Dorothy Gale was white.


But of course, if a black person did'nt get the spot they would be calling racist.

Stupid Eh!, Stupid Eh!. Errr, stupid spatooty head!

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I think they did that because they wanted a name behind Dorothy and someone who was known for singing, but could not spend too much on the star since it is a TV movie. It could be that Ashanti was their only practical choice.

The penguins are calling and I can't find my way out of the labyrinth.

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Okay, there you have a point. Oh! Horrible flashbacks of Michael Jackson as the scarecrow! AHH!!! At least this will have a cameo by Quentin Tarantino. I still say they should have gotten David Arquette for a small part. He was in the last tv movie and the last big screen film and in both cases did a good job.

The penguins are calling and I can't find my way out of the labyrinth.

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God who cares if Dorothy was white

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You're right. I thought Ashanti was perfect for the part. She has a beautiful voice.

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She was okay Not the best acting from her. But she was pretty good as Dorothy Gale

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0422778/board/flat/17052088
This is a reference to another thread dealing with this topic, a more recent one. I think they could have picked a better actress to portray Dorothy but it has nothing to do with her color or ethnicity. I think Kelly Rowlands would have done better or Mya, not sure about their acting skills though.

But of course, if a black person did'nt get the spot they would be calling racist.
I seriously doubt that.



spam *bump* n3tsp3ak *lol* and bad grammer is evil

Please Don't Feed The Trolls!

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Personally, I don't see anything about the Dorothy character that either screams White or Black. Based on her actions, behaviors, dialogue, etc., Dorothy is race-neutral, as far as I can tell.

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In the books of the Wizard books, Frank Baum never said that Dorthy was black or white. All the movies are based on the books, so it doesn't matter if Dorothy is black or white.

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So, just because you don't have black person. In the main role does not mean your racist. Besides is it bad to have people of diffrent races in movies.

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ppl dorothy was always white, therefore i doubt that would have happened. Thy just did it for the demographics. They need a star to take the role, if she happened to be black then there would be no problem. Beats having hilary duff or lindsay lohan doesnt it?

Draco Malfoy: The Amazing Bouncing White Ferret

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Broken_Hearts, what the hell is wrong with you?

"Fox has figured out that if you put a question mark at the end of something, you can say fu*king anything."

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And Toto was a dog. But clearly they had to change that to appeal to the crustacean demographic.

Hasn't society yet reached a point where race doesn't matter? Especially in something as insignificant as a crappy TV movie.


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Crustacean demographic? 3ebgirl, please remember where you are posting at. The majority of these ignoramus'...excuse me, I mean "dum-dums" have no idea what you are talking about.

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??? This is the most pointless thread i've ever read!

Yes, in the original she was white.. just like in the original the scarecrow wasnt a frog!

see?

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This is a retarded thread. They changed the story and modernized it!

But, for the sake of argument, the original Dorothy Gale almost had to be white. There's nothing in the original story to tell you that? Are you serious??? It's on a Kansas farm in like 1890-1915 thereabouts! And furthermore, it's all motivational populist allegory. (The brainless farm laborer and the unemotional lumberjack and those who lack courage can change their lives and it doesn't really take a genius in a far-off land, ta-da!). Given this background and the setting of those times, I simply can't see Dorothy Gale in the original being black, no way no how no matter what isn't explicitly said in the book.

But they changed the setting and storyline, so all of that is moot and there's nothing wrong with Dorothy being black.

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It's a freaking movie people. If you actually care about someone's race in a film then you are stupid.

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by - Notedog48 on Fri Aug 19 2005 18:03:54
"Yeah! I'm a white guy and I'm going to play the part of a slave in the remake of roots! Race DOES matter in films people, where it doesn't matter is real life. Any man, regardless of skin color can work any job from a cashier at McDonalds, to the top of a giant bussiness corporation. Only a white woman could play the part of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Only a black person could play the part of a slave (in America during the 1800s smartasses). Of course, since this version is modernized, Dorothy can become multiracial since it's in a diffrent time."

Heh. Then I will explain detail from detail then. Now if it is something like "Roots" where something is based on a TRUE story, NON-fictional, then yes, race does matter, but since when was The Wizard of Oz non-fictional, or ever inspired by a true story? Huh? NEVER! So therefore, it does NOT matter. If they had a movie about George Washington and they wanted Cedric the Entertainer to play him, or if they want to have Val Kilmer play Martin Luther King Jr., then you can whine and moan about it, but fictional stories, people don't need to be a certain race to play a role. No, anyone of any color or race could play Dorothy. But not a slave, due to the fact that slavery indeed did happen. And since when I or anyone else mention the 1800s...smartass?

I mean you people act like you are going to die just because someone of a different race is playing some role. This topic was basically made up just because they wanted to say something negative.

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"But it's based on a book that WAS written, and in the book, without ever stating it, it is proven that she is in fact white."

"Yes they do if the character was written as white, then they should be white. If they were written as black then they should be black."

Once again, it is fictional and race doesn't/shouldn't matter. Plus when ever they get someone else for a part in a movie, who is a different race from the original, most of the time it is a different universe from the original.


"Wow, no ****?"

Don't get smart. I was referring to the topic creator.

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"Once again, it is fictional and race doesn't/shouldn't matter."

But the original is set in early 1900s Kansas...and Dorothy is a descendant of people who have hired help...

Given the HISTORICAL elements of the work of fiction, she is/was/has to be white.

Note, since they changed that historical setting, and thus the story, I don't think it matters anymore, making this a moot argument, but race DOES matter in fiction when you're using historical settings where race DID matter.

