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Great_Gerbil posted:I suspect there is. Like the art directors don't think the command gold is a good color for Pine. It does seem to make him look a bit shorter, I think. I'm pretty new to the whole Star Trek thing, but isn't this why they changed the captain shirts to red when the Next Generation started up? Something about Patrick Stewart looking like poo poo in them.
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Mar 12, 2013 01:45
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Because, like any megalomaniac unaccustomed to recognizing (let alone facing) his own shortcomings and failures, Khan can't possibly be at fault for, among other things, the death of his wife. It has to be that bastard who marooned him on a doomed planet. It helps that he's gone round the bend.
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Mar 12, 2013 08:17
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I cracked. I definitely think the magical space blood is open to criticism, though I'm taking it with the grain of salt that the summary of it is coming from a guy who said "when you mess with the Wrath of Khan, you get the wrath of me," which definitely signals a certain hostility to the Khan premise to begin with. I just think that all the critique right now is about the premise of "magical space blood," which definitely can be rebutted with "how is this different than katra and McCoy carrying Spock's brain around (to say nothing of the actual TOS episode, Spock's Brain) and Spock's body being totally resurrected and perfectly aged up by the Genesis Planet and banging Saavik," which honestly is a lot more fantastical than the idea that a genetically engineered Augment might have some rad biochemistry." The reason the katra stuff worked, insofar as it did, is because they managed to gloss over the fact that it was a way to back out of the ending of Wrath of Khan with compelling character work from Sarek, McCoy, and Kirk - in other words, the writing of it. Given that the early reviews seem positive, I'm inclined to believe they pull something similar off here. That said, yeah, I'm pissed that they took one of the more iconic characters of color from the Star Trek franchise and replaced him with a white guy, especially since when the rumors of Khan hit with Cumberbatch in the role there was a significant response along these lines and they replied with "Well he's not Khan." I understand misdirection, but hiding behind marketing to dodge whitewashing questions is sketchy. I mean, given that they offered it to Benicio Del Toro originally, they at least realized this could be a thing. AlternateAccount posted:If you've seen anything at all, anything JJ Abrams has ever done, what would ever make you think that he would suddenly start taking the time to explain something like this? It's an INHERENTLY flawed concept that can't be made sensible, but the more important thing is that he's not even going to try. How is this different from katras? The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Apr 25, 2013 |
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Apr 25, 2013 21:41
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Bob Quixote posted:I still feel weird about that considering that if you look at it another way he was already... I don't know, "brownwashed" in the first place considering that he was a character of Indian/West Asian descent being played by a Mexican man. Seems like a lot of hair splitting to me. I feel like what you're saying is the same as trying to say that Uhura was "brownwashed" because an African-American actress's role was cast with a black Dominican-Puerto Rican actress, in that it fundamentally fails to recognize that as far as Hollywood is concerned, there's "white" and "other." The fact is, there are precious few major roles of color in modern Hollywood - more than there used to be, but still not a whole lot - and while having a minority of one group play a minority of another group isn't the vanguard of thoughtful consideration of race and ethnicity in filmmaking, it's a drat sight better than turning one of the most iconic roles in the franchise white. "Space Seed" was 46 years ago and Wrath of Khan was 31 - regression from that isn't particularly acceptable.
