So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
A choice of actor historically "defaults" to white male.
Production X instead chooses to cast a white female, upping the level of representation for an underrepresented group ("one step forward"), but retaining at least one aspect of the "safe choice" ("one step back").
Therefore, this is "not progress."
The choice of president historically "defaults" to white male.
Election X instead chooses to elect a black male, upping the level of representation for an underrepresented group, but retaining at least one aspect of the "safe choice."
Therefore, by parallel argument, this is "not progress."
Because the idea that neither giving minorities the right to vote, nor giving women the right to vote wasn't progress because they didn't happen at the same time is the height of idiocy.
No, I'm saying it was a goosey thing to say and a terrible argument to make, and I wonder why @Local H Jay seems to be supporting it (or, at least, calling out people who are calling it out).
No, I'm saying it was a goosey thing to say and a terrible argument to make, and I wonder why @Local H Jay seems to be supporting it (or, at least, calling out people who are calling it out).
One might view taking a character who was Asian and making that character white "a step back". You're just using a different starting point.
Edit: I should perhaps not say just. People's starting points are hugely important in discussions about diversity. It hits the question of what is normal and whether what is normal is "neutral" - which is convenient for those with privilege - or "harmful" - which is the view of those without privilege.
Taking away a role for Asians to give one to another disenfranchised group doesn't make it the problem any better. Yes, women need more roles too. But trying to deflect attention from one problem by saying "See look, it's better than nothing right!?" Does not solve either issue. If Ancient One is so controversial they need to recast, maybe just leave the character out instead of shaving Tilda Swinton's head an putting her in robes.
You can be happy when a woman gets an acting job. You can be mad when they take acting jobs away from Asians. These thoughts can exist at the same time.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Taking away a role for Asians to give one to another disenfranchised group doesn't make it the problem any better. Yes, women need more roles too. But trying to deflect attention from one problem by saying "See look, it's better than nothing right!?" Does not solve either issue. If Ancient One is so controversial they need to recast, maybe just leave the character out instead of shaving Tilda Swinton's head an putting her in robes.
You can be happy when a woman gets an acting job. You can be mad when they take acting jobs away from Asians. These thoughts can exist at the same time.
It doesn't make it a safe choice, unless there has been a slew of asian men roles that have been taken over by white female actors that I somehow missed.
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
Ah yes, the "divide and conquer" strategy.
People aren't upset that the role went to a woman. They're upset because Asian people weren't considered.
First of all, context is important. If this was a brand new IP where the writers decided to create an old master archetype who happened to be a woman, no one would be complaining. The reason they're complaining is because the original source material was conceived with Asian culture in mind. And even the source material argument has a context. The main reason the Asian community cites the source material is because they're pointing to Hollywood's hypocrisy of using source material as an excuse to exclude Asian people from movies with heavy Asian influences like Iron Fist, but suddenly stop caring about source material when it features an Asian character.
I don't think anyone here has said, "You can't cast a women in that role!" Are things bad for women in Hollywood? Yep. But it's entirely possible to understand that while you have it bad, and still be sympathetic of other people might have it worse. For instance, Asian Female actresses than a White Female Actress (I do think Asian actresses have an advantage over Asian actors for sheer number of job opportunities -- but usually for the sake of eye candy and romantic pairings).
In the history of the Oscars, there have been three awards given to actresses playing Asian characters. Only one of those awards went to an actual Asian actress. Two of them went to white actresses in yellow face. Which means that white actresses have an advantage over Asian actresses even in the context of playing Asian roles.
Likewise, the problem for women actors in Hollywood tends to the quality of the roles, rather than the quantity of the roles. i.e., being regulated as the romantic interest, rather than the main character. Where as for Asians, the problem is both quality and quantity. They're simply treated as if they don't exist at all.
Mainly, your entire argument is a diversion. You're saying "We decided not to cast an Asian actor because we went a different route," without actually explaining why the "different route" couldn't have included an Asian actor.
For instance, the Mandarin in IM3 was re-written as a failed actor from Britain. Fine. But that still doesn't explain why couldn't you cast a Chinese person in that role. I'm pretty sure that there are Chinese actors who live in Britain. Most of the time, it's just the assumption that whiteness has to be the default unless you specify otherwise. "Oh, this new character is a British citizen, so of course he can't be of Chinese descent!"
Schrodinger on
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
We went over why the Mandarin wasn't asian, why it makes no sense he would be Asian.
We went over why the Mandarin wasn't asian, why it makes no sense he would be Asian.
No you didn't.
You said it would make any sense for the leader of an Arab only terrorist organization to be Asian.
But you ignored the fact that a) Slattery was never the actual leader, and b) the organization is multi-national. So the conclusion fails because the premise was incorrect.
