Had to share John Oliver's takedown of Hollywood (Opinions?)

[Black Sands Entertainment]

 

 

[Valmore]

I'm not sure that tells the entire story, and I'm not certain it's meant as racial more than it is financial in most cases. Big budget films usually need some sort of star power. Though why anyone would get angry about a black Stormtrooper is just fucking stupid. Plus most of the Academy Awards tend to include films and casts from artsy pictures that don't really draw in much money - I don't see any actors from Avengers: Age of Ultron nominated for anything, for instance. Maybe the movie get special effects nods or costumes or whatever, but it ain't up for Best Picture. Mostly because the Academy looks at stuffy crap they think we all should be watching en mass.

Hollywood could use an infusion of new black talent, though, or rather, start promoting it in more mainstream films. You can't have Morgan, Denzel and Will be in everything. Hell, I'd pay to see LL Cool J in some mainstream stuff - that guy's a prodigy who's due a big role on the big screen.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

On 2/22/2016 at 7:24 AM, Valmore said:

I'm not sure that tells the entire story, and I'm not certain it's meant as racial more than it is financial in most cases. Big budget films usually need some sort of star power. Though why anyone would get angry about a black Stormtrooper is just fucking stupid. Plus most of the Academy Awards tend to include films and casts from artsy pictures that don't really draw in much money - I don't see any actors from Avengers: Age of Ultron nominated for anything, for instance. Maybe the movie get special effects nods or costumes or whatever, but it ain't up for Best Picture. Mostly because the Academy looks at stuffy crap they think we all should be watching en mass.

Hollywood could use an infusion of new black talent, though, or rather, start promoting it in more mainstream films. You can't have Morgan, Denzel and Will be in everything. Hell, I'd pay to see LL Cool J in some mainstream stuff - that guy's a prodigy who's due a big role on the big screen.

good point on LL. He is a serious actor.

Yeah, America is plagued with the "old white man" aura that still blights this country. As Oprah said. "Once the old white men die, racism will no longer be a problem."

Think about it this way. The majority of people that supported violently the right to oppress blacks in the 60s are not only still alive today, but fill most of the republican seats in the house and senate.

Only time can cleanse such things.

The Idris Elba part killed me. 

"Because if you are black, you are too street. Even if you have a french flag wrapped around you and studied at Ivy league acting school in britain."

 

 

on a side note, they do asians so wrong too lol. What a bunch of haters. 

[Nosebleed]

People's obsession with race contributes more towards segregation and reinforces racism more than it does fix it. Wanting to ascertain people solely by the color of their skin and not by anything else in something like a movie or the Oscars is, imo, incredibly disrespectful to all the actors, regardless of their skin color, because you're seeing them as either white people or black people and not for who they are, actors with different personalities and talent.

I don't want to see a black person win an oscar just because they're black, I want them to win an oscar because they had a good performance, and I'd feel incredibly insulted if my worth was judged solely based on my skin color. I don't want people to cast a role in a movie based on people's skin color, I want them to cast whoever performs the best. And it should be like this for everything.

Maybe I just don't get it because I was never in the US but I just don't get the obsession with having everything be a race issue. It's such a divisive way of thinking.

They do make one fair point though, having an already clearly established character suddenly change skin colors is pretty retarded, merely because of historical/narrative accuracy. This is valid for both sides though.

Also John Boyega's performance in Star Wars was freaking glorious and made the movie shine, it's a shame people were so adamant about him just because he was black; that I agree is stupid and shouldn't be a thing in this day and age.

[Down]

14 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Maybe I just don't get it because I was never in the US but I just don't get the obsession with having everything be a race issue. It's such a divisive way of thinking.

It's not just a US thing, racism is a big thing in other countries like european ones too. We don't have the same unhealthy relation to violence the US has so it might be less violent but it's incredibly much there nonetheless, see refugee crisis etc. These questions are fairly tense and often the object of debates and quarrels in france, for example.