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Apr 30, 2013 03:56
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korusan posted:I'm happy they picked an actor who can do what appears to be a pretty good play of the character. They're not being racist - their prime choice turned it down for other commitments, and the next guy on their list got the part instead. It'd be more ignorant to cast a guy who's "kind of not really white" to play a Sikh character instead of someone who does the best job of it. We also don't know if any North Indians tried out for the part or not so who's call is it to make that they picked the white guy instead. From the perspective of confronting the structural obstacles that lead to a dearth of actors of color getting major roles like this, it is absolutely better to miscast by casting another person of color than it is to miscast by casting a white actor. Obviously, it's best not to miscast at all, but there's a reason that we talk about the problem in terms of "whitewashing." So no, it's not "more ignorant." I don't think Abrams is "racist" in the sense of he sat down and said "time to gently caress over some people of color," but he's either ignorant enough or apathetic enough to allow what progress has been made - a good chunk of it by Star Trek itself - to roll back. The idea that "well, since their first choice turned it down, so it's a free for all on the appropriateness of casting down the list" would be equally true if, after Will Smith turned down the part, Tarantino had cast Brad Pitt as Django. This is ridiculous. Given the pernicious history of casting calls (and the fact that in casting, auditions for these kinds of roles are often not done by casting call, but by offer or approach to audition), I'm not sure whether even knowing whether any North Indians tried out will tell us anything meaningful. So the issue is basically "actors of color, arguably more so in sci-fi/fantasy/genre pictures, face serious obstacles to attaining the sort of big, iconic roles that regularly go to white dudes like Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto and, yes, Benedict Cumberbatch. Whether or not we should actively "brownwash" white characters, such as Nick Fury, aside, whitewashing the few big, iconic roles that are textually and historically characters of color is a bad thing." Assuming we care about racism in our Star Treks.
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Apr 30, 2013 05:54
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Re: the leaked spoilers. Given the whole discussion of whitewashing specifically with regards to South Asians, not spoilering the posts is going to result in people very quickly figuring out that Cumberbatch = Khan.MisterBibs posted:Not going to spoil this entire post (since I feel it defeats the purpose), but it's about the topic at hand: Do you mean generally? Or specifically when the character's identity isn't "even a facet" of the character, whatever that means. Because the latter openly embraces whiteness as the default - characters of color have to have their color constitute X% of their role in the media in order to justify keeping their identity - and the former just says "gently caress it, we'll cast white if we want to cast white," which I don't think is defensible if we have expectations of actors of color one day having the same opportunities as white actors. Even if we accept that Khan's identity isn't a part of his character, who meets that burden if he doesn't? Despite being openly identified as North Indian and likely Sikh, despite his identity fitting into the diverse milieu of Star Trek and hammering home that the Eugenics Wars were a global thing, his color isn't sufficiently part of his character? Did McGivers have to turn to the camera and say "He is Sikh as gently caress. He is the Sikhest Sikh who ever Sikhed" to qualify Khan? The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 11:07 on Apr 30, 2013 |
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Apr 30, 2013 09:23
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Anonymouse Mook posted:Re: the spoilers I think it is just a shame that Edward James Olmos is too old to play him. I wonder how an alternative history would have viewed his Riker? Comedy casting option: Danny Trejo I think Olmos would've been a pretty inspired choice, actually, especially since it's unclear exactly when the Botany Bay was discovered in this timeline. Seriously, Benicio Del Toro is not the only capable Hispanic actor, even leaving aside the freedom to go for an unknown because your box office is wrapped up in your leads and your franchise.
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Apr 30, 2013 14:35
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Goffer posted:I haven't really paid that much attention to the marketing hype or anything to this movie but I assumed from the get go that this 'twist' was kind of known. I didn't even know it was meant to be a surprise. I mean, the point of divergence is well after the Eugenics Wars, so that doesn't even hold up. But this isn't about "canon" or whatever, this is about taking one of the very few iconic roles in genre film that is explicitly a character of color and throwing a big tub of bleach on him. Sure, "characters of color" isn't a cosmically big deal, I'm sure we can all find stuff more pressing or whatever (and more pressing stuff to do than talk about Star Trek), but given that it has input (work for actors of color, which is how we get more roles of color, in addition to writers/producers/directors of color) and output (actually representing more than just white people on the screen) ramifications, I think it's worth at least piping up when the franchise decides to backpedal on progress that was made in the 1960s.
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Apr 30, 2013 14:47
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OldTennisCourt posted:I'd argue that it's a little more interesting here than in Airbender, because while there it was pointless and clear in it's offensiveness, in this case one could make the argument from a storytelling perspective, both ways mind you, for either a white Khan or a person of color Khan. It's troubling, and it sucks that it had to happen and poo poo on the movie, especially with JJ being kind of a douche with the "Heh, I DID say he was John Harrison though..." poo poo, but at least it's raising questions. What are the arguments for a white Khan from a storytelling perspective? If we go by canon, he's nonwhite when he's frozen and unless Nero was carrying white matter as well as red matter, that shouldn't actually change. I mean the most credible argument is "since it was cross-casting to begin with, it's fair game," and I don't think that's particularly persuasive because of the structural gap between "white" and "all us other folk" in film and television media. The one thing that really, really pisses me off about this whole thing is that JJ Abrams was asked about whitewashing Khan with Cumberbatch and said he wasn't Khan. Sure, marketing and misdirection, but baldly lying to dodge a totally fair criticism is sleazy as hell.
