The Woman Who Really Did This Was Black

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Mena Suvari was badly miscast in this film. In real life she is caucasian, of course and a natural blonde. So, what happens here? They dye her hair black and have it corn-row braided. Still not enough to convince us that she is black. Why? BECAUSE HER EYES ARE STILL BLUE! Why couldn't the producers hire a BLACK actress to portray a BLACK character? Another salient reason why this film was so bad to begin with.

Mena Suvari was "tricked out" to look black. Well, they dyed her naturally blond hair black and then had it done into corn row braids. They added some dark toned make up. Just one glaring problem. They neglected to put BROWN colored contact lenses over her very BLUE caucasian eyes. So, who is going to buy into her transformation into a black actress? Did anyone else in this audience feel insulted by this lame tactic? I knew the film was going to be a mess when I saw her in her first scene. Just how much of a mess would be revealed later. A waste of her talent and a waste of film. Whoever financed this travesty deserves to have lost money at the box office.

It is easy to tell that filonus is under 25 as he can't seem to name any movies from the 60's or 70's in any of his examples.If you think casting is irrational you are missing the point of that movies are a business and follows it's own business logic.From the 1930's to early 1960's there are hardly any minorities in movies other than to play villians or servants.In the late 60's you see a change in leading actors like Jim Brown in 100 Rifles with Rachel Welch and Richard Roundtree in Shaft.Now today you have Samuel Jackson,Denzel Washington and Will Smith being the lead actor in movies something that would never happen in 1961.Why? Because they can make studios money by getting a target audience into seats.Nothing altruistic about it.The business logic generally was and still is that the American audiences want to see characters that they can relate to and that is why alot of movies are cast the way there are today even if it seems illogical.The range of who the audience can relate to has expanded a bit in the last couple of decades and perhaps bit by bit anyone can headline a movie(eg Harold and Kumar)Take Forbidden Kingdom and ask why Jet Li and Jackie Chan put the white kid in the movie.They easily could have vetoed it as they are big stars in the project they were producing but Jet Li candidly remarks he wanted to hook the large target audience of 14 to 19 year white kids on the Chinese classic of the Monkey King.Also ask yourself why foriegn movies are remade into English like Infernal Affair into The Departed or the Ring movies.The idea is that they will sell better with American actors and English dialogue even if the remakes are not as good as the original.Remember in movies always follow the money.

I did like your list of white saviour movies but I think a few are little misplaced.Last Samurai I agree as I rolled my eyes at Samurai Tom(I am sure he will make a way more convincing Nazi though in Valkyrie)But in New World it was Pocanhotas who saves John Adams and the English colony to be repaid with warfare so that one is a miss.Dance with Wolves was the other way around.It was the deeply traumatized Civil War veteran who was healed by the the noble virtues of the Sioux culture(a 2000 year throwback to Tacitus).I think better examples of what your looking at is "The Mission","The Painted Veil" and "The Quiet American"Some interesting white anti-savior movies is the Canadian movie called Black Robe about French Jesuits among the Huron.It could be called a New French World.Also "At Play in the fields of the Lord" and "The Emerald Forest" about modern culture intruding on the Amazon Indians

Bravo, Filonus. You beat me to it. Well done.

I agree with you about Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart, Filonus salawu. I didn't understand the point in why her skin had to be darkened in order to play the part and a lot of people were incredibly pissed off and offended that I didn't quite see the point. It wasn't even that I had a problem with her playing the part, I didn't, I just wondered why if the filmmakers wanted the character to be realistic by having darker skin, then they could have simply abandoned the idea if they were going to ultimately cast a white actress. Check out my post on the Mighty Heart message board to get an idea of the irrationally hostile answers I got from most everyone who replied. It seems a lot of them were more interested in being offended that I brought it up than in actually studying what I was trying to say and seeing if there was a point to it.