Hollywood, as an industry, can be characterized as doing things a certain way. Whether the generalization is accurate is a whole 'nother issue. It’s a little more focussed than accusing a generic “they” without necessarily being wrong or vague.
monstro is not commenting on the effectiveness of the casting. Read carefully: she comments on the quality of the performances between the two films. Your inference about what she is thinks the casting process may be legitimate; I personally did not read her comments that way, nor having read her other comments about films do I think she’s unaware of the wide range of ethnic casting opportunities available for movies today.
Also, Zebra, you seem a little hostile. What’s your secret?
Another vote for completely non-outraged. It puzzled the heck out of me when you were accused of outrage and I had to go re-read your OP. Still no outrage.
My firm’s telling staff to only use the term ‘dual heritaged’, as that doesn’t include, uh, the entire world.
Well, I’m Dutch and English if you go back a few hundred years. So I must qualify, right? Of course, if you go back enough centuries, I’m probably several more things too, so maybe multi-heritaged would be a better way of putting it. Then again, if you go back far enough, it probably all condenses to a single culture, so now we’re back to square one.
A good friend at my former work place was very fair-skinned black (she’d certainly pass the paper bag test!), with straight hair and fairly Anglo features (complete knock-out, looked like Barbie even though she was 48!), and would (to me, in private, with a laugh) refer to herself as “high yaller (yellow).” Boy, there’s a term that I’ll bet could get you fired in a heart beat these days, assuming anyone understood it. I happened to know it because I’ve read a lot of old novels, but I’ll bet most people don’t, at least not most white people.
monstro, you’re pretty fair. Was that a term used in your family or community? I’m just wondering if it was only my friend’s family, or if it’s still fairly broadly in use. Of course, you’ll increase my sample size to a whopping two, but hey, that’s doubling it! Most of the black folks I know are darker, so I’m not sure it would be as likely to be in use in their families, since it probably wouldn’t apply directly.
Hopping on the bandwagon a bit late, I’m adding a vote that monstro OP didn’t strike me as outraged. I will confess that I brought my own bias to that, generally I think of monstro as a non-outraged person so that was my starting frame of reference.
I think the posters in this thread who hit upon the “interesting” dilema have a good point – I agree it’s one of those words that is so often used as innuendo that there’s a good possibility that if the OP was from a complete stranger, I might have raised an eyebrow at “interesting.” Or at least considered raising an eyebrow.
I am not, and have never been, arguing casting with you.
Yes. Because as this thread has made clear, you are staggeringly incompetent not only at reading tone, but at reading content. Staggeringly incompetent.
She’s comparing the effectiveness of the movies to each other. Are you trying to say that one cannot compare two movies to each other if they were not both made in the same arbitrary time frame? Am I not allowed to think that, for example, Faye Wray was better in King Kong than Naomi Watts? After all, both movies were cast in very different ways by very different people.
And this indicates, to me, that you have some sort of a learning disability.
Right: and what conclusion does she draw from the comparison? That sometimes it bothers her and sometimes it doesn’t. Is there something wrong with that reaction?
All she’s saying is that there’s a history in American movies of casting people against their ethnic type. Are you saying this is untrue? Are you maintaining that, in fact, movies made in America have always been scrupulously careful to match the ethnicity of an actor to the ethnicity of the role? If not, what the fuck is your problem with her statement?
Yes. She’s not saying that all movies cast in 1937 were stupid and derogatory, and that all movies cast in 2003 are believable and respectable. She’s saying some movies are one thing, and some other movies are another. She is not comparing the casting process of two different eras of Hollywood. She is comparing the effectiveness of two different movies. Period.
But watch out now. You don’t want to risk being tarnished as the Angry Gay Dick Nazi.
Why don’t we both turn it up? We gotta represent the 4-0-4 up in this piece! You know how we do it in the West End, son!
(Being up in Stone Mountain, you probably got that fancy 770 area code. But I know where your real roots are. )
Growing up, I was called “high yaller”, “old yeller”, and every variant thereof. Yes, it has derogatory connations, but it’s used by some people as a neutral descriptor. As in, “You’ve met my friend monstro before, right? Tall, short hair, high yellow complexion?”
