Should White Savior movies be allowed anymore?
Are we sick of them yet?
shareNot just white in this one, also rich and privileged. Then again Batman and Iron man were the same.
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MovieChat Forums > Dune (2021) Discussion > Should White Savior movies be allowed an...
No. All Saviors from 2020 and on should be of color.
I'm not even white!
White is a colour. In fact white is all colours combined.
shareI thought black was all colors combined, while white was the absence of color.
shareYou got it backwards then. Black is what you see when all colours are absorbed by the surface and none is reflected, thus no color reactes your eyes and no signal is sent to the brain that there is something. When you see white your eyes are reacting to all the colors being reflected. Thus when you see white you are seeing all colours, when you see black you are not seeing any. With a black surface you cannot tell if the lighting is just red, just green or all colors together. With a white (reflective) surface you can because that colour is reflected into your eyes.
shareHow's it a white savior when the lead is a beta?
shareBecause...he's white?
shareYeah but he’s supposed to take back seat to the black chick.
shareI dunno, I haven't read the books and haven't seen David Lynch's version. I dunno what will happen in the sequel. I just know that this one was basically Timothee Chalamet becoming a Jedi
shareIf you read the books then you will see how Paul was actually a failure in the long run. It was the progeny of Paul and Chani that made the biggest impact on Dune in the future.
shareThe boy is the savior, no other character comes close to the prominence of him. The girl is not important to the story, later became his love interest, that is about it. Then again that is the book, the movie could be different.
shareNo, in the book Chani went to great lengths to keep Paul safe by involving herself in personal combat in his stead and also isolated herself to ensure she could bare his children.
shareAnd that is about it. The boy is the savior, she is just a girl. She occupies more screen time than the rest, that does not mean she is important in the story.
shareDepends upon how much of the sequels they put into the film. In the end Paul failed in his quest to save Chani and accomplish much after his jihad. He could not even save himself in the end.
shareOnly if you're an SJW. The rest of us don't care what race the savior character is.
shareYes, to annoy snowflakes like you.
shareI don't see any savior here ...
shareWell, that's the problem with diversity.
In the 80s version you didn't have that problem, since all actors were white. Now you introduce diversity quotas and, to follow the white-guilt dogma, evil guys will be white, and good guys will be diverse, so the moment you cast a single white in the "good" side, he becomes a white savior, which is problematic.
One of the historical consequences of too much proximity between different ethnic groups is conflict and war. What you pointed out is indeed an example of no matter how much you try to be politically correct and whip yourself, the result will be nothing but more problems and conflict.
So if a film producer is allowing any non-white actors to participate in the film, they are complying with a quota? What evidence do you have that anyone is complying with any sort of quota? Exactly who would be forcing the producer to use a diverse cast?
sharewho would be forcing the producer to use a diverse cast?
You mean every single news outlet that will run hit pieces on how it is to white or needs more diversity. We dont go a day without another article about it.
How about awards cermonies now requiring a certain percentage of actors to be non white to even be considered.
Movies and Tv are under immense pressure to cast poeple who are not white,straight or male as it is seen as it is seen better for some reason. share
So you don't have any names?
share"What evidence do you have that anyone is complying with any sort of quota? Exactly who would be forcing the producer to use a diverse cast?"
Here, read.
https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-establishes-representation-and-inclusion-standards-oscarsr-eligibility
Thanks. That was a very informative link.
But the standards indicate that meeting 2 of the 4 requirements still allows a completely "white-washed" cast full of white saviors, and still be able to be considered for an award nomination.
“White-washed” how? Were those characters POC to begin with? Was the movie made by a studio or film industry that didn’t originate in a predominantly white country?
“Considered” maybe, but winning awards? Not in this political climate.
Awards are no longer given by merit but by skin color. Segregation is back, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm saying a producer could, if they wanted, produce any film they want with an all white cast and still meet the guidelines in the above link.
