Casting without Considering Appearance- Page 6

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 7:05pm

I didn't have to search for anything. It was right there.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 7:29pm

Dave19, I'm trying really hard to follow this.

You deliberately chose to make a racially charged comment (it's not like you said haggis or humus; in the US, at least, that's a stereotype--black people like chicken and watermelon, right?). And you thought that was a funny joke.

Phyllis was of the opinion that perpetuating old tropes about black people was more offensive than funny. And you think this means Phyllis has a poor opinion of black people.

Is that it?




Updated On: 1/15/13 at 07:29 PM

[Matt Rogers]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 7:35pm

Dave you have made yourself sound completely insane with all your ranting and nonsensical posts. You really should not feel surprised that people are calling you out on that trash. Now go eat a bucket of chicken wings.

[Dave19]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:34pm

Maybe it's because I'm European, but it is really bizarre to me that the mention of "chicken wing" makes everyone on this board hyperventilate and completely missing the point.

Can you please look past the chicken wings and try to read the message?

Because I do have a very good point. If you are too busy looking for racism so you can assure African-Americans that you feel really sorry for them and like to show that, be my guest, but then please don't participate in this discussion.


If I hear a gay joke I can cry and scream about it and make it much more negative than the one that made the remark even intented, or I can CHOOSE to laugh about it and not care and show some character as a human being and make the person that said it realize that I am more than that.


But the last thing I would want is YOU telling the one that made the remark that he shouldn't have said it, because it's so sad for me. That makes me really question the image you have about me. Or, in this case, to stay on topic, the image you have about African-American people.

I changed my mind. It's not because I'm European. It's just because I can take things with a grain of salt and see things in proper perspective.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:41pm

I'm still trying to understand.

So if someone made a joke about how gay people are all child molestors, you would laugh, and they would consequently see that you're more than just gay.

Is that right?

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:43pm

You are also extremely FULL OF SH!T

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:46pm

Dave19 is full of it. He purposely made that chicken wing comment to get a reaction. He got it, and now he's trying to flip the script and saying those who were offended by it are the ones with the problem and that he is hurt we would have that view of him.

Hurt, my @ss. He's loving every second of it.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:50pm

Now that Dave19 is being European I'm fascinated at how much he thinks he knows about African-Americans.

[Dave19]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:52pm

And now back on topic.

Because so many Americans insist on being very serious about the differences and look for hints of racism in every little thing, casting choice, remark, etc, etc. I assume this will stay a problem for a very long time. Even if the African-Amercian person does not realize or care about something at all, there is always an agitator around to throw oil on the fire and to make sure the person realizes how bad he should feel, which of course evokes an emotion, etc, etc. Downward spiral.

And this is a serious question; Do you realize how you call every little thing "racist"? When we watch an American tv show, literally everything is called racist. To the point where it gets really cheesy and fake. This overly-sensitive behaviour is really bad for people's perspective in life on the long term.
But I don't expect you to understand that as I assume you don't know any better.

We in Europe already know that black people are equal.
That's why not 1 single person cared that the voice of Tiana here was not done by a black woman. Not 1.
Here they don't feel like they have anything to prove. They can just be. I hope this will be the future in the USA too, but there most African-American people still feel they have a lot to prove. And prove to who? To people like you, who go and say "you shouldn't make jokes about those poor people".

Here they laugh about the jokes, because they know they eat more than chicken wings, just as I laugh about gay jokes, because I know I'm more than that, and just like the French laugh about baguette jokes because they know they eat more than that.





Updated On: 1/15/13 at 08:52 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:53pm

Do realize how often you speak in hyperbole?

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:54pm

SOMEONE IS SUFFERING FROM DIAHRRHEA OF THE KEYBOARD AND IS TYPING OUT A WHOLE BUNCH OF SH!T!

Updated On: 1/15/13 at 08:54 PM

[Dave19]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:55pm

"Now that Dave19 is being European I'm fascinated at how much he thinks he knows about African-Americans."

Quite a lot actually.

