|
Supercar Gautier posted:I wanted to compile a (non-comprehensive) list of real arguments that have been made in this thread in favour of Cumberbatch's casting as Khan: Like... okay, you have a metric, and you've decided that by this metric Khan should be indian. Now what.
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 00:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 09:40 |
|
|
Supercar Gautier posted:I wanted to compile a (non-comprehensive) list of real arguments that have been made in this thread in favour of Cumberbatch's casting as Khan: - there's much white washing and racism going on in general - it would have been nice and progressive to see an actual Indian play Khan - somebody of the same ethnic group of the original actor was the original casting favourite and a white guy was only chosen when Del Toro dropped out - Cumberbatch did a good job, but didn't really look like Khan at all
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 00:25
|
|
|
Ho Chi Mint posted:What about Khan's character makes him Indian? He has an Indian name, and the historian in Space Seed says he a Sikh, but neither of the actors that portray him do anything with the performance that suggest he is Indian. How does being an Indian inform his character? If you changed the name would it change the character at all? What is the threshold here? Like, does Spock literally have to say "he is the most Indian Indian who ever did Indian" before it "informs his character"? What does it even mean for Khan's "being an Indian" to "inform his character"? What would it mean for his portrayal to "suggest he is Indian"? Because to me, it seems like your problem here is ... what, that Khan doesn't embody some stereotype? That he's a character with multiple aspects that are part of his identity without necessarily flowing exclusively from his ethnicity? Because that's how people are - people of color are not excepted from this. Cingulate posted:Aren't most of us in agreement about the main points though: We're not necessarily in agreement that those are main points. - "Nice and progressive" implies that it's optional and not incumbent on filmmakers not to whitewash, which is disputed. - That someone who fit the original bad-but-not-worst-case mold was asked, but did not end up being the final person in the role, is of disputed relevance as this is not a Rooney Rule situation. - Whether Cumberbatch did a good job or not is also debatable, but it's also debatable whether his blandness (such as it is) was a problem of the material or the portrayal. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 00:28 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 00:25
|
|
|
The Warszawa posted:Between that and the way he subtly called out JJ Abrams & co. during the film's publicity, John Cho is the 2013 MVP. All I found was this: http://www.blastr.com/2013-5-24/what-takei-said-abrams-convince-him-cast-john-cho-sulu Which says that Abrams originally wanted to cast a Japanese guy to replace Takei, but that Takei said "take Cho, as long as it's an Asian American, it's cool".
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 00:30
|
|
|
Cingulate posted:Can you paraphrase what this is referring to?  
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 00:34
|
|
|
Cingulate posted:Can you paraphrase what this is referring to? During the publicity, Cho credited Abrams with "10, maybe 15 percent" of the film's success/quality, but this is what I'm referring to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adfGdgu6w4s&t=97s Check the laughter when Cho says "and a man of color, I might add." There's a writeup here: http://www.racialicious.com/2013/05/22/table-for-two-star-trek-into-darkness/
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 00:35
|
|
|
Cingulate posted:Aren't most of us in agreement about the main points though: Nessus fucked around with this message at 01:17 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 01:12
|
|
|
I know the cliche of it, but was there this much canonolgical (I think there's a real word for this but damned if I know it) bickering over Starbuck being cast as a woman? I think I might be the only one that figured that the arrival of the Narada mucked with events before its chronological arrival in subtle ways, on account of it being a big fuckoff ship entering the past through an uncontrollable time tear. Events that happened in the distant past might be different than what we've seen. Sure, it makes no logical sense from a lineal chronological perspective, but I've watched enough Doctor Who to tolerate a bit of "Time Travel Screws Up Time".
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 01:54
|
|
|
No Wave posted:I don't understand. What are we talking about. Is this a thing we do now with ______. Check this out, I've discovered that rather than simply not saying anything about the movie, your post effectively doesn't say anything about anything. But why would you deploy that kind of smoke bomb in defense of Hollywood's constant whitewashing? Seems like maybe that should be criticized rather blandly shrugged at...?
