Movies without racially diverse casts
 

I got into an argument with someone the other day. We were discussing the fact that Mad Max: Fury Road has a distinct lack of "non-white" characters.
They claim that any film that doesn't have a racially diverse cast, it is the filmmakers behind it that are responsible for being racist.
This person, from what I could tell, was a female African-American feminist, so their opinion may be a little bias. But their words did shock me slightly.

If a film doesn't have a racially diverse cast, everyone involved with it is instantly classed as a racist? I simply cannot understand this statement.

They also say that any film set in a post-apocalyptic future should abide by the laws of today, i.e. racial equality and therefore cast multiple "non-white" actors in its leading roles.
Did I read this right? We don't live in a post-apocalyptic future. Films set in them are allowed to make up their own laws and filmmakers are allowed to cast whoever they want, regardless of their race.
Besides, there are at least 3 "non-white" actors in Mad Max: Fury Road. Is that not enough for them? I pointed out to them that if the entire cast weren't white or if it was equal, people would still want it to be different. They completely disagreed with me on that. Lunacy.

Please don't any of you intemperate what I'm saying the wrong way. I am in no way a racist. :lol:

First of all, I can see this thread heading to the Disintegrator Unit fast.

Now as for my opinion on the subject matter, I don't really pay attention to this kind of stuff. Why would I keep track of how many people of each ethnic background star in a movie? And why would every movie need to have every ethic group, gender, sexual orientation, etc. represented in it? Obviously, depending on the plot and the setting, it makes sense for certain movies to have more people of a certain ethnic background than others, since it would make it more accurate. But a movie where there's no need for such thing? Let whoever writes it decide for themselves. As for the audience, are people really that shallow to the point of not being able to enjoy a movie because it lacks people of their own ethnic background in it? Wouldn't it be better for it to lack one than have one done wrong or stereotypical?

And that acquaintance of yours is crazy. Is that all it takes for her to label someone as a racist? Please.

You can tell if a person is racist if s/he keeps a checklist of all the different races in a movie, and then complains when it isn't up to "code".

So? If a movie has an all white cast, so be it. Same with any other race. Just complaining about it doesn't help. I don't think it's a problem.

Thank God, I thought I was going insane and was the only one who thinks it's weird to take note of how many different races a movie's cast has. I can rest easy now knowing that this person just believes what they believe a little too heavily.

Do you see people complaining that 12 Years A Slave didn't have enough white actors in it? No, no you do not. Whenever I see anyone bring this sort of thing up and claim that it's racist, it only makes them look racist for bringing it up, or at least to me it does.

Yeah, I was afraid of this. My apologies if I have offended anyone with this topic. I just wanted to hear other people's opinion on the matter.

I wish I'd have thought of these questions before they blocked me. :lol:

This is how I feel about it. But of course there are always exceptions & sometimes culture is exclusionary.

Yes to all of this.

Your thread isn't offensive at all. What I meant is, threads about controversial things such as religion, politics, race, etc. aren't allowed here.

Well arguing in real life when you have to think quick is harder than arguing behind a keyboard when you have time to think and formulate your thoughts. . And if they shushed/blocked you, it's even harder.

I got what I needed, guys. Thanks. Feel free to lock this. ;) :tcool:

In before it shuts down.

The only movie series I really enjoy that I wish had a more diverse cast would be "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit". Still great films, but man... between all those dwarves, elves, hobbits, AND men EVERY single one of them is white? :tgrumble:

It' was written in the first half of the 20th century and heavily inspired by folk culture and fantasy of English and Germanic mythology. It makes perfect sense that all characters are white, just like in the game Witcher, which is based on Slavic mythology, everyone is white.

It turns out this person isn't the only one who believes there's too many white characters in Fury Road - http://inthesetimes.com/article/1798...calyptic-films

Guess there's no pleasing some people. Since when did this all become such a huge issue?

Well.... it IS a post-apacolyptic future.... maybe it just so happens that the 4 or 5 survivors just happen to be white/black/whatever. Who really cares?

