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[Claude Augario]

Why Diversity Matters, straight from the people it affects
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...inclusion.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=1

WENDELL PIERCE
In 1985, I’m sitting in the casting office of a major studio. The head of casting said, “I couldn’t put you in a Shakespeare movie, because they didn’t have black people then.” He literally said that. I told that casting director: “You ever heard of Othello? Shakespeare couldn’t just make up black people. He saw them.” I started carrying around a postcard of Rubens’s “Studies of the Head of a Negro.” The casting director actually was very kind to me. He referred me to my first agent.

I feel like I've seen people on this board that actually think that.

WENDELL PIERCE
I was working on “The Gregory Hines Show” that depicted three generations of black men. It was on CBS in 1997. [After] the read-through, the studio and network give notes. Gregory kissed everybody, and so in the show he would kiss his son, Matty. This particular day someone from CBS said: “I notice every time you come in, you kiss Matty. So I wanted to ask, do black people kiss their kids?” That was the most offensive thing I think I’ve ever [heard]. Gregory stood up and said [to the executive]: “Everybody get out. You, come with me.”

Fucking ridiculous.

 

[adamsappel]

Lots of people seem to be ok with adaptations of Japanese media being whitewashed.

That's because Westerners look at anime/manga and think they already see white people.

 

[Not]

...is it though?

The Last Samurai isn't really about the Samurai, it's about Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) making peace with his experiences in the Indian Wars, through bonding with another (what he considers to be) older and spiritual people. What is happening to the Samurai is only really important in how it relates to his internal struggle.

Without Algren, it would be an entirely different movie.

Right, one not about a white guy being The Best Samurai of All Time, Sorry Japanese People, We're Way Better At Your Own Culture Than You Are

What a crappy movie that would've been

 

[IISANDERII]

And fuck Hollywood for watering down foreign roles. I'm watching Charlie Countryman and Evan Rachel Woods is playing a Romanian girl and her accent is so fucking poor and unbearable, intolerable. Eat a bag of cocks you pos

 

[Feep]

Right, one not about a white guy being The Best Samurai of All Time, Sorry Japanese People, We're Way Better At Your Own Culture Than You Are

What a crappy movie that would've been

Algren never comes close to the mastery of Watanabe/other respected samurai. It's a little odd that only he survives the gatling fire at the end, but it's hard to chalk that up to anything but coincidence/deus ex machina.

The Last Samurai is an exception, IMO...most of the time it's just horrible. :/