Hollywood's worst casting decisions?

AlmightyBender said:
Not triggered at all for once. Fully support this:
www.buzzfeed.com

12 White Actors Who Played A Person Of Color Or Put On Blackface, Brownface, Or Yellowface For A Role

Scarlett Johansson played Major Mira Killian / Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell. The casting received a lot of criticism since the movie was based on a Japanese manga.
www.buzzfeed.com www.buzzfeed.com
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That is actually a very interesting post only about white actors for some reason whereas I'm against all race-swapping. Are you only against white actors?

And I'm not against James Bond going undercover as a Japanese man the same way I'm not against black people going undercover as "White Chicks™" lol. Nothing wrong with either of those at all. I mean why would anyone be against someone going undercover?

And as for a white actor playing Dr No who has a white father and Chinese mother, would it have been totally ok if the actor was Chinese instead? Even though Dr No is half-European? Or does that only work on way?
 
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wbot said:
That is actually a very interesting post only about white actors for some reason whereas I'm against all race-swapping. Are you only against white actors?

And I'm not against James Bond going undercover as a Japanese man the same way I'm not against black people going undercover as "White Chicks™" lol. Nothing wrong with either of those at all. I mean why would anyone be against someone going undercover?
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You should know me well enough by now masekind.

I think the issue is a lot more complex and nuanced than white vs not white. My personal view is that where race plays a role in the point or substance of the narrative then we should be very careful in casting. That handles things like Hitler being cast to a black person and Mandela being cast to a white person. But then at the same time we must factor in the author/director's purpose and tone and desired impact. Example you could do both of those things in a satirical way to make some kind of point and it might be acceptable depending on execution. Again the more you look at this the more complex it gets.

Also is the casting relying on damaging racial stereotypes? (e.g. the stereotypes used in White Chicks is obviously not damaging to anybody) So many many factors to consider.

Some things are obviously a bad idea and others are not so obvious. Things like Helen of Troy and Snow White are mythology and don't require race "accuracy" to make their point. Those roles are without doubt in the grey zone of this.

Each one on its merits I guess.
 
@wbot so my contribution here to the OP question would be Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey in the adaption of Stephen King's Dark Tower movie. That was dumb woke nonsense executed terribly. A feeble attempt.

Just swap the castings there ffs. Idris can pull off a villain brilliantly but Matthew just isn't capable but he could have nailed Roland.
 
AlmightyBender said:
You should know me well enough by now masekind.

I think the issue is a lot more complex and nuanced than white vs not white. My personal view is that where race plays a role in the point or substance of the narrative then we should be very careful in casting. That handles things like Hitler being cast to a black person and Mandela being cast to a white person. But then at the same time we must factor in the author/director's purpose and tone and desired impact. Example you could do both of those things in a satirical way to make some kind of point and it might be acceptable depending on execution. Again the more you look at this the more complex it gets.

Also is the casting relying on damaging racial stereotypes? (e.g. the stereotypes used in White Chicks is obviously not damaging to anybody) So many many factors to consider.

Some things are obviously a bad idea and others are not so obvious. Things like Helen of Troy and Snow White are mythology and don't require race "accuracy" to make their point. Those roles are without doubt in the grey zone of this.

Each one on its merits I guess.
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Personally I think if a character was created as white, black, brown, blue, whatever, they should always stay that way. Regardless if race is central to their story or not.
 
wbot said:
Personally I think if a character was created as white, black, brown, blue, whatever, they should always stay that way. Regardless if race is central to their story or not.
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Fair enough. Just seems very arbitrary to me and very limiting. If we extrapolate your requirement then we get into some weird outcomes such as Jesus needing to be depicted in films as Egyptian cause that character was blatantly plagiarized from Horus :p or at minimum a bruinou! He was never ever written as white. The concept of race as we define it now didn't even exist in those times.

I personally don't mind humans sharing their stories through rewriting and retelling and reinterpreting as times change and we change.
 
