Racebending

but that Hollywood had an opportunity to prominently feature minority actors and integrate them into the echelon of household names

But, they have no social responibility to do anything like that. If you don't lik it, then tell people to not watch the movie. Consumer activism is the strongest activism.

If American movies were teeming with non-white actors, it wouldn't warrant an eyebrow raise. But they are, and shitting on Akira's roots is just one of the myriad examples of Hollywood favoring whites

So the only way to not "shit on it's roots" is to hire an obligatory numbers of Asians? To have Asians play Asian-Americans in an originally Japanese movie?

You know, I'd be more accepting of this phenomenon if they would simply literally redo the entire story and keep nothing but the baseline plot, and actually, legitimately transplant it to a different culture, with the necessary adaptions to do so.

But noooo, we have to sell it on name recognition, so we'll do a half-ass job and claim that people who're upset about it are whining idiots.

And? They don't care about society, nor is it expected for them to do otherwise. Their goal, their only goal, is to make money. Expecting them to care about issues beyond appealing to peoples desire to hear Aesops they like is unrealistic.

Well said.

There is this misconception that I think Hollywood ought to care about the larger social repercussions of their casting choices. I don't. But I'm not going to defend their "pragmatic" choices as if they had no roots in favoritism and racism and as if the race-lift were incidental.

edited 17th Jan '12 8:13:00 PM by Gwirion

1) Give me a choice for an Asian-American actor, then.

2) The US technically has no official policy of multiculturalism.

I actually think Akira should be black, to piss both Nipponphiles and the Japanese who like white people.

edited 17th Jan '12 8:15:39 PM by Erock

Keep missing the point. I'm done here.

So, if Hollywood has no social responsibility, why do any other businesses?

Consistency in your political positions is necessary to be taken seriously. If Hollywood—effectively a large collection of businesses—has no social obligation, than why should other businesses have social obligations?

Because Hollywood is media, and restricting media is completely different to restricting oil companies.

Certainly. But just because they don't have a legal obligation doesn't mean that they don't have a social obligation.

If the movie is about something specific to Asian-American culture or set in an Asian-American enclave, yes. Otherwise it doesn't really matter given the demographics of the US. Though having really white actors having really Japanese names is kind of a facepalmer.

Meh. Heimdall's an god (furthermore, an interdimensional one). They get a free pass on how they want to look.

Unless you want to argue with the guy.

edited 17th Jan '12 8:29:01 PM by Pykrete

If it's not a legal obligation, it's only an obligation if they feel it is.

Well, if they don't feel it, then it must not be a very good social obligation, which points to a greater fault with society at large.

Throwing my hat into the "it depends on the context" pile. Like, you wouldn't make a movie about 1930s Harlem and have there be barely any black characters.

Now, since I have never seen Akira and haven't been following the news about it, I have absolutely nothing beyond that to contribute. Please resume.

Not in particular. There's two way an obligation exists, legal or self generated. Legal obligations exist because the government threatens people with force if they don't meet it. Self generated exist when someone agrees to do something. AFAIK, no Hollywood executive has ever agreed to promote something unless it turned a profit.

Somebody seems to think reading Atlas Shrugged is a proper substitute for actually comprehending sociology...

I've never read that book. The only Rand I've ever read was Anthem and it was for a class, and not something I'd read willingly.

Entertainers have absolutely zero obligation to promote things they don't care about, I don't see what is so hard about that?

Well, blaming "society" is basically a blank check to call absolutely everyone a racist. If we have to be all simplisme either way, let's do the simplisme that doesn't hold me accountable for the stupid actions of completely unrelated people.

Not necessarily. You don't need to be racist to allow the system to propagate racism.

Apathy is just as harmful as malicious action.

Fortunately, no one has an obligation to care.

How is anti-racism something you want to be smug about?

No, they have no obligation. However, introducing more diversity would be rewarding and enriching on its own plane. Not everything is about money. And further, entertainers are constantly fund-raising and donating to charities. If anything, throwing money at "good causes" and then turning away from issues like this is pure hypocrisy.

edited 17th Jan '12 9:13:30 PM by Gwirion

Nobody is restricting anything. The entire topic is about a media... uh well Hollywood isn't even a corporation, it's just a collection of different studios and talent working together... that isn't willing to have anything non-white.

The discussion isn't "Oh so now we can't have white actors play asian characters?"

The discussion isn't "Oh so Hollywood must ascribe to greater social morality?"

The discussion is, why is it that for such a progressive country such as the United States, that it's media talent is completely unwilling to have non-white talent or create a movie in a non-white setting? Is it so frightening to create a movie set in Neo-Tokyo with a bunch of lead Japanese actors?

The Last Airbender was an example of this. It is a world created in which there were four tribes of people who looked somewhat like the Inuit, Japanese and Chinese. So who did they cast for these roles? All good guys are white people who plainly sucked at acting, and all the bad guys are Indians. They didn't cast white actors because they were superior for the job. They didn't cast white actors because of any setting change here, there was no recast of the location or anything to make there to be any reason for a single white guy to even be in the movie. They just cast white people. Here is an example where they went so far to not choose non-white actors that they chose inferior white actors.

It shows an underlying system of racism in our media.

I don't think you understand how industries work. Everything they are about is about money. I think it would be best to tackle the "people need characters they are similar to to enjoy a movie" would help more. Mostly because it also leads to grafting crappy "kids appeal" type of characters to it. Because as we all know, kids won't watch a film with adults as the main characters.

Hypocrisy only applies if it's the same people doing both actions. It's not a formless mass, it's a group of people. Now, we can make some statements about a general trend, but we can't make statements about how they react as a whole.

You obviously don't seem to know much about Hollywood. It's one of the greediest and most heartless industries America has ever spawned.

I'm not going to argue in blanket statements. Nearly every industry is unscrupulous and emphasizes profits over humaneness. No one with a functioning brain needs to be reminded of that. However, people working in Hollywood are still human beings with a conscience, and some of them might like to see more diversity for reasons of personal predilection or ideology (on account of, you know, not everyone in Hollywood is white with a wealthy background).

That, and if the answer is going to boil down to "they exist to make money, not to perform a service to society," then my response is "so why should I want to let them continue to exist in such a form?"

I'm a social democrat, not a Randian libertarian. If push comes to shove, I'll get restrict or get rid of capitalism before I choose that over people.