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"But the original is set in early 1900s Kansas...and Dorothy is a descendant of people who have hired help...

Given the HISTORICAL elements of the work of fiction, she is/was/has to be white.

Note, since they changed that historical setting, and thus the story, I don't think it matters anymore, making this a moot argument, but race DOES matter in fiction when you're using historical settings where race DID matter."

Yes, but it is fiction, where anything could happen.

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Reading the last few posts made me realize I would hate if a black person ever played James Bond, or Wolverine. I would also hate it if a white person portrayed Jubliee.

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LMAO! Yeah, who is that?

Dorothy is every nationality. White, Black, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Asian, etc...every little girl has read this book and we all sen her as what we see ourselves. I never cared about her skin or anything growing up but I did always have dreams of being Dorothy, a little black girl name Dorothy Gale.

Truth about me: "Timid and shy and scared am I of things beyond my ken."

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Quite innocently i started looking at the user comments for this film after watching it on Channel Five in the UK and thinking that as a comedy film it was a little below par since it didn't make me or my family laugh, in fact we were bordering on boredom.

With this opinion in mind i was alarmed to see several user comments saying things such as 'a black Gale Family - what a twist', and then i came across this vehemant attack of the movie because they cast a black girl in the main role. Am i alone in thinking that the skin colour of actors etc isn't an issue anymore, especially when it was never mentioned in the movie.

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Really now? I NEVER KNEW THAT O.O


Who cares if she was white? The Scarecrow wasn't a frog, but Kermit still played him, didn't he?

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My opinion: The person that started this thread, is a racist.

Joe Eccles. ---><--- Twistan!!!.

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actually, you seem racist.

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haven't you seen peter pan with mary martin in the lead role?

how about the wizard of oz with a teenage dorothy?

being a black main character doesn't make the movie bad.

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its because we all grew up with the ORIGINAL movie, and in the original movie and in our minds we have always had a certain PERSPECTIVE and VIEW of exactly what dorothy should/does look like........

sure, it may sound a bit racist, but COME ON PEOPLE!...dorothy, in the wizard of oz, is a white chick!

see, this is what happens when they remake/change old films and 'modernize' them.....even though we 'arent supposed to' compare them to the original, a new version in our eyes just looks wrong.

that is why in my eyes Judy Garland will always be Dorothy, Gene Wilder IS Willy Wonka, and the perfect vision of Catwoman is Michelle Pfeiffer!

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Re bigmuzz "the perfect vision of Catwoman is Michelle Pfeiffer!"

What about Eartha Kitt? or was she rubbish cos she was black, granted Halle Berry was poor as Patience but then again it was a badly written role. What if Michelle Pfeiffer had played Patience in Catwoman, would that have made the movie better?

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What if Michelle Pfeiffer had played Patience in Catwoman, would that have made the movie better?


Hell no, it wasn't a black woman that ruined Catwoman... it was the complete disregaud of the fact Selina Kyle = Catwoman. Ignoring the comics and everything previously cat woman (including both the black Eartha Kitt and
white Julie Newmar). Kitt and Newmar were catwoman -- I don't know who Halle was playing.

As for a black Dorthy in a major motion picture, IT'S BEEN DONE BEFORE PEOPLE. Have we all forgotten there was a black Dorthy before, with a black wiz, a black everybody else in OZ. It was called THE WIZ.

Race would matter in a film specifically about American Slavery or in a film about a war specifically between two contries with distinct "race groups". So no, a white man could not play a slave in a movie like Roots, the characters race matters in a movie where race-related tensions are a theme. I mean we all know the actress playing the wicked witch of the west is white, but seeing as her skin is painted GREEN if a black actress played her in say a film version of "Wicked" what would it matter?

Arguably there are movies where a "black" version was created intentionally. There's a version of Disney's Polly (Pollyanna) with a white actress and another with a black acress (titled simply "Polly"). There's the original cinematic "Wizard of Oz" and the revamped "Wiz" (Black cast). While "The Wiz" and "Polly" can honestly be called "black" versions of movies with previously white cast, I think the "muppet wizard of OZ" is a case of color-blind casting with an available pop star (like that god awful version of Cinderella with Brandy). Was Brandy cast as Cinderella because she was Black, no it's because she was a name that could bring in an audience. Same here. Being a Pop Star proably had a lot more to do with Ashanti getting the role than her being black.

I have no doubt the orignal author, without even thoughts of race, imagined a white Dorthy but seeing as he didn't have a Pig as his witch of the (north, south, east, west) and his Toto was a dog not a Prawn? We can't exactly hold the Muppet Wizard of Oz to even holding up to the standards of what species the characters were. In the original book Dorthy was a human girl, in the movie she was a human girl. That's more than you can say about a lot of other characters in the Muppet Oz.


Rhonda Weasley
http://www.myspace.com/silentbard

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its because we all grew up with the ORIGINAL movie, and in the original movie and in our minds we have always had a certain PERSPECTIVE and VIEW of exactly what dorothy should/does look like........


Actually, I grew up with the ORIGINAL book, and I always thought the MGM movie screwed things up by casting Dorothy as a teenager, combining the witches of the North and South into one character and putting her in an ugly pink dress, and adding in the farmhands and Miss Gulch. The book never specified Dorothy's race, and there were plenty of midwestern farming families who were black or white in 1900.

As a matter of fact, this movie is much closer to the ORIGINAL than the 1939 movie is, even if they did still cast Dorothy as a teen.

"The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone..." ~ The Last Unicorn

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