Nomadland had a predominantly white cast with Frances McDormand in the lead. It won best picture this year.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9770150/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ql_cl
Let's not overlook that the director was Chinese, and a woman, who won best director. 2 of the 3 Oscars were likely because of her alone. If you go on the Wikipedia page or other articles that mention the awards Nomadland won, they emphasize the gender and race of the winners, "the second woman to win this, the first Asian to win that".
shareyou can safely assume that it's much worse than that in the "unwritten" rules.
Just watch some movies/shows/etc ;)
Batman - batwoman (and gay)
Superman - black superman, gay superman
Thor - female thor, black female gay thor.
He-Man - She-Man (Tellia or what's her name) - and hinted to be gay or bi.
Foundation - a bunch of character gender swapped (and race)
Dune: few characters race/gender swapped. "Jihad" for some reason replaced with "crusade"
Etc etc.
You can cherry pick all you want, but the vast majority of films cater to the straight white audience with a vanilla straight white cast.
Which characters were race swapped in Foundation and Dune? I read books in both series and they contain very little on the physical description of the characters including their skin color. People have told me, on this forum, in the past, that the default skin color for science fiction characters is white. This is completely stupid of course.
If you're going to claim that a certain character in those books is white, then you should be able to show which page of the book this trait is shown, or a link to the author's claim that they wrote the character as a certain race. Just going by the book cover or a previous film adaptation is no good.
For example Heinlein's Juan Rico (Starship Troopers) is Filipino and Friday (Friday) is, in her own words, "brown".
Leith is NOT female and NOT black in Dune.
Salvor, Gaal and Demerzel had been gender swapped in Foundation. And yes, written in the 40s and after we can safely assume the default race of the characters as being white.
Why are you assuming the Liet Kynes is not black in the Dune book?
Why are 1940's science fiction characters white by default? Your say so is no good at all. Who is this "we" you speak of? It sure AF does not include me.
I don't assume, he is described as "Wisps of sandy hair protruded from it, matched by a sparse beard and thick brows. Beneath the blue-within-blue eyes, remains of a dark stain spread down to his cheeks. A matted depression across mustache and beard showed where a stillsuit tube had marked out its path..."
Light, blonde hair. So he's maybe not 100% white but for sure not black.
Plus he is a fremen and fremens are portraited as having olive skin, closer to ME population/Arabs than black.
"Why are 1940's science fiction characters white by default?" you should be able to answer this question yourself. If not, sorry.
Nice, you're the first I've seen on this forum to actually try to back up their claims with data from the book. Racists do not consider mixed race people to be white; why do you?
Based on what I read, it was claimed that Frank Herbert wrote the various Dune cultures by identifying the Harkonnens as Russians, Atreides as Americans and the Fremen as Arabs. All three of those cultures have various skin colors in them ranging from fair to dark.
The person making the claim (especially stupid claims) needs to be the one to support it with evidence. You should be smart, not sorry.
"Racists do not consider mixed race people to be white; why do you?"
For several reasons:
1) why do you assume I'm a racist??
2) at some moment in time Europeans, ME people and certain ethnicities from North Africa were considered caucasians - or "white" (or indo-europeans). Later the "white" term was used to depict just Europeans and lately I've seen trends of idiots arguing that Italians and Greeks are not ... white, only the Northern, Germanic and Slav populations being "white". So depends on how you define "white".
3) i NEVER said he should had been white. I said HE should NOT have been black. I don't see ANYONE complaining about Bardeem (quite a dark complexity) plaing Stilgar. And people complaining about Zendaya don't complain about her race but about her "acting", but I have to say that she was ok as Chani, so far.
"All three of those cultures have various skin colors in them ranging from fair to dark."
Europeans have various skin color in them ranging from fair to dark. That DOES'N MAKE THEM BLACK, apparently a surprise to you ...
"The person making the claim (especially stupid claims) needs to be the one to support it with evidence. You should be smart, not sorry." if you don't understand the social context (1940s) of my claim I'm sorry for you to either be ignorant or not smart enough. Your choice.
1. I didn't say you're a racist. I said you act like them.
2. So you would define people that live 8,000 to 20,000 years in the future to be a certain skin color because the natives of various land masses had certain traits in the 20th century?
I define black as simply a skin color; I assign no other attributes to the person.
