MovieChat Forums > Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Discussion > Another white washing of a minority char...

Another white washing of a minority character!


You see it in movie after movie the latest example being Scarlet Johanssen playing a Japanese character in her new movie. HEY HOLLYWOOD WHITE PEOPLE ARE NOT 100% OF THE POPULATION YOU KNOW

In the original Star Trek Khan was played by a Mexican actor. Way to set progress back 30 years Hollywood!

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Villains are generally played by people with darker skin, and that’s true … unless the villain is one with intelligence, depth, complexity. One who garners sympathy from the audience, or if not sympathy, then — as from Kirk — grudging admiration. What this new Trek movie tells us, what JJ Abrams is telling us, is that no brown-skinned man can accomplish all that. That only by having Khan played by a white actor can the audience engage with and feel for him, believe that he’s smart and capable and a match for our Enterprise crew.

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I concur. Always someone gotta take offence. zzzz indeed.


...then whoa, differences...

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This hasn't aged well at all. It's usually white people who are the bad guys these days.

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Benedict Cumberbatch has the advantage of looking like he's "kind of human but probably not", without even a smudge of makeup.
Also, he's a fantastic actor, and was at the time of this movie a star rising.
That's probably why he was cast...

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Yeah, they should have gone with a White Mexican and paint him brown, like they did in TOS.

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Prophet_muhammed, my good dumbhead, this is a good sign, cause back in the 60s villains were mainyl either dark skinned or nazis. So now the villains are also white people. But fanatics like you interpreting any progress so that it could fit into their fanatism. You are a huge, huge problem!

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The film industry is comprised of limousine liberals. A dirty little truth is they don't really care about non-white people.

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You know, you don't look anything like your picture.

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For the millionth time, Ricardo Montalban's parents were both from Spain. Spaniards are considered caucasian.

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That, and Major Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell isn’t Japanese, she’s a robot with various aliases.

Japanese fans saw Scar Jo’s casting and liked it, saying she looked just like the character.

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First appearance of Motoko Kusanagi in the manga actually stated to the reader that that might not even be her real name...and she might not even be female. Conclusion of the story arc from the original animated film had Motoko ceasing to exist, having fused consciousness with genderless AI, and occupying the body of a child.

And here we got people who never watched or read any of that getting pissed that they cast Scarlett as a character named Mira Killian. I hated the backlash against her casting in frankly, what I thought was an underrated movie. They super diluted the story for a mainstream audience, but it was still a strong adaptation imo. But if there's any complaint to be made, it should be about that dilution.

Anywho, rant over lol this aint even the GITS page.

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Agreed. The movie itself wasn't good (nor was it terrible), but ScarJo's casting was definitely not the race-washing the whiners thought it was.

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If it's any consolation. Ricardo Montalban pulled the character off better than Cumberbatch.

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