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Apr 30, 2013 15:54
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OldTennisCourt posted:I meant 7thBatallion's point. I'm more in line with Khan being a person of color because it does subvert ingrained ideas about eugenics and supermen. I'm not really that into Trek, so please forgive me if I'm not fully versed in the character Khan was a North Indian, possibly Sikh, superhuman tyrant played by a Mexican actor, Ricardo Montalbán. It's mostly the fact that they took a textually nonwhite role that was substantively nonwhite as well (in the American context, for all the European goons, Latin Americans are generally considered not white*) and cast a white actor. api call girl posted:Being a person of (some) color this conversation is steering rapidly into offensive land itself. I'm not sure where you're getting that from, though. As a person of color myself, it's clear how much progress has been fought for and how easily it can be bulldozed by people who don't really pay attention to that.
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Apr 30, 2013 16:09
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Finally saw it. I think what pisses me off the most about whitewashing Khan is that his identity is so incidental to the movie. There were a thousand and one ways to avoid loving this up, and they decided to do it anyway for a white British dude and a limp set of references. It was a serviceable movie, but they seriously regressed from casting in the loving 60s for nothing. 7thBatallion posted:With all the temporal loving around that Enterprise did during WWII, you think the may be why Khan is white? Sure, there could be an in-universe explanation for whitewashing or whatever making GBS threads on minorities just happened to be necessary to secure "mass appeal"/"core fans"/whatever. I don't think that excuses it.
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May 22, 2013 21:58
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1st AD posted:Benicio del Toro was originally cast for the role, then declined. This isn't the Rooney Rule: outcomes matter, not just "oh we wanted so-and-so but he declined." This idea that Benicio del Toro is the beginning and end of Hispanic actors is ridiculous, by the way. This isn't even touching the part where it probably should have been a North Indian actor to begin with.
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May 22, 2013 22:20
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1st AD posted:If outcomes are the only things that matter, Star Trek overall is going to be pretty hosed since the majority of the prominent roles over the last 45 years or so have gone to white people. The solution to "this plot has seriously unfortunate racist implications" (which, by the way, don't go away since Khan is textually nonwhite, just being played by a white actor, not to mention Noel Clarke's nonwhite suicide bomber) is not "start whitewashing" but "reconsider the plot." Yes, Star Trek is hosed up, but it's marginally less hosed up than the rest of film and television.
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May 22, 2013 22:32
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Styles Bitchley posted:Yeah i'm pretty sure there is no merchantable way this movie could have been made to please you. Don't feel bad though, you're not alone at least. You're wrong, but whatever lets you excuse poo poo, I guess. Unless you're seriously arguing that "roles of color not being whitewashed" is "non-merchantable." I don't think that "racist implications" are insurmountable - Noel Clarke's actions are portrayed at the very least as understandable, for instance, and even Khan is far more sympathetic than, say, Marcus (or even Kirk, honestly). I was really hoping this movie might really go boldly and have Khan and Kirk actually legitimately team up, ending with Khan trying to find a place for himself in the 23rd century when everything he stands for is considered repugnant. But stale safety prevails.
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May 22, 2013 22:51
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computer parts posted:So you're saying any plot that resembles 9/11 is off limits to non-white antagonists? Uh, absolutely not and if you read the post I made after that, you'd know that I was saying that racist implications are a reason to be considerate in how stories are told, not to not tell them. The solution is not, nor will it ever be, to further marginalize people, actors, and roles of color through whitewashing.
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May 22, 2013 23:04
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computer parts posted:How would one "be considerate" in this sense? I think this movie would've been fine if Khan had been nonwhite, because it portrayed his motivations, etc. Which makes it pretty bad that they whitewashed him, to be honest, and pretty loving galling when people insinuate that the whitewashing was either altruistic or better than not whitewashing. I was making a general statement about racist implications in movies generally.
