Diversity and Representation in Media

I remember Krishna in the new Shin Megami Tensei is voiced by Jalen Cassell who is black and has done a few roles in anime and video game dubs. But yeah seeing a lot of Asian and Latin names among the new blood, but not as many in the way of black voice actors off the top of my head. Even though Los Angeles does have a large black population.

edited 23rd May '17 7:55:19 PM by AlleyOop

Keith Silverstein is also a fairly prominent black voice actor in the anime dubbing scene. He's gotten some meaty roles like Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter and Johan Liebert from Monster.

Phil Lamarr also does voice work in japanese videogames occasionally, much to my surprise he played Reddas from Final Fantasy XII and Vamp from Metal Gear Solid 2.

edited 23rd May '17 7:53:55 PM by Draghinazzo

Definitely a gray area and I'll give two personal examples:

Jeff Bennett: Clearly the kind of White guy you'd visually imagine playing a Surfer Dude or any other "super-White" role on-camera, but he did a really good Black Da Chief for the original Power Puff Girls (ep was about lazy jerkass Mike Brickowski) that makes for a good backup if Phil Lamarr or Kevin Michael Richardson aren't on hand.

OTOH Liam O'Brien voiced a Black cop in the Defiance MMO that did. not. match up as the character looked like he should have a Badass Baritone that you'd expect from Phil Morris, Phil Lamarr (i.e. Vamp) or of course, Kevin Michael Richardson yet O'Brien gave him a higher pitch (not at a Mike Tyson-level,) but too high to be plausible. Angry Joe explicitly pointed this out, but a couple dumbasses in the comments section took it as "Not all Black people sound 'street,' Joe."

Also Honorable Mention: Tom Kane does a really good Morgan Freeman impression if you can't get the real thing or Jordan Peele (especially not since "Get Out" got big.)

During the Cannes Film Festival, French comedian duo "le Palmashow" is doing a series of videos named "Cannes Off" where they spoof various types of movies by creating fake trailers. They already had fun with Xavier Dolan, the Dardenne brothers, stupid comedies or environmental documentaries among others.

Their most recent video is about a fake biopic named Yannick, picturing the life of Yannick Noah, which you might now either as a Grand Slam winner, a singer, or possibly as the father of Knicks' center Joakim Noah. The teaser also stars Guillaume Canet - Marion Cotillard's husband - and...well even if you don't speak French you will probably get what they made fun of.

I just see the spitting image of Yannick Noah. How authentic. I didn't know Noah was married to Cottilard.

Drafthouse is hosting all women showings of Wonder Woman in cinemas (and meaning all women, not just cis women.) And they love the taste of man-rage tears.

In other superhero news, Gina Prince-Bythewood of The Secret Life of Bees will be directing Sony's Silver Sable and Black Cat movie.

Lastly, Nicole Kidman has announced her pledge to work with a female director every 18 months.

Kidman: "Only 4.2 percent of women directed the main motion pictures of 2016, that's a statistic from the Women in Film group. [...] We as women have to support female directors. Hopefully it will change over time, but everybody keeps saying 'oh it's so different now, oh it's so different now’, and it isn't."

edited 25th May '17 2:32:35 PM by Tuckerscreator

While I'm a bit iffy on the idea of gender-segregated anything, it's not like they're preventing all-gender screenings elsewhere. Especially since a lot of the people who would get offended over this thing probably aren't even the type who want to see this movie because it's "feminist propaganda".

Silver and Black is a pretty cool name for the spinoff. Was a big fan of Hardy growing up so the film could be interesting if Sony doesn't implode trying to pull this off.

It's not even like the all-women screenings are a regular thing. They're a special event to raise money for Planned Parenthood.

You know I'm not entirely sure about the intent of this move. It feels dangerously close to a publicity stunt. Like, it borderline misses the point of spaces like that, because movies are (or, at least as far as the Drafthouse is concerned, should be) a primarily passive watching experience.

I do hope the Black Cat and Silver Sable movie does well enough so Hollywood doesn't give up on female superhero movies.

I'm hedging my bets more on Wonder Woman atm, though I'm still a bit cautious. It would be great if WW was the critical smash hit the DCEU has been looking for, but before Suicide Squad came out we thought that would be it.

It won't be. I've seen the trailer. Remember how people were poking fun at how badly Suicide Squad desperately wants to be Guardians of the Galaxy?

Well, according to the trailer, Wonder Woman is just as desperate to be Captain America: The First Avenger.