AlmightyBender said:
You should know me well enough by now masekind.

I think the issue is a lot more complex and nuanced than white vs not white. My personal view is that where race plays a role in the point or substance of the narrative then we should be very careful in casting. That handles things like Hitler being cast to a black person and Mandela being cast to a white person. But then at the same time we must factor in the author/director's purpose and tone and desired impact. Example you could do both of those things in a satirical way to make some kind of point and it might be acceptable depending on execution. Again the more you look at this the more complex it gets.

Also is the casting relying on damaging racial stereotypes? (e.g. the stereotypes used in White Chicks is obviously not damaging to anybody) So many many factors to consider.

Some things are obviously a bad idea and others are not so obvious. Things like Helen of Troy and Snow White are mythology and don't require race "accuracy" to make their point. Those roles are without doubt in the grey zone of this.

Each one on its merits I guess.
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I thought the one race/gender change that worked was Liet Kynes in Dune part one. Kynes in the book is a white guy, played by a black lady in the movie and it worked because her gender or race didn't matter at all to the character and I thought she was really good.
 
Cray said:
I thought the one race/gender change that worked was Liet Kynes in Dune part one. Kynes in the book is a white guy, played by a black lady in the movie and it worked because her gender or race didn't matter at all to the character and I thought she was really good.
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Exacto
 
AlmightyBender said:
He was never ever written as white.
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To be fair, Jesus was also never described as brown, black, Asian etc and yet brown, black and even Asian etc Jesus exists. There is no real description of His hair or whatever else.

Yes, Jesus was most likely brown or a tanned Middle Eastern guy though like many Jews today. But Jesus is depicted differently across the globe to make Him more relatable to the local cultures. Hence why you get white Jesus in white cultures, black Jesus in many African or even black American cultures, brown Jesus in the Middle East, South America etc. There's an Asian Jesus in parts of Asia, there's even a native American one.

White Jesus is so common only because of historic Western power, colonialism and missionary work thoughout the world.

Same thing happens with other religions. Like Buddhism. Buddha is depicted differently to reflect the local culture. Like Indian-style Buddha or East-Asian Buddha. There was even Greek or Greco Buddha :p
 
wbot said:
To be fair, Jesus was also never described as brown, black, Asian etc and yet brown, black and even Asian etc Jesus exists. There is no real description of His hair or whatever else.

Yes, Jesus was most likely brown or a tanned Middle Eastern guy though like many Jews today. But Jesus is depicted differently across the globe to make Him more relatable to the local cultures. Hence why you get white Jesus in white cultures, black Jesus in many African or even black American cultures, brown Jesus in the Middle East, South America etc. There's an Asian Jesus in parts of Asia, there's even a native American one.

White Jesus is so common only because of historic Western power, colonialism and missionary work thoughout the world.

Same thing happens with other religions. Like Buddhism. Buddha is depicted differently to reflect the local culture. Like Indian-style Buddha or East-Asian Buddha. There was even Greek or Greco Buddha :p
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Spoiler alert. He was made up
 
Cius said:
Thinking hard about this as sometimes it's a bad script more than a miscasting. The two I know a lot of people disliked from the comic book world would be:

1. Toby McGuire as Spiderman. Again, I thought he did a good job but most fans of the comics disliked it as Spiderman is typically an upbeat quippy character and Toby McQuire played a real sad sack kind of spiderman role.

2. Jason Mamoa as Aquaman: Both in looks and personality the dark brooding aquaman is far from the blond clean cut comic book character.
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No, Aquaman is dark and brooding in the comics and has issues with the surface world.. Maybe in the early days of comics was he fresh and clean cut but that changed.

That wasn't really Toby's fault though was it, the director and script forced him into that role. Look how he changed when he got the black symbiote suit.
 
Another near miss.

Will Smith was asked to star as Neo in The Matrix. He refused.

What were the Wachowski brothers thinking. All other casting was spot on.
 
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