Kind of Thing I Live For
Check this out. A guy named Ken Ferrigni writes:
My point here is that Peter Jackson and Co. got called out for color-coded casting, responded by firing the person who was doing the casting, and then continued to cast an all white group. So somewhere, in some production meeting, PJ&Co. concluded that total whiteness was essential to the story of the Hobbit. That's fine. But it has to be viewed as a choice. Not as a default. And not as an accident.
I don't know if Ken Ferrigni is a light-skinned human or not. But a man named Matthew Preston responds succinctly:
Hidden Tiger, Crouching Dragon had no black people either. WTF? I was just watching the film thinking 'Why aren't there any black people in this mythical medieval China?' They should've made it like Thor where 1/3rd of the Vikings were white, 1/3rd black and 1/3rd Asian, which looks a lot more realistic and believable.
Mr. Preston also included a picture, so you can decide if he's allowed to be ironic about knee-jerk race-baiting.
Matthew Preston, thanks for making my day.
BTW, I have to say this about Thor. Idris Elba did a fine job playing Heimdall, IMHO. And I don't think they gave that Asian Viking dude, what's his name, enough screen time.
I think the same sort of thing when they do A Christmas Carol with an all-black cast. Sure, there were lots of black people in Victorian England....
ReplyDeleteYeah, Heimdall was good, but I still found the token black and Asian Vikings humorous.
It didn't bother me because, after all, Sif is Thor's wife in Norse mythology, but she's his warrior buddy in the movie so he can fall in love with an Earth girl. And if Asgard is actually a planet--not just a "realm"--why not have different skin colors?
ReplyDeleteMy brother-in-law are going to have a blast over the holiday making fun of the hand-wringers that didn't like the Hobbit and have to bitch about it in online reviews. I enjoyed the movie immensely and will see it again, but it's not The Godfather.... people need to just deal with it.
Plus... they did something wicked-awesome to Elba's eyes in that Flick that made him look like a freakin' alien.
ReplyDeleteOne of my daughter's schoolmates has contacts similar to what Elba wears. Oddly enough, I just read last night that Heimdall is described in Norse mythology as the whitest of the gods. That made me smile.
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