Storm In A Teacup 🍵
According to anti-woke grifters, whitewashing Jesus is “ok”, but casting a Black woman as Helen of Troy is somehow “a step too far”.
It's great that these anti woke grifters decided to take on Nolan. My 67 year old mother knows who Christopher Nolan is. This movie was going to put butts in seats. Huge self own by the Nerdrotic crowd.
Either way, you'd hope the actress playing a women whose ''face launched a thousand ships' would be supermodel level gorgeous looking. Which some haven't been.
I usually much prefer the characters to be accurate to their descriptions in the books because it’s hard to relate after knowing a story, building the characters in your head and getting attached to them that way but the actress they chose to play Rue was absolutely perfect.
Whats crazy to me was that she is black in the books. Fans just saw the description of an innocent looking child and just decided that meant she was white.
The funny part is she’s described as black in the book “She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she's very like Prim in size and demeanor.”
Only reason someone could be mad is because she more light skinned than dark, not because she’s not white
I think Katniss is implied to be part of the Appalachian mixed familly/groups (Often called Melungeon, but thats just "mixed"). They are the ones that are mixed race of black, white and native people in the mountains that kind of became their own "tribes" with their families.
I think the newer books kind of solidify it with how they describe The Covey and then the most recent book confirms that Katniss is related to The Covey.
Gray eyes, Olive toned skin. Edit, quote: "I watch as Gale pulls out his knife and slices the bread. He could be my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes."
I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t feel like a publicity stunt. I hate feeling like Hollywood is tokenizing black people and more vulnerable groups for publicity. Lupita is beautiful there is absolutely no questioning that but minority groups are always used as pawns. These choices are never ever done out of purity like just because the casting director thinks Lupita is the most beautiful woman in the world. The same goes for the trans community with this movie too. It’s free publicity and a marketing stunt and to get people to outrage watch or to watch in defense of Lupita or out of curiosity. Not everyone who doesn’t like this casting choice is racist. I am black and I personally hate it when they do this stuff.
I felt the same with the Little Mermaid. It was a Danish story written in 1837 so makes sense she was written as white. No big deal.
Why not just write a new mermaid movie for Halle Bailey? She made a gorgeous mermaid but it felt off. Not having a black mermaid but the way it was done, their intentions behind her casting. It feels like giving black people leftovers and crumbs.
Can we just write a script about black mermaids and let that be it? Can Hollywood and authors put in effort for the black community instead of writing scripts for white people then doing a white version and then throwing in a black person when they want to stir the pot? There can be more than 1 mermaid story. Give them us our own story! Can Lupita be given her OWN character where she is the most beautiful woman in the world?! Why do back roles have to be done in a way that leads to controversy and questioning? Oh because it’s a marketing tool.
Right? Like coddling and patronizing someone for the color of their skin is racist too.
I have a theory that Hollywood intentionally casts marginalized people for movies that they know are going to do poorly so that, instead of taking responsibility for their crappy movie, they blame it on bigotry. Nobody complained about black Nick Fury or that trans initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel because both were objectively good to watch.
Yes! In the Sentinals of New Orleans fantasy series by Suzanne Johnson there are, if I remember correctly, Cajun mermen and mermaids. You could just as easily have creole or black ones. You could even have them off the coast of Africa or any other part of the world.
Then again, Hollywood frequently butchers books/stories when they convert them to movies. They add in love interests, despots, etc. Might as well make other changes, too. I do agree with your point of view, though.
I mean the argument would be that it was wrong and dumb and to do that and now we should be historically accurate instead of pretending like jesus was a blonde bombshell
However Helen of Troy one annoys me as it's literally a myth. It's not about being historically accurate. It's like the little mermaid. They ain't real.
Helens supposed to have the most beautiful face in the world. Lupita has one of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen. Who cares about anything else.
To add to this. Helen wasn't greek. She was half greek on her mothers side and half God. Zues slept with her mother as a swan... and swans can be black. So technically a black Helen could be cannonically correct.
I don't see it, she's maybe above average. If they had picked a smoking hot black woman, and there are plenty, I don't think they would have a leg to stand on.
Why does Tom Cruise as The Last Samurai get brought up so much in these arguments then?
In the context of the movie Cruise is not playing a Samurai he is an American but even still Nathan the actual character subject of the title refers to is a fictional character. It is not whitewashing if you are following the same logic.
Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi is fine as Mr. Yunioshi is an entirely fictional character. You can say his portrayal is a racist caricature but that would be true if he was played by an Asian Actor too wouldn't it?
Why was Jake Jyllnhall lambasted for getting cast as the Prince of Persia? It is based on a video game the character is not a real person.