Race is important because it's made to be important (otherwise it obviously doesn't even have an existence whatsoever): people are discriminated because of the color of their skin, which is why we talk about racialized people rather than people of different races. The thing is, this is an oppressor/oppressed system, therefore the relationship is not symmetrical. Which is why the issues are not treated in a symmetrical way either. Advocating "let's all be equal about everything" tends to erase from consciousness the precise fact that it is supposed to fight: inequalities. Instead, the issue needs to be named clearly and fought against precisely. This is why there tends to be multiple movements fighting for each separate issues rather than whole "humanist"/"progressist" movement.

To take another example, it's the same reason why feminists call themselves feminists and not humanists, equalists, etc. Because it otherwise wouldn't point out the fact that the relation isn't symmetrical to begin with.

(Of course positive discrimination, on the other hand, is a tricky issue that I think is rarely a good thing, but it still needs to be pointed out that stuff like the Oscars lack diversity)

[Scorp]

17 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Also John Boyega's performance in Star Wars was freaking glorious and made the movie shine, it's a shame people were so adamant about him just because he was black; that I agree is stupid and shouldn't be a thing in this day and age.

Eeee... What? That non-acting "who are you people"-style was supposed to be "freaking glorious performance"? He was really bad. Not because he is black, but because this is not a performance, that's a disaster. Performance - that's what Harrison Ford delivered in the movie. Actually whole cast was a disaster, that's not like only Boyega acted like he was just waken up and told "we're filming you in Star Wars, forget about acting, do anything you want, it would be glorious".

[Black Sands Entertainment]

On 2/22/2016 at 8:15 AM, Nosebleed said:

People's obsession with race contributes more towards segregation and reinforces racism more than it does fix it. Wanting to ascertain people solely by the color of their skin and not by anything else in something like a movie or the Oscars is, imo, incredibly disrespectful to all the actors, regardless of their skin color, because you're seeing them as either white people or black people and not for who they are, actors with different personalities and talent.

I don't want to see a black person win an oscar just because they're black, I want them to win an oscar because they had a good performance, and I'd feel incredibly insulted if my worth was judged solely based on my skin color. I don't want people to cast a role in a movie based on people's skin color, I want them to cast whoever performs the best. And it should be like this for everything.

Maybe I just don't get it because I was never in the US but I just don't get the obsession with having everything be a race issue. It's such a divisive way of thinking.

They do make one fair point though, having an already clearly established character suddenly change skin colors is pretty retarded, merely because of historical/narrative accuracy. This is valid for both sides though.

Also John Boyega's performance in Star Wars was freaking glorious and made the movie shine, it's a shame people were so adamant about him just because he was black; that I agree is stupid and shouldn't be a thing in this day and age.

the reason why it matters in america is mostly because this country is bending backwards just to claim everything for themselves.

Everything is a race issue because race is the biggest issue in this country. Its insane. We would love if people were treated good because they are actors but that is not the case. There is an interview with Idris Elba, where he had to leave britain because they ONLY gave him gang roles. 

America is one small step from a civil war all over again. I know you are not one of the people who use "It's such a divisive way of thinking," in a way to deflect like republicans but make no mistake, you never hear "all lives matter" when Syrian refugees are trying to survive from a war torn country or Nigerian children burned alive.
 

"all lives matter" is exclusively to shut up "black lives matter." There is no sympathy for any life at all.

Its sad that people outside this country hear so much of the republican narrative.

 

On 2/22/2016 at 8:38 AM, Scorp said:

Eeee... What? That non-acting "who are you people"-style was supposed to be "freaking glorious performance"? He was really bad. Not because he is black, but because this is not a performance, that's a disaster. Performance - that's what Harrison Ford delivered in the movie. Actually whole cast was a disaster, that's not like only Boyega acted like he was just waken up and told "we're filming you in Star Wars, forget about acting, do anything you want, it would be glorious".

lol. epic takedown. I liked his role in the movie but this was pure glorious

[Scorp]

About the topic - I can actually understand, why big-budget movies take big-budget actors. That's obvious, no? While, speaking about Idris Elba, he is really good actor and always a pleasure to watch. So I think he will come to top one day, like Will Smith did (no one tells him "you are too black" anymore, I suppose?). 

