Are you high? Are we playing free association? What the fuck does any of that have to do with anything, other than the fact that Egypt and an actor are involved in both situations?
As for your skepticism about the idea of a racist system, or of something being a link within it, your skepticism and your stupidity have some serious overlap.
So a movie filmed in Spain that didn’t include enough Africans is a problem, but Egypt barring ET for being Jewish is just peachy?
Well, that’s one part of the puzzle.
Presumably Scott wants an actor with the depth and range to play the role, and one who already enjoys enough fame to be bankable from the studios’ point of view.
Is that a fair position for him to take? (And is that a fair supposition of his position?)
How does a talented non-white person ever get a chance to enjoy enough fame to be bankable, if white guys get chosen for almost all the famous, bankable roles?
There aren’t any non-white famous bankable actors?
Will and Jada, for example, got a chance to enjoy fame.
There sure are. Which begs the question why none were featured in this movie.
But there aren’t a lot. Which begs the question how this will ever change as long as white actors are almost always chosen preferentially…even in cases where pale skin is not required.
Apparently, you don’t know what the term “begging the question” even means. :smack:
I can see where Ridley Scott’s fear comes in. I follow a webcomic artist who was in talks once about getting his comic adapted into a televised cartoon. No matter how many execs or studios he talked to, they wouldn’t budge: they would only do it if the main character was changed from a half Japanese woman to a white man. He would not budge on her race or gender and, well, you haven’t heard of Dresden Codak: The Animated Series, have you?
If you’re trying to make a big movie, that requires a big budget, I can see a very real fear that casting someone that the suits deem “not marketable” will make it so you can’t make your movie. So if your movie isn’t about racial or gender issues it’s incredibly easy to give in on that.
The thing is, I’m dubious that really big James Cameron, Stephen Spielberg, or Ridley Scott couldn’t get such a thing approved. Ridley Scott in particular. Y’know, that guy who made that wildly successful horror movie starring a woman? I know she was originally written as a man, but still. I don’t think I necessarily condemn any of them, except perhaps for not being rebels enough to cash in on their connections to break the mould, but I think this is a systemic flaw based on a self-perpetuating feedback cycle more than anything any specific person is doing wrong. What’s wrong is that very few groups of people sit down and say “okay, we’re gonna try and make this work.”
Sexism again, but there’s an article about how the shows Young Justice and Tower High got cancelled by Cartoon Network because the demographics were wrong. Oh, they had enough viewers all right, but too many of them were girls. They refused to continue the show unless the majority of the audience was boys regardless of the actual overall viewing population. In this case though, it was definitely the marketing execs and not the producers causing the problem.
Not to mention the big names could probably make an indie film with half the budget they normally get and still turn a profit just on their own name being attached to it.
Yeah, I’m going with asshole first, idiot second.
.
And if you dig deep enough, you can bury your head in the sand far enough that not even the most blatant evidence seeps through.
…That was almost a thing?
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT WHYYYY
I know the blame here lies entirely with the studio execs for being stupid racist, sexist fuckers, but I still want to blame Aaron Diaz for not budging because that would have been the greatest thing ever.
The problem with this position is that it gives him only two options:
I think that Scott has many other options, including:
3) Make the movie on a lower budget
4) Raise funds independently
5) Spend serious effort trying to convince the studio that there’s a good nonwhite lead
6) Band together with the half-dozen or so directors in his punching weight to push back against this institutional racism, pushing back publicly.
Even stipulating that the studio system would object to a nonwhite lead, I don’t think his hands were tied.
“Thinking” is so simple when all middles are excluded. :rolleyes:
I wonder if the problem is the black/white nature of the law: an objection must be either sustained or overruled. Perhaps the justice system, and attempts by lawyers to argue outside the law, would improve if lawyers were required to spend 4 months of every year in human form.
Even if we posit that someone like Bale is the best actor for Moses (which is debatable…lesser known actors have played epic parts before), that still doesn’t address why every other prominent role must also be white.
Expensive productions pretty much always have to pander to the lowest denominator it, but I think studio execs routinely underestimate what audiences are willing to pay for.
Why would he do any of those things? Mr. Scott’s goal, in filming a movie, is to make money. I realize that profit is anathema to your worldview, but it is a thing in the real world.
Maybe he wasn’t trying to raise “consciousness”, to hire underemployed Moroccans in Spain, or to earn a Boy Scout badge in Diversity. Shocking, really.
You couldn’t realize a rattlesnake if it were biting your nose, so no, you don’t realize that profit is anathema to my worldview.
Indeed, my proposed solution–boycotting his movie–is a precise addressing of the profit motive. He’s made it perfectly clear that he’s not trying to act counter to racist institutions, that he’s happy to go along with the flow if it’ll make him money. So maybe if it costs him money, next time he’ll think twice.
I think it’s a fair supposition of his position. But it suffers from a false premise: that there are no actors with depth, range, and fame, who aren’t white guys. And even if its premise were true, there’s still a pretty good argument that he has a moral obligation to fight the consequences of a racist system in some way. It’s not like he is some indie director who is completely powerless in negotiations with the studio. If he had said he wants to cast Dwayne Johnson as Moses, he probably would’ve gotten his way, even if the film made 2% less in revenue.
Good luck with that, lady! I will see the movie this weekend, and happily spend money to do so. Seems like a lot of people agree with me, rather than you. Number 1 ranking and up to $78 million in the first weekend, in fact.
Oh! Well, if a boycott or other campaign doesn’t work in the first weekend, then obviously it’s a failure and we should stop. Thanks, honey!
I disagree that there’s any such moral obligation.