On Television, Cinema and Race

Another possible good choice for a black Dr. Who would be Michael Obiora.

He played the ridiculously flirtatious cop Sally Sparrow went to in "Blink" (and according to the IMDB, a heck of a lot of British TV). He showed that over-the-top flair there, in spades.

Alright, it's been five pages and I'm still hesitant... How does one pronounce Chiwetel Ejiofor? He's a good actor, I've just never heard his real name spoken aloud.

El-Taco-the-Rogue wrote:

Alright, it's been five pages and I'm still hesitant... How does one pronounce Chiwetel Ejiofor? He's a good actor, I've just never heard his real name spoken aloud.

From the BBC
They recommend either CHOO-wuh-tuhl IJJ-i-uh-for or CHOO-wet-uhl EJJ-i-oh-for. They have two because one is from his theatrical agent, the other is from a press officer at a place he has performed at for many years.

/Reads Comments
//puts head on desk
///sighs

I really don't agree with that article in that it makes a pretty bad comparison.

Yes, you can make the argument that the Rings series had some racial undertones due to the very stratified black/white bad/good nature of the forces at work. But Thrones simply doesn't have that stark* duality. Most of the white folks in the book are portrayed as variously horrible and hateful people. Even the good guys are kind of ruthless and/or stupid regularly.

(*... sorry)

Bloo Driver wrote:

But Thrones simply doesn't have that stark* duality. Most of the white folks in the book are portrayed as variously horrible and hateful people. Even the good guys are kind of ruthless and/or stupid regularly.

Or, put another way:

Even so, by skillfully replicating the juxtapositions posed by Martin's back-and-forth POV, the show has managed also to replicate his ultimate, rather un-Tolkienish subtext: There is nothing unique about the savage horde's savagery. If Dothraki society is depicted as violently perverse, so is Westerosi (i.e., quasi-European) society, which bows to the whims of the Aryan-featured boy-monster King Joffrey, and which has knighted mass murderers and rapists like Ser Gregor Clegane, one of the most horrifying minor characters in all of fantasy. Every culture is savage in "Game of Thrones," and that's a very different view of the world than what Tolkien gave us.

The actual essay doesn't end on that note, though, it's barely halfway through. It's just a tool most opinion writers use: spend a paragraph or two supposing you might be wrong, so you can point to that when people argue with your opinion and you can't defend yourself, but then go back to filling out your original idea.

Chataya continued, “My people hold that there is no shame to be found in the pillow house. In the Summer Isles, those who are skilled at giving pleasure are greatly esteemed. Many highborn youths and maidens serve for a few years after their flowerings, to honor the gods.”

“What do the gods have to do with it?”

“The gods made our bodies as well as our souls, is it not so? They give us voices, so we might worship them with song. They give us hands, so we might build them temples. And they give us desire, so we might mate and worship them in that way.”

“Remind me to tell the High Septon,” said Tyrion. “If I could pray with my c*ck, I’d be much more religious.”

Again, an entire nonwhite culture is presented as holding skewed values. But this wince-inducing depiction is tempered by some interesting implied questions about sex and commerce and spirituality and culture and power. Here’s hoping there’s a hint of this in the show’s version of things as well.

Does anyone else find this line a little ironic? Here's a commentator saying that TSoFaI is a product of its time and geography and yet he makes his own value judgments on another society (albeit a fictional one) and its sexual beliefs. He jumps to the conclusion that the people of the Summer Isles are the ones with skewed values, rather than implying they are merely different.

I am curious to see how the show follows the books and addresses the lands outside of Westeros, but this article was so ... uncommitted. Such a milquetoast argument with no real conclusion.

Am I the only one here who gets hungry for Greek food whenever they mention the Dothraki?

if this thread is getting traction, should we discuss the response certain fans of Hunger Games had when the movie version was released?

http://m.jezebel.com/5896408/racist-...

Seth wrote:

if this thread is getting traction, should we discuss the response certain fans of Hunger Games had when the movie version was released?

http://m.jezebel.com/5896408/racist-...

Beat me to it! I was debating starting a thread or trying to find one that article fit in.

Honestly, I imagined them to be white, but the fact that they aren't doesn't bother me.

I hope you don't think this is a new thing? This happens all the time, and in all media.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/c...

As much as we hate those marketing wonks, they're not wrong from the standpoint of doing their job - to sell more. They're hearing what people say (those racist twits on Twitter are just the tip of a nasty, bigoted iceberg), and there are far far too many of them. It's not a lie to say these things do hurt sales.

Do I think more should be done? Heck yes. The only way I see to solve the problem is to do things the way we want them to be, rather than listening to those who would limit us to their blinkered worldview. In time, the exposure to it will help at least some of them adjust. But there are real costs to that and I don't know where to draw the line. How do you tell a producer that his lost revenue is an investment in improving the human race and make it stick?

momgamer wrote:

I hope you don't think this is a new thing? This happens all the time, and in all media.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/c...

As much as we hate those marketing wonks, they're not wrong from the standpoint of doing their job - to sell more. They're hearing what people say (those racist twits on Twitter are just the tip of a nasty, bigoted iceberg), and there are far far too many of them. It's not a lie to say these things do hurt sales.

