Listen up Hollywood Directors and those who don't understand!
Listen up Hollywood directors, fans have economic power when it comes to movies and when you hear fans express their grievance towards casting choices or sticking with source material, you'd better listen up unless you just don't care about your movie tanking. Lets look at a few examples where fans were ignored;
The Last Airbender....This is another movie where the director, M Night Shyamalan, deviated from the original characters or source material and decided to mess around and cast people of different races for the parts. The cartoon characters were Native American and Asian yet M. Night got the fancy idea of whitewashing all the characters. He should have listened to fans. A big no no! When you have diehard fans that are drawn to a cartoon that showcases something never before done........having cartoon characters all belonging to minority groups and giving them phenomenal powers, fans are empowered by these images that go against the norm and in a sense empowers them. You then take that away by casting them as white, this doesn't bode well. Think about the message that sends to people!
Jem.....John M Chu decided he was going to completely deviate from the source material and create his own thing and guess what.....fans showed him at the box office didn't they? John also whitewashed characters by casting a mixed race Asian and mixed African American and completely eliminating the Hispanic woman. He also took the power away from the women and gave it to the men making women powerless without men. People may not think this is a big deal but the purpose of Jem and the Holograms was in fact just that......to show girls that women could have power without begging the mercy of men and women could stand up to men and hold their own. It also empowered minority girls and for the first time, minority girls had someone to identity with. Aja was Asian, Shana was African American and Raya was Latina.
Nina......We already know the issue here and how this movie tanked. Take note Cynthia Mort! I watched the movie and thought Zoe Saldana's performance was phenomenal however, the black face makeup was horrible and distracting. She looked casket ready and that's just sad. A great deal of Caucasians don't really understand the problems with skin color issues however these colorism problems run deep in every single race....Native American, African American, Hispanic, Asians and so forth.
For years the standard of beauty has been a European standard of beauty and women with ethnic features and dark skin are told they were and are unattractive. This isn't good at all because truth is, the majority of women from non-white races are not mixed race nor posses European features so seeing ethnic women with dark skin is very important for self esteem of young girls.
I have many friends from India and they talk about how British rule in India set the standards for beauty. Women with dark skin are seen as ugly and not cast for major roles in Bollywood movies. Men don't want to marry dark skinned women with ethnic Indian features because they are deemed as ugly. So women resort to dangerous skin bleaching. It's an obsession in Indian culture.
In Mexico, women who are dark skinned with prominent Native American features are not allowed to participate in major beauty pageants nor are they cast in major movie roles. Those go to the lighter skinned more European looking and mixed Mexicans. But look around you, the majority of Mexican women are dark and have Native American features and so forth.
In movies, instead of casting full-blooded enrolled Native American actresses and actors who struggle to find roles already, directors continue casting the "my great grandma was Cherokee" types who have no ties to any tribes, didn't grow up in the culture nor are they enrolled. One thing they have in common is once again, they are primarily European looking with some Native features. Or directors will opt for people who are half white and half Asian for Native American roles. Once again inserting those Caucasian features in there. How do you think this makes enrolled Native Americans with dark skin and non-European features feel? Read about it, Native Americans speak of it often!
I have Korean, Chinese, Thai, Cambodian and Filipina friends who dream of marrying white men so they can have part white children with more European features. In their words....."half babies are prettier than full Asian because white people are prettier than Asian". Lighter skin and round eyes are more prettier than darker skin and slanted eyes according to them. In Asian countries, those who are part white and part Asian are venerated to the nth degree!
This is a serious matter that Caucasians don't understand the depth and devastation of it all. It may seem petty but it's not by any means!