So Hollywood is all about money. No wonder producers prefer famous names. And you should not forget about one important fact - targeting. Like, I was in Brussels last month, on TV is 50/50 actor from arabian/african/causasian descendants (sorry, cannot give a better definition, if it somehow offend someone - please excuse me). While in other countries, where majority of people is caucasian - 95% of people on TV are caucasian.

Producer work for market, when market will start requesting "give us chinese guys" - they would immediately appear there. But as I live in country, where majority is caucasians - it is quite hard to really see the difference between, for example, asian actors. Yes, some are famous and I know them, like Jackie Chan, but if in film cast similar people with similar haircut and similar clothes - I would have a big problem in finding out, who is who - just because I lived in a country where we do not have so much chinese guys on streets and my eye is not accustomized. 

So, in short - that is not racism. That is done for sake of people (and for sake of profits, of course). If you film a great film with great scenery and put there only people, who were supposed to live there (for example some story about wars in China, obv whole case is chinese) - it most probably would be a fail in USA sales. And that's why. All is about money, you know.

[Nosebleed]

Unfortunately i don't really prescribe to the "oppressed/oppressor" ideology tht much. I think painting a whole skin color as one thing or the other is incredibly misleading and once again contributes to us keep having to distinguish ourselves by race, regardless of our actual experiences and who we are.

The problem with any of these social movements is that they paint a whole group of people as homogeneous. All that matters is, for example, your skin color. You could be rich, but if you're black you're oppressed by default, and if you're white, then you're racist and oppressive by default. Completely ignoring people's history and personality in favor of something superficial like skin color is not something I can do.

I believe there's groups of oppressed people though, I'm not so ignorant as to think otherwise, but i think there's more to a group of oppressed people other than just race or just gender, I think there's always more cultural elements that lead to such an oppression and the picture isn't as black and white (no pun intended) as a lot of these social movements intend them to be. Unfortunately no social movement is going to bother describing such a list of factors so they just try to use what they think is the biggest one as their driving force. There's also the problem of these movements becoming too political/institutionalized and people completely poisoning the well from within, hence why I prefer staying away from any of them and keep my ideologies to myself.

I do think you make a fair point regarding Hollywood though, there's ridiculous amounts of white actors versus black actors, and both are incredibly stereoryped in whatever roles they play. Some of the cases you described are simply baffling.

And I still think John Boyega did great in Star Wars, Scorp. Maybe "glorious" was an exaggeration, but he was such a refreshing character in the movie and has so much potential to grow in the sequels. He brought the light heartedness that Han Solo did in the first movies and took it up a notch.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

On 2/22/2016 at 8:52 AM, Scorp said:

About the topic - I can actually understand, why big-budget movies take big-budget actors. That's obvious, no? While, speaking about Idris Elba, he is really good actor and always a pleasure to watch. So I think he will come to top one day, like Will Smith did (no one tells him "you are too black" anymore, I suppose?). 

So Hollywood is all about money. No wonder producers prefer famous names. And you should not forget about one important fact - targeting. Like, I was in Brussels last month, on TV is 50/50 actor from arabian/african/causasian descendants (sorry, cannot give a better definition). While in other countries, where is majority of people is caucasian - 95% of people on TV are caucasian.

Producer work for market, when market will start requesting "give us chinese guys" - they would immediately appear there. But as I live in country, where majority is caucasians - it is quite hard to really see the difference between, for example, asian actors. Yes, some are famouse and I know them, like Jackie Chan, but if in film cast similar people with similar haircut and similar clothes - I would have a big problem in finding out, who is who - just because I lived in a country where we do not have so much chinese guys on streets and my eye is not accustomized. 

So, in short - that is not racism. That is done for sake of people (and for sake of profits, of course). If you film a great film with great scenery and put there only people, who were supposed to live there (for example some story about wars in China, obv whole case is chinese) - it most probably would be a fail in USA sales. And that's why.