3. You did say that Liet should be white when you claimed, "we can safely assume the default race of the characters as being white".
You shouldn't make a claim then refuse to support it with evidence just because you can claim the people who read your statements are ignorant. The usual accepted rules of polite debate insist that the person making the claim support it with something concrete.
If you lack the knowledge to support your claims, then don't make them. You will appear to be more intelligent if you stay away from the keyboard.
the vast majority of films cater to the straight white audience with a vanilla straight white cast.
In America and other predominalty-white countries, yes. Korean movies cater to Koreans, Japanese movies and anime cater to the Japanese, Indian movies cater to Indians..... see where I'm going with this?
And yet recently it's considered bad that most American movies cater to straight white people, for some reason. These days, any adaptations or remakes of previous American/European works are now race-washed, sexuality-washed, and gender-swapped to fit the new diverse narrative.
People have told me, on this forum, in the past, that the default skin color for science fiction characters is white. This is completely stupid of course.
Not really. If it was written by a white person, and the character's race wasn't specified, their default race is white until proven otherwise. I would assume the same thing if the writer was black, Asian, Hispanic, etc. The characters reflect the writer's race unless otherwise specified. This also goes for sexuality, characters are straight unless stated otherwise. That's just common sense.
For example Heinlein's Juan Rico (Starship Troopers) is Filipino and Friday (Friday) is, in her own words, "brown".
Those are examples of a white writer going out of his way to describe which characters aren't white. share
Claiming that the characters created by white writers are white by default is one of the stupidest things I've read on this forum. You call it common sense, I call it excessive bias.
shareAh, but you don't say anything when when I assume a character's race by default reflects writers that are Black, Asian, Indian, or Hispanic? That sounds excessively biased to me.
shareI do not know what other assumptions you make about other works. why should I make assumptions about what you think when I don't know you?
shareI already said what I assume about other works. Looks like you didn’t even bother reading the whole thing.
And you still haven’t said anything one way or the other about how I also assume that characters by default reflect the race of POC writers, despite mentioning it twice now. Very curious indeed...
Could it be that you are excessively biased after all? 😮
Well, you can assume what you want. But that does not mean a role was miscast just because your bring your prejudice or bias into the conversation.
shareI’ve already proven I’m not biased or prejudiced. Still can’t say the same for you.
I don’t wanna see white-washing in Journey to the West. I don’t want to see Asian-washing in African folktales. And I don’t want to see color-washing in stories written by white people
If white authors include POC characters by their own choice, that’s fine. Otherwise don’t support or condone altering their work for the sake of diversity, it’s disrespectful to the source material, the creator, and the fans.
The point I'm trying to make is that it is you who has decided that color a book character is. It is the author that actually defines their traits, not you.
If the author leaves their physical traits undefined, then there is nothing wrong with you deciding they are a certain color, unless you're telling others that they (film producers) need to define them the way you do.
There’s a lot of works done by POCs where characters’ specific traits aren’t defined, even though you’d think their names and the story’s setting would be big indicators as to what they look like. If they were white-washed, it would not go over well, and understandably so.
Even if their skin colors were defined, such as in Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, and of course Dune, that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from color-washing them anyway. So no matter what authors do, Hollywood will color-wash (and gender-swap) them regardless for muh diversity.
I don’t wanna see white-washing in Journey to the West. I don’t want to see Asian-washing in African folktales. And I don’t want to see color-washing in stories written by white people
This 👍 share
Actually The Oscars do have diversity rules now, including numerical targets.
.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/9/9/21429083/oscars-best-picture-rules-diversity-inclusion
Meh, could not care less. They are not a government funded institution, as far as I know, so they can do as they please for the most part.
shareIt's not possible for humans to evolve on a desert planet with 140 degree temperature and be white-skinned. I'll assume the novelist was racist. They should have all the characters portrayed as black to avoid the diversity issue you have.
"evil guys will be white, and good guys will be diverse"
Off topic, but similar to Nazi Germany vs Americans; Evil Empire vs Rebel Alliance; Republicans vs. Democrats.