Well, we've actually seen a black Dorothy. Diana Ross played her in The Wiz.
. Captain America represents a perennial now (or slightly future) America, and that is going to change as the face of America changes. Intellectually I agree with you on the matter; however I also contend that when you are dealing with the image of already established, beloved characters, people get awfully possessive of them. Using another example, Superman is supposed to stand for Freedom, Truth, and the American Way, but how many people do you think would get upset if they casted a Chinese-American dude to play him? I'm guessing a lot. Getting people to wrap their heads around that would be a little difficult because of the way cultural identity has been represented.
It's interesting that you picked Eat Drink, Man Woman, because there's a Mexican-American version of that movie that came out, Tortilla Soup (it had Hector Elizondo in it). In that case, it switched cultures, just not to a Caucasian one. Thoughts on that?
And oh yes. As I said towards the end, it's not just casting that's the problem. The lack of stories out there for minorities (be it gender, ethnicity or sexuality) as the leads is contributes hugely to the issue.
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Date: 2010-01-27 07:43 pm (UTC). Captain America represents a perennial now (or slightly future) America, and that is going to change as the face of America changes.
Intellectually I agree with you on the matter; however I also contend that when you are dealing with the image of already established, beloved characters, people get awfully possessive of them. Using another example, Superman is supposed to stand for Freedom, Truth, and the American Way, but how many people do you think would get upset if they casted a Chinese-American dude to play him? I'm guessing a lot. Getting people to wrap their heads around that would be a little difficult because of the way cultural identity has been represented.
It's interesting that you picked Eat Drink, Man Woman, because there's a Mexican-American version of that movie that came out, Tortilla Soup (it had Hector Elizondo in it). In that case, it switched cultures, just not to a Caucasian one. Thoughts on that?
And oh yes. As I said towards the end, it's not just casting that's the problem. The lack of stories out there for minorities (be it gender, ethnicity or sexuality) as the leads is contributes hugely to the issue.