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 01:55
|
|
|
MisterBibs posted:I know the cliche of it, but was there this much canonolgical (I think there's a real word for this but damned if I know it) bickering over Starbuck being cast as a woman? See, the problem isn't with "omg, not canon" it's "Jesus Christ, whitewashing." White men haven't really had a hard time getting major leading roles.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 02:14
|
|
|
MisterBibs posted:I know the cliche of it, but was there this much canonolgical (I think there's a real word for this but damned if I know it) bickering over Starbuck being cast as a woman? http://www.dirkbenedictcentral.com/home/articles-readarticle.php?nid=5
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 02:18
|
|
Mr_Ruckus posted:I don't think Khan's super healing blood has the long ranging implications some of you think it would. After all, I don't think they would ever be able to mass produce it. 1) I don't see the majority of Starfleet, or even the Federation as a whole, being okay with essentially keeping people around (probably imprisoned, or almost worse - just in a medical coma in some tube or something or in cryo) to harvest blood from for medicine. Not exactly the moral high road Starfleet would like to say they take. 2) it's very likely that genetic engineering is illegal in this era (since, if Khan and his men exist, some form of the eugenics wars probably happened. Or at the least, there's a reason genetic engineering supermen are rare and not the norm). So it's not like they would just up and make more dudes for more blood or have a large pool of volunteers, if they even considered it moral and it was legal. So even if it cures death from a week away or any cause, I don't see it as being able to be mass produced or readily available, anyway. In the movie, it's just a last ditch effort that McCoy uses in the heat of the moment. I don't think it ressurected Kirk so much as it cured the radiation poison, allow his body to take over from there - they made a point of preserving his brain functions using cryo-stasis. This is an indictment of how short-sighted the Federation is and how stupid any prohibition against genetic engineering is. Khan and his men should be the future of the Federation, their post-human goal, not the enemy. Spoilers: http://www.theawl.com/2013/05/star-trek-into-darkness-an-important-afterword
|
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 02:25
|
|
|
I just saw this and I was super happy that the effort I made to not be spoiled paid off. The Khan reveal was amazing. Also, the difference between Kirk's KHAAAAAN and Spock's KHAAAAN was poignant I think in that Spock's was genuine rage. I can't even engage in this "whitewashing" argument as Montalbán was white, or of European decent, as far as I can tell.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 02:52
|
|
|
euphronius posted:I can't even engage in this "whitewashing" argument as Montalbán was white, or of European decent, as far as I can tell. Guy was Mexican.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:00
|
|
|
There are people of European decent or "white" in Mexico.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:02
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Check this out, I've discovered that rather than simply not saying anything about the movie, your post effectively doesn't say anything about anything. The fact that this argument has come up so many times in the thread and hasn't gotten any farther beyond "sucks that Khan is white/who cares Khan is white" camps says to me it might be time to move on. It's really tiring to come here each time hoping to talk about cool spaceships or how lovely space Skype is and anyways seeing it back at the exact same place in the exact same argument.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:03
|
|
|
Count Chocula posted:This is an indictment of how short-sighted the Federation is and how stupid any prohibition against genetic engineering is. Khan and his men should be the future of the Federation, their post-human goal, not the enemy. Part of the thesis of Star Trek seems to be that people are valuable "just the way they are," and that every group's distinctive cultural and technological and social and philosophical contributions are valuable and precious. An approach where humanity immediately upgrades themselves with the genetic and biological distinctiveness of whatever-they-want would... actually be an interesting modification of the concept of the Borg. I am not a deep Trek Head but this is even made nuanced in the whole corpus of Star Treks I saw; I know Worf at one point favors euthanasia over a cyborg reconstruction of his back, and Dr. Bashir in DS9 has it come up as well. So this isn't just 'grr, bad! no augs!'