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May 22, 2013 23:11
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computer parts posted:It wouldn't have been fine though. Plenty of people would be complaining that a central asian guy crashed a stolen flying machine into buildings on the waterfront. Does this excuse whitewashing as opposed to, say, considering whether having that setpiece is essential to the film? If this was an attempt to avert the racist implications of the plot (which, by the way, are not averted, since Khan is still textually a Central Asian guy crashing a stolen flying machine into buildings on the waterfront, he's just doing so while ALSO further marginalizing roles and actors of color via whitewashing), it was a poor solution. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 23:29 on May 22, 2013 |
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May 22, 2013 23:20
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Yeah, well, for me, Wrath of Khan was the first time I'd ever seen a character in sci-fi who "looked like me," so to speak, in a genre that is rarely on the vanguard of racial inclusion. It's what kept me interested in sci-fi when a lot of people were saying "well, why do you care about that stuff, it's not really for you." Granted, this was because they cross-cast a Mexican actor, but when even actors in the current film series were saying that Khan is so important in part because he is a character of color in a really white genre, it's really hosed up that they had to regress from the 60s. Racialicious, as usual, has a good write-up (spoilers obviously): http://www.racialicious.com/2013/05/22/table-for-two-star-trek-into-darkness/ As does Racebending: http://www.racebending.com/v4/featured/star-trek-whiteness/ Considering what a badass he was as Sulu, it is funny to see all the compiled incidents where John Cho was giving the whole team the sideeye. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 23:34 on May 22, 2013 |
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May 22, 2013 23:28
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jivjov posted:The best explanation I've heard is that McCoy's line about "This guy is 300 years old!" wasn't an exact figure, just a close approximation since he was talking to non-medical/scientific personnel. Dammit, jivjov, he's a doctor, not a historian!
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May 23, 2013 02:16
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7thBatallion posted:Remember that Khan was supposed to have blonde hair and blue eyes in Space Seed, and the script originally referred to him as an ayrian but the actor dropped out and they went to their backup, Ricardo Montalbán. What's your point? Again, outcomes matter - once you've cast a nonwhite person in that role, casting white is retrogression and whitewashing. I know racial politics are rough in America, but I guarantee you they're rougher from the "nonwhite" side.
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May 23, 2013 06:31
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7thBatallion posted:So because their first choice didn't work and they with with an alternate they are racist? Is battlestar galactica full of man hating women because Starbuck was a woman? Racist because Tigh was white? Is anyone racist for recasting characters in remakes? Intent is not a necessary component of racism. This is textbook whitewashing, and "oh well, we totally didn't mean for it to be" isn't an excuse, and you know it because you keep twisting yourself into knots in order to justify this. If they had cast Alice Eve as Uhura or Chris Pine as Sulu, would you be making the same arguments? Edit: I really want to preserve "Stop yelling racism when it's not blatant racism." for the record, since it's the most stultifyingly gently caress-stupid thing I've ever seen on the Internet.
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May 23, 2013 06:57
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Ho Chi Mint posted:Good thing there were never any white Englishmen in India, intermarrying with the locals. Good thing Khan was never portrayed as nonwhit--oh poo poo, wait a second The ability to contort a canon explanation does not speak to the production-level issues here.
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May 23, 2013 07:03
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Ho Chi Mint posted:Why aren't you pissed that they made Carol Marcus English all of a sudden? Because white Americans have never been systemically marginalized by Hollywood, unlike people of color. 7thBatallion posted:It should have been intentional racism used the wrong word. By your rules, ever casting a person of color as a different race is racism, ever casting someone as the different gender is sexism, and there is absolutely no room for artistic license or recasting, everything has to be the same as it ever was. Certainly not, because these things aren't neutral. Changing white men to women of color is a progressive choice, changing women of color (or men of color) to white men is a regressive choice, given reality and history. I hate to quote io9 here, but it seems most emblematic of your view: "I don’t know. I think it’s nice that in this day and age, a white male can still be cast as an Indian played by a Mexican. White men really have come a long way!" Only, you know, they're being sarcastic. It helps that I never insinuated that this was out of an intentional desire to gently caress over people of color, only that in a racist society, defaulting to whiteness is itself a political statement.