They teach world history in schools here. I bet I know a lot more than many Americans know about the history of Europe. It seems to me you are very short-sighted for example.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 8:57pm

"When we watch an American tv show, literally everything is called racist."

By whom? You mean characters in all U.S. shows all call one another racist?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 9:00pm

LITERALLY EVERYTHING. LITERALLY.

Just like literally everyone refers to minority as "those poor people" even though know one but Dave19 keeps saying it.
Updated On: 1/15/13 at 09:00 PM

[Dave19]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 9:01pm

basically, yes.

This whole given of ALWAYS walking on your toes because there will ALWAYS be someone offended by something you say and called racist, makes whole Europe laugh.

But you know, keep your attitudes, compare the way people live and are accepted here versus in the US, and do what you want with it.








Updated On: 1/15/13 at 09:01 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 9:19pm

I don't think Europeans need to be so smug. It's true we enslaved African-Americans for half a millennium (with help from the European slave trade), so it's quite natural that we remain sensitive to racial sensibilities a mere half-century after the end of Jim Crow.

Maybe if there were any Jews left in Europe, Europeans would be wrestling with similar subtleties concerning race and representation. (I'm being flip, but I believe Germany has banned MEIN KAMPF, for example, so Europe has its struggles as well.)

(Confidential to Phyllis, Regi and Carlos: thanks for all your posts in this thread. Dave's arguments about simplistic "equality" make perfect sense for a second grader. Wait until he gets to middle school!)

[Dave19]

Posted: 1/15/13 at 9:32pm

It's good you mention that, because there is a comparison to the Jews over here and the Hitler regime.

But here people from all countries play Jews and Nazi's in shows and films, and are proud of it, because we all feel the stories need to be told.

That is a different way of handling things than being so uptight about it.

Also, Jews don't feel like they have to prove anything nowadays, because they are equal.

And you can call my views "simplistic" and "second grade-like", but I think many of you have a long way to go to come to this point.

I feel like I would get shot if I lived in the USA because I treat African Americans like equals and joke with them. (a chicken wing has nothing to do with the history of slavery so where does this link actually come from?)





Updated On: 1/15/13 at 09:32 PM

[PTOPhan]

Posted: 1/16/13 at 12:50am

Hmmm, lots of interesting stuff here. Dave, in case you truly are unaware of this unpleasant fact from U.S. history, for some reason, bigoted whites often make jokes about African-Americans eating chicken (especially fried) and watermelon. Frankly, I'm not sure where the stereotype came from because these are Southern foods, and my Southern white mother-in-law ate them all the time. Nonetheless, it is indeed an ugly stereotype, and it's not polite to make comments about eating chicken when you're referring to black people, unless you literally mean that they ate chicken. (Example of when it would be ok: food poisoning in a chicken outlet, and a news reporter interviews a bunch of customers, some of whom are black, about whether the outbreak will stop them from eating at the chain again). End of lecture.

Dave, you also wrote, "Also, Jews don't feel like they have to prove anything nowadays, because they are equal." I'm Jewish and don't necessarily agree with you. I remember that there was a huge fuss when one of the "Fiddler on the Roof" revivals not only failed to cast Jewish people in any of the main roles, but also, according to one critic, tried to portray the problems that the Jewish residents of Anatevka experienced as the poor versus the rich. The critic referred to the production as a Fiddler on the Roof "without Jews."

I do NOT believe that someone has to be Jewish to play Tevye. However, if Tevye is played by a non-Jew, he'd darned well better not be a straight-haired, blue-eyed blonde, and, if he is, he needs to wear a wig. And the actor had better have all the mannerisms down -- the stereotype of Jews of European descent talking with our hands came about because we do indeed use gestures to make a point. Spoken cadences are different from that of many other people as well, probably because of the influence of Yiddish. Most Jewish actors will "get it," but non-Jewish actors may not.

