MovieChat Forums > The Spanish Princess (2019) Discussion > About the blackwashing and the historica...

About the blackwashing and the historical sources

posted 5 years ago by kuku (3510)
11 replies | jump to latest

It seems that the black chick is based in an historical character named 'Catalina'*. She was a Moorish slave assigned to Catalina de Aragon and became one of the 60 servants that traveled with her to England. Her ethnicity is unknown, she could have been Arab or Black**.

https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/other-catalina

After her manumission, she would marry a Moor cross-bow maker named 'Oviedo'. Ethnicity unknown, though he was probably Arab (just a matter of probability).

So that was it. Hollywood singled out this one out of the 60 servants and made her a main character. Then they brought Oviedo and made him black, and put him near to the princess, which is total nonsense: after a war with the Moors, you place a free Moor armed with weapons besides a member of the Royal Family. What could go wrong?

And then some.

Here there's a pic
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYmJkNmEwOTYtMDYwMC00NjI3LWJmZDctNjkwYzhjZjZjZjEwXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjg2NTgwMDc@._V1_.jpg

Hollywood got a slave that could have been Arab or Black, among the 60 servants of princess Catalina, and ended up having half of the characters in the plane where the princess lands in England being black...

When the House Tyrell of Game of Thrones looks closer to the Spanish Court than your supposedly accurate historical series... well...

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*Sometimes she's called 'Catalina de Cardona', but that's wrong, Catalina de Cardonas was a different person: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalina_de_Cardona

**She was compared to a black pygmy, and that's all what we know about it. But comparing Arabs to Blacks was a frequent insult back then. The term 'Moor' itself means black, and it was often used as an insult. Nowadays, it would be labeled as the 'M-word'.
However, the height's clear: she must have been short.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Who cares? They're all human. Good enough.

[–] BourbonKing (5639) 4 years ago

You spend waaaay too much time about "black washing". Maybe you should spend more time showing the history of Hollywood White Washing world history, not just America (from the Colonia/Revolution to Western/20th Century) where for over 50 years movies about world figures were portrayed by White actors even though many weren't of European of origin

[–] Threadkiller (2958) 4 years ago

White supremacists are gonna white supremacize.

[–] Satan2016 (23507) 4 years ago

And SJWs are going to HATE. You make NAZIs look civilized!

[–] samoanjoes (51249) 4 years ago

Two wrongs don't make a right.

[–] kukuxu (5409) 4 years ago

You spend waaaay too much time about "black washing". Maybe you should spend more time showing the history of Hollywood White Washing world history, not just America (from the Colonia/Revolution to Western/20th Century) where for over 50 years movies about world figures were portrayed by White actors even though many weren't of European of origin

Cinema was born using the Theatre as a model. In Theatre, companies represented historical events without caring about whether the race was correct or not. European theatre used European actors. Chinese theatre used Chinese actors. SouthAmerican theatre used SouthAmerican actors. And the same happened with cinema.

As it happens with slavery, or with whatever else, something that was the standard in the whole world, suddenly and for some (woke) reason, it becomes white's fault.

Don't use what was the usual situation in cinema and theatre in the whole world (and not only in white countries) to justify modern woke anti-white policies.

[–] BourbonKing (5639) 4 years ago

The usual situation TODAY is that movie studios pander to the widest possible economic demographic. 50 plus years ago the theater and movie studios factored that White Americans were the bread and butter of their economic ecosystem so they cast White actors and wrote movies with a white American sensibility and perspective which included racist attitudes towards people like Blacks, native Americans, Asians, and so on.

There's nothing Woke but your position is certainly a Joke.

[–] kukuxu (5409) 4 years ago

So, to (allegedly) pander black demographics in US, you piss off half of white population in western countries, and the whole Asian population (they're becoming more and more hostile to woke stuff). Great move, sir.

There's a reason why the expression "get woke, go broke" was coined.

Hollywood going woke has no reasonable economical explanation. It's a religious choice, and religious faith doesn't care about economics.

[–] BourbonKing (5639) 4 years ago

"So, to (allegedly) pander black demographics in US, you piss off half of white population in western countries, and the whole Asian population (they're becoming more and more hostile to woke stuff). Great move, sir."

That's your claim, and I haven't seen any such thing in real life either.

The "get woke, go broke" was created by a guy like you who hates seeing non-whites existing in their world which btw isn't an all-white society. It wasn't penned by any so-called SJW.

"Hollywood going woke has no reasonable economical explanation. It's a religious choice, and religious faith doesn't care about economics."

Hollywood went woke when Jewish American immigrants saw an economic opportunity to market film stories to mass audiences on a broader scale that vaudeville theater couldn't replicate at the time of movie reel technology being used. Religion has nothing to do with mass marketing and making money, unless you're an organized religion that uses tax breaks and owns lots of land. There was never any codified rule stating that all media representations had to be Whites-Only even though segregation was in full effect nationwide with Hollywood was born.

[–] brux (14666) 4 years ago

and so ... what is your point?

[–] Stratego (29288) 3 years ago

That you're a racist and bigoted moron.