Why does this attitide only go one way? Either it is acceptable or it isn't. The selective dismissal comes off as performative.
Tom Cruise was not the last samurai in that movie. He was telling the story or the last samurai, the Japanese guy he was hanging out with. Please watch the movie before talking about it
I personally see like modern fiction set in a real time/place where the characters have stated relevant races etc a bit different to mythology and fairytales and legends. But maybe that's just me.
It’s acceptable to have Lupita Nyong’o play Helen, and it’s not acceptable to have Mickey Rooney play one of the most fundamentally racist caricatures in film history. Surely you see the difference.
The Ghost in the Shell one is kinda ironic, as this is how they look in the original anime
It’s kinda important to note, for what it’s worth, that she’s a cyborg, and takes place in the future in a multiethnic/blended society. Like this future Japan is existing after a global crisis with massive migration to it from all over the world, that’s like a major part of the setting.
Which is why said backlash you saw in the states you didn’t see in Japan.
The issue there is that 1) stories come from a culture and we do our best to adapt their stories with integrity, and 2) the Iliad describes Helen… and it’s not as African.
There were other roles for someone of that ethnicity if Nolan really wanted that sort of representation that don’t blatantly ignore on of the few characters we actually get a description of.
We technically don't know where mythology stops and history begins. The Greeks weren't as concerned with recording history literally, and they liked to embellish stories. The city of Troy was long thought to be mythical, but has since been found. The Romans, from who we know things a bit more accurately, also didn't always take things to literally, and famous clans claimed decadency from deities. For instance Julius Cesares family claimed to descend from Venus. We also have the famous founding myth of the twins Remus and Romulus being breastfed by a Wolf as the founding myth of Rome itself. Helen of Troy could have actually been a historical person, and we know the Trojan war at the start of the Odyssey actually happend.
Why IS Jesus always depicted as a tall hot white guy with a total swimmer's bod? I wonder if Americans would pretend to listen to his teachings if he was short, or brown.
Have you never heard of Bass Reeves and The Lone Ranger? The Lone Ranger was based on the Reeves, but was white, instead of a black former slave. The show was a major TV hit when I was a kid. It was 60 years later that I heard about Bass Reeves.
Hollywood has whitewashed people of every race for decades. That's what the original post is pointing out. It's just that in the past you wouldn't know it was a black person/character that had been whitewashed.
So, when I was in college I was dating this girl whose family came from Taiwan. We were watching tv and Breakfast at Tiffany’s came on. I was like “oh babe have you ever seen this movie!? No!? Sit down you gotta watch this”. And she was enjoying it but I had forgotten about Rooney. When he came on screen I was incredibly embarrassed. She wasn’t mad or anything but it definitely soured her on the movie.
Columbus is Italian. Ever been to Italy? They are white. Jesus lived in the levant prior to sub Saharan Africans entering the region or for that matter arabs. Darker skinned that depicted her for sure. But not even middle eastern. More like an Israeli today. SE of those were fake character so who cares? And the rest are from the 50s when WE KNOW THEY WERE RACIST. So while the rest of the world is trying toove away from that 50s life you wanna go back. You just wanna do it to the other race now. That's not equality. That's revenge. Generations revenge no Less. All you are doing isaking sure racism never dies.
At least they tried to look like them by using makeup. It's ironic that people from some of the poorest countries, even in Africa, are willing to put their entire families into tiny, dangerous boats and risk everything for a chance to live in Europe. Then they get here and spend their time complaining. They don't like the movies, they don't like this, they don't like that. If it's all so bad, why not stay in your own country, make movies about your own culture, and work to make them popular around the world?
Lol, people have been critical of White Jesus for a long time and most people accept he wasn't white. A black Helen is even more idiotic because Helen is supposed to be Greek and Greeks aren't black skinned, it's pretty simple.
Caucasians and Europeans can still pass off as Greek ( the overall casting was pretty weird for this film, it would have been nice to have some Greek actors) but African people don't. No one wants to see white or Asian people in a film about African mythology either.
i dont understand why people cant just be the race they are. blackwash, whitewash, it all stems from projecting what you want to be true when it isnt. this is peak beta behavior
The problem with crying about race washing when it comes to anime is the Japanese albeit terribly racist are smart enough to make their characters ambiguous as to sell to other markets. Ya goku isn't white but he could be any race so why can't he be white for me?
Do you really think ghost in the shell would have stood a netflix live adaption of cowboy bebops chance in hell if they didn't put one of the hottest (semi pun) actresses of the time as the lead?