I mentioned that to them and they said that there is "no canonical reason" for the lack of "non-white" characters in the main cast and that "movies don't exist in a vacuum" and that you "can't remove it from the motivations of the people responsible for making it". I just gave up after that, even though I agree with the vacuum part.

Feel free to keep discussing the topic, I'm not shutting it down unless it goes to hell in a hand basket.

This far, folks have been civil and actually discussed things.

Carry on.

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense; the books were written by the fullblooded English gentleman Tolkien in the 50's, about past European cultures.

The MOVIES are 21st century adaptations. If one of the Fantastic Four can be black; if Heimdall can be black; if many other characters can be changed to be racial minorities, why didn't Jackson take that opportunity?

I'm not hating on him for it; I just wish he had thought outside the Tolkien box on this issue a little more.

Well apparently some people do care. I guess you shouldn't be surprised considering that people complain about the oddest things in tv shows, movies and cartoons. So I guess it's expected that some people notice such patterns about ethnic diversity(or the lack of) in the media.

Well, I have not watched the movie, so I have no idea what it's like or if there's anything in the movie that could raise some eyebrows regarding racism, but maybe the best actors they could cast happened to be mostly white or something?

And you said the most recent Mad max movie has 3 non-white characters, so why is that not enough for some people? I mean, how many characters are there in the movie exactly?

And how does them being 21st century adaptations counter anything I've said? It's not set in a racially diverse place like the USA or Brazil, but in fantasy world inspired by ancient Britain. So if they wanted to be accurate what sense would it be to have non-white people walking around Middle Earth?

And what do the Fantastic Four have to do with The Lord of the Rings? Completely different pieces of work. The Fantastic Four don't live in a fantasy world based on ancient European mythology.

And changing an established character's ethnic background is not the solution. If they want to diversify the cast then make new characters, simple. Don't change already established ones.

While I agree that is rather odd that he didn't go for it, can you imagine the backlash from fans if their favourite character became black or anything other than their original white race? "He's white in the books so why is he black in the movies? Wah wah wah!" :roll:

I asked if 3 was enough and they said that there are "more than three brown or black people in Australia" - where the film is set.

As for how many characters there are, there's quite a lot - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/fullcredits/

I believe they meant that Johnny Storm has been cast with a black actor for the upcoming reboot, when his character has always been white (not sure about "always", I don't read the F4 comics).

Ye, but how many of those characters are actually relevant to the plot?

As for Australia's demographics, wouldn't it be more logical to have more people of Aboriginal origin than of African origin in a piece of fiction set in that country? Or maybe even Asians?

I'd say about 6 or 7. I'd have to see the film again to be sure.

I'd say so, yes. Clearly the person I talked to hadn't given it enough thought.

Modern media has to be diverse. There are so many different backgrounds that should be explored, and making characters with a homogeneous background is not helping.

Yes, yes he has. Johnny Storm is Sue's full brother, with two white parents. Why he would need to be black in the reboot is beyond me.

Generally speaking, I guess. But not every country is multicultural like the ones in the Americas, Australia, etc, so you cannot expect a, let's say, Finnish movie to have a lot of diversity.

And even an American made production that's set during, I dunno, the Middle Ages... doesn't make much sense to have non-white people in it.

But that only makes sense if it fits with the source material. (See above post for a textbook example.) Films like the Hobbit movies, or Fantastic Four, or other characters whose race is PART of the characters DON'T need changing or given a new and different background just for diversity. Leave that for characters where it doesn't matter.

Not to mention a lot of the modern media seems to like to propagate certain tropes and stereotypes about certain groups of people. And that definitely does not help at all. As I've said before, it's best to not have characters of a certain group than having very negatively stereotypes of them.

An example of a character who's race was changed and not too many people, (if any) cared - Nick Fury in the MCU. He was originally white, but cast as Samuel L. Jackson. Now nobody can imagine anyone else playing him.

These are all very interesting posts, everyone. Nice one keeping things civil. :tcool:

A multi racial group of people always stuck out to me more than a cast of like, all white people. In all my life I've never seen a real life group of friends consist of a white guy, a black guy, an Asian chick, an Indian dude and someone in a wheelchair.