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May 23, 2013 07:16
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7thBatallion posted:So should they have delayed or canceled the movie because Del Toro dropped out? Should they have rewritten the script or said "gently caress it, we don't have a Latino, movie is over. Go home everybody" As has been stated repeatedly, Benicio del Toro is neither the beginning nor the end of "nonwhite actors," and it's loving disgusting for you to pretend otherwise. If "Khan" had just been John Harrison, this would've passed unremarked upon, because the status quo is so loving awful that STID is actually progressive but for the whitewashing bullshit. Edit: In response to your edit, considering the lovely state of Hollywood, yes. That is not a comment on the acceptability of cross-casting so much as it is a statement on how loving difficult it is to get "other than white" cast. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 07:24 on May 23, 2013 |
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May 23, 2013 07:22
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Ho Chi Mint posted:Which races are acceptable to play Khan? Would Terrence Howard have been alright? How about Wes Studi? "Good" and "better than just going white" are not synonymous. If you're asking whether they would be better, then yes. If you're asking whether they would be good, then that's a different question entirely.
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May 23, 2013 07:25
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7thBatallion posted:So what if Cumberbatch just rocked the audition? Should they have gone with a lesser actor because he's not white? What if Alice Eve had rocked the audition for Uhura? At what point do you think that people of color, being systemically marginalized (insofar as you even acknowledge that this has occurred), should be able to say "wait a loving second here"? Considering how incidental Khan qua Khan was to the movie, even just renaming the character would've worked. The racial politics of STID, aside from this bullshit, are actually sane. Your false dichotomy notwithstanding (and that's a huge if), casting is so subjective that "lesser" and "greater" actors seem to be decided by who "fits the part," which always just so happens to favor white actors (see, e.g., the reaction to Donald Glover wanting to audition for Spider-Man; Michael B. Jordan being up for the Human Torch, Idris Elba playing Heimdall in Thor and how people flipped out about that). In reality, Olmos, Naveen Andrews, Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgan, or Aamir Khan would've kicked the poo poo out of Cumberbatch in terms of playing Khan. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 07:39 on May 23, 2013 |
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May 23, 2013 07:37
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I get that this might be an alien thing for you, but imagine this: You're between eight and ten years old and you're not white. You like spaceships and poo poo, but everyone in charge seems to be white and you're starting to notice that people who are like you are the ones getting put into the back of cop cars, not driving them, and kids are starting to tell you that no, you can't be captain, because duh, captains are white. You see Wrath of Khan, and suddenly there's this guy who is also not white, possessing agency and answering to no gringo captain, but taking charge of his own destiny. Sure, he's the bad guy, but it keeps you glued to your seat because, hey, Khan got to command his own ship. Thirteen years later, some rear end in a top hat decides that what sci-fi really needs is another white guy. 7thBatallion posted:Yeah, I'd love to see that. Now I'm thinking of TOS Uhura in the captains chair and wondering why that never happened. Because Uhura is a black woman. Your desire to see things "mixed up" "different from what anyone expects" reflects the depth to which racial politics have affected media. But the question was "What if Chris Pine had rocked the audition for Sulu" - should a white dude play Uhura? If so, should that be balanced out? How monochromatic should a cast be in 2013? The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 07:46 on May 23, 2013 |
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May 23, 2013 07:44
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Supercar Gautier posted:Suppose this "Heck yeah, mix everything up, anything goes" attitude (which seems like biting a bullet to dodge the consequences of your previous argument) results in a cast of mostly established Hollywood actors, who are statistically mostly white. White Kirk, white Uhura, white Sulu, white Spock, white Scotty, tan Chekov, white Bones. Let's say this hypothetical cast all knocked their auditions out of the park. Is it okay to go full speed ahead with that? Just to add onto this, the reason that defaulting to establishment produces the status quo is, at least in part, because of structural marginalization of anyone who doesn't fit into the status quo. See, e.g., why black and Hispanic actors go through phases of playing "Gang Member #3". Basically, if you thought they were ever going to consider black Kirk or Hispanic Spock, I want you to share the drugs you're on. Racebending, with very few exceptions, runs in one direction.