The idea of Ten Rings being multi-national makes a lot more sense, given the first that they named the leader "The Mandarin," rather than using a word from the Middle East. Also, it makes them a much bigger threat in general.
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
If the Ancient One was one of the many and varied white male characters and Tilda Swinton had been cast, I would say it's progress.
However, the Ancient one was a prominent asian character who was replaced by a white actor, so that's whitewashing. So, not progressive. Doing something progressive by hiring a woman in a male role doesn't negate that it's also counter-progressive whitewashing of an asian character.
If this was going to be a more nuanced discussion this would be an interesting topic, but instead the situation is being used to poke holes in the argument about it being whitewashing or about people being upset about it.
"It can't be a bad thing because look, it's a woman taking a male role" or "It's not counter progressive because it's whitewashing, it's progressive because it's changing a male character into a female one".
However, that's an extremely simplistic and underhanded way of looking at it. You don't get to negate the bad with the good, and you don't get to use it to invalidate the people who are upset by the whitewashing.
You fix the situation by recognizing it, by apologizing for it, and by being better about it. You don't fix it by trying to counter it with being progressive in another way while still doing the same problematic actions.
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
A choice of actor historically "defaults" to white male.
Production X instead chooses to cast a white female, upping the level of representation for an underrepresented group ("one step forward"), but retaining at least one aspect of the "safe choice" ("one step back").
Therefore, this is "not progress."
No, that's not at all why it's one step back.
It's one step back because they whitewashed an asian character.
Production decided to cast a white woman, upping the level of representation for an underrepresented group ("one step forward")
However they changed the race from a minority character to a white character, lowering the representation for an underrepresented group ("one step back")
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
Maybe if you let go of white male privilege first.
Hell, the post of Elvenshae's that you so laud literally says, "X defaults to white male." Dedwrekka should have said, "As many steps back as you need until you reach white male, then one step forward."
hippofant on
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
Maybe if you let go of white male privilege first.
Hell, the post of Elvenshae's that you so laud literally says, "X defaults to white male." Dedwrekka should have said, "As many steps back as you need until you reach white male, then one step forward."
So.... now casting women is bad if they're white, correct?
Do these goalposts come with wheels?
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
We went over why the Mandarin wasn't asian, why it makes no sense he would be Asian.
No you didn't.
You said it would make any sense for the leader of an Arab only terrorist organization to be Asian.
But you ignored the fact that a) Slattery was never the actual leader, and b) the organization is multi-national. So the conclusion fails because the premise was incorrect.
The idea of Ten Rings being multi-national makes a lot more sense, given the first that they named the leader "The Mandarin," rather than using a word from the Middle East. Also, it makes them a much bigger threat in general.
So, you change the nature of what's shown on the movies to fit a narrative.
Did the group from IM1 look like a multi-national terrorist organization? Is there any indication in the videos of the Mandarin in IM3 that they're trying to give the impression of a multi-national terrorist organization?
So the Ten Rings is treated as a multi-national organization that operates in secret composed of independent cells that have no knowledge of what the other cells as doing for the sake of presenting a security leak.
And the Ancient One is treated as a transcendent being who isn't bound by any race or gender that it chooses to be.
But it's awfully funny how "multi-national organization" and "transcendent being not bound by race or gender" seems to also translate into "Absolutely cannot be cast as Asian, despite being depicted as Asian in the comics, because reasons."
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
So the Ten Rings is treated as a multi-national organization that operates in secret composed of independent cells that have no knowledge of what the other cells as doing for the sake of presenting a security leak.
And the Ancient One is treated as a transcendent being who isn't bound by any race or gender that it chooses to be.
But it's awfully funny how "multi-national organization" and "transcendent being not bound by race or gender" seems to also translate into "Absolutely cannot be cast as Asian, despite being depicted as Asian in the comics, because reasons."
Where in the films did they say that about the Ten Rings?
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
Maybe if you let go of white male privilege first.
Hell, the post of Elvenshae's that you so laud literally says, "X defaults to white male." Dedwrekka should have said, "As many steps back as you need until you reach white male, then one step forward."
So.... now casting women is bad if they're white, correct?
Do these goalposts come with wheels?
Are you a computer? Because you seem oddly fixated on binary.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
edited May 2016
The Ten Rings were not even involved in IM3, but they were in IM1.
Spoilered for huge:
jungleroomx on
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
Maybe if you let go of white male privilege first.
Hell, the post of Elvenshae's that you so laud literally says, "X defaults to white male." Dedwrekka should have said, "As many steps back as you need until you reach white male, then one step forward."
So.... now casting women is bad if they're white, correct?
Do these goalposts come with wheels?
Are you a computer? Because you seem oddly fixated on binary.
I'm trying to process the logic. It just seems to be a recursive series of nested IF-THENs with no obvious conclusion.