Do I think more should be done? Heck yes. The only way I see to solve the problem is to do things the way we want them to be, rather than listening to those who would limit us to their blinkered worldview. In time, the exposure to it will help at least some of them adjust. But there are real costs to that and I don't know where to draw the line. How do you tell a producer that his lost revenue is an investment in improving the human race and make it stick?

Not to mention Starship Troopers.

Paleocon wrote:
momgamer wrote:

I hope you don't think this is a new thing? This happens all the time, and in all media.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/c...

As much as we hate those marketing wonks, they're not wrong from the standpoint of doing their job - to sell more. They're hearing what people say (those racist twits on Twitter are just the tip of a nasty, bigoted iceberg), and there are far far too many of them. It's not a lie to say these things do hurt sales.

Do I think more should be done? Heck yes. The only way I see to solve the problem is to do things the way we want them to be, rather than listening to those who would limit us to their blinkered worldview. In time, the exposure to it will help at least some of them adjust. But there are real costs to that and I don't know where to draw the line. How do you tell a producer that his lost revenue is an investment in improving the human race and make it stick?

Not to mention Starship Troopers.

Oh Lord. I have repressed the fact that that thing exists. I helps keep me sane. Uh.. san-er.

Heinlein turned out to be so completely wrong with that book, the only treatment it deserved was the one it got.

Nothing deserves that treatment. No smiley. I wouldn't advocate it for anything.

If you want to make something that bad, have the cojones to make it yourself. Turning someone else's work on it's ear just to steal a little name recognition is abhorrent to me.

I thought they did Heinlein a favor by making that movie instead of the book he wrote.

I'm not going to take the bait and start debating that here, Cheeze. You can troll somewhere else with that.

momgamer wrote:

I'm not going to take the bait and start debating that here, Cheeze. You can troll somewhere else with that.

In Cheeze's defense I don't think he intended it as a troll, but..yeah, Cheeze, I read an unspoken "U MAD??" after your post as well.

It plays better as a whitewashed parody than straight. We got NPH playing a space Nazi out of it which is better than anything that could have come out of the book without significant changes.

momgamer wrote:

I'm not going to take the bait and start debating that here, Cheeze. You can troll somewhere else with that.

There are a couple good articles out there about the pre-9/11 prescience of the movie as a dark satire. It's an interesting film to watch in that light. Keep in mind that the film was still at least a contemporary of Wag The Dog and X-files-brand mistrust of the government.

Wait, isn't it a satire? I mean, it got layered on pretty thick, especially with all the propaganda messages and the Nazi trench coats and everything. Was I misreading that?

So, uh, I was trying to find a YouTube clip of NPH and the whole 'It's afraid!' line when I fell down a very disturbing rabbit hole involving a website called 'Stuff Black People Don't Like', which I won't post a link to because it's so racist that I'm not even sure it would be legal in my country and I see no reason to increase its Google score. There is a book of the same name on Amazon, which is surprising. They have a concept called 'BRA', or 'Black Run America', which is just as ridiculous as it sounds. (The reason why my search for 'It's afraid... It's afraid!' landed me there? Well, it has to do with the fact that the author apparently failed to grasp that Starship Troopers is indeed a satire.)

Oh god. I just found a YouTube video containing a soundbite from the guy who writes that blog, the purpose being to bash him for not hating Jewish people as much as he does black people. I mean, I knew there was some bad stuff on the internet, but goddamn. If anyone was wondering about that aforementioned "iceberg", yeah, it's a pretty big iceberg.

It'sc weird to me that peeps would imagine Rue or Thresh as having fair skin when the book fairly specifically detailed that their skin complexion is dark. For that matter, I don't remember Katniss being fair skinned. She supposed to be olive skinned, as is Gale. Part of why Prim stands out is because she's fair skinned and blonde where most of the kids are olive skinned and black-haired.

Peeta is notable in the same manner. His blonde hair and fair skin are a common feature of the merchant class, to which he belonged. Katniss' mother also belonged to this class. Prim takes after her mother, Katniss her father.

These blonde-haired fair-skinned people are supposed to be uncommon, being as most people in Distict 12 are coal-miners, not merchants. The Reaping in the film had more blonde than the book, which I felt wasted a cinematic opportunity - Prim could have been really highlighted against her peers when she gets chosen.

LarryC wrote:

Wait, isn't it a satire? I mean, it got layered on pretty thick, especially with all the propaganda messages and the Nazi trench coats and everything. Was I misreading that?

I think that's a very reasonable way of interpreting the film, but it certainly wasn't the expectation of most audiences when the film first came out.

So, a young woman, Lena Dunham has a new show debuting on HBO soon, "Girls", which has been absolutely showered with critical praise in the run-up to its premier.

That said, it has come in for criticism from some corners because it seemingly falls prey to the modern "Friends" syndrome: A depiction of New York City as pretty much all-white. I actually got to thinking about this a bit more, and realized while thinking about another show that I like ("How I Met Your Mother") that the last time I could clearly remember a minority character with a speaking role involved a semi-cringeworthy gag about one of Ted's Asian students having the name "Cook Poo".

