu. If you look back at footage of Lucas talking about Samuel L Jackson, he literally says that he did it to appeal to a "black market". There are a lot of theories going around that it was the same story with Lando Calrissian, and the black extras which were included from Episode 5 on. Maybe black people do need more representation in some areas of film, but deliberately hiring black people because they are black has little effect in terms of doing good, the way I see it.
Another recent thing, having to do with gender rather than ethnicity, was with the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It starred a female lead character - which was cool. I like to see diversity in my art and entertainment. But there's been some controversy with the merch - even though Rey, a female, was the main character, the products for sale (even if it's all just corporate greed anyway) are mostly of the male characters like Kay Loh Ren (IDK spelling. okay?), and even just plain stormtroopers, rather than her. And that sucks. It's so obviously unequal it's disgusting. And I don't get why people would be upset by Hermione being played by a black actress. I mean, since the books do not state the color of her skin (or anything that indicates that she is of any particular ethnicity), her ethnicity is unknown. Thus she should be able to be played by actresses of all skin colors.
I honestly laughed when people said, "Well what if there was an all-white Wiz?" Which of course there already was. The Wiz is just a black version of the Wizard of Oz, which featured an all-white cast. I just think people put too much emphasis on race.
People are extremely ignorant if they whine about The Wiz considering the reason for the all black cast is basically a jab at the all white cast from The Wizard of Oz.
Lolz people got mad over that movie: Dear white people. I read the comment section and there were some white people saying: if there was a movie called dear black people there'd be riots.. And I couldn't help but think damn right!! In a society where everything is mostly dominated by whites, where there is still racism, and as long as I am black and can walk into store with people side eyeing me.. of course there'd be riots. Some black people in the lgbt community have even been fetishized or deemed not attractive (it's not all though ). By being black I'm already held to a certain stereotype.. and then when I tell people I'm gay and open about it if anyone asks... they look at me expecting as if I'm about to do a friggin magic trick of sorts. This thread gets over ten stars XD
To be fair, Hermoine was probably white in the books because JK Rowling did have a large say in who was cast in the movies. She was very careful on who she cast, so Emma Watson, a white woman, was pretty much her vision of Hermoine. Now, this is just a play that we are talking about. It really doesn't matter the race that's playing Hermoine. As long as it's played well, then it's good enough! It's not like most of the people ranting were even planning on seeing the play either.
Well, I do think it can seem a bit silly/absurd to have all these traditionally white characters played by black folk all of a sudden. If it's simply the way things turned out, great! If it's an attempt to rewrite history, or whatever, not so much. Karate Kid comes to mind, mostly, but there have been others. And Star Wars had plenty of black characters before: Lando Calrissian and Mace Windu, for example.
It doesn't bother me. The only thing that bothers me where race in films is concerned are when ethnicity plays a key role in the character (eg Mulan saves China, therefore should be Chinese.) or when people complain about needless things like 'there's too many black people in this film' or 'why is this film, set in Britain 300 years ago so white?'
This is such an important issue!! I recently brought up in a conversation how I'm very unimpressed with the cast they've chosen for the 'Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them' movie. The person I was talking to started out agreeing with me that he 'supposed it was a bit weird' to have no black actors in the main cast, for a movie set in New York, but then proceeded to tell me how he had seen some movies where almost the entire cast was black, and it was really weird to create a movie where all the characters were of the same race. And I'm like. Yeah??? That's like every movie ever made only with white people. HONESTLY Representation is really important, for people of colour just as much as for LGBT+ people and if the main cast includes minorities then 1) the minorities in question will be really happy to be included and have someone they can relate to and 2) why should it even be a problem?? "OH NO, not every single person in this movie comes from the same country/culture/religion/community as me, whatever will I do??!" As for people calling movies with a black cast racist: Reverse racism does not exist. It's impossible to oppress someone who is already considered in a higher position than you. An all-black cast could never be racist. An all-black cast is, more than anything else, a statement, and white people who take offense at not being included should use this newly acquired insight to do something about their own non-inclusive media
