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Disney's Live-Action 'Aladdin' Casts Billy Magnussen as New Character

Would you say the reactions are... unfair?

I would say the reactions come off as..racist.

Imagine there's a LOTR remake in 20 years:
"Why are they putting a black guy in there, there was no black guys in the original !!"
Diversity cuts both ways.
 
Shame "Anders" sounds North European. It should have been a Greek character, that way he could have crossed over to the Disney Hercules live-action remake.
 
I would say the reactions come off as..racist.

Imagine there's a LOTR remake in 20 years:
"Why are they putting a black guy in there, there was no black guys in the original !!"
Diversity cuts both ways.

This isn't very nuanced. Adding a minority to an otherwise all-white movie has it's basis in increasing representation for people who are historically underrepresented. Adding a white guy to a movie that is otherwise not white comes from studios only being comfortable with white actors or believing that white audiences will only show up for white actors.

Whether something is done well is a different matter, because we also want to avoid tokenism in increasing diversity.
 
I would say the reactions come off as..racist.

Imagine there's a LOTR remake in 20 years:
"Why are they putting a black guy in there, there was no black guys in the original !!"
Diversity cuts both ways.

Except there were already brown and black people in LOTR...they all were fighting for Sauron while all the good guys were white.

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They just need one "normal guy" to be there, amidst all the madness, I see, urgh.

Guy Ritchie had Arthur grow up learning kung fu and activating bullet time by putting his hands on Excalibur. I expect this movie to be equally insane.

Disney will reign in Ritchie, don't worry.
 
They just need one "normal guy" to be there, amidst all the madness, I see.



Disney will reign in Ritchie, don't worry.

Oh boy, a neutered Guy Ritchie movie. Sounds wonderful. Why hire Guy Ritchie if you don't want him to make a Guy Ritchie movie?

They'll probably dump his ass like a Star Wars director.

ETA: If anything I expect Disney to push for more CG bullcrap.
 
This will be a MGS2 situation where New Character is the real protagonist
"We knew modern audiences are sick of seeing the same old story, it's been in pop culture for literally hundreds of years! So then we thought- what if we could put our own twist on it, one audiences would never see coming? And having 'Aladdin' the film have the character of Aladdin die tragically in the opening minutes was the obvious choice, and that's where Billy comes in."
 
I would say the reactions come off as..racist.

Imagine there's a LOTR remake in 20 years:
"Why are they putting a black guy in there, there was no black guys in the original !!"
Diversity cuts both ways.

This is nonsense. There are barely any Arab roles of note in Hollywood. Most of the time we're either villains, played by actors who aren't Arab, or both. So you finally have film where the story is set in the Middle East, where the majority of the characters are Arabs, and yet Hollywood is so god damn spineless that they can't let that stand on it's own. Why not make this new character another minority? Why can't this character also be Arab?
 
🎼 Arabian whiiiiiiiiiiiites 🎼

It's always perplexing to me how white people claim whiteness of people from some parts of the world, I remember it happening a lot when the Prince of Persia.movie released. They only want to claim their whiteness when it benefits them.

Fact of the matter is, no matter how "white" a Semite can get, they'll still have Semitic facial features and not Euro-Caucasion features, it's as stupid as claiming a Chinese person is white because of the fair skin.
 
I would say the reactions come off as..racist.

Imagine there's a LOTR remake in 20 years:
"Why are they putting a black guy in there, there was no black guys in the original !!"
Diversity cuts both ways.

Diversity only cuts both ways on a level playing field. It isn't and hasn't been level for minorities...EVER. It has always slanted towards the whites, and yet some still feel like whites are underrepresented to the point that not including them is, gasp, an act of RACISM. I'm surprised you didn't included something stupid like "White Actors Matter" or some shit like that.
 
It's super weird how Disney was having so much trouble finding an actor to play Aladdin but then they found this dude who was so amazing they had to create a part specifically for him.
 
I would say the reactions come off as..racist.
Imagine there's a LOTR remake in 20 years:
"Why are they putting a black guy in there, there was no black guys in the original !!"
Diversity cuts both ways.
It's Aladdin my man.

Plus people did try to say stuff like that when it came to Finn in TFA and Human Torch in F4ntastic, but other people quickly corrected them and pointed out how it's a different situation because of the history of American film.
 
I know Billy personally and I hate seeing him cast in these awkward roles that just get shit on. He's actually a fantastic actor, but he has a horrible time being cast properly. Hoping this role isn't just him with his shirt off and acting a fool again.
 
Guy Ritchie had Arthur grow up learning kung fu and activating bullet time by putting his hands on Excalibur. I expect this movie to be equally insane.

Don't forget turning King Arthur into a cockney criminal from the streets, raised in a whorehouse. That Guy Ritchie is a hoot. I honestly don't understand what Disney was thinking hiring him.
 
I can see it now. The movie opens with a brown man looting the cave of wonders. He stumbles across a lamp, but as he picks it up, the cave begins to crumble all around him. He races for the exit through a myriad of traps, but the jaws to the outside close down just as he's stretching his arm towards freedom, lamp in hand...

From outside the cave we see the lamp come rolling down a sandy dune in the twilight of a well lit night, coming to a stop softly at the foot of it. We focus in on the lamp and all is quiet for just a moment, though we aren't aware of how much time is passing. Suddenly, a gloved hand appears from the side of the screen and scoops the lamp up. The hand belongs to a man who's face is covered by a turban and cloth, apparently part of a trader's caravan as the bustle of activity behind him seems to show. A man on a camel calls out, "What's the hold up, Aladdin?" The man brushes sand gently off the lamp and pulls down his scarf to get a better look at his newfound prize. Revealed underneath the scarf is a young, ruggedly handsome white man who calls out, one eyebrow raised,

"I already told you, my name is Allen Dyne!"

"Whatever you say, Aladdin."

Allen grins at the lamp and tucks it into his satchel. The camera pans up into the sky for a landscape shot as he runs to rejoin to the caravan, a magnificent palace glowing on the horizon. Dramatic Arabian music begins to crescendo and the words "Disney's ALADDIN" appears on the screen for a triumphant moment before everything goes to black. The adventure has now begun.
 
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They have added one white guy to the cast, y'all acting like they don't have any fair skinned people in Arabia.
There were blonde haired blue eyed white people in the cartoon?
I would say the reactions come off as..racist.

Imagine there's a LOTR remake in 20 years:
"Why are they putting a black guy in there, there was no black guys in the original !!"
Diversity cuts both ways.

Can you point to a specific post and explain what exactly makes it racist?
 
I would say the reactions come off as..racist.

Imagine there's a LOTR remake in 20 years:
"Why are they putting a black guy in there, there was no black guys in the original !!"
Diversity cuts both ways.

Yes. There's a serious shortage of white actors in cinema. I'm glad you brought attention to this important cause.
 
I mean it's pretty funny. A story set in ancient-ish Arabia and they find some way to include a white guy that has never been included in any well known version of the story.

It's an odd addition no doubt about that. Not even the original version catered to mainstreamed audience bothered with this but the second it includes real Arabs they must find a way.
 
I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such. I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.
Disney was probably worried about tax rebates in Spain as well.
 
Disney was probably worried about tax rebates in Spain as well.

I think you're misreading that. The budget is so big they need tax rebates from Spain, and they don't want to chance a budget of that size on "Muhammed so-and-so"
 
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