Yes, but the pedant in me must point out that white people also belong to ethnic groups.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

Other ethnic groups. I figured anybody smart woukd get that.

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"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden

I got it, i pointed out that i was being pedantic.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

What was decades ago?

Hollywood cast a white girl as a real life Salvadorean in A Beautiful Mind in 2001. They cast a white girl as a black real life person in 2007 in Stuck. They changed an Inuit town sheriff into a white dude in 30 Days oaf Night, and a white woman to play a mixed race character (even changing her hair to look more black) in A Mighty Heart, both also in 2007. They dressed up a white guy to look Korean in Cloud Atlas in 2012. They cast a white guy as the lead role, a real life Hispanic man, in Argo also in 2012. In 2015, they cast a whiter than white girl in the character formerly known as the Native American Tiger Lily.

Sure, we don't do the kind of blatant stuff like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's quite as much, but it's not decades in the past since we've done this kind of stuff.

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Slowguy

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Ok. That makes no sense as there are an abundance of all of the above in Hollywood but you mentioned yul been we and that was what I'm talking about. Also as a fan of ghost in the shell from my teenage years I don't like johansson as hot as she is playing kusanagi.

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"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden

Surely the point is that when white people play a non-white role then either the ethnicity has no relevance (like the Hunger Games, where I read those books and had no idea that the character wasn't white, and am still not convinced. I'll have to google it), or else they're playing it in character. The audience of Gods and Kings isn't supposed to believe that Moses was actually a white Welshman, they're supposed to believe that Christian Bale is a Hebrew.

You'd struggle to argue that being male isn't a relevant aspect of the misogynistic, womanising James Bond character. So unless you're suggesting that Gillian Anderson would be playing the role in character as a man it doesn't seem like a meaningful comparison.

The series is set in 21st century Japan. The character is part of a series of stories that all revolve around Japans history since WWII and their disarmament, how they became a tech power, national identity, etc. The story and character are inherently and importantly Japanese in nature.

Much like changing James Bond to a woman, changing this Japanese character to a caucasian fundamentally changes the nature of the character. It's not a Western story, and it doesn't use Western themes. So they're either left making a movie about Japanese themes and characters with a white woman (whitewashing), or they're fundamentally changing who the character and what the story is about (more like the Bond discussion).

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Slowguy

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That is so cringeworthy. The rest of the movie still holds up but holy shit rooneys character is so racist!

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

I would be more inclined to agree if there was a wide audience who didnt know who bond is and there hasnt already been a bajillion movies made. If they do a reboot with bond as a woman, i dont have a problem with it. I also floated the idea of her playing bond as a mysognistic lesbian. Now tell me you wouldnt really want to see that!

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

You got me, Gillian Anderson as a misogynistic lesbian spy would certainly see me parted from my hard earned cash!

See we can agree on stuff even when we disagree on others!

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Yeah, I only mentioned Yul because Vitus did.

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Slowguy

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And I only did because you did. Interestingly I had to look him up a few years back because I thought he was an ethnicity other than white.

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"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden

Much like changing James Bond to a woman, changing this Japanese character to a caucasian fundamentally changes the nature of the character. It's not a Western story, and it doesn't use Western themes. So they're either left making a movie about Japanese themes and characters with a white woman (whitewashing), or they're fundamentally changing who the character and what the story is about (more like the Bond discussion).

Thanks for the background, it helps some. Still, I don't think it's going to be comparable to the female Bond scenario. It actually sounds like it's either whitewashing it, or they're pulling a Magnificent Seven with it.

Seven Samurai was, obviously, a specifically Japanese movie with Japanese themes, history, and characters. You can certainly argue that re-imagining it as a western fundamentally changed the story and the characters, and I'd agree in a sense- but not in the same sense as changing Bond from a man to a woman changes that character.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

C'mon now, that was awesome.

Never go full retard!

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Obviously the change isn't the "same," but I think we're just talking about degrees now. The difference between a Samurai and a Cowboy is pretty substantial.

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Slowguy

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Logical continuation of the Caitlyn Jenner dumpstah fire...James Bond undergoes a sex change.............</pink>

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"one eye doubles my eyesight, so things don't look half bad" John Hiatt

Obviously the change isn't the "same," but I think we're just talking about degrees now. The difference between a Samurai and a Cowboy is pretty substantial.

Yeah, but it's not a difference of degree, it's a difference in kind.

When you change samurai to gunslingers for a Western audience, you're obviously making a substantial change. But you're making that change in order to present the story and those characters in a way the audience will understand. You're changing some particulars about the original so that the audience will be able to understand and appreciate the underlying truth of the story you're telling them.

That's simply not the case when you talk about switching to a female James Bond in a movie intended for the same audience as has been watching for decades. It's an entirely different situation. You're not trying to present some core truth about Bond in a different way to a different audience in a way they can appreciate, you're simply talking about fundamentally changing your main character for the sake of novelty, and you can't do it without losing the character entirely.

To return to one of your earlier examples, you could rewrite Nancy Drew for a Japanese audience and name her Ichika and have her sleuthing around Kyoto and meddling with the Yakuza, or whatever. If you simply write a "Nancy Drew" book for the American market, but you make the main character a middle aged male detective, that's not a Nancy Drew book anymore. Nancy Drew is a fictional character, but Nancy Drew is a teen-aged female amateur sleuth. If not, she's just not Nancy Drew.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I just hope her love interest in the movie is named "Dick Galore"

I hate to break it to you, but that kind of change (male to female) if made, would not be to serve the audience that's been watching for decades. We're old. We're not the audience they're trying to serve anymore.


I don't disagree, but depending on how they did it, I suspect there are quite a few women would would see it differently. Plenty of them who can't identify with James Bond, and who would see the core truth of the Bond character in a different way.

Again, I'm not suggesting it's a good idea, and I agree, if done, it would probably not be motivated by any artistic ideal, but rather as blatant novelty and pandering to a particular audience.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I hate to break it to you, but that kind of change (male to female) if made, would not be to serve the audience that's been watching for decades. We're old. We're not the audience they're trying to serve anymore.

Semantic games. You know what the context of my comment was. A Japanese audience is different from an American audience. You're just talking about targeting a different demographic within the same audience.


I don't disagree, but depending on how they did it, I suspect there are quite a few women would would see it differently.

Whether or not a lot of women like the change, it doesn't change the fact that you don't have a James Bond movie anymore.

Hey, you write a new Nancy Drew book that has a hard drinking, cynical middle aged detective as the main character, I'd read it. But it's not a Nancy Drew book anymore.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

A different demographic IS a different audience. The fact that middle aged white men in America and young women of various races in America, or college aged men and women in America all come from the same country doesn't make them the same audience. Hollywood caters to different audiences. Men in our general age groups were the primary target audience for awhile, but we're starting to age out of the time where we are the primary target audience.



Yeah, I already said all that. I'm the one who first brought up Nancy Drew as an example.

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Slowguy

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A different demographic IS a different audience.

No, it's equivocating in terms of our discussion.


Yeah, I already said all that. I'm the one who first brought up Nancy Drew as an example.

Yeah, pretty sure I've already given you credit for the example.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Ok, whatever.

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Slowguy

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