One final point regarding ignoring appearance when a story is adapted from a popular book: The book's fans become furious. For example, Janet Evanovich's comedic, romantic mysteries have a huge fan following. When "One for the Money" came out as a movie a year or two ago, I'm sure that I wasn't the only reader who noticed that Joe Morelli, the very Italian tall, dark, and handsome love interest, had become blue-eyed. In fact, the props department obviously missed the memo, too, since they ginned up a police report describing him as brown-eyed. NEVER mess with fans of a mystery series -- one of the first things I learned in my writing classes.

[chewy5000]

Posted: 1/16/13 at 12:55am

There would appear to be a lot of black kettles in this thread.

[3bluenight]

Posted: 1/16/13 at 1:02am

This is from Vijay Prashad's Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

"When Martin Luther King Jr. and others turned to the question of poverty ( to launch the "poor people's movement), they made a claim for a maximalist notion of "human rights" - not just the right to civil liberties, but also to a home, to a job, to education, and to dignity (artlces 23-27 of the 1948 declaration.) Instead of taking on this more comprehensive demand, the civil rights movement was offered a modest program for redressal: affirmative action and the franchise."

"rather than seeing these conflicts as the legacy of de jure racism, neo=conservatives like [Nathan] Glazer and [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan produced a discourse of de facto racism that blamed the state for inequities just as it tried to mend, perhaps quixotically, racist socioeconomic relations. Within this line of thought, affirmative action, rather than racism, was to bear the burden of social dysfunction. Thomas Sowell provided an early example of a logic that has become all too familiar now: those who are assisted by affirmative action are stigmatized by it. Racism did not stigmatize people; affirmative action did."

Updated On: 1/16/13 at 01:02 AM

[Dave19]

Posted: 1/16/13 at 6:46am

I am very much aware of the history, and therefore I would never joke about that. The point is, every person in the world gets food jokes. Rich people eat caviar, French people eat baguettes, Asian people eat rice, Dutch people eat cheese, Arabian people eat couscous, and there is not 1 single person in the world that thinks all of those people don't eat anything else. So it is not even worth the discussion basically. It's not ugly, it's food.

The real problem is that some people seem to decide for African-Americans that they cannot take any joke of any sort in the world, jokes that have nothing to do with the awful history, because for the record, chicken wings have nothing to do with slavery. They are beasically refusing to see them as normal people that can take a joke.

If it truly makes you happier when someone says "he threw a slice of cheese to the wall" than "he threw a piece of chicken to the wall", you really have issues.





Updated On: 1/16/13 at 06:46 AM

[Dave19]

Posted: 1/16/13 at 6:58am

On topic:

"I remember that there was a huge fuss when one of the "Fiddler on the Roof" revivals not only failed to cast Jewish people in any of the main roles"

You say you would not mind as long as it's believable and the actor has the mannerisms down etc. I agree with you. That's the only thing that counts in casting.

The thing is, there is always a huge fuss before people have even seen the actor.

Updated On: 1/16/13 at 06:58 AM

[Dave19]

Posted: 1/16/13 at 7:05am

"Thomas Sowell provided an early example of a logic that has become all too familiar now: those who are assisted by affirmative action are stigmatized by it. Racism did not stigmatize people; affirmative action did."


A great lesson for some people on this board.

[tazber]

Posted: 1/16/13 at 7:13am

Your profound lack of understanding of American culture is only exceeded by your bizarre belief that you think you're so well versed in it.

If you don't get what was unseemly and racist in your remarks then you clearly have no clue as to what your talking about.

And that's just the wings comment. There are so many ignorant comments and false equivalencies in your posts I can't even begin to entertain the notion of having a rational discussion with you.

We have a lot of people like you here in the states. Self denying racists it seems are an international breed.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 1/16/13 at 8:07am

I not only had an issue with that lame chicken reference but in his original post he made it seem that African-Americans, or for that matter people of color were more prone to violence over racial acting choices.

That is what was so disturbing to me about his little rant.

But I have decided I have had enough of this thread. I refuse to waste time and energy on ignorant people. Dave19 is no one for me to be worrying about especially when it comes to what he thinks.

Buh-bye!

Updated On: 1/16/13 at 08:07 AM