I tend to use “light-skinned”, but if I’m being humorous or self-depreciating, I call myself “high yellow” (it just sounds funny to me). Most white people I’ve met probably wouldn’t even know what that term means or where it originated from, so I’m not worried.
monstro – add another person to your “wow, that OP certainly didn’t seem outraged to me” columnn. And, as a white woman who’s read (but not participated in) a lot of the threads to which you’ve contributed (including the thread which shall not be named), I’ve formed an impression of you as a reasonable, pleasant, and intelligent poster who has taken more than her share of flak from certain people around here.
I will say, though, that if you really meant the tarbaby thread when you were giving an example earlier then that’s an ironic bit of misremembering on your part. Random’s OP in that thread seemed no more saturated with outrage than did your Angelina Jolie OP. And just as in your thread, there was another poster who contributed to that tarbaby thread early on who did seem outraged about the issue, so it looks to me as if your recollection of the other poster’s outrage colored your memory of the tarbaby OP, much as other poster’s impression of Argent Towers post seem to have colored their impression of your Jolie OP.
Having said that, though, I do have to add that Random’s post in this thread was totally over-the-top and completely uncalled for, in my opinion.
And Zebra – what the holy frigging hell are you on about? This whole “generalizations about Hollywood” thing is completely absurd. I read monstro as saying, essentially, “You can find lots of examples of cross-ethnic casting in the history of Hollywood film-making, some cringe-worthy, others totally not.” More examples spring to my mind – Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Atrociously hideous. Natalie Wood in West Side Story – perhaps a bit off-putting, but generally not wince-inducing. If I express those opinions, are you going to come after me too?
monstro, thanks for answering my (total hijack of a) question. Interesting.
In her case, it really was rather appropriate; her skin tone was really quite yellow in tone. In the one pic I saw of you on your website, your skin looked like that of a white person with a moderately deep tan, a nice beige color. I wonder if hers is the more common among fair-skinned black folks (in which case, why haven’t I seen many, or even any except my friend?), leading to the term, or what? Of course, I’ve seen almost no yellowish complexions among whatever we properly call Orientals these days (if Oriental is now offensive, how do we refer to that set of ethnic peoples who have (usually) straight black hair, (usually) comparatively small, flat noses, and epicanthic folds at the eyes? One person here on the Dope once said rather self-righteously “Why would you want to?” Well, here’s an example, the point I’m making right here. Sometimes you want to refer to people who have that general appearance.) even though I spent about two months in Japan, and I’ve never met or seen a native American who had anything that looked like red skin (or even slightly more red in tone than anyone else) to me, so maybe I’m just missing something all the way around! It wouldn’t be the first time something everyone else seemed to notice went straight over my head.
Monstro, maybe the casting of Angelina Jolie in this role will open doors for Blacks to be cast in more roles. If race is no longer an issue, maybe then we will see more women of color cast in traditionally white roles in the movies.
As far as the white movie-going public is concerned, I don’t buy into the idea that they won’t go. I think that when they see Denzel or Morgan Freeman or many others now, they don’t think BLACK. They think DAMNED GOOD.
I think Angelina’s best work was the film Gia. She did well in it.
I too find the casting for the new movie “interesting.” I don’t think that reveals much about my character.
Heres where we may have to agree to disagree. Monstro’s post pissed me off for several reasons. First, as no one seems to dispute, she mischaracterized my post. Even her ally here had no defense, other than to suggest that she was mistaken. (Of course, if that were true, then maybe Monstro should admit that?)
Second, in addition to falsely claiming that I had “ranted” about outrage in the black community (as I’ve already pointed out, there was no rant and not even a mild complaint about what the black community was doing - I quoted a news article as a setup for a different question), she essentially accused me of being anti-black. Racist, in her words. She “reacted … defensively” to my “rant… against” the “black community…” I’m supposedly among those who “throw about” and “hurl” this “loaded term” against “black people”. [note: tense of quoted words in that last sentence adjusted to fit context] She later says that many SDMB posts (and mine is the only one that she cites in her reply that would fit) “make her suspect someone of being a racist”.