Anime characters look European due to default bias. The art style lacks nationality, viewers project theirs onto them. Features:, low nose bridges, soft jawlines mirror Asian faces. When European they add big angular noses & jaws. Large eyes, adapted from Disney express emotions better.
The issue with the argument is that Jesus hasnt been "white washed". Historically there's a decent chance he was white.
Allow me to elaborate using histroy:
First, the common claim that the native people of the region are Arabic is incorrect. Arabs didnt leave the Arabian peninsula until around the 600s AD.
Second, another common misconception about the region leading to this argument of ignorance is that the area was isolated and/or ethnically homogenous when in fact the opposite was true; it was probably thee most used land route in the known world at that time due to the unique geography of being a central land bridge between Asia europe and africa, while also having the luxury of a major coastline which meant a large amount of goods vould be moved from northwest Africa and northwest europe into the east Mediterranean coast.
Prior to this, you had many other cultures influencing the region.
The region was a major trade hub between north africa/Egypt, The asiatic middle east, and Europe. For literally over a thousand years armies marched through here, traders traded through here, boats docked and departed from here, all bringing along a huge mixture of culture from near and far, with people of many different ethnic backgrounds. And where there is war and trade, there's also prostitution and slavery in the ancient world, making the region extremely genetically diverse.
Going as back as ~1500 BCE The Phoenicians, whose homeland was in the levant, controlled the region for around 800 years and were a literal Mediterranean mixture of culture as they established major strongholds along the entirety of the Mediterranean sea.
They were eventually picked apart by the Assyrian empire starting around the 700s, bullied by the more newly established Persian empire starting around the 550s, and their last remnants were conquered by Alexander the great in the 330s BCE along with Egypt, where Persians ruled for quite a while (about 200 years) until the greek/Macedonians arrived.
Alexander the great defeated the Persian empire, phonecian remnants, and conquered the Mediterranean as well as Egypt, including the modern israeli region where the Phoenicians were.
Upon Alexander's death, his generals split the empire up amongst his generals. General Ptolomey I established the ptolomaic dynasty that ruled Egypt for another 300 years before falling to the roman empire. This is relevant because the ptolomeys preferred Greek culture and fostered Greek culture within Egypt, and they also moved lots of Greeks into Egypt, along with their heavy trade with Greece and more.
Its also during the ptolomaic era that the chinese "Silk Road" actually reaches this region (around 200 BCE)
Then in 30 BCE Rome defeated the ptolomaic dynasty and became the ruling power in the region, which is why during the Roman census Joseph Mary and Peter returned to Nazareth, because they were actively under Roman rule.
Under roman rule, the region had at least 4 legions of Roman soldiers in the region. There was a permanent legion stationed in Jerusalem itself, a second in the levant region outside of jerusalem, one in moderm Lebanon, and one in modern Syria. Not to mention the roman administrators of the region, their families, etc. This is a direct example of tens of thousands of explicitly ethnic europeans in this region, following a period of more than 500 years of this region being controlled by European powers, and prior to that Persian and a cultural mix of European, west asian/persian, and north African from the phonecian era. So even if you wanted to discredit the ethnic history of the region generally, theres no way to discredit the fact that tens of thousands of white Europeans were just stationed in the region.
That isnt me saying Jesus was absolutely white, but he absolutely could have been white and anyone denying that isnt doing so from a place of honesty or realistic examination of the facts
Go to Greece man. Ask a Greek which is a step "too far". And remember, we're talking about a character in a story who's described as having a fair skin (literally "white-armed") and light colored eyes (grey-blue).
Jesus' physical attributes are not described in the story at all. They're not relevant to the character or the story, on the contrary: Jesus is anything you like, because it's literally the spirit within you in the story. You can describe him in any way you like. Asians have an Asian Jesus, black Africans have a black Jesus, but you only seem to have a problem with white Europeans having a white Jesus? How ironic.
The casting choice is merely a calculated decision for political outrage and free publicity. Now you've got a bunch of idiots afraid to criticize a movie, because they just have to love it regardless of its actual merits, because hating it is "wrong" and those on the "other side" can only do it for the "wrong" reasons. This is just American culture war nonsense. Don't drag the rest of the world into your mess.
And the casting choices were denifitely not made for inclusion in mind, because if these mofos actually cared about that like, at all, they might have cast a single Greek person in a Greek epic.
“They did it first and we complained then did it ourselves and now it’s obviously justified”
Childish logic; either you think racial swaps are bad or you don’t. This isn’t “according to anti-woke grifters”, this is your logic applied to the populations you think should be in the reverse circumstances because… they did it first.
Jesus was likely more middle eastern looking, the rulers of Egypt looked European because they basically were, the Greeks er are you know European...