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May 23, 2013 07:55
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7thBatallion posted:I was going with the original cast. Which was primarily Caucasian. If they wanted to recast say, Bones as Latino with Spanish influence, keep Sulu, Scotty and Chekov and Uhura as is while accenting Scott's heritage. Possibly make Kirk have South American roots down the line, maybe Portuguese, and gently caress if I know with Spock. What could you do with him? Hes not even human. Quinto did fine, IMO, bit maybe Tibetan? It would fit Vulcan philosophy. Do you understand why this is never going to happen in the present Hollywood system and why that is a bad thing? And why regression (in whitewashing roles of color) is also bad?
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May 23, 2013 08:09
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api call girl posted:Before this lovefest gets even further I'd like to point out that Ricardo Montalban was white. Shatner-Kirk was about as tan as his Khan was in Wrath. Probably at the point where an American movie operates in American context with regards to race, and Mexicans aren't white in America even when they are in Mexico. It's hosed up, but that's on the white Americans who wanted to keep light-skinned mestizo and European-descended Mexicans out of white schools. Race is a social construct, which means it's highly contingent on the society in which the circumstances arise. The ability to pass does not invalidate one's identity or the imposition of racial context on an individual. 7thBatallion posted:Yeah, whitewashing is bad, but changing Khan to white makes him far more terrifying, and IMO works better. I don't consider that whitewashing. I don't consider changing Colonel Tigh to white as whitewashing because his character in Galactica was loving perfect. No one on the planet could top that. "I don't consider it to be whitewashing because it was too good" isn't really a rebuttal so much as it is a justification for whitewashing, with which I disagree. (I do, however, think that there're ways to mitigate this - for example, making Adama Hispanic and the general diversification of the cast helped). Why does "white Khan" work better? I also don't take your point of "white Khan" being more terrifying than "nonwhite Khan," since the latter is a much more profound statement about genetically engineered superhumans than your usual "oh master race white people" bullshit, especially if the viewer isn't white. Again, "I would love to see Portuguese Kirk" doesn't negate the reality of the situation, which is that that's not even on the table. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 08:39 on May 23, 2013 |
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May 23, 2013 08:28
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7thBatallion posted:Woah, woah, woah. That's pretty much the root of the whole "Hispanic/Latino" umbrella identity writ large, actually. This is why casting Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts as a Spaniard couple in The Impossible, a Spanish film directed by a Spaniard, is more complicated than it might appear on its face. Welcome to the United States, where class has been replaced with caste. Understanding how hosed up racial politics and marginalization are is a pretty important part of getting why whitewashing is so pernicious. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 08:50 on May 23, 2013 |
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May 23, 2013 08:47
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Strange Matter posted:It's a little unfair to describe the original theme of Star Trek to be colonialism when the ideal Roddenberry tried to espouse is discovery and discovery over exploitation. The whole reason for the Prime Directive is to prevent that kind of interference and to allow less developed cultures to evolve without spacemen coming down to impose their technology and ethical standards. Granted there are probably more instances of the Prime Directive being violated than of it being upheld, but it's always shown as having consequences. That's even the case in Into Darkness-- the Nibiruans or whatever make the Enterprise into their new cultural symbol, Kirk loses his command and Spock gets kicked off the ship. What a work tries to espouse and what it does espouse are entirely separate things. Almost all colonialism and imperialism has been justified, at some point, by the desire to explore.
