firehawk12
Subete no aware
Hey, there's Russell Peters... and that's his real name! lol
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John Oliver - Hollywood Whitewashing
- Thread starter SlimySnake
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Hey, there's Russell Peters... and that's his real name! lol
I consider 19th century to be ancient, you mileage might vary.
Don't know what the hell your point of nitpicking is though? As if the actual point I made was something nullified with your LOL.
I guess if one put enough effort you can always make an elaborate excuse to not cast minority actors as lead in any movie, regardless of the setting.
lol
Under no definition is the 19th century ancient. It's not a matter of personal consideration.
I mean, in no way does this address what I said. If you say you wish they made a movie about the Meiji Restoration instead of The Last Samurai, that's a perfectly valid opinion. But as is, The Last Samurai is a movie about an emotionally damaged American cavalry officer that takes place during the Meiji Restoration, NOT a movie about the Meiji Restoration that features an American cavalry officer.
That is your justification for why Tom Cruise is the featured actor in a Samurai movie. Cool.
It's like. Yeah let's make a samurai movie. Yeah let's come on with a twisted scenario where we can put a white actor as lead in the movie.
I'm starting to think your issue is less with the actual movie, and more with its title.
No, my issue is that even when Hollywood decides to make a Samurai movie set in Japan, they HAVE to come up with a story where the white guy is front and center.
If you don't get that's why minority actors never get enough chances in Hollywood, then I don't know what to tell you.
Edit: The story they choose to tell do matter, it just happens Hollywood choose to tell stories about white dudes most of the time. You can always come up with an excuse regardless of the setting why the white guy is the lead, under the guise of artistic decision, and the post I quoted is the perfect example.
I mean, the film was based on the stories of real life people Jules Brunet and Frederick Townsend Ward, western army officers that worked in Japan and China. So, no, I would not claim it is a twisted scenario.
Look, again, I understand wanting to see a Samurai movie. I want that too. The Last Samurai, however, was not that movie, and was never going to be. It was always a Stranger in a Strange Land story from the very beginning.
You will never get it because they will never write those stories.
You seem to be working on the assumption that somebody set out to make a Samurai movie and then Hollywood came around and put Tom Cruise in the lead. I don't know if that was actually the case, maybe this is a well known story that I am not aware of, but the movie would be so fundamentally different in that case that I find it a bit far fetched. Most likely, the movie was never supposed to be a Samurai movie, and being upset that it isn't seems a bit weird.
I guess part of the problem is that we get a lot of these movies, Hollywood treat people like idiots so every movie about a foreign culture or place has to be 'whitewashed', assuming we cannot empathise with someone who isn't white. When you get something like Apocalypto, it feels like a glitch in the system.
I would say it's a particularly Hollywood problem, it's not like Asian movies can portray the west with accuracy, but it is the biggest and most ambitious so attention is deserved.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
I fucking love The Last Samurai. It's one of my favorites.
It's a avatar, Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, Blood Diamond. It's a story of someone privileged choosing another path that his own kind perceives to be barbaric. That is always a great story, if told well. And The Last Samurai is told really well.
Does that mean that it couldn't have been less Hollywood-ish? with white guy surviving the suicide charge when even Watanbe dies? Of course not, but it's still a really great movie.
This was a great segment, but a thing that was left out- Hollywood Whitewashing-by-remakes.
The Departed got away with it, but Oldboy. I get so upset when I see the remake. GRRRRRRR. You don't need to remake films like that.
It's a avatar, Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, Blood Diamond. It's a story of someone privileged choosing another path that his own kind perceives to be barbaric. That is always a great story, if told well. And The Last Samurai is told really well.
Does that mean that it couldn't have been less Hollywood-ish? with white guy surviving the suicide charge when even Watanbe dies? Of course not, but it's still a really great movie.
This was a great segment, but a thing that was left out- Hollywood Whitewashing-by-remakes.
The Departed got away with it, but Oldboy. I get so upset when I see the remake. GRRRRRRR. You don't need to remake films like that.
Cro-Magnon
Member
And on some level, that makes sense for this kind of movies. After all, if you want to explore a "foreign" culture in a film, it's helpful to have a character in it that's just as ignorant as the audience. It avoids having the awkwardness of a bunch of characters standing around explaining stuff to each other that they all should already know.
Cro-Magnon
Member
Well, I think it's genuinely funny that somebody refers to VIII century as "ancient history", I don't think the remark was made in order to 'nullify' your post altogether.
When his only contribution to a thread about Hollywood whitewashing is two LOL posts in a row, I would have to think it is. Especially his pointless second post.
And I'm sure you meant XIX.
I always thought that watanabe was the titular 'last samurai' and not cruise, but whatever that's just me thinking a bit too much about it.
But yeah, hollywood whitewashing is intensely shameful. I can get excited for a film and watch it in theaters if it stars a character that isn't white.
But yeah, hollywood whitewashing is intensely shameful. I can get excited for a film and watch it in theaters if it stars a character that isn't white.
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Isn't samurai uncountable? I thought it was meant to be all of them.
KarneeKarnay
Member
Cro-Magnon
Member
Yes, I did, sorry, I just woke up with a flu and not at my brightest.
