A Hollywood executive wanted Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman in a biopic

DaisyDay said:

Yul Brynner and Rex Harrison as King Mongkut of Siam.

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It's still not accurate, but at least Yul Brynner had partial Buryat ancestry. The Buryats are definitely Asian (being a Mongolic people):

ananda said:

Don't forget, many of those apparently white people in those games might have actually self-identified as black.

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Certainly, many of the people playing the games have.

solid_core said:

Do not watch it if you do not like it.

I also stopped watching the tv series Merlin because thay had to put a black actress as a Guinevra to make it more multicultural, which is silly.

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I always found that weird. Even when Lancelot was interpreted by a Chilean, I always thought he was British

dzheremi said:

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Johnny Depp is actually very, very real. That really happened.

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I've been a fan of Johnny Depp for more years than I care to admit. I went to see him when he was in Lawton, Oklahoma back in 2012. I met him and we shook hands. I said hello to him and told him that it was very nice to meet him. I tried very hard not to fangirl since I was 39 years old. I thought he was sweet to me and to his other fans. I went with a personal friend who was one of the Native American stuntmen in the Lone Ranger. Johnny was the Grand Marshal of a parade in Lawton and he was named an honorary member of the Comanche Nation in Oklahoma. It was a memorable experience for me.

solid_core said:

So its normal. And its on us if we will watch it or not.

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What is normal? White people thinking they are the "universal" type and everyone is too specific?

As somebody said, facebook has 48 sexual identities. But its on me if I will use facebook or not.

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Who cares? This thread is about a producer wanting Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman...

Ana the Ist said:

This guy is 26. When did he start shopping this script around? I'd be surprised if this really happened.

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Who is "this guy" that is 26? Gregory Allen Howard is 57.

solid_core said:

Do not watch it if you do not like it.

I also stopped watching the tv series Merlin because thay had to put a black actress as a Guinevra to make it more multicultural, which is silly.

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Just trivia...
I went to school with a girl who could be Angel Coulby's sister, her family's heritage was from Sicily, Italy. The Romans invaded Great Britain in the 50s BC and ruled there until around 400 AD.
Coulby's skin tone and features are quite consistent with what Guinevere could have looked like if she were a real person.

And everyone, I mean everyone, knows who Buryats are. Give me a break. Hollywood's fake -- we're bored so let's make a lot of fuss over ethnic identities a thing -- phase bores me. It's disgusting that this 'hey, look at how we great we are' phase is still going on. Social Justice Warriors and all that.

Julia Roberts as a black woman? Beyond stupid. Just to be clear -- beyond stupid. A symptom of boredom and let's rearrange reality because we're Hollywood -- again.

DaisyDay said:

What is normal? White people thinking they are the "universal" type and everyone is too specific?

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That's rich...broad generalizations of what an entire race "thinks".

Who cares? This thread is about a producer wanting Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman...

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Which producer?

.

Mattin91 said:

And everyone, I mean everyone, knows who Buryats are. Give me a break.

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Hmm? My point was that the casting of Brynner to play the king of Siam, while still inaccurate, is perhaps not quite as bad as casting an actor with no Asian heritage whatsoever to play him.

Moral Orel said:

Who is "this guy" that is 26? Gregory Allen Howard is 57.

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My mistake...misread it.

dzheremi said:

Hmm? My point was that the casting of Brynner to play the king of Siam, while still inaccurate, is perhaps not quite as bad as casting an actor with no Asian heritage whatsoever to play him.

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And yet...people are still whining about Cleopatra being played by Liz Taylor.

dzheremi said:

Hmm? My point was that the casting of Brynner to play the king of Siam, while still inaccurate, is perhaps not quite as bad as casting an actor with no Asian heritage whatsoever to play him.

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Oh, I got that. But Hollywood's current schtick is so-called "diversity."

Ana the Ist said:

And yet...people are still whining about Cleopatra being played by Liz Taylor.

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Which people? Where? A movie designed to play to a mainly white European, or European heritage audience needs a white woman they can relate to. Historical accuracy was, at the time, only in documentaries.

DaisyDay said:

It has always gone in the opposite direction - Claudette Colbert and Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, Orson B. Wells as Othello, unnamed extras as Indians in Westerns, Keith Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine,Warner Oland as Charlie Chan, Yul Brynner and Rex Harrison as King Mongkut of Siam. That list goes on and on.

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They tried to explain away Carradine in Kung Fu by saying he was the son of missionaries who became an orphan.

I'm not too broken up about Bruce Lee not getting the role. I actually think that back story made it more interesting potentially. Too bad the TV series was full of Orientalism, and wasn't a very accurate portrayal of much of its subject matter.

Rene Loup said:

Nowadays, controversy is what sells. People and advertisers make something controversial, people get all up in arms about it, the discussion about it continues, and eventually goes viral and many people know about it. It's much more effective than putting a 30 second ad on cable television that we will likely forget about later that day.

People have figured out a way to profit from outrage culture.

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That is fiction. I work in the media. That's just like saying 'sex sells." The average person may be less educated than some but is not stupid. 'Outrage' and other nonsense, burns out quickly. People identify the crazy images and words quite quickly, and reject them. Why should anyone waste their time by engaging with it?

"go viral"? Not that many things go viral. The fact is there is too much information hitting the average person. They don't see all of it. They can't. Just because the internet amounts to hundreds of additional TV/radio stations does not mean anyone was given more than 24 hours in a day. I read the advertising trade press. Advertising Age is still writing about companies who are still trying to get people's attention on the internet. The bottom line: They can't - not everyone. So they come up with nonsense and the outrageous hoping someone will notice.

Mattin91 said:

Which people? Where? A movie designed to play to a mainly white European, or European heritage audience needs a white woman they can relate to. Historical accuracy was, at the time, only in documentaries.

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It's a 2 page thread...

As for "historical accuracy" she was Greek.

Ptolemaic Kingdom - Wikipedia

Which is funny because arguably...it doesn't matter.

Ana the Ist said:

It's a 2 page thread...

As for "historical accuracy" she was Greek.

Ptolemaic Kingdom - Wikipedia

Which is funny because arguably...it doesn't matter.

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Some people think Egyptians were predominantly black. I guess because they are in Africa?

At the time, in a movie, it didn't matter. They needed a white woman to play to a white audience. I know a Greek woman with a pale complexion. So, again, it does not matter and this sort of thing is a symptom of Hollywood's current obsession -- diversity. Historical accuracy is good, but in this case, not if you want to sell movie tickets.