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May 23, 2013 19:13
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Snak posted:I understand that whitewashing is bad and that minorities need to be actively represented in the media. I'm a little surprised how important it is to people what race the villains are... I would have thought that villains being minorities was a pretty common thing in hollywood, what with fear of the other and alien culture. Even honorable and strong villains are often romanticized or exocticized members of other cultures. I think it's interesting how (spoilers for both star trek and Iron man 3) there are people in the IM3 thread complaining the The Mandarine wasn't a romanticized asian or middle-eastern steriotype BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT HE WAS MORE THREATENING THAT WAY, while here in the STID thead people are complaining that Khan wasn't romanticized Sikh Warrior because they think of him as a role-model? The most important thing about an antagonist is they are a fitting antagonist to the heroes. This is why villains are re-imagined more often than heroes: because they need to stay relevant. Can you imagine the blowback if Khan was ethnically from India and was portrayed as warlord and a terrorist? There are people right now in america who want to nuke Pakistan (And please don't say that I am saying Pakistanis are the same as Indians, I'm talking about what it would look like to the average american), and having Khan be middle-eastern or Indian despotic madman is hardly a good implication for anyone. When I thought for a second that Khan was actually teaming up with Kirk and they were going to be buddies, I thought it was pretty bad that he was white, because whitewashing heroes is bad, but villains exists solely to reflect the inner conflicts of the protagonist./spoiler] The problem is that this "sensitivity" in live-action media isn't at all (except for like, MAYBE Nick Fury, and even that's traceable to the comics) counterbalanced by, say, making previously white characters into characters of color. The other problem with this fake sensitivity is that it further narrows the available roles for actors of color and the portrayal of people of color. Also, I'm a little weirded out by the idea that villains can only be white in order to reflect the dark natures of, quote, "OUR society." Zoe Saldaña and John Cho are both more closely tied to the culture that gave rise to the foreign policy most aggressively interrogated (however clumsily) in the film than is Benedict Cumberbatch, and neither of them are white. "We" (who is this we you're talking about?) may not need the Foreign Other, but in this purported enlightenment, people of color - through characters and opportunities - are erased, and that's hosed up. You're also missing the point that Khan was portrayed that way - he was still textually Indian, they just whitewashed the casting. The implications of the text are probably part of why the Eugenics Wars background got brushed over. Khan was, ultimately, well-drawn in that he was doing bad poo poo for understandable reasons, so I think the problem of "implications" is less a reason and more an excuse.
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May 23, 2013 19:37
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Colonel Whitey posted:Y'all are still ignoring the part of that post where he/she points out that every time the prime directive is violated the consequences are shown. I don't know how you can still classify Star Trek as colonial-imperialist. I mean...I guess you could argue that it's folly to think you could explore without having any impact but then you're just arguing against scientific progress and that everyone should just stay home. Considering that the consequences of violating the Prime Directive are usually portrayed "altered path" versus "annihilation," I'd hesitate to say that the text is condemning violating the Prime Directive so much as saying "sometimes you've got to break a few eggs to make a United Federation of Planets."
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May 23, 2013 19:40
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Colonel Whitey posted:Wrong, it's a dilemma that has no analog in our history of colonialism. When I say outside threat, I mean some ill-intentioned alien being, as opposed to a natural disaster. I explained in my post above how in STID their interference in the natural disaster was condemned. Yeah, look up the history of European competition over colonial holdings or even Monroe Doctrine and tell me how colonialism was never justified by protection from an "outside threat," like the French or the Belgians or any other imperial power. Hell, you can just look up American intervention in Cuba in the 19th and early 20th century to see it.
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May 23, 2013 20:05
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Riso posted:So I was checking Memory Alpha for ole Khan, and apparently he ruled relatively bloodless and waged no expansionist wars, refuting Spocks accusation of him being a mass murderer. He's not Scottish and is doing an accent, so that's what's up.
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May 23, 2013 20:32
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Narciss posted:As much as I like casting individuals that befit the ethnic makeup of their character, I think I'd have real trouble buying an Indian (dot, not feather) as someone who could crush a man's skull with his bare hands. Although Sikhs *are* like 90% of Indian athletes, so it would make a little more sense. The fact that you have boxed an entire racial group as incapable of projecting sufficient physical threat (as opposed to, you know, a rail-thin white guy) is a reason not to whitewash. Assuming this isn't a joke-racist post.
