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Thread: Minority Portrayals in Films

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    MOON GIRL FIGHTS CRIME Myrnalene's avatar
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    Default Minority Portrayals in Films

    We were talking about Breakfast at Tiffany's the other day and Fenris mentioned Mickey Rooney's role as the Japanese janitor. No matter what you think of the rest of the film, the scenes with this character bring it to a screeching jaw-dropping halt. LOOK at him:



    The old practice of casting whites as non-whites lead to quite a few questionable movie moments. My own Myrna Loy was generally cast as an "Oriental" (read: exotic villain) early in her career. Here she is in The Mask of Fu Manchu. Sexy, yeah - but not a terribly healthy representation of Asian culture.



    Of course, it's not just casting that leads to this sort of stuff. Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel built careers playing the kind of stereotypes that are regarding as politically incorrect now.

    Does anyone have any other examples to discuss?
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    Sophmoric Existentialist
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    Quote Originally posted by Myrnalene View post
    We were talking about Breakfast at Tiffany's the other day and Fenris mentioned Mickey Rooney's role as the Japanese janitor. No matter what you think of the rest of the film, the scenes with this character bring it to a screeching jaw-dropping halt. LOOK at him:



    The old practice of casting whites as non-whites lead to quite a few questionable movie moments. My own Myrna Loy was generally cast as an "Oriental" (read: exotic villain) early in her career. Here she is in The Mask of Fu Manchu. Sexy, yeah - but not a terribly healthy representation of Asian culture.



    Of course, it's not just casting that leads to this sort of stuff. Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel built careers playing the kind of stereotypes that are regarding as politically incorrect now.

    Does anyone have any other examples to discuss?
    Not to discuss, just to mention: John Wayne as Genghis Khan. I sorta half remember that someone like Maureen O'Hara was in it as well.

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    MOON GIRL FIGHTS CRIME Myrnalene's avatar
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    Yeah, that is The Conquerer also starring the red-head Susan Hayward as a Mongolian Empress. :dub:

    Incidentally, that film was shot downwind of a nuclear testing site which is believed may have contributed to the cancer-related deaths of many of the people involved in the production including Wayne, Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead.
    everything in nature is sort of gross when you look at it too closely. what is an apple? basically the uterus of a tree - terrifel

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    Rob Schneider in "I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry"


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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Sleeps w/Butterflies View post
    Rob Schneider in "I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry"

    Jesus! They actually pulled that kind of crap this recently? That's insane.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

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    MOON GIRL FIGHTS CRIME Myrnalene's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    Jesus! They actually pulled that kind of crap this recently? That's insane.
    Yep. And on the opposite side of the coin is the controversy over the casting of The Last Airbender, the movie version of the animated show The Last Airbender which is set in an Asian influenced universe. Here's a comparison between the actors cast for the film and the original characters from the series. I am given to understand that the one character who is darker in the movie is a villain. Oops.

    everything in nature is sort of gross when you look at it too closely. what is an apple? basically the uterus of a tree - terrifel

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    Jesus F'ing Christ Glazer's avatar
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    David Caridine in the TV series Kung Fu. When they could have had Bruce Lee.
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    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    Jesus! They actually pulled that kind of crap this recently? That's insane.
    Eddie Murphy plays an old white Jewish guy in Coming To America. I suppose his was an ironic comment on previous blackface performance and was also quite a funny performance.

    Casting on "racial" lines is a complicated bag. I believe there was some controversy when a Chinese actress was cast in the film of Memoirs Of A Geisha.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Myrnalene View post
    Yep. And on the opposite side of the coin is the controversy over the casting of The Last Airbender, the movie version of the animated show The Last Airbender which is set in an Asian influenced universe. Here's a comparison between the actors cast for the film and the original characters from the series. I am given to understand that the one character who is darker in the movie is a villain. Oops.

    I'm not terribly familiar with the cartoon, but just the visual alone is nuts! I had my brother, who does watch it, take a look at those pictures (without explanation beyond asking for his opinion) and he started laughing and declared, "That is really racist."
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    Jesus! They actually pulled that kind of crap this recently? That's insane.
    Then there is the brilliant - Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder .