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
Maybe if you let go of white male privilege first.
Hell, the post of Elvenshae's that you so laud literally says, "X defaults to white male." Dedwrekka should have said, "As many steps back as you need until you reach white male, then one step forward."
So.... now casting women is bad if they're white, correct?
Do these goalposts come with wheels?
You guys seem awfully preoccupied with completely ignoring the reason why the Ancient One was brought up at all in a thread about Whitewashing.
How do you completely flop on the entire concept of a thread about changing minority characters into white ones being a bad thing?
So the Ten Rings is treated as a multi-national organization that operates in secret composed of independent cells that have no knowledge of what the other cells as doing for the sake of presenting a security leak.
And the Ancient One is treated as a transcendent being who isn't bound by any race or gender that it chooses to be.
But it's awfully funny how "multi-national organization" and "transcendent being not bound by race or gender" seems to also translate into "Absolutely cannot be cast as Asian, despite being depicted as Asian in the comics, because reasons."
Where in the films did they say that about the Ten Rings?
The history of the Ten Rings is shrouded in mystery. Several members believed their leader, the Mandarin, had inspired generations of men since the Middle Ages, perhaps even further back in time, implying that the organization was hundreds of years old. Some even described the organization as "faith".[1]
All branches of the Ten Rings operated as individual cells, with every cell operating independently of each other. The leaders of each cell had no idea who anyone was in any other cell save for one contact. Each cell would receive money and weapons and as long as they received them and the leaders did not ask questions.[2]
Being a multinational organization, members of Ten Rings branches speak multiple languages, including: Arabic, Dari, English, Farsi, Hungarian, Mongolian, Pashto, Russian and Urdu.[3]
Sources:
↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King
↑ Iron Man 3 Prelude, Volume 1
↑ Guidebook to the Marvel Cinematic Universe - Iron Man
The Mandarin became the leader of the Ten Rings, an organization with religious beliefs going back thousands of years.[3] Over the years, the Mandarin became a myth to his followers, with only his most trusted men being aware that he really exists. The legend of the Mandarin would eventually reach the Western world.
Again, Slattery was never the actual leader of the Ten Rings.
And even the people within the organization assumed that the Mandarin was a myth and not real. Meaning that lots of them would assume that any actor claiming to be the Mandarin was a fraud, not just Ben Kingsley.
So there's absolutely no reason to think that this organization would reject the idea of an Chinese leader purely on account of the leader being Chinese.
And there's absolutely no reason to think that this organization wouldn't reject Ben Kingsley purely on account of being not-Chinese.
So the logic fails on both counts.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
That's cool.
Where in the films do they say that about the Ten Rings?
Where in the films do they say that about the Ten Rings?
Where in the films does it say that the Ten Rings has a giant sign in their recruitment office saying "Asian people need not apply?"
Because that's what you seem to by implying.
The idea that Asian people are assumed to be banned from membership unless otherwise stated.
And again, you keep missing the point: SLATTERY WAS NEVER THE ACTUAL LEADER.
In fact, it's shown that the the actual leader was pissed off by the impersonation.
So if we already know that a) AIM didn't bother to do proper research, and b) the real Mandarin is pissed off at the fake Mandarin, then explain to us again why it would be illogical to cast an actor who might pissed off the real Mandarin?
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
Maybe if you let go of white male privilege first.
Hell, the post of Elvenshae's that you so laud literally says, "X defaults to white male." Dedwrekka should have said, "As many steps back as you need until you reach white male, then one step forward."
So.... now casting women is bad if they're white, correct?
Do these goalposts come with wheels?
Are you a computer? Because you seem oddly fixated on binary.
I'm trying to process the logic. It just seems to be a recursive series of nested IF-THENs with no obvious conclusion.
Where in the films do they say that about the Ten Rings?
Where in the films does it say that the Ten Rings has a giant sign in their recruitment office saying "Asian people need not apply?"
Because that's what you seem to by implying.
The idea that Asian people are assumed to be banned from membership unless otherwise stated.
And again, you keep missing the point: SLATTERY WAS NEVER THE ACTUAL LEADER.
In fact, it's shown that the the actual leader was pissed off by the impersonation.
Yes, but that's not what I asked.
I asked where in the films was the Ten Rings seen as anything but an Afghani terrorist organization up until the time we find out the Mandarin is false?
Also, if you want, you can go look up the most wanted terrorists at the FBI site. There's a surprising lack of Chinese people, given how strongly you feel they would be welcome in a middle-eastern based terrorist org.
Maybe the Ten Rings is more, but at no point in any of the films has this even been shown. Aldrich is playing up the fears of a wahhabist terror org in every single way possible in IM3. Maybe once the actual Mandarin comes out and the Ten Rings are revealed in their true form, but as far as story, casting, plotting, and actual presentation, Trevor Slattery being a Chinese man is pants-on-head. There's diversity and then there's pandering, and making him Chinese would be hella pandering without some serious logical gymnastics or a complete rewrite of the entire Mandarin storyline in IM3.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
Maybe if you let go of white male privilege first.