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:05
|
|
|
euphronius posted:There are people of European decent or "white" in Mexico. And they're not "white" in the American context (which is where these movies are coming from), they're people of color. Blame history. I really like it when people here try to get out their paper bags to test Hispanic identity, as if it's based in anything objective and wasn't an identity created and racialized to segregate Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States - yes, euphronius, even ones of European descent - from going to school with white kids.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:07
|
|
|
I think it reveals just how much WoK feeds what people think of Khan over Space Seed. SS had the "No, seriously, this guy is an Indian! line, the picture of Khan in a turban, and a reasonably tan RM. WoK had a pale/white Khan who had no ethnic affectations (and by that I mean anything to give evidence of his ethnicity) to promote his supposedly-Indian origins. Ultimately, I think the cornerstone of this issue is how much Khan's stated-but-not-well-influenced ethnicity ties into your perceived view of the character.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:13
|
|
|
I dont know why we are viewing this through a hyper focused US political spectrum. Even in the US it is arguable whether white people from Spanish speaking countries are "white" and changes on the context.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:14
|
|
|
euphronius posted:I dont know why we are viewing this through a hyper focused US political spectrum. Even in the US it is arguable whether white people from Spanish speaking countries are "white" and changes on the context. Probably because we're talking about the racial politics of casting in an American television show, American movie franchise, and American sci-fi franchise. This is like saying "Well, Uhura being on the bridge in TOS isn't a big deal, why are we looking at this through a hyper focused US political spectrum." The context matters. As a Hispanic person in the United States, I've found that I'm usually going to be considered a person of color up until the point where being white (by which we mean what, exactly? Peninsular? Criollo? Castizo? Is it "not looking Hispanic"? If so, what does that even mean?) will give a white person a leg to stand on in an argument, for what that's worth. Have we seriously gone from "the smoking nacelle" to "Schrodinger's racialized Hispanic identity" as a defense of whitewashing Khan? Even if Montalbán was "white" in the American racial context (he wasn't), that's still whitewashing, and shouldn't be done in 2013. Here, this is a pretty good rundown on the basics: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/what-we-mean-when-we-say-race-is-a-social-construct/275872/ The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 03:25 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:21
|
|
|
All of which is irrelevant, anyways. Khan was Indian. Space Seed established that. Cast an Indian to play him. Period.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:25
|
|
|
korusan posted:The fact that this argument has come up so many times in the thread and hasn't gotten any farther beyond "sucks that Khan is white/who cares Khan is white" camps says to me it might be time to move on. Because some of the people in the "sucks that Khan is white" camp are creating an imaginary strawman third camp in this thread that says "I'm glad that Khan is white because white people rule!" and arguing against them. Personally I'm in a fourth camp of "sucks that Khan is white but it won't stop me from enjoying the movie." 
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:28
|
|
|
Phylodox posted:All of which is irrelevant, anyways. Khan was Indian. Space Seed established that. Cast an Indian to play him. Period. But Montalban was Mexican. Can I cast another Mexican or does it have to be an Indian? Can I cast a Mongolian? What if I change the character's name to Bob Khan? Can I cast whoever I want in that case? EDIT: Bob Caan. DFu4ever fucked around with this message at 03:34 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:29
|
|
|
The Warszawa posted:Probably because we're talking about the racial politics of casting in an American television show, American movie franchise, and American sci-fi franchise. This is like saying "Well, Uhura being on the bridge in TOS isn't a big deal, why are we looking at this through a hyper focused US political spectrum." The context matters. I understand what you are saying. And I guess I can see in that, in the US at least, a British accent is favored over a Spanish accent, and casting Cumberpatch over whatever the modern equivalent of Montalban is somewhat of a "whitewash."
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:29
|
|
|
Yeah when introduced I thought "wait isn't Khan Indian"? I love the complaining about a random female science officer and no ships being near earth (uh, I'm on an iPhone, pretend I linked to half the movies, and around a season's worth of episodes containing that plot hole) I appreciate Star Trek having consistent plot holes!
