Fantasy roles: people of color need not apply

Discussion in 'Group Discussions' started by Tyroc, May 5, 2016.

  1. Tyroc

    Tyroc Deactivated Account

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    Why It’s Silly To Exclude People Of Color From Fantasy And Scifi
    Perfectly explained in 10 gifs.
    05/04/2016 03:01 pm ET
    This argument always twists my sack, you accept people who fly, time travel, turn into talking animals, mythological creatures, supernatural abilities and every heroic character ever is always a bad a$$ white jesus stand in but the line is drawn at racial diversity.
    There's roles here and there but the prevailing attitude is still a wholesale non acceptance and outrage when a young handsome and talented dude like John Boyega, who nailed every role he's been in is scoffed at and a non entity actor like Hayden Christiansen is readily embraced and only rejected once he didn't meet expectations twice!

    image.jpeg
    It happens all the time: a person of color is cast in a fantasy or science fiction film franchise, and people are up in arms. Confusion or just plain rejection of these characters is common. That was the reaction to Idris Elba’s casting as Heimdall in “Thor,” the reaction to John Boyega’s being chosen to play a Storm Trooper in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

    There are so many reasons why this double standard in genre movies is absurd (especially when so many roles for people of color end up being whitewashed, as in the case of “Doctor Strange”), but stand-up comic Wyatt Cenac perfectly breaks down the absurdity using “The Hobbit” movie as an example.

    In a 2012 clip from John Oliver’s New York Stand-Up Show that has since gone viral on Tumblr, Cenac recounts a story of an Indian woman who was told she was “too brown” to play a hobbit in the background of the blockbuster movie.

    “Now I’m gonna repeat that for you,” Cenac says in the clip, “Somebody told a real life woman that her skin was too brown to play an imaginary creature! “

    The entire joke, in 10 gifs:
    image.gif image.gif image.gif image.gif image.gif image.gif image.gif image.gif image.gif image.gif
     
    #1 Tyroc, May 5, 2016
    Last edited: May 5, 2016
  2. mojoreece

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    I personally never got why people got so upset. Its fantasy meaning anything can be created smh. I would love to see the point where an all black sfi movie is made and an all black historical movie based on ancient African culture mythology like the yourba gods, anansi folk stories, dogon tribe mythology. I never understood why mythological movies always focused European mythology.
     
  3. acessential

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    This! I've been thinking about this so much! Would love to see some of those stories.
     
  4. Kouncelor

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    I have felt this way for a VERY long time. While it has been proved that Adam and Eve were black all aliens from other planets are blonde with blue eyes.. and every other color under the rainbow but black. ( I will say that the tv series, Defiance, did have some black aliens)

    There are actually a few books I have read with Sci-Fi elements. Two of them have elements with basis in yoruba. I would love to seem them scripted and put to film.
    • Black Empire (George Samuel Schuyler) - written in 1930's
    • Gateway (Lawrence Dewyatt Abrams)
    • Gateway and the Last Priest of the Avatar (Lawrence Dewyatt Abrams)
     
  5. Discordant

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    Because the only non-Western/European mythology most of us are even exposed to is Egyptian (and the Hollywood version of Voodoo which focuses mostly on black magic and curses.) I had teachers (and parents) who made a constant effort to expose us to black and African folklore and typically try to write characters that have connections to that, but it's also hard to get information in general about non-white fantasy.

    I'd personally love to see some black sci-fi/fantasy given the Hollywood treatment.
     
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