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May 24, 2013 03:54
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GORDON posted:Too bad there wasn't a brief scene when ADM Marcus is briefing Kirk and Spock on Harrison, he didn't say, "He is one of ours, he surgically altered his appearance a month ago and disappeared, this is what he used to look like" and then BAM a picture of Space Seed Montalban. Then we can stop all this awesome THAT'S RACIST conversation. Or, even just have a throwaway line about how Sec 31 altered his appearance when they unfroze him so no history buffs would accidentally recognize him. And hell, that could have happened anyway. Yeah, only it wouldn't at all. Contorting a canon explanation doesn't actually fix the underlying issue. They could've said Nero brought back White Matter as well as Red Matter, but it still would've been an issue. Sorry if that bums you out, but whitewashing sucks and films shouldn't do it. I really don't know how you could read the posts discussing it and think that a handwavey "plastic surgery" explanation would actually fix things. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 08:03 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 07:59
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What I find delightful is the insistence that a character's ethnicity should be subject to whitewashing "for creative reasons" (i.e., if the likely white director feels like it) unless that ethnicity "is critical to the character" (which means ... what? Name is identifiable? Check.) but we cannot, cannot, cannot question the necessity of setpieces that create problematic implications, even if they're superfluous. It's become clear that the people saying "Oh, well, if he was actually Indian, you'd just be pissed because of that" aren't actually engaging with the responses, which run the gamut from "why is whitewashing an acceptable solution to unfortunate implications?" to "there are really easy ways to mitigate this" to "well, given that the movie sets the actions in an ambiguous context - and in fact associates the 9/11 imagery as a direct consequence of Starfleet's actions, a pretty potent connection, those implications may be overcome." By the way, the movie is about a "brown" terrorist flying a ship into a building - Khan is textually Indian, he's just whitewashed. Mickey Rooney's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's is still textually Japanese even though Rooney isn't, he's just whitewashed. It's just that no one's pointing this out because it's probably the least racially problematic thing about the Khan issues. You can absolutely have nonwhite people as antagonists and even terrorists, there just has to be an effort to make them characters as well. Unless your insinuation is that "if they cast an Indian (or even a Hispanic) actor, the writing would've basically just said 'well he's brown, so of course he wants to blow poo poo up.'" Which, I mean, given the profound idiocy that whitewashing shows, I'm not saying is out of the question. The strawman argument that somehow being opposed to whitewashing and racism at the same time (which is pretty easy, since one is a product of the other) means that no nonwhite people can ever be antagonists is both stupid and obvious - it only creates a greater impetus to write better villains, because yeah, lovely mustache-twirling villainy is going to come off as "heh heh brown people." Keep in mind that the defense of "Khan wasn't properly cast to begin with!" is really loving weak, since that casting was done in 1967, and while I'm happy to say that progress hasn't been as momentous as people tend to say to dismiss issues like this, I'd like to believe we haven't lost all the gains. computer parts posted:The long and short of it is that they should have made this the first film so Kirk could be cast by a Hispanic guy, which would have solved all the problems. Truly, if characters of color are cast with actors of color, there will be no room for the White Man. Us spics should just shut up and be happy with Tony Montana (oh poo poo, whitewashed) and whichever gangbangers Danny Trejo and Luis Guzmán are playing this month. Truly, the white man's burden is to take the few roles of color and give them to white actors. And God help us if a character was cross-cast in the motherfucking Sixties, because then it's fair game! Khan should've been played by an Indian actor, and that wasn't even on the table. That's how hosed up Hollywood is on casting race. We literally had someone come into this thread talking about how he couldn't imagine "dot, not feather" Indians being physically threatening. That is the context in which we are operating. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 20:17 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 20:13
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 19:43 |
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computer parts posted:Not in this thread, on the internet as a whole. People complain because "Khan is a white guy" not "Khan is not an Indian guy". People should be complaining about "Khan is a white guy," because that's regression. These aren't mutually exclusive complaints. Then again, responding to critiques of whitewashing in this thread with well, someone on the Internet said is pretty drat weak. jivjov posted:I keep seeing "he's textually Indian!!!!" thrown about. Could someone remind me where this is stated in Into Darkness? Parallel timeline be damned, they've already proven that not everything is as it was in the Trek canon with these new films, and I don't recall it ever being definitively established that Khan in this film is definitively of Indian origin. If he's Khan, he's Indian. He's textually the same character as Khan in Wrath of Khan, at least so far as origins go (as imported by Nimoy's Spock). Assuming he's not seems like trying to worm your way out of the lovely things here. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 21:03 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 20:54
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