Hell, the post of Elvenshae's that you so laud literally says, "X defaults to white male." Dedwrekka should have said, "As many steps back as you need until you reach white male, then one step forward."
So.... now casting women is bad if they're white, correct?
Do these goalposts come with wheels?
Are you a computer? Because you seem oddly fixated on binary.
I'm trying to process the logic. It just seems to be a recursive series of nested IF-THENs with no obvious conclusion.
Being that whitewashing is a subset of diversity, I figured baby steps would be fine.
Also, if the whole Swindon thing is a carrot on a stick and they show the actual Ancient One as an old eastern Asian guy, I probably won't stop laughing for months.
I asked where in the films was the Ten Rings seen as anything but an Afghani terrorist organization up until the time we find out the Mandarin is false?
You mean aside from the fact that they're working with the Americans in the first movie and the Russians in the second movie? Or the fact they have a white guy break Slattery out of jail in the short film?
But now you're basically relying on absencerejection of evidence as evidence of absence. "Oh, nothing in this first movie explicitly says that the group is multi-national, therefore, we must reject all future evidence saying that they are!"
This would be like watching a movie where Hydra agents kill people in Texas, and then claiming that all future references to Hydra being an international organization are false because Hydra was clearly only supposed to be limited to Texas and Texas only.
And once again, the point you keep ignoring:
SLATTERY WAS NEVER THE ACTUAL LEADER.
The entire point of AIM was to create a fake Mandarin to cover up for their failed experiments. The goal was to create fear. A multi-national organization creates is scarier than one contained entirely in the Middle East. Fear of the unknown is scary. The idea of "that organization you thought you knew before? You didn't actually know shit."
Also, if you want, you can go look up the most wanted terrorists at the FBI site. There's a surprising lack of Chinese people, given how strongly you feel they would be welcome in a middle-eastern based terrorist org.
LOL. And if you look at the Forbes 400 list, you'll note that none of the billionaires are inventing power armor for the sake of fighting crime.
Maybe the Ten Rings is more, but at no point in any of the films has this even been shown.
See, now you're moving the goalpost. Before, you argued that the Mandarin absolutely cannot be Chinese. Now you're saying, "Well, they never specifically said he was Chinese in the movies."
There's diversity and then there's pandering, and making him Chinese would be hella pandering without some serious logical gymnastics or a complete rewrite of the entire Mandarin storyline in IM3.
See, here's the problem.
You think casting a Chinese person as a British citizen/failed actor requires massive rewrites and mental gymnastics.
Other people realize that many many Chinese people fitting this description actually exist.
You're not actually telling us anything that needs to be re-written. You've effectively moved the goalpost to, "Nothing in the movie explicitly says that the Mandarin is Chinese!"
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
edited May 2016
I'm not saying a failed British actor can't be chinese. I'm saying a figurehead leader of a groomed Wahhabist-like terrorist organization that has been primarily shown to be based in the middle east probably won't have a Chinese dude as their leader, fake or not.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
And as for working with others, many orgs like AQ work with Chechen and Philippine terrorist orgs, but I don't see many Chechen or Pinoys in afghani groups.
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ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
I'm not saying a failed British actor can't be chinese. I'm saying a figurehead leader of a groomed Wahhabist-like terrorist organization that has been primarily shown to be based in the middle east probably won't have a Chinese dude as their leader, fake or not.
I mean isn't that like one of the most fun parts of writing fiction? Doing what-if scenarios no matter how unlikely they may be?
And as for working with others, many orgs like AQ work with Chechen and Philippine terrorist orgs, but I don't see many Chechen or Pinoys in afghani groups.
None off those groups are leveraging multi billion dollar corporations to give them ages to sci fi war tech. They use things like box cutters and suicide bombers -- not Jericho missiles and nanobot serums.
Ten rings obviously has much bigger goals. So why wouldn't you d expect a much bigger organization?
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
A question is what would be a non-objectionable degree of representation?
One that reflects demographics? One that equally represents all demographics - i.e. an equal split between all demographic groups? One that allocates resources reflective of demographics?
I expect that this isn't a simple question to answer in a way that doesn't produce odd economic effects and/or unpleasant conclusions for those advocating change.
One that isn't limited by race or sex.
If the industry becomes more open to casting people of color and women outside of roles written specifically for people of that race or sex, then it becomes less of a problem for roles that are notably for them to be recast.
Note that the problem won't go away entirely, because changing the sex or race of the character can still cause issues as in the case of "21".
Just stop imagining the white man as the default.