Funnily enough, though, VIII century wouldn't be technically ancient either
It was explicitly singular in many non-English releases.
Rimon-hanit
Member
I really can't see how anyone can consider The Last Samurai whitewashing, the all point of the movie was, Tom cruise character finding a way to live with is past deeds through the bushido, so the movie did need a completely foreign character.
And the contrast of that character being a white colonist, as convinet as it might be, does help in strengthening that message.
And the contrast of that character being a white colonist, as convinet as it might be, does help in strengthening that message.
Sometimes I mispronounce a word and then I excuse it by saying that language is ever evolving, I think I'll just use YMMV from now on.
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Fair enough. I feel like making it plural would've been better.
Yeah, hard to see why anyone would get the impression that the title referred to Cruise
I know Cruise isn't actually the samurai who is specifically being referred to in the title, but the point is THIS is the poster for the movie and how it was marketed:
You tell me who the general public is supposed to think "The Last Samurai" is referring to.
I know Cruise isn't actually the samurai who is specifically being referred to in the title, but the point is THIS is the poster for the movie and how it was marketed:
You tell me who the general public is supposed to think "The Last Samurai" is referring to.
Misleading film posters or film poster that don't give the whole story away. There can be many different reasons...
LegendofJoe
Member
Hollywood needs to wake the heck up. I have absolutely no interest in seeing Exodus or Gods of Egypt because of the whitewashing in both. It makes them look generic and boring. I know I'm not alone in this view.
George Oscar Bluth II
Banned
Obviously
It's white-washing in a sense that it's YET ANOTHER movie where an exceptional white person goes to be among another culture and does exceptional things.
It's one of those cases where it wouldn't be that bad as a singular movie. If you just look at the merits of the movie without a larger context, The Last Samurai is not a horrible movie itself for telling the kind of story it does, but in the larger context, when it's the umpmillionth movie exactly like it in a world where Hollywood deliberately avoids doing movies about such cultures WITHOUT white leads, THAT'S when it becomes a bit of a problem & yet another example of white-washing. As a singular movie, it doesn't carry all the blame, it's just a single example in an ever-growing list of examples just like it and that makes it fair fodder for the white-washing argument.
WrenchNinja
Member
Not like mr. whitey white Jake Gyllenhaal, probably.
Like you had four modern games to cast from
Cro-Magnon
Member
Actually, for every language where articles and adjectives have declension, the title is singular and only that.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00325710/releaseinfo
Criticizing cast choices != being offended. This is, like, the dumbest argument people make. "STOP BEING OFFENDED" when no one is. If you don't care, hey, that's your right & more power to you, but don't act as if it's not silly to cast the most stereotypical Hollywood white male stars to any & every role on the face of the Earth, no matter what the original culture or ethnicity depicted.
The general populace not giving a shit about white-washing happening is one of the reasons why it can still happen in such blatant ways in 2016.
Oh no doubt, you have all the right to criticize the white washing of Hollywood and I agree with John Oliver in almost every video he makes. I'm just sharing a point of view on one of the topics discussed on this very page.
Gentle Rodriguez
Member
I wasn't offended but I was definitely annoyed by it, on the other hand Gyllenhaal kind of has some Persian facial features so I wasn't too mad about it.
This isn't a PC gaming thread where a few years old is ancient.
But I digress, you are actually saying something about 116 years old is ancient, we have humans still alive today who are older than that !
Ancient means something in the distant past, we are talking about a time when Karl Benz founded Benz & Cie. , an automobile company. That's not ancient.
This isn't a PC gaming thread where a few years old is ancient.
But I digress, you are actually saying something that's about 120 years old as ancient.
Ancient means something in the distant past, we are talking about a time when Karl benz founded Mercedes-Benz, an automobile company. That's not ancient.
You've got that right. Ignore a full page of exchange and concentrate on a nitpick that has nothing to do with whitewashing, and has already been covered by multiple posters.
Yeah, let's talk about anything BUT whitewashing am I right?
You know, I like a lot of things in the Last Samurai, but I dislike Tom Cruise's character who magically becomes one of the best Samurai within weeks , perfectly getting the udnerstanding of the fighting style and culture, things that take years to groom.
Plus the needless romanticism of the this part of history and what shouldn't bothering we that much, but surely is: the way people put their swords away after striking someone down. One would think one of the japanese actors would know to clean the blade first.
Beats the hypersexual Brazilian Xerxes at least.
Google "Iranian actors" at least before making an opinion. The games themselves were far from accurate portrayals of Persians.
This.
There are a lot of people from India who are Christian with very traditional "white" names. I have a South Indian friend who's last name is Thomas.
silvermember
Banned
Considering your original comment isn't far removed from the usual justification people use, I have to question why you bother making the comment in the first place.
Considering the quote above.
I mean there is always a token people who props up to say, I don't care about issue x that affects a great deal of people similar to me.
Yeah. You could've easily made the movie with a white guy as protagonist that isn't offensive, by having the white guy not perfecting everything the Samurai learned in years of hard training within days or weeks. Have him looking and understanding the culture and add to the fight with the abilities he actually acquired over the years. Him being a perfect samurai warrior is what's iffy (besides historical inaccuracies, although those are not related to his character).
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