Apocalypto disagrees. America is 48% minority right now. They have no case studies where race effected sales. In fact, straight out of compton broke a lot of records and it was almost entirely black.

Let's break it down.

Apocalypto had nothing but minorities, some of which have no american roots at all.

Apocolypto had no star power AT ALL. The main bad guy did a few films, was white, but he had to have so much prostethics and couldnt use a single word of english.

Apocalypto was out of everyone's comfort zone with the entire movie being in indigenous language and subtitled.

Apocalypto was produced by a guy who was already being boycotted for being racist YET PEOPLE STILL TURNED OUT TO WATCH THIS FILM.

 

WHY? Because time and time again, people will choose to see a historical event with the natives over a white washed version. It's what makes it feel real!

Another example in the very near future. "Gods of Egypt" is going to be the biggest flop of the year. Just like Gods and Kings.

The market does not dictate their decisions. Who would make an informed choice to cast another egyptian movie with an all white cast after the disaster that is gods and kings? 

Prine of Egypt broke every record known to man and it has no white cartoon characters at all. Arab and Egyptian only. 100% Broke all records in the US.

 

 

 

 

 

btw, this is a very controlled debate. Most of these racial conversations get so hostile at other places lol

[Scorp]

8 minutes ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

Apocalypto disagrees. America is 48% minority right now. They have no case studies where race effected sales. In fact, straight out of compton broke a lot of records and it was almost entirely black.

Apocalypto you mean Gibson film? It barely able to overcome the production budget in USA. So while I agree, that film is good, it does not mean that film got enough money (like, you know, Iron Man 3 for example). Same for that "Gods" - while I do not think that film will be decent, I think they had limited budget (that's not Ridley Scott or Marvel) and money will be collected as planned. Or not.

 

[Down]

9 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Unfortunately i don't really prescribe to the "oppressed/oppressor" ideology tht much. I think painting a whole skin color as one thing or the other is incredibly misleading and once again contributes to us keep having to distinguish ourselves by race, regardless of our actual experiences and who we are.

The problem with any of these social movements is that they paint a whole group of people as homogeneous. All that matters is, for example, your skin color. You could be rich, but if you're black you're oppressed by default, and if you're white, then you're racist and oppressive by default. Completely ignoring people's history and personality in favor of something superficial like skin color is not something I can do.

I believe there's groups of oppressed people though, I'm not so ignorant as to think otherwise, but i think there's more to a group of oppressed people other than just race or just gender, I think there's always more cultural elements that lead to such an oppression and the picture isn't as black and white (no pun intended) as a lot of these social movements intend them to be. Unfortunately no social movement is going to bother describing such a list of factors so they just try to use what they think is the biggest one as their driving force. There's also the problem of these movements becoming too political/institutionalized and people completely poisoning the well from within, hence why I prefer staying away from any of them and keep my ideologies to myself.

Oppressor/oppressed might not be the right term. Dominating/dominated is more canonical and doesn't give the misleading impression that all the agents in the dominating category actively participate in reproducing the dominating/dominated relation.

With that said, the thing is that these relations exist, they're not just ideologies. People are getting discriminated because of their gender, skin color, religion, or even other things like mental/physical issues, and a lot of this discrimination goes beyond simple "accidents", they're systematic. Which is why there's meaning in thinking in those terms. So if you're white in a country with white and black people and racism against black people, you have a privilege, whether you want it or not, and whether you put meaning into "being white" or not: it'll be easier to find a job, easier to not get shot by policemen, etc... Overall easier to get through life.

Of course this is only one among many other things that define your identity. This is not to say that a rich black person has it worse than a poor white person, because rich/poor is also a system of dominating/dominated. That's what I meant when I said there was a need for multiple movements that tackle precise issues: contrary to what some marxists believe, not everything is going to be solved by solving the problem of capitalism and fighting the bondage of classes. That's only one fight among many. But you need to put the finger on precisely where the issue lies when it's there.