Yes, that accusation offends me.
Third, Monstro mischaracterizes posts all the time. When people care enough to call her on this, and provide direct rebuttals of this, she neither apologizes, or attempts to explain. Instead, just like she did here, she sticks her nose in the air, and moves to a different issue. Please. Monstro refuses to “rehash that thread”? Maybe she shouldn’t have brought it up here, then. Also. she needs to learn that to “rehash” something, it to be first discussed on a prior occasion. My supposed wrongdoing was never mentioned in that first thread.
Fourth, Monstro has fling around unfounded accusations or innuendos of racism on other occasions. I don’t like it.
As I’ve explained before, I cited and summarized a news article that said this as a setup for a separate question. I made no negative comment about this reported outrage, which (as I’ve twice noted now) was also reported by BET. I later acknowledged that the CNN article might have been thinly sourced.
Sheesh. I realize that this isn’t GQ or GD, but do try to follow along.
No, you didn’t say that. You said that I claimed that there was black outrage and failed to support that claim.
For the third (or is it the fourth?) time, I quoted what was being widely reported in the news media, not to debate the accuracy of the “outrage” claim, but as a setup to ask a different question. That question was in no way dependant on whether black reaction to Romney’s speech was best described as “outrage” or “mild bemusement”.
You sure as fuck thought someone was outraged since that was the basis of your OP.
Yes, later you admit that there wasn’t much outrage, if any outrage. But in the OP, you take the CNN story at face value. AND THAT’S FINE. But it plays into monstro’s point that people see “outrage” in the “black community” when there isn’t any–that people assumed she was “outraged” and will twist everything they say to prove her “outrage.” Just as CNN assumed “outrage,” and just as you assumed CNN was right when they assumed “outrage.”
Maybe she would have if you hadn’t acted like a screaming bitch about it. Something more like, “That must have been a different thread. I wasn’t outraged at all by the subject.” Instead of calling her “stupid, dishonest, and obsessive.” I would be disinclined to apologize, too, if that were how you broached the subject with me.
Perhaps you relate differently to false accusations of racist behavior than I do.
Also, as my very first post in this thread noted, I’ve seen her pull this before. I am not aware of any of times where she apologized on those occasions, so
(a) my reaction was based on a pattern, and not just this thread; and (b) if it was my reaction here that precluded her apology, then when didn’t she apologize on those other occasions?
On reflection, there was actually a fifth reason for the strong tone of my first post in this thread. It was, to some extent at least, deliberately chosen to demonstate what a rant looked like, so that Monstro could compare it to my OP in the GD threat.
(You know, the one that Monstro thought was a rant against black people, but that everyone else seems to agree was entirely rant-free.)
Or perhaps I’ve got a different defintion of “false accusation.” And of “racist behavior,” for that matter. She didn’t accuse you by name, and I doubt most people remember that thread well enough to automatically associate your name with it. Anyone who does, likely remembers the thread well enough to realize that monstro is either mis-remembering that thread, or thinking of another thread entirely. And I think you’re equally incorrect in calling it an accusation of “racist behavior,” unless you assume that monstro holds any disagreement with “black leaders” to be racist. While there are certainly people out there who hold that view, I don’t think monstro is one of them. Maybe you disagree on that. Clearly, you have some sort of longstanding grudge against her, as seen by this:
I’d like to see a cite for some of those other threads. I can’t help but wonder if they are over issues as trivial as the one you are currently pitching a fit over.
Upon looking back, you are correct, Random. You weren’t ranting. I mistakenly thought the thread was a Pit thread and it was actually in GD. Apologies for the mistake and for taking so long to admit error.
But other than that, I wasn’t mistaken about the exaggeration with the term “outrage”. Whether it was you or CNN, SOMEONE tried to paint the situation out to much more than it actually was. This was really the point I was trying to make earlier. That thread really did make me angry, because I’m fed up with “black leader did this”, “black community feels like that”. The media will jump on anyone black who’s grumbling about something, and then extrapolate that to the scale of a community. And readers will eat it up because they don’t know any better.
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