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:32
|
|
|
Phylodox posted:All of which is irrelevant, anyways. Khan was Indian. Space Seed established that. Cast an Indian to play him. Period. Well if that's your problem, you may want to send a letter back in time to Gene Roddenberry and the rest of the TOS staff. This is a character who literally (aside: I'm super happy I can use the word literally correctly on the Internet) has never been played by an actor of the "right" race.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:33
|
|
|
korusan posted:The fact that this argument has come up so many times in the thread and hasn't gotten any farther beyond "sucks that Khan is white/who cares Khan is white" camps says to me it might be time to move on. It's really tiring to come here each time hoping to talk about cool spaceships or how lovely space Skype is and anyways seeing it back at the exact same place in the exact same argument. But there isn't a "sucks Khan is white" consensus. Instead, there's absurd nacelle-counting contortion and other attempts to explain that not only does the narrative either allow or require him to be white, the narrative itself can't even justifiably be criticized for being arranged such that Khan is white.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:34
|
|
|
Phylodox posted:All of which is irrelevant, anyways. Khan was Indian. Space Seed established that. Cast an Indian to play him. Period. Space Seed established that genetically engineered superhumans of the Eugenics Wars can be played by pretty much anyone.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:35
|
|
|
Astroman posted:Because some of the people in the "sucks that Khan is white" camp are creating an imaginary strawman third camp in this thread that says "I'm glad that Khan is white because white people rule!" and arguing against them. No one is saying that. There are camps that have literally said "It's not a problem that Khan is white, because [plausible but not really plausible canon explanation]," "It's not a problem that Khan is white, because I can't imagine a 'dot, not feather' Indian being imposing," "It's not a problem that Khan is white, because hey, they TRIED to get someone Hispanic (which would still be lovely cross-casting)" and now "I can't even engage with whitewashing because Montalbán was white, in defiance of the actual history of Hispanics and Latinos in the United States." And don't forget "I don't care, I just wanna talk about ships, racism is hard." I get that there aren't a ton of credible defenses for whitewashing these days, but try not to put words in the mouths of people who are kind of tired of seeing people of color regularly passed over for white people in the very few roles that are textually characters of color. DFu4ever posted:But Montalban was Mexican. Can I cast another Mexican or does it have to be an Indian? Can I cast a Mongolian? Casting any nonwhite actor is better than casting a white actor, casting appropriately - Indian - is better than casting non-Indian nonwhite. Cross-casting people of color sucks, but sucks less than contributing to the marginalization of people and roles of color. This is easy and has been explained over and over. Where is this whining about what you can and can't do coming from? No one's banning whitewashing. It is, however, really loving racist and people should stop doing it. euphronius posted:I understand what you are saying. And I guess I can see in that, in the US at least, a British accent is favored over a Spanish accent, and casting Cumberpatch over whatever the modern equivalent of Montalban is somewhat of a "whitewash." It's not about accents - I know that there's this belief that race comes down to universal and identifiable traits, but it doesn't. Read the link I posted. Race is a social construct with little to no basis in objective reality, but that doesn't make it less of a real thing that has real effects on real people. I'm probably white in any Latin American country, but Joe Arpaio wants to see me swinging from the nearest tree. jivjov posted:Well if that's your problem, you may want to send a letter back in time to Gene Roddenberry and the rest of the TOS staff. This is a character who literally (aside: I'm super happy I can use the word literally correctly on the Internet) has never been played by an actor of the "right" race. Yeah, because America in 1967 was not a bastion of racial equity and equality. Are you willing to say that in forty-six years, we should expect no progress to have been made? A guy drives his car into a tree. We blame him for that, and rightfully so. He sells his car. The new owner drives his car into an even bigger tree. You're saying we can't call dick move on that? The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 03:41 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:38
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:But there isn't a "sucks Khan is white" consensus. Instead, there's absurd nacelle-counting contortion and other attempts to explain that not only does the narrative either allow or require him to be white, the narrative itself can't even justifiably be criticized for being arranged such that Khan is white. Just the responses to my previous post are evidence of this.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:39
|
|
|
I can't wait til JJ Abrams sees this thread and changes the movie.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:40
|
|
|
Unmature posted:I can't wait til JJ Abrams sees this thread and changes the movie. "Any and all complaints and criticism of films are worthless because the creator will never see them and will never act upon them. Wrap it up, minorityailures."