And intersectionality, as it's called, is a thing that exists: because it's a fact that you're much more likely to get sexually assaulted if you're a women, but it's also a fact that you're even more likely to get raped if you're a women, black and poor (because some people specifically target people that are less likely to get justice). So it can indeed get delicate to evaluate whether a discrimination is due to such or such element, but the answer is often "a bunch of them" so that's what intersectionality is for.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

On 2/22/2016 at 8:59 AM, Nosebleed said:

And I still think John Boyega did great in Star Wars, Scorp. Maybe "glorious" was an exaggeration, but he was such a refreshing character in the movie and has so much potential to grow in the sequels. He brought the light heartedness that Han Solo did in the first movies and took it up a notch.

Why is no one complaining about the fact that unless Rey is a pureblood Sith, she should not be able to wield the force in any capacity until actually receiving training.

Remember Anakin was the strongest EVER and he needed crazy training just to sense things, let alone grab lightsabers out of thin air.

 

 

On 2/22/2016 at 9:22 AM, Scorp said:

Apocalypto you mean Gibson film? It barely able to overcome the production budget in USA. So while I agree, that film is good, it does not mean that film got enough money (like, you know, Iron Man 3 for example). Same for that "Gods" - while I do not think that film will be decent, I think they had limited budget (that's not Ridley Scott or Marvel) and money will be collected as planned. Or not.

 

it was 40 million and made 130 million

 

On 2/22/2016 at 9:23 AM, Down said:

And intersectionality, as it's called, is a thing that exists: because it's a fact that you're much more likely to get sexually assaulted if you're a women, but it's also a fact that you're even more likely to get raped if you're a women, black and poor (because some people specifically target people that are less likely to get justice). So it can indeed get delicate to evaluate whether a discrimination is due to such or such element, but the answer is often "a bunch of them" so that's what intersectionality is for.

That is too deep. I bet you listen to Tim Wise.

[Scorp]

Just now, Black Sands Entertainment said:

it was 40 million and made 130 million

I am speaking about USA. It made 50 in USA I believe or maybe less. That's what the whole topic about, no? Nowadays yes, some companies even film a "local guest-star asian" scenes for China, that's to prove my point of view (as they are doing that only for PR and marketing reasons, not because they really want a native).

[Bolverk]

3 hours ago, Valmore said:

Though why anyone would get angry about a black Stormtrooper is just fucking stupid.

I did find it rather hilarious honestly. Because I thought of the stormtrooper in the same line as clone troppers. All being white clones. Yada yada. Capturing children and brain washing training them doesn't sound like the greatest idea. But neither did the majority of the movie, haha.

Funny though. He was practically the most alive and captivating actor in the entire movie. Compared to the woman main character. His character felt real, She just felt like actor robot. Also that lightsaber fighting scene at the end. So horrible, I don't even. My god.

As for the US.. It being racist is nothing new.

[Darklord Rooke]

3 hours ago, Black Sands Entertainment said:

Why is no one complaining about the fact that unless Rey is a pureblood Sith, she should not be able to wield the force in any capacity until actually receiving training.

There has been complaining. A fair amount of complaining. The complaint is 'the desire to create a strong female lead has caused Disney/LA to make a character who is all-round too perfect.' She can do a LOT of things without training, and that hasn't escaped people's attention. But she's popular and she entertains people and that's what counts in the end.

[Down]

Hey there, look at what came out yesterday. The 2016 Hollywood diversity report.

Quote

Films with relatively diverse casts enjoyed the highest median global box office receipts and the highest median return on investment

More precisely, the films with the best median box office and return on investment had one half of non-white lead actors.

Another nail on the coffin of the "we/they just do what the audience wants!" argument.

[Valmore]

Of course, on a hilarious note, the uproar over an Asian not being picked to play the traditionally white role of Iron Fist happened.

Frankly, I have no beef either way with comic book characters changing race so long as the actor is good and the writing doesn't suck. Like how I never gave a damn about Nick Fury until Samuel L. Jackson became him. Can't say the same about Kingpin, but then the Daredevil movie was just terrible anyway.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

2 hours ago, Down said:

Hey there, look at what came out yesterday. The 2016 Hollywood diversity report.