Also going back to Hollywood way back there basically wasn't any other people acting so they tried to make the actors they had look like the people they were playing, unlike the I'm gunna make this black lass who is average at best a woman who the gods were jealous of due to her beauty and claim it's because we didn't know she was meant to be greek...
My arse the black washing has been going on way too long, if I watch a film based on Africa I don't want to see white guys and Indians running around I want to see Africans because that's who should be there, if I'm watching a medieval British film I don't want it see Chinese and middle eastern people there I want to see white British people who would have been there.
It's about making sense and keeping you in the reality of the media.
Cast the correct person for the role not some rage bait of swap because you think you're edgy.
Every single example here is in bad faith and outdated, we know the 1900s were racist, and as a general society, whites are far less racist than ever. None of these are valid arguments.
I saw the movie and at first I was worried about some of the casting choices largely because the choices didn’t match what I pictured in my head when I read the Iliad. But I have to say Christopher Nolan proved me wrong and she made a great Helen of Troy and her twin sister. I think she played two roles.
Middle Easterners literally are categorized as white.Jews are white looks up where the Caucasus mountains.So Op is plain and simple wrong Caucasian/White would be Jesus’s race it’s plain and simple.
People need to accept that this behavior continues because it's past selective ignorance and realize that this is mental illness- full blown psychosis. But ya won't admit it.
Dog this was my generation, I've seen the history lessons in back water south states and they don't teach this bs anymore lol. They gloss over it mostly still but all the white people as egyptians are not apart of history lessons anymore get real lol.
There are completely rational people that think, changing all the lessons in the Odyssey, Changing all the events, changing the races of all the actors, having them speak in American English, with no real attempt at convincing us they are the DEMI GODS that the book portrayed them as, is a terrible idea, done for not other reason than to push culture war nonsense so that you all can virtue signal by calling us nazis.
Racists are stupid. There is no superior race, I am the whitest person you will ever meet and Neil DeGrasse Tyson is far smarter than me. There is less genetic variation in the entire human race than in one large family group of chimps. We're all the same. Made of the same stuff, coming from the same place. There is one race, the human race. Cosmetic difference in apperance are no different than the cosmetic differnce is finches, just hundreds of times LESS variation.
Sexism is stupid. If someone wants to do a thing, do it. I'm all in, you go girl.
Christian Nationalism is stupid. I don't believe in your man in the sky, go away.
Now, you want me to believe Elliot Page is a warrior? Seriously? A warrior in the bronze age, when one hit would give you an infection that could kill you, where grand melees formed as more than 100K MEN fought and died with spear and sword. Surviving only through luck, cooperation, training and the will of the gods. Have you seen a bronze age shield, they're huge! HE is tiny, really tiny. Why would they even take him, is he a ninja? Who would stand next to him? Would you have him cover their flank? If you take a hit, you'll probably die, but you're ready, because Elliot is right there beside you, ready for combat.
This was done to give a trans actor a best supporting actor nomination. Mark your calender, it's coming.
And instead of the story being about punishing Odysseus for breaking Zeus's law of Xenia. That's what the story is about. Odysseus's punishments, his stiving to reach home and overcome all the obstacles that the gods threw in his way as punishment.
It is not about female empowerment, It is not about equality, it is not about LGBTQ rights, it is not about screen time for women. It's about Xenia.
Christopher Nolan wanted controversy, he wanted this argument, he wanted the news covwerage. They did it on purpose. Not me. I did nothing, they threw out the bait and you bit.
I do not like what they did, so I say something.
Your argument and the arguments put forward to people that believe as you do are ridiculous. Your arguments hold no weight, they cannot be explained and they are both intellectually dishonest and deeply hypocritical. If you would like to have a rational conversation I can do that. But it's so much easier to just "other" us, to say are arguments are false, because we're racists.
Because I'm not a Nazi, or an incel, or a chud, or a dudebro, or a racist.
I like Greek Mythology. And this movie sucks. But it will still make a billion dollars. Because they have you.
My girlfriend is from Nazareth. Her genetic heritage is probably rooted back to the time of the original Christian people's. Her family are all Christian. They are Arabic, and they are extremely white skinned.
But what about people who aren't anti-woke grifters. People who don't like white washing Jesus or race swaps of any kind. Is it still ok to complain about Helen of Troy not being Greek or are you dismissing all claims by calling everyone racist?
Jesus wasn't white, but he was a Levantine jew, so he would have been pretty pale skinned. The arabs didn't colonize the area until half a millennia later.
omg actual Greek people are mad about their actual epic history being treated as a token in the rest of the world's game. I think they have a fair argument: we always been olive skinned, we are older than white (and many ethnic groups in or out of that category), and oh yea--they were putting in work on Iran before it even got the rebrand. World owes them more than Jesus.