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:42
|
|
|
I think the best part of the movie is right at the start. The father with the sick kid is standing outside, another guy comes up and says he can help his daughter, the father turns around and asks, "Who are you?" When the camera focused on the unknown man I could clearly hear the words, "I'm the villian." Edit: When they mentioned the torpedoes and they were going take a look at one I was hoping it was going to turn out the missiles were designed to destroy Qo'noS, not have frozen people in them. Khan was there to get somebody to fire the special torpedoes at Qo'noS. Of course nobody would have cared because Qo'noS is not Earth. Yaos fucked around with this message at 04:06 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:53
|
|
|
The Warszawa posted:It is, however, really loving racist and people should stop doing it. See, this is where I disagree. Basically, following this line of thought, JJ Abrams is now potentially a huge racist. So is Ronald D Moore for changing Tigh from black to white. If you have a different vision of a character, but that would involve the character being moved from minority to white, you are automatically being tremendously racist. This sort of absolute stance comes off to me as intensely stupid. Most absolute stances can get dumb, though, even if their intent is noble. Honestly, I'm more uncomfortable with watering down the term 'racist' than I am with non-malicious whitewashing. DFu4ever fucked around with this message at 03:59 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:55
|
|
|
DFu4ever posted:See, this is where I disagree. Basically, following this line of thought, JJ Abrams is now potentially a huge racist. So is Ronald D Moore for changing Tigh from black to white. If you have a different vision of a character, but that would involve the character being moved from minority to white, you are automatically being tremendously racist. Racism requires neither intent nor malice, though. It's not all Klan hoods and lynch mobs. Overnarrowing the word "racism" has let a lot of bad poo poo go unaddressed.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:58
|
|
|
DFu4ever posted:See, this is where I disagree. Basically, following this line of thought, JJ Abrams is now potentially a huge racist. So is Ronald D Moore for changing Tigh from black to white. If you have a different vision of a character, but that would involve the character being moved from minority to white, you are automatically being tremendously racist. This sort of absolute stance comes off to me as intensely stupid. Most absolute stances can get dumb, though, even if their intent is noble.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 04:09
|
|
|
The Warszawa posted:Racism requires neither intent nor malice, though. What are the criteria in which a creator is allowed to alter the race of a specific character, without it being racist? From your posts, all I can glean is that the answer is "Never."
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 04:12
|
|
|
MisterBibs posted:What are the criteria in which a creator is allowed to alter the race of a specific character, without it being racist? From your posts, all I can glean is that the answer is "Never." This is particularly notable because a lot of what made Star Trek special for a lot of people is that it was originally cast with this topic in mind, making it particularly galling to see. Gene Roddenberry fought for blacks, Asians and even Godless Communists to be on the bridge of the best starship of the future, and so 'whoops well we cast Britishus Cumwhitehonkey for the non-white romantic villain' stings.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 04:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 09:40 |
|
|
MisterBibs posted:What are the criteria in which a creator is allowed to alter the race of a specific character, without it being racist? From your posts, all I can glean is that the answer is "Never." When doing so does not further entrench the marginalization of people, actors, and roles of color (or other marginalized groups, but that doesn't go to racism). If this doesn't seem like a universalized, race-neutral criterion, it's because it isn't - we don't actually get to fixing long-standing marginalization of nonwhite people without actual attempts to uproot the existing structural inequities. It's cool to make Adama Hispanic, it's less cool to make Tigh white. Now, you can take a work at balance and say that, for instance, BSG comes out ahead because it creates more opportunity than it takes away, but I don't think you can say the same for STID - it treads water or it fucks up. This is why cross-casting (for instance, Montalbán playing an Indian) is less bad than whitewashing, which is what was done in STID. It keeps opportunities for people of color but fundamentally still treats us like we're interchangeable, which is better (to what degree is arguable) than whitewashing, which treats us as if we're disposable. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 04:20 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 04:18
|
|