More precisely, the films with the best median box office and return on investment had one half of non-white lead actors.

Another nail on the coffin of the "we/they just do what the audience wants!" argument.

exactly. It is systemic.

[babiker]

I think it's interesting to mention a seemingly unrelated, ancient example to this [inter-Race-here]-washing: A Thousand Nights and One Night, sometimes referred to as Arabian Nights (the movie Aladdin was based of this book).

It's considered by pretty much everyone to be a part of Arabian culture and mythology, while in reality it's not. The author was an Arab adviser of sorts who traveled a lot around many different kingdoms, mainly located in India and Persia. From these regions he took most of his stories, wrote them in an Arabic book, gave the characters and cities Arabic names, and walla. Any Arab could tell this considering how extremely un-Arab the stories from that book are (I'm an Arab and I've read it so I can personally attest to this), Indian and Persian cultures are extremely different from Arab culture, and yet this book is the major reason why many cultural aspects of these regions are confused together.

That's kind of what's happening here? I don't really expect much from Hollywood and Western media in general, the majority have always had a disgustingly biased and anti-anything-that's-not-white theme to them so yeah, casting white actors everywhere is no big surprise.

[Kurisu-Chan]

Plz Babi, Arabian nights are probably the only good depiction in the west about the arabic country, don't try to even ruin that.

 

Now, we live in a world where a certain kind of person, let's name them the world rulers, uses racism as a way to divide a society into multiple groups,that way, it's easier for them to control the whole masses.

Racism isn't natural, we are not born racist, we become racist, because of a wide array of things : the cultural depiction of the ennemy (back in 1940 for example, japanese were evil, nowaday, who don't own a waifu?  ) there's also the born of hatred because of certain groups (mostly, the racist minority that makes a conflict escalade) and many, many other reasons why humans are stupid to still use the racial identity.

 

Let's just share one thing, in the ancient world, greeks, romans, persians, carthagenese, weren't judged by their race, because in that time it meant nothing, yes, i think it, the ancient world was less racist and less violent than our actual world. 

[babiker]

1 minute ago, Kurisu-Chan said:

Plz Babi, Arabian nights are probably the only good depiction in the west about the arabic country, don't try to even ruin that.

Doesn't that just mean the West is extremely ignorant?

[Kurisu-Chan]

Just now, babiker said:

Doesn't that just mean the West is extremely ignorant?

As much as the east is, i think.  

[Down]

19 minutes ago, Kurisu-Chan said:

Let's just share one thing, in the ancient world, greeks, romans, persians, carthagenese, weren't judged by their race, because in that time it meant nothing, yes, i think it, the ancient world was less racist and less violent than our actual world. 

Less violent, certainly, less racist, I'm not sure.

It certainly wasn't as disastrous as colonization and imperialism, but Greeks treated every other people as "barbarians" with no distinction - that's one of the core point of racism: seeing the Other as a uniform, objectified entity. Take babiker's example: arab people who read 1001 Nights realize that it's not very arab. Whereas to a "westerner" there's nothing more arab than that, because anyway "all those things in the East are pretty much the same arent' they?". That's Orientalism.

It's an interesting question that'd be worth some historical researching, I guess. There are probably studies on that topic.

[Black Sands Entertainment]

6 minutes ago, Down said:

Less violent, certainly, less racist, I'm not sure.

It certainly wasn't as disastrous as colonization and imperialism, but Greeks treated every other people as "barbarians" with no distinction - that's one of the core point of racism: seeing the Other as a uniform, objectified entity. Take babiker's example: arab people who read 1001 Nights realize that it's not very arab. Whereas to a "westerner" there's nothing more arab than that, because anyway "all those things in the East are pretty much the same arent' they?". That's Orientalism.

It's an interesting question that'd be worth some historical researching, I guess. There are probably studies on that topic.

I have to counter this notion. Alexander was so impressed with Egypt that he left their entire society in tact and sent his emissaries there to learn their customs. Those people eventually became egyptians and left greek society all together. Same happened in Persia.

That is historical fact. 2 coins on an egyptian pharaoh's eyes.