We already have stats that prove that the vast majority of moviegoers in the US and Canada are minorities and women (per capita) because the MPAA releases stats on that every year telling us that. Minority people are more likely to go to the theaters multiple times a year over white people.
This doesn't answer the question, at all. To rephrase for you - what is the scenario in which you believe that Hollywoo would be sufficiently open to casting people of whatever sex or race? How would we recognise it? Is it a quantitative or qualitative thing? What is the quality or quantities for which we should've striving.
I was always under the impression the fire nation was Japan, and earth nation was China, and it was based on Japan's stance during WW2?
It's not a perfect 1:1 translation. Because storytelling.
The Fire Nation is itself a metaphor for Japan, and the Earth Kingdom is a metaphor for China.
OTOH, the specific invasion of the Tibertan inspired monks can be seen as a direct metaphor for China's invasion.
There's also the fact that the whole idea of uniting the four kingdoms can be taken as a metaphor for the original founding of China itself (i.e., the basic plot of "Hero", "The Emperor and the Assassin", etc).
Censorship is a thing in China, but it seems like a lot of people are way overestimating to what lengths it's implemented vis-a-vis the normal system of issuing credentials to foreign films to get full theatrical releases. It is a politicized process, but it's also first-come-first-serve--if Hollywood (or anyone) happens to push for twice the films to be distributed in China as the year before, the later ones aren't going to make it in, no matter what their content is.
I'm honestly not the least bit surprised The Last Airbender got a Chinese release. 2012's Red Dawn didn't appear get a Chinese premiere (though I'm certain you can buy a legal copy in China) because MGM had a movie where the Chinese literally invade Spokane, Washington, filmed the entire movie (complete with Chinese soldiers committing war crimes, torture, etc.), and then belatedly thought they could use CG to swap out all the flags for North Korean ones and dub over all the Chinese dialogue with Korean. Never mind all Chinese equipment, uniforms and extras that were in the other 90% of the film. It's pretty obvious that these changes were made, especially to a Chinese audience.
In similar weirdness, Red Dawn didn't get banned in the Russian Fed. (despite the presence of Russians among the invading forces and their involvement being a plot line). The Russian government didn't ban BORAT either, despite the fact that it was seen as less satirical and more outright racist (in relation to Russia's large Kazakh minority who are Asian, not "Nondescript Eastern European"). But generally speaking, films do not get banned Russia--even things that would seem obvious, for example a film with a neutral or positive portrayal of homosexuality, despite obvious anti-LGBT legislation in Russia--because there's not really an established policy to do it. Controversial or political films might not get premiered, but they're still legal to distribute (and documentaries of any kind aren't likely to get major theatrical releases, as is the case here). Similarly, after the anti-LGBT laws went on the books after 2009, The Sims 4 (where Sims can obviously have gay relationships) weren't banned--they just got a +18 rating for the first time, equivalent to 'Rated M', and is still available for purchase.
Kazakhstan itself did not ban BORAT--the film is alternatively fairly offensive, or doesn't make the same sense to a Kazakh audience (it'd be like a fictional portrayal of a racist, hyper-misogynistic, anti-Christian American traveling through Russia--played by Korean actor). The film's credited with spurring interest in Kazakh tourism, but also with fucking with Kazakh athletes overseas since the film's song sometimes get played in lieu of the actual anthem.
Film censorship can be highly counter-intuitive at times.
So... since we're talking about minorities and women getting roles usually conquered by men, shouldn't the Old Master trope being done by a woman be seen as a progressive step forward?
One step forward and one step back is not progress.
So for it to be a full step forward, it would have to be a... what? Asian woman? Would casting a black woman make it 1.5 steps?
Obama was elected President.
Some people still want a female President.
What's so confusing about this? Honestly, if you don't "get" this, you fundamentally don't "get" human beings. Not only can different people want different things, but the same person can want more than one "thing". (My favourite foods are burgers and fries. I ate a burger. I still want fries.)
The problem is Dedwrekka is arguing that Obama being elected President wasn't progress at all, because he's a black man, instead of being ... I guess a black woman?
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
Incorrect. Yes, it's progress that an actress got the role, it's a step back since it wasn't an Asian or minority actress who got the role for an Asian character.
A question is what would be a non-objectionable degree of representation?
One that reflects demographics? One that equally represents all demographics - i.e. an equal split between all demographic groups? One that allocates resources reflective of demographics?
I expect that this isn't a simple question to answer in a way that doesn't produce odd economic effects and/or unpleasant conclusions for those advocating change.
One that isn't limited by race or sex.
If the industry becomes more open to casting people of color and women outside of roles written specifically for people of that race or sex, then it becomes less of a problem for roles that are notably for them to be recast.
Note that the problem won't go away entirely, because changing the sex or race of the character can still cause issues as in the case of "21".