Also, DC gives approximately half a shit about its existence and have been putting all their advertising money into pushing Justice League instead. So there's that too.

edited 25th May '17 10:37:58 PM by TobiasDrake

DC leaving Wonder Woman the hell alone might be the best thing for it, though. But yeah, I'm skeptical. I don't want to be, but there you go.

Like, Wonder Woman's obvious inspiration, First Avenger, came out right before The Avengers did too. But do you know when we saw the first trailer for Avengers? It was actually the Stinger for First Avenger. Marvel wanted everyone to go see Captain America, and then get hyped for Avengers.

DC doesn't care. They made Wonder Woman because...I don't even know. Just to have their own First Avenger, I guess. Obviously wasn't out of any real passion for the character, given her five seconds of screentime in Batman v. Superman and the way they're trying to sideline her on the lead-up to her own f*cking movie.

I've heard some good early press for Wonder Woman, so I'm hoping it does turn out to be good, but DC has been really underhyping it as of late.

And the First Avenger was desperately trying to be Superman 1 meets Spider-Man 1 while Guardians of the Galaxy was basically trying to be the first Star Wars. Wouldn't be the first time we saw similarities between different properties. If it weren't set during WW 1 (a very different war from WW 2) people would be calling it DC's Thor. Execution matters more than originality and frankly I'd say this movie has the potential to be better than the First Avenger which underperformed (the only reason it got a sequel was because they had the rights to Steve and needed as much help as they could get for more films). But that's me.

Suicide Squad also still made money so there's that.

I don't think all those trailers, press releases,allowing early screenings and lifting embargoes early, tv spots, advertising tying it to the Supergirl tv show on CW are signs of WB not caring about it. Hell, just putting her in Batman vs Superman, one of their most advertised films, is promotion enough. They were also waiting for Guardians 2's release before going full throttle so it wouldn't be overshadowed.

They were doing their own cinematic universe and wanted to include their most well known female character? They wanted to beat Marvel to the punch by getting a female led movie out first? They thought it was time she got a movie? Take your pick.

I know hyperbole is fun, but it was way more than five seconds.

Yeah, all that focus in the JL trailers, the advertising for the WW film which according to early reviews. I know it just seems fun to bash on the DCEU but come on.

edited 25th May '17 11:56:46 PM by windleopard

I think TFA is probably the best stand-alone Avenger movie after Iron Man 1, but I definitely think WW, depending on what it does, has the potential to outdo it.

Early Wo M is good, so I guess Wonder Woman is at least decent. It might help that Patty Jenkins held the reigns for this one.

I got more the impression that the intention was to NOT be The First Avenger. Hence them putting the story into WWI instead of WWII.

Well, I'll go see it regardless because I still remember painfully well the "Catwoman and Elecktra failed so superhero films starring women don't make money" garbage.

Officially moving her origin story to WW 1 was to set it in a more morally ambiguous conflict. Where the sheer brutality of fighting that was way out of proportion of the causes of the actual war.

But I'll definitely agree that differentiating the movie from the first Captain America movie was in that discussion.

Comparing the tones seems like comparing The Rocketeer and All Quiet On The Western Front.

There are no smiles in Wonder Woman. No pulp sense of adventure. No big musical number. This is a more somber piece.

edited 26th May '17 6:41:06 AM by Beatman1

Have you seen it?

I mean even the trailers have a different vibe for them than the ones for TFA did. I feel like some people just go "well it's a superhero movie set during a world war, so they must be ripping off Captain America."

This of course ignores the fact that A. Wonder Woman had her origins during WWII in the comics (if anything moving it back to WWI differentiates it more from Captain America), B. The movies establish that she's REALLY old and that she withdrew from the world (at least publically) at around that time, C. WWI is just as important and interesting a conflict (also the Women's Suffrage Movement was going on at around the same time), but in a different way, and D. Taking a character who's big thing is being about truth, love, and compassion, and sticking her into the middle of a war that's infamous for it's perceived pointless destruction and brutality, makes sense if you want to explore who her character is and see if she can hold onto her ideals despite all of that.

Essentially. The trailers establish this will not be a fun pulp comic adventure but a somber look at Diana through the lens of the war. This doesn't make WW bad, just different.

edited 26th May '17 11:20:14 AM by Beatman1

Most reviews indicate that while the film isn't as cheery or jokey as a lot of Marvel's fare the tone is optimistic and the characters are noble in the vein of the old Superman films. Serious =/= sad or dour.

edited 26th May '17 12:21:13 PM by AlleyOop