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    Quote Originally posted by Tamerlane View post
    Then there is the brilliant - Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder .
    That one was brilliant. When I first heard he was playing a black character, I was horrified. Then when I actually watched it and discovered how they were doing it, it was just fantastic.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

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    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Is it too late for me to mention that for all that Mr. Moto was portrayed as a very stereotypical Japanese man - by Peter Lorre.


    Even the 1965 movie had another Caucasian playing Mr. Moto again. (Sorry, can't quickly find a photo.)

    Of course Mr. Moto was a fill-in/replacement for the original Oriental dectective: Charlie Chan.

    Per Wikipedia, when the films first were being made, they used an oriental actor for the lead, and they didn't do very well.
    Quote Originally posted by Wikipedia
    In 1931, the Fox Film Corporation cast Swedish actor Warner Oland as Chan in Charlie Chan Carries On; the film was a success, and Fox went on to produce 15 more Chan films with Oland in the title role.


    When Oland died, they went to Sidney Toler, a Scottish-American actor, for another 22 films.


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    MOON GIRL FIGHTS CRIME Myrnalene's avatar
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    Good post, Loki. It reminded me of the Tony Randall vehicle The 7 Faces of Dr Lao.



    ETA: A line from the trailer for this film, which I just watched:

    What kind of Oriental hocus-pocus is going on around here?
    Last edited by Myrnalene; 23 Feb 2010 at 11:48 PM.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    I thought this was going to be more about the current Movie Tropes. Like the Magic Negro or the Street Punk or every white hero has a good friend that is black but few movies have the black person as the hero with the white side-kick.

    The Magic Negro is like Bagger Vance in The Legend Of Bagger Vance or many of Morgan Freeman's roles.

    As to the Black Hero with a white sidekick it seems to oddly be only Will Smith that consistently breaks this mold and even he played Bagged Vance.

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    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Sleeps w/Butterflies View post
    Rob Schneider in "I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry"
    At least Rob is 1/4 Asian.
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    Well, hey. How about this: when you see something like an East Indian portraying an Iraqi...



    ...or a Korean portraying a Japanese man...



    ...or one of a million examples I can think of involving Hispanics portraying Middle Easterners, there's far less hand wringing.

    Does that imply white Americans are blind to differences between other ethnic groups as long as they've got black hair and accents? Should we just shrug it off when a white actor does it as we so clearly do when it involves Asian actors? Or should we be just as annoyed by this as we are by white actors portraying other races?

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    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    Well, hey. How about this: when you see something like an East Indian portraying an Iraqi...

    ...or a Korean portraying a Japanese man...

    ...or one of a million examples I can think of involving Hispanics portraying Middle Easterners, there's far less hand wringing.

    Does that imply Americans are blind to differences between other ethnic groups as long as they've got black hair and accents? Should we just shrug it off when a white actor does it as we so clearly do when it involves Asian actors? Or should we be just as annoyed by this as we are by white actors portraying other races?
    All of those, to me, fall under the category of Renee Zellweger playing Bridget Jones: the casting choice may be annoying on its own merits, or lack thereof, but it's not racism so much as filmmakers just trying to find the best actor/the best fit/the biggest star who can reasonably portray the part in question.
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    I've had better days, but I don't care! hatesfreedom's avatar
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    This is a thread for white people to get offended in

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    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by hatesfreedom View post
    This is a thread for white people to get offended in
    I'm half offended.
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    MOON GIRL FIGHTS CRIME Myrnalene's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    I forgot what we were talking about.

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    Yeah. He has that effect. I purposefully found a wet picture, too.

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    Korean-American actor John Cho playing the Japanese Hikaru Sulu.

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    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by pepperlandgirl View post
    Korean-American actor John Cho playing the Japanese Hikaru Sulu.
    Perfect example of what I said upthread. I find it annoying because John Cho was just a poor casting choice - gawky and squeaky where George Takei was smooth, wry, and deep-voiced. The ethnicity he's purporting to portray is not relevant to me.
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    Quote Originally posted by OneCentStamp View post
    Perfect example of what I said upthread. I find it annoying because John Cho was just a poor casting choice - gawky and squeaky where George Takei was smooth, wry, and deep-voiced. The ethnicity he's purporting to portray is not relevant to me.
    What's amusing about this one is that I remember when casting was announced there was some talk about how they should have hired a Japanese actor.