Just stop imagining the white man as the default.
We already have stats that prove that the vast majority of moviegoers in the US and Canada are minorities and women (per capita) because the MPAA releases stats on that every year telling us that. Minority people are more likely to go to the theaters multiple times a year over white people.
This doesn't answer the question, at all. To rephrase for you - what is the scenario in which you believe that Hollywoo would be sufficiently open to casting people of whatever sex or race? How would we recognise it? Is it a quantitative or qualitative thing? What is the quality or quantities for which we should've striving.
Well, they did give the role of Secretariat to an actual horse. So that's something.
Posts
A choice of actor historically "defaults" to white male.
Production X instead chooses to cast a white female, upping the level of representation for an underrepresented group ("one step forward"), but retaining at least one aspect of the "safe choice" ("one step back").
Therefore, this is "not progress."
The choice of president historically "defaults" to white male.
Election X instead chooses to elect a black male, upping the level of representation for an underrepresented group, but retaining at least one aspect of the "safe choice."
Therefore, by parallel argument, this is "not progress."
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Because the idea that neither giving minorities the right to vote, nor giving women the right to vote wasn't progress because they didn't happen at the same time is the height of idiocy.
No, I'm saying it was a goosey thing to say and a terrible argument to make, and I wonder why @Local H Jay seems to be supporting it (or, at least, calling out people who are calling it out).
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
One might view taking a character who was Asian and making that character white "a step back". You're just using a different starting point.
Edit: I should perhaps not say just. People's starting points are hugely important in discussions about diversity. It hits the question of what is normal and whether what is normal is "neutral" - which is convenient for those with privilege - or "harmful" - which is the view of those without privilege.
You can be happy when a woman gets an acting job. You can be mad when they take acting jobs away from Asians. These thoughts can exist at the same time.
It doesn't make it a safe choice, unless there has been a slew of asian men roles that have been taken over by white female actors that I somehow missed.
Ah yes, the "divide and conquer" strategy.
People aren't upset that the role went to a woman. They're upset because Asian people weren't considered.
First of all, context is important. If this was a brand new IP where the writers decided to create an old master archetype who happened to be a woman, no one would be complaining. The reason they're complaining is because the original source material was conceived with Asian culture in mind. And even the source material argument has a context. The main reason the Asian community cites the source material is because they're pointing to Hollywood's hypocrisy of using source material as an excuse to exclude Asian people from movies with heavy Asian influences like Iron Fist, but suddenly stop caring about source material when it features an Asian character.
I don't think anyone here has said, "You can't cast a women in that role!" Are things bad for women in Hollywood? Yep. But it's entirely possible to understand that while you have it bad, and still be sympathetic of other people might have it worse. For instance, Asian Female actresses than a White Female Actress (I do think Asian actresses have an advantage over Asian actors for sheer number of job opportunities -- but usually for the sake of eye candy and romantic pairings).
In the history of the Oscars, there have been three awards given to actresses playing Asian characters. Only one of those awards went to an actual Asian actress. Two of them went to white actresses in yellow face. Which means that white actresses have an advantage over Asian actresses even in the context of playing Asian roles.
Likewise, the problem for women actors in Hollywood tends to the quality of the roles, rather than the quantity of the roles. i.e., being regulated as the romantic interest, rather than the main character. Where as for Asians, the problem is both quality and quantity. They're simply treated as if they don't exist at all.
Mainly, your entire argument is a diversion. You're saying "We decided not to cast an Asian actor because we went a different route," without actually explaining why the "different route" couldn't have included an Asian actor.
For instance, the Mandarin in IM3 was re-written as a failed actor from Britain. Fine. But that still doesn't explain why couldn't you cast a Chinese person in that role. I'm pretty sure that there are Chinese actors who live in Britain. Most of the time, it's just the assumption that whiteness has to be the default unless you specify otherwise. "Oh, this new character is a British citizen, so of course he can't be of Chinese descent!"
No you didn't.
You said it would make any sense for the leader of an Arab only terrorist organization to be Asian.
But you ignored the fact that a) Slattery was never the actual leader, and b) the organization is multi-national. So the conclusion fails because the premise was incorrect.
The idea of Ten Rings being multi-national makes a lot more sense, given the first that they named the leader "The Mandarin," rather than using a word from the Middle East. Also, it makes them a much bigger threat in general.
Holy shit did I?
Let's see, a character is whitewashed but also a male role is given to a woman. So they did something bad while also doing something good, which doesn't negate that they also did something bad.
President Obama isn't a person who was a woman and made a man or a minority who was made white.
Nope I guess I didn't say that so what the hell are you talking about?
Elvenshae explained perfectly where your faulty logic goes at the top of this page.
Schrodinger has done a credible job of explaining the issue, but your comment did not make sense.
