Hello. I'm the nostalgia critic.
I remember it so you don't have to
Let's talk about White washing.
STOP
obviously this is a subject everyone has a strong opinion on.
especially given the news recently
two big movies have just done previews
a trailer for marvel's Dr. Strange
and a still from Paramount's remake of ghost in the shell
the internet flipped
as both films were accused of whitewashing
which for those who don't know
is when a person who's supposed to be of a certain ethnicity
is suddenly played by a white person
in ghost in the shell's case
people were upset because Scarlett Johansson was playing
what was originally an asian character
and in Dr.Strange's case
a Tibetan man is now being portrayed as a Celtic woman
played by Tilda Swinton
this is a touchy subject that's making
a lot of people feel enraged
white washing is an art that
let's face it white people
have mastered bullshitting for years
which is all the more reason to get upset
people can't belive that it's still going on
is America? home to so many different cultures and races,
still resorting to the same offensive tricks?
have things really gotten better or have we just
disguised our hippocrasy even more?
well for Ghost in the Shell originally
a Japanese property
there is one group of people for the most part
doesn't seem to have that big a problem
the japanese
granted we obviously can't speak for all of them but
when asking random Japanese people on the street
what they thought of the casting of the film
most of them seemed pretty okay
not only did they say she looked like th character
but they also knew it was an american film
and american films have mostly white actors
I guess in hindsight if japan did
their version of say superman
and they casted a japanese actor in the role
Americans probably wouldn't care
I think most people are assuming to that because
the film is made by americans it
it probably woudn't take place in japan
the same way the ring or the grude were asian properties
but weren't filmed in asia or starred asian people
or the same way they remade 7 samurai in the old west
uh the first time
in fact there's tons of remakes
or foriegn films that have done this as well
as replace the actors with white americans
but it never got criticized
even to this day
so why is this one getting so beaten up?
well there could be a couple reasons
one could be the character struck such ac cord with
anime fans that the identitiy was so
tied to her Japanese heritage
or most likely too America
has so many Asian-American actors
some of which are even featured in the film
that it seems pointlessly silly not to cast
one in a leading role
they are still after all americans
I also keep hearing that there's no Asian-American
actors big enough to gurrantee a good box office
first of all there's tons of Asian-American actors
and many of them are very sucessful
but i know what they mean when they say none of them are "as big as scarlet johanson"
sure star power is important but
guess what some of the highest grossing movies
and franchises don't have huge names as the main characters
who heard of Daniel Radcliffe before harry potter
who heard of Christopher reeve before superman
most of the names in avatar aren't that huge
Harrison Who?
Star What?
Bomb!
But what about Dr.Strange's case?
is there really a bias against Tibetan actors?
Well
yes but not in the way that you think
you see 18% of Marvel's motion picturing comes from
China
And guess who China is not exactly the biggest fan of?
correct
so the choice was made to change the character so much
from a male Tibetan to a Celtic female
the hopefully it would be so different that nobody would notice
You have totoally underestimated
You're geeky fanbase
we get upset when a good locking white man
plays a good looking white man
on the one hand it's good to know that the American
filmakers don't have any real anti-Tibetan
agenda, I mean, they want their bussiness
to make as much money as they can but
on the other hand it's still ethically wrong
they're putting a prejudice ahead of not making more money
but let's be honest this happens a lot in business
like all the time
and let's also be honest
we've let very simmilar choices
slide recently
[mocking voice] oh what you mean blackface or that slanty eye make up that
never fooled anyone come on
that's not us that's the generation before us
that stuff is but you've been okay with a lot more than you think
in fact we've grown up with it mostly in cartoons
Apu and Dr.Hibert white guys
Aladin and Jasmine White people
Hey you remember all those animes staring Japanese people?
practically all of them are re-dubbed by white Americans
in fact there was even a Cowboy Bee Bop movie in the works
for a while that was going to star Keeanu Reeves
And people were actually excited about it
well wait a minute
how come this gets a pass but
Scarlet johanson doesn't
But it doesn't stop there
Belle's not french
Tina's not a girl
tommy's not a boy
Neil Patrick Harris isn't straight.
Robin Williams isn't gay
and speaking of comedies
I don't think the cast of life of brian are actually
Israeli
In fact Britan and a lot of other countries have
posed as us a lot
Some of our most famous American roles are
played by actors who are not American
and it even works the other way around
Preformers like Alfred Molina or Roma Maffia
They've played almost every ethnicity there is because
they look like almost ethnicity there is
infact something that's getting a lot a praise is
when a role that's meant for a white actor
is suddenly being played by a person of color
and I know what you might be saying
how is a person of color playing a white person's role
any different from a white person
playing a person's of color role?
STOP
I'm not going where you think I'm going
the answer is obvious
BECAUSE of the white washing we've had in the past
America clearly hasn't had the best record
in terms of treating people equally
and it's obvious that there has been years of
keeping women, foreigners and anybody of color as somehow
lower than white men in both society and our media
because of this we're more open to allowing
the gender or race of what was a white male change
to refelct the growing enviorment
but even taking race out of it
there's tons of simmilar white washing going
on that we've just allowed
I was actually shocked when they did Lord of the Rings
and they didn't hire little people for the job
now don't get me wrong the actors were all great
I had no problem with their preformances
but the only time little people were used was when you saw the back of their heads
Why are we okay with that?