    And as an example of a Japanese actor who would be great for the part, somebody referenced the above pictured (Korean born) James Kyson Lee.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

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    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    ...or a Korean portraying a Japanese man...

    Actually, this particular mix-up bothers me a lot less than, say, having a southern Chinese (which is a bit of a misnomer when you consider just how many different ethnicities are subsumed within the label of "Chinese" that Westerners use.) woman playing a very specifically Japanese woman:



    In part because the Korean and Japanese phenotypes are pretty similar, and ISTR reading that genetic studies show them to be very closely related peoples. Like say, Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Jews. (And isn't that a similarity both sides wish people wouldn't mention?)

    Similarly, it's a bit amusing to me when I see people talking about having specifically Native American actors/actresses in certain roles. The differences between, say, the Eastern tribes, and the Western ones are easily as pronounced as any differences between various European ethnicities. Graham Greene is an actor I enjoy, but AIUI he's Oneida in his heritage, and does not match historical examples of the Apache or Commanche looks.



    Two Apache images:





    Quanah Parker, a rather well-known Commanche chieftan, though he cannot be called a pure-blood, his mother was a Caucasian.




    Does that imply Americans are blind to differences between other ethnic groups as long as they've got black hair and accents? Should we just shrug it off when a white actor does it as we so clearly do when it involves Asian actors? Or should we be just as annoyed by this as we are by white actors portraying other races?
    I think the answer should be yes, and no. A lot, I believe, is going to depend upon things that you can't really know. If the casting choice was made, as I believe the case with my post above for the characters of Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto, because the studio believed, rightly or wrongly, that the audience wouldn't come to see an authentic ethnic actor it's pretty horrible. OTOH, casting someone cross race can be a powerful statement, too, when done for what I'd consider the right reasons: Otherwise, you'd have to get up in arms when modern production companies do a reverse image production of Othello.

    What I consider horrifying is that Pat Morita, an American citizen of Japanese descent, often had to speak in poor, accented English, to fulfill the prejudices of those who cast him in many of the roles he had. Just for an example, why did Mr. Miyagi need to speak broken English? I can't think of a single good reason for that decision. His character was Nisei, and acclimated enough to have been a veteran of US service in WWII. But the director/producer insisted that he speak that way.

    I don't doubt that there will be times when a narrative may legitimately call for a character who embodies some aspects of a stereotype for an ethnic group. Whether we like it or not, many stereotypes are based upon at least some fact. (Jewish Grandmothers, anyone?) But if the story doesn't require that, I can't see pandering to such expectations.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by OneCentStamp View post
    Perfect example of what I said upthread. I find it annoying because John Cho was just a poor casting choice - gawky and squeaky where George Takei was smooth, wry, and deep-voiced. The ethnicity he's purporting to portray is not relevant to me.
    For what it is worth, George Takei was an awful actor with one of the great voices of all times. John Cho is different but as he is a better actor, this is not a case of worse. The women playing Uhura did a very good job too and took the character in a very different and better direction in my opinion.

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    Porosity Caster parzival's avatar
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    Also worthy of a dishonorable mention is Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe) in Sixteen Candles, who was taken from John Hughes story Christmas '59.

    I saw about five minutes of some Jamie Kennedy movie where he wakes up after 20 years in a coma and there's a scene with Bobby Lee going off on how he was treated after Sixteen Candles came out ("as a mascot" - they make him say a phrase in his old accent). Not that Bobby Lee is the best anti-racism spokesperson, considering his dislike of "jungle Asians".

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    Quote Originally posted by OtakuLoki View post
    Just for an example, why did Mr. Miyagi need to speak broken English? I can't think of a single good reason for that decision. His character was Nisei, and acclimated enough to have been a veteran of US service in WWII. But the director/producer insisted that he speak that way.
    Mr. Miyagi was not Nisei. He was born and grew up on Okinawa. He came to America after leaving his home village due to a conflict with his best friend (the man with the Growliest Voice In The World) over a girl. (Not that this has anything to do with your actual point.)
    Last edited by Orual; 25 Feb 2010 at 05:09 PM.

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