Only if you assume that white male is the default, which is the whole damn problem in the first place.
However, the Ancient one was a prominent asian character who was replaced by a white actor, so that's whitewashing. So, not progressive. Doing something progressive by hiring a woman in a male role doesn't negate that it's also counter-progressive whitewashing of an asian character.
If this was going to be a more nuanced discussion this would be an interesting topic, but instead the situation is being used to poke holes in the argument about it being whitewashing or about people being upset about it.
"It can't be a bad thing because look, it's a woman taking a male role" or "It's not counter progressive because it's whitewashing, it's progressive because it's changing a male character into a female one".
However, that's an extremely simplistic and underhanded way of looking at it. You don't get to negate the bad with the good, and you don't get to use it to invalidate the people who are upset by the whitewashing.
You fix the situation by recognizing it, by apologizing for it, and by being better about it. You don't fix it by trying to counter it with being progressive in another way while still doing the same problematic actions.
The comment did not make sense. The turn of phrase "two steps forward, one step back" is well understood in all its variations. It's not the correct one for this situation so maybe just let it go.
It's one step back because they whitewashed an asian character.
Production decided to cast a white woman, upping the level of representation for an underrepresented group ("one step forward")
However they changed the race from a minority character to a white character, lowering the representation for an underrepresented group ("one step back")
Maybe if you let go of white male privilege first.
Hell, the post of Elvenshae's that you so laud literally says, "X defaults to white male." Dedwrekka should have said, "As many steps back as you need until you reach white male, then one step forward."
So.... now casting women is bad if they're white, correct?
Do these goalposts come with wheels?
So, you change the nature of what's shown on the movies to fit a narrative.
Did the group from IM1 look like a multi-national terrorist organization? Is there any indication in the videos of the Mandarin in IM3 that they're trying to give the impression of a multi-national terrorist organization?
And the Ancient One is treated as a transcendent being who isn't bound by any race or gender that it chooses to be.
But it's awfully funny how "multi-national organization" and "transcendent being not bound by race or gender" seems to also translate into "Absolutely cannot be cast as Asian, despite being depicted as Asian in the comics, because reasons."
Where in the films did they say that about the Ten Rings?
Are you a computer? Because you seem oddly fixated on binary.
Spoilered for huge:
I'm trying to process the logic. It just seems to be a recursive series of nested IF-THENs with no obvious conclusion.
Beep boop.
You guys seem awfully preoccupied with completely ignoring the reason why the Ancient One was brought up at all in a thread about Whitewashing.
How do you completely flop on the entire concept of a thread about changing minority characters into white ones being a bad thing?
Also:
Again, Slattery was never the actual leader of the Ten Rings.
And even the people within the organization assumed that the Mandarin was a myth and not real. Meaning that lots of them would assume that any actor claiming to be the Mandarin was a fraud, not just Ben Kingsley.
So there's absolutely no reason to think that this organization would reject the idea of an Chinese leader purely on account of the leader being Chinese.
And there's absolutely no reason to think that this organization wouldn't reject Ben Kingsley purely on account of being not-Chinese.
So the logic fails on both counts.
Where in the films do they say that about the Ten Rings?
Where in the films does it say that the Ten Rings has a giant sign in their recruitment office saying "Asian people need not apply?"
Because that's what you seem to by implying.
The idea that Asian people are assumed to be banned from membership unless otherwise stated.
And again, you keep missing the point: SLATTERY WAS NEVER THE ACTUAL LEADER.
In fact, it's shown that the the actual leader was pissed off by the impersonation.
So if we already know that a) AIM didn't bother to do proper research, and b) the real Mandarin is pissed off at the fake Mandarin, then explain to us again why it would be illogical to cast an actor who might pissed off the real Mandarin?
It's very simple actually. It's a partial ordering.
Yes, but that's not what I asked.
I asked where in the films was the Ten Rings seen as anything but an Afghani terrorist organization up until the time we find out the Mandarin is false?
Also, if you want, you can go look up the most wanted terrorists at the FBI site. There's a surprising lack of Chinese people, given how strongly you feel they would be welcome in a middle-eastern based terrorist org.
Maybe the Ten Rings is more, but at no point in any of the films has this even been shown. Aldrich is playing up the fears of a wahhabist terror org in every single way possible in IM3. Maybe once the actual Mandarin comes out and the Ten Rings are revealed in their true form, but as far as story, casting, plotting, and actual presentation, Trevor Slattery being a Chinese man is pants-on-head. There's diversity and then there's pandering, and making him Chinese would be hella pandering without some serious logical gymnastics or a complete rewrite of the entire Mandarin storyline in IM3.
Being that whitewashing is a subset of diversity, I figured baby steps would be fine.
