• aGlassDarkly@piefed.zip
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    11 hours ago

    It’s a myth. No one who matters cares what color the actor’s skin is as long as they do good work portraying the character.

    • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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      8 hours ago

      Tell that to Ursula Le Guin when she saw all those white people in the Earthsea adaptations.

      Note: There are few characters in the Earthsea books who are white precisely because most fantasy is white.

      • aGlassDarkly@piefed.zip
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        8 hours ago

        If you can’t tell the difference between random white people on the internet complaining about a film adaptation of the Odyssey and the author of Earthsea not liking the TV show they made about her books just because they’re both fictional narratives, you might be a bit out of your depth in attempting to critique Le Guin about anything.

            • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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              4 hours ago

              That’s partly on me. To be clear, I wanted to point out there are cases where it’s a valid complaint, outside of the usual white genocide dipshits. The current “controversy” with Helen is not one of those cases

    • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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      10 hours ago

      I might care if the character has a well-defined appearance in the source material and it’s important to their character. That’s not the case for The Odyssey of course, but there’s a steelman version of the argument that has some merit.

    • Viceversa@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      It’s a myth.

      It’s a myth of ancient Greece.

      In my opinion the appearance of an actor may be irrelevant for the theatrical piece, but for cinema miscast will damage the overall image.

      • aGlassDarkly@piefed.zip
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        9 hours ago

        Bullshit. It’s a modern take on an ancient myth where half the characters are barely described physically. Nothing about people who never existed can be miscast by skin color, unless you’re going to try to tell me that this is meant to be a historical reenactment of, again, events that never happened.

        I suppose Charybdis could be miscast if they used a kangaroo, but frankly I haven’t seen the movie and don’t know if that part is even depicted.

        • Viceversa@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          Nothing about people who never existed can be miscast by skin color

          You’re ready to throw ethnological context out of the window?
          It seems pretty important to the myth representation.

          • aGlassDarkly@piefed.zip
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            9 hours ago

            If seeing a black person in a movie ruins the “myth representation” for you, maybe just skip going to see it. No one’s going to drag you to a theatre and strap you into a chair.

            • Viceversa@lemmy.world
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              8 hours ago

              It would be strange to me to see a Caucasian person in a film adaptation of a myth of ancient China or of an African tribe as well.

              • aGlassDarkly@piefed.zip
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                8 hours ago

                Maybe skip those too, then ¯_(ツ)_/¯

                There isn’t a shortage of movies. I’m willing to bet someone is out there pandering to your preference for historically accurate skin tone in fictional stories where it’s barely described and has no meaning in relation to the plot.