Anyway, i'm mentioning this because one of the responses to this criticism that i've seen around is that only women-oriented shows like this come in for this kind of criticism, and that... well, i'll quote a commenter from the linked article:

I just don't understand why this show is expected to meet some crazy, lofty, perfectionist standards that no other show is expected to meet. People write about what they know! No sh*t! News at 11!

I want to watch diverse, appropriately realistic depictions of every group of people in the world on television. Because they would be fantastic. But that's not where TV is at right now. Let's celebrate the fact that this is something different and maybe even well-executed!

Can't relate to it? Nut up and feign some interest in another group of people on this earth for a change.

This show can't single-handedly solve all of the race/gender/class problems in entertainment, and it's ridiculous that people are expecting it to. Some of this sh*t helps me understand why many showrunners get pissy and want armchair critics to go to hell.

I only use this quote because it neatly encapsulates a lot of the push-back you come across to criticisms of art from a racial angle.

1.) "Having minorities who are not 'token minorities' (Sassy Black X, Fiery Latin X, Submissive Asian X)" is not a lofty, perfectionist standard. It's asking for a fair representation.

2.) People frequently seem to fall back on the "well, it's progress, isn't it?" idea, which I used to fully put faith in myself. But at a certain point, the grinding, slow pace of this kind of "progress" brings out one's inner Stokeley Carmichael.

It's always at "some point in the future" that things will get better, some indefinite point, that we can't pinpoint or even really ballpark, but if you're patient, we'll get there. Eventually. We swear. But since we're making progress towards that goal (no matter how incremental), we are beyond criticism.

At a certain point, you don't want to wait anymore, you want to kick the damn door in. That's kind of where I am now.

Given the ludicrous dearth of women in creative positions of power in television right now, I'm thrilled to see Dunham doing just what I said. Kicking the goddamn door in. She should not be forced to include diversity in her show, especially in some clearly-forced throw-off to create the visage of diversity. Moreover, it is really cool to see this show using a similar rubric as "Louie", allowing her to create an authentic voice.

But, as authentic and new as her voice seems to be, it is still running over some hoary, well-worn territory. At the moment, it seems to be walking in the narrow prism of many shows before it, which, in the vast ethnic and cultural stew of New York City, is going to bring you in for justified criticism.

I fully expect the show to be equal parts hilarious and frustrating.

Also: RE: the Hunger tweets, somehow, I view Twitter as basically being 140 character YouTube comments, so I may be the only person who was not surprised or particularly interested that yes, assholes on the internet have dumb-f*ck opinions and are assholes.

momgamer wrote:

I hope you don't think this is a new thing? This happens all the time, and in all media.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/c...

As much as we hate those marketing wonks, they're not wrong from the standpoint of doing their job - to sell more. They're hearing what people say (those racist twits on Twitter are just the tip of a nasty, bigoted iceberg), and there are far far too many of them. It's not a lie to say these things do hurt sales.

Do I think more should be done? Heck yes. The only way I see to solve the problem is to do things the way we want them to be, rather than listening to those who would limit us to their blinkered worldview. In time, the exposure to it will help at least some of them adjust. But there are real costs to that and I don't know where to draw the line. How do you tell a producer that his lost revenue is an investment in improving the human race and make it stick?

For whatever reason, that reminded me of a proposal for diversity in D&D art recently.

I think the difference between the Usual Way and what's been happening with Hunger Games (and what makes it weird and alarming) is that the situation is the opposite of the Usual Way--casting wasn't whitewashed, and the push back is both ugly, and without a case, given the excerpts people have kindly posted. Bizarre, really.

Also, regarding reaction 1, Prederick, the show in question is never being held to a unfair standard that no other show is held to--it's just the only one the person making that claim can think of.

Another way to see it is that racism is perceived by Hollywood to be so prevalent and strong a market force that catering to it is profitable. As momgamer implies, this is less an indictment of Hollywood and more a statement about the state of the market at large.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Also, regarding reaction 1, Prederick, the show in question is never being held to a unfair standard that no other show is held to--it's just the only one the person making that claim can think of.

Perfectly put.

LarryC wrote:

Another way to see it is that racism is perceived by Hollywood to be so prevalent and strong a market force that catering to it is profitable. As momgamer implies, this is less an indictment of Hollywood and more a statement about the state of the market at large.

I'm going to throw a log on this fire, hopefully it's damp, rather than soaked in kerosene.

Holloywood here is portrayed as being focused on viewership. That may be the case, but I argue that a sole focus on drawing eyeballs or ticket sales is wrong. Anyone producing creative work (or even speaking loudly in public) has an ethical obligation to think about how that work or utterance is going to affect those who are exposed to it. Certainly not all effects can be expected, but some care is owed. In that light, it's important for creators to understand that whitewashing reinforces racial divisions and tacitly teaches us that all-white is normal, happy and fun, even in Manhattan (and seriously, if you don't have any non-white friends in NYC, then it's likely that you're actively avoiding friendship with non-white people).