Also, if the whole Swindon thing is a carrot on a stick and they show the actual Ancient One as an old eastern Asian guy, I probably won't stop laughing for months.
You mean aside from the fact that they're working with the Americans in the first movie and the Russians in the second movie? Or the fact they have a white guy break Slattery out of jail in the short film?
But now you're basically relying on absence rejection of evidence as evidence of absence. "Oh, nothing in this first movie explicitly says that the group is multi-national, therefore, we must reject all future evidence saying that they are!"
This would be like watching a movie where Hydra agents kill people in Texas, and then claiming that all future references to Hydra being an international organization are false because Hydra was clearly only supposed to be limited to Texas and Texas only.
And once again, the point you keep ignoring:
SLATTERY WAS NEVER THE ACTUAL LEADER.
The entire point of AIM was to create a fake Mandarin to cover up for their failed experiments. The goal was to create fear. A multi-national organization creates is scarier than one contained entirely in the Middle East. Fear of the unknown is scary. The idea of "that organization you thought you knew before? You didn't actually know shit."
LOL. And if you look at the Forbes 400 list, you'll note that none of the billionaires are inventing power armor for the sake of fighting crime.
See, now you're moving the goalpost. Before, you argued that the Mandarin absolutely cannot be Chinese. Now you're saying, "Well, they never specifically said he was Chinese in the movies."
See, here's the problem.
You think casting a Chinese person as a British citizen/failed actor requires massive rewrites and mental gymnastics.
Other people realize that many many Chinese people fitting this description actually exist.
You're not actually telling us anything that needs to be re-written. You've effectively moved the goalpost to, "Nothing in the movie explicitly says that the Mandarin is Chinese!"
I mean isn't that like one of the most fun parts of writing fiction? Doing what-if scenarios no matter how unlikely they may be?
None off those groups are leveraging multi billion dollar corporations to give them ages to sci fi war tech. They use things like box cutters and suicide bombers -- not Jericho missiles and nanobot serums.
Ten rings obviously has much bigger goals. So why wouldn't you d expect a much bigger organization?
This doesn't answer the question, at all. To rephrase for you - what is the scenario in which you believe that Hollywoo would be sufficiently open to casting people of whatever sex or race? How would we recognise it? Is it a quantitative or qualitative thing? What is the quality or quantities for which we should've striving.
Censorship is a thing in China, but it seems like a lot of people are way overestimating to what lengths it's implemented vis-a-vis the normal system of issuing credentials to foreign films to get full theatrical releases. It is a politicized process, but it's also first-come-first-serve--if Hollywood (or anyone) happens to push for twice the films to be distributed in China as the year before, the later ones aren't going to make it in, no matter what their content is.
I'm honestly not the least bit surprised The Last Airbender got a Chinese release. 2012's Red Dawn didn't appear get a Chinese premiere (though I'm certain you can buy a legal copy in China) because MGM had a movie where the Chinese literally invade Spokane, Washington, filmed the entire movie (complete with Chinese soldiers committing war crimes, torture, etc.), and then belatedly thought they could use CG to swap out all the flags for North Korean ones and dub over all the Chinese dialogue with Korean. Never mind all Chinese equipment, uniforms and extras that were in the other 90% of the film. It's pretty obvious that these changes were made, especially to a Chinese audience.
In similar weirdness, Red Dawn didn't get banned in the Russian Fed. (despite the presence of Russians among the invading forces and their involvement being a plot line). The Russian government didn't ban BORAT either, despite the fact that it was seen as less satirical and more outright racist (in relation to Russia's large Kazakh minority who are Asian, not "Nondescript Eastern European"). But generally speaking, films do not get banned Russia--even things that would seem obvious, for example a film with a neutral or positive portrayal of homosexuality, despite obvious anti-LGBT legislation in Russia--because there's not really an established policy to do it. Controversial or political films might not get premiered, but they're still legal to distribute (and documentaries of any kind aren't likely to get major theatrical releases, as is the case here). Similarly, after the anti-LGBT laws went on the books after 2009, The Sims 4 (where Sims can obviously have gay relationships) weren't banned--they just got a +18 rating for the first time, equivalent to 'Rated M', and is still available for purchase.
Kazakhstan itself did not ban BORAT--the film is alternatively fairly offensive, or doesn't make the same sense to a Kazakh audience (it'd be like a fictional portrayal of a racist, hyper-misogynistic, anti-Christian American traveling through Russia--played by Korean actor). The film's credited with spurring interest in Kazakh tourism, but also with fucking with Kazakh athletes overseas since the film's song sometimes get played in lieu of the actual anthem.
Film censorship can be highly counter-intuitive at times.
Incorrect. Yes, it's progress that an actress got the role, it's a step back since it wasn't an Asian or minority actress who got the role for an Asian character.
Well, they did give the role of Secretariat to an actual horse. So that's something.