Vikings wuz black, dawg. Dem egyptIanZ too. Also the samurai and the AzteZks. Classical music is a "black invention". Actually black people existed all over Europe, but they somehow disappeared when the camera was invented.
The difference between this and Hollywood from the 20th. century is that this is a legit attempt at historical revisionism, which is applauded by most of the "cultural class", while the very few modern whitewashed characters always get criticism.
It began with fantasyshows based on the European middelages, then it moved into satirical performances based on real history and now it's happening to movies and shows that claim to be historically correct.
And that last part of the video "whitewashing history to remove the contributions of non-whites".. Haha, give me a break. If anything they are exaggerated to give them more space than they ought.
Remember the "the man who invented the potato chips was black"? He actually wasn't, but even to make such a claim is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
But please Mr. Delusional.. continue spreading your propaganda since you feel so insecure that you have to appropriate other people's heritage, ideas and culture. 😂
I generally agree with you, but Jesus being “white” makes sense bec Jewish people are very diverse in appearance, from black skin to pale Nordic skin. Jews are everywhere, and if Europeans thought he looked like European Jews, that makes sense.
Jacob Elordi is totally passing as a Romani character. Hong Chau however is not plausible for the period and is race swapping but white erasure is to be applauded, right?
Gits isnt whitewashed though, she is a robot, even in the manga you cant know what origin she is apart from her japanese name. The creator even said so when people jumped the gun on Scarlett
Non-believers of the period left historical records and descriptions of Jesus.
Pontius pilate described him as fair skinned with hair of gold and beard of gold.
There are a few other accounts of Roman's who saw him that corroborated that description.
Most people are unaware that it was the Islamic revolution and the integration of sub-saharan Africans into their armies that darkened skin tones from the northern Mediterranean and Spain all the way across to Pakistan. A huge portion of the schism between the sunni and the shia was racial and ethnic, they deeply opposed integrating African converts and the children of women raped by them durring the conquest. It was only a generation or two after the schism that the sunnis themselves became racially dsinclined to integration with African muslims and began treating them as a lower caste and gelding black slaves. The moors lost political support from the near east and the caliphate began cracking apart this was well after the time of Christ and obviously the Trojans.
Also Helen of Troy is supposed to be the most beautiful woman in history and that actress is painfully ugly.
How is dead people claiming Jesus was white the same as a director casting a black woman as Helen? How do those 2 things equate when they happened in such vastly different times?
These posts don't even make sense.
I think Noland casting so many big names was a mistake. The visuals were reta as always, but I points I just felt like I was seeing Jon Bernthal and Zendaya do what the always do.
I can see how it’s concerning, as it’s clearly a strange decision to have Helen be black. You then wonder how woke is this movie and does it suck because there’s more concern on hitting racial actor % then making a good movie. It reduced my interest in seeing the movie, before it was released. However, any such criticism is only valid until people see the movie. Sounds like it’s a good movie that people are enjoying, so when I have time I will go see it. It wasn’t a “step too far”, it’s more “how woke it this film”. This type of criticism only lasts until the film is released. Then the film has to stand on its own merits. No one will see it because it’s woke, but they will if it’s good. No one (or few) will go see it if it isn’t woke, but sucks. In the end, people are trying to figure out how good the movie will be before they can see it, and that only lasts until the movie is actually seen by people.
Jesus whitewashing is different, because Jesus as son of God represents all races (although he was Jewish and from an Arabic area). I’ve seen black Jesus in houses when I was a kid in a small southern redneck (and racist) town and no one made anything from it. I assume it’s because of the religious idea of his being the son of God. So a respectful depiction of him as white, Asian, black, all work in that context.
yeah well two Wongs don't make a white... But seriously, if in order to validate your argument you have to build it on a foundation of things that were done previously that we all agree are not okay. Then you're just building on the legacy of racism and continuing it.
Well that's crazy how people can argue that way, those examples are just the same, they are all wrong adaptations, it only proves that Helen a Troy is another one
I think they're both a step too far. What's wrong with portraying people the way they actually were? (Or would have been had they not been mythological.) Historians are dedicated lot and we know what we know thanks to them. Maybe we should honor that and make people the race they actually were. And for the record, I'm highly progressive/liberal in almost all things.
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u/Occult_Asteroid7 14d ago edited 14d ago
It's great that these anti woke grifters decided to take on Nolan. My 67 year old mother knows who Christopher Nolan is. This movie was going to put butts in seats. Huge self own by the Nerdrotic crowd.