Honestly... until someone in this thread pointed it out, I had honestly never realized that everyone in The Lord of The Rings was white. So you might be on to something there.

He said real life. ;)

Wow, the black kid looks really similar to another cartoon. I forget the name.

Nor had I. :P

Is that from Magic School Bus?

Well I guess I can see why they'd do something like that in a cartoon for little kids.

I know, I was just saying they'd look like the Burger King Kids' Club Gang.

As a UK citizen, I can tell you I've never heard of that. :P

I'd probably laugh if I ever saw a group like that in real life. I wouldn't believe what I'd be seeing.

I meant to say that I forget the name of the cartoon that the black kid reminds me of. Darn you auto-correct.

I haven't either. But then again, I don't recall ever eating at Burger King. Only at McDonald's. And I haven't eaten at the latter in ages.

Too be fair the Burger King Kids' Club Gang was a product of the early 90's. :P

Jaws might look like Kwame from Captain Planet:
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20100912195347

That explains it then. :)

The person I spoke with can't enjoy that many movies if they analyse them for racial diversity. A lot of them have predominantly white casts. Sure, it sucks that other races aren't represented enough on-screen, but that's just the way it is right now.

I'm still annoyed that Scarlett Johansson is playing the lead role in the upcoming live-action Ghost in the Shell movie. Why not a Japanese actress?

Ah ok. I was born in 1990.

It would make more sense,yes, but i couldn't care less anyway. You know why? Because I wasn't going to watch it in the first place. I've seen the anime already. Not gonna watch a live action adaptation that's probably gonna be quite inferior to the original. Screw the supposed Monster live-action trilogy, too.

1992 for me.

Oh it's definitely gonna be inferior. :lol:

I really need to go to sleep now. It's 4am here in the UK. I look forward to reading more responses. Catch y'all later. :tcool:

To be fair, though, Sam's depiction of Nick Fury is based on the Marvel Ultimate universe- where the character's look was based ON HIM. Marvel was just doing what the Tomb Raider movies did by using the person that version of the character was modeled after to PLAY the character. Big difference. The only time 616(mainline universe) Nick Fury has been portrayed in film was by David Hasselhoff- and the resemblence was scary accurate. (Even though the movie sucked.)



Not me. She's one of the few action movie actresses that I could see pull it off, regardless of race. Though I suppose if she could fight, the actress who played Karai in last year's TMNT might work. I'd have to see how she is in the role, first.

1) There were people of color in Europe. So saying, "It makes sense that they're white, because everyone there is white," is factually incorrect.
http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/ for some references.

2) The Lord of the Rings books have some massive racial issues. It's sad that Jackson didn't address and correct some of these issues in his own fillms. I mean come on, the Dwarves are rocking some pretty heinous Jewish stereotypes, and the Men From the East who side with Sauron are the only dark people in the entire thing, and they arrive on elephants.

3) Johnny and Sue Storm's father in the new movie is black.
He's in the trailer. You can't miss him.
And even if Sue ends up being adopted, and not a bi-racial woman who can pass for white, are we really going to stay that adopted children aren't the "real" children of someone? Here? On a ninja turtle board? Where the main characters are an adoptive family?

4) It's sad that there weren't more faces of color in Mad Max, as Australia has a rather sizable Aboriginal population...that they've been disenfranchising and committing genocide against since Botany Bay.
The Wives were ethnically diverse...and also wearing chastity belts.

5) White as Default is a concept that can't fade away fast enough.
Especially in Hollywood.
Where casting calls for people to play Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, and Katniss Everdeen of District Twelve request white actresses only.
Neither one of those characters is mentioned as white. Katara's entire culture is based off Inuit, and Katnis is described has having dark hair and olive skin.

Of course...there were people freaking out when Rue was shown to be a small black girl. People upset to the nth degree, because how stupid it was for her to be black. She's supposed to represent purity!
Except, the text specifically says she's black.

Where as Hermione has no race or mention of her skin color in Harry Potter, but you'll mostly find her depicted as white.