They can play supportive munchkins or
elves but starring roles was
asking too much?
There's plenty of actors who are little people
and it's not like these were gigantic names
I mean nobody's going to see the Lord of the Rings because it starred Elija Wood
They're gonna see it because it's lord of the rings
This is still a very simmilar form of
white washing
Height washing?
Copyright!
You probably don't think this is a Big deal
but if we kept to this exact way of doing things
We wouldn't have the 31 flavors of kickass that
is Peter Dinkladge
This guy is so popular
now that they're writting him in roles
that weren't even meant for a little person
if your were to recast Peter Dinklage's role
on Game of Thrones with say
David Tenant on his knees
Even though that's a brilliant actor
people would be offended to no end
we love Peter Dinklage
and the idea NOW of putting
of putting David Tenant in there
would be insulting and bad taste
Yet we just gave the hobbit trilogy
millions of dollars and complained about differences
from the book
rather than the fact that we're spending god knows how much
to have people walk on their knees and
and do opticall illussions because we just didn't
put a real little person in there
however as much as those prejudices
seem really worthy of anger
it's hard to tell where to draw the line
more transgender roles are opening up
not all of them played by real transgenders
though many say they should be
well I guess okay that seem legit
but there's also Deaf roles out there
and shouldn't they be played by real deaf actors?
well I guess that's a good point Marlee Matlin won an oscar
and she's Deaf
how about Jamie fox in Ray, in fact
most blind roles
shouldn't they be played by real blind people?
I guess- how many blind actors are there?
how about switching out gary scennese in forest gump with a person who doesn't actually have legs
that seems like a very narrow field.
Mr. Garrison on south park is a gay
man who had a sex change
and turned lesbian
shouldn't she be represented by an actor
who is the exact same thing
on occasion i think you've just gotta act
again it's not always easy to figure out
what's gunna be crossing an ethical line
there's not rule book for this kind of stuff
and the world is constantly changing
and it's not always easy to know what's acceptable or not
acceptable and by how many
a small minority? or mass majority?
does that even matter?
the best way I can think to deal with it
is treat it similar to when we cast adults as children
would we prefer children? yes
but we also understand child labor laws the fact
that they grow up and their voices change
so we're not as hard on people as
an adult steps in to voice them
but really we could be if we wanted too
there's lots of child actors looking for work
so is this a prejudice against children?
by now you're probably figuring out that white washing
height washing gender washing - whatever your load of clothes is.
it's all kinda selective
I love a lot of these preformances and actors
even if they're not technically what the character is supposed to be
we love to point to our slippery slopes and
this will lead to anyone getting offended and
anyone pretending to be someone else
or the slipper slop that white people will be playing
all roles untill the end of our days
I don't think either will happen because that line
we're apearently never supposed to cross
has never fully been drawn
there's pros and cons we can see past race
and gender and open our minds to a good preformance
but we can also feel really uncomfortable when someone
can't see what they're doing can be really harmful
maybe it all comes down to intent but
even that seems kinda political
The Wachowskis did a movie about reincarnation called cloud atlas
where every person plays every gender and ethnicity you can imagine
people are still on the fence about whether this is brilliant
or amazingly uncomfortable
or even coherent but that's a different matter
It's made even more interesting though seeing how both directors
have come out a transgender women
so to their credit is any famous director
know anything about living in another body it's these two
but what if other transgender or ethnicities are offended
by what they do
is it suddenly nonsense?
have we just made these two the official voice on the subject?
again there's no clear answer
with that said it seems very unlikely that
the makers of Ghost in the Shell and Dr.Strange were trying to
push any pro-white agenda
people making these kind of movies hate bad press and
they don't want that kind of bad press attatched
they probably just thought of all the times people were okay with it
especially in the last couple years and decided "eh
they'll probably be okay with it this time too"
that doesn't make the issue go away but if
you want people to be fair and open to what the problem is
you also have to be fair and open to what caused it
so what exactly am I saying?
we should be okay with roles played by white people even though they're not meant for white people?
Hell no this is America
A growing Hodge Podge of variety and diversity
and we should explore it as much as we can
if you see a problem where those possibilities are being limited
bring them up.
we deserve to see every opportunity that can be made available to us
I guess what I'm saying is
don't act like you've never been guilty of it
because we all have
we're trying to get better and we're trying to see things from a reasonable point of view
but nobody is perfect and nobody is going to accurately represent
everybody's feelings on everything
we've all overlooked things for our benifit
whether it's been in media or even in real life
we know we should do better and we're trying to do better
but we can't act like our acceptance of it in the past hasn't
somehow played a part in all of this still happening
it's not likely either of these movies want bad press
so letting them know our concerns will certainly help them change in the future
the sad fact is relations with anybody different
is always going to be a complicated issue
even if we don't want it to be
and with so many in America celebrating
the growth of limitation and
and dis interest in variety
it looks like it's going to stay complicated for a while
all we can do in media is make people aware of even more opportunities
without claiming that we're higher than them for noticing it
because clearly we don't notice everything
we do let things slide and not always for the right reason
all we can do is try our best and encourage others to try their best
in a country that's still 63% white people chances are
there's still going to be white washing in the near future
and bring up the mistakes that you see
but always remember you've probably made them at some point too
and if we want human beings to change you have to
acknowledge that you yourself are a human being
well that was uncomfortable.
umm
boogers
[Laughing]
still got it
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