The racist backlash to The Little Mermaid and Lord of The Rings is exhausting and extremely predicta

Looks like you missed my point.

 

Yep. Guess I did. Annie is a fictional character. Why does her color matter to you?

 

Exactly, why did an 80s film need to be remade with an all black cast?

 

$$$ and maybe outrage.

 

Ariel had red hair and light skin, she was also made up. People who had that vision (mostly young) had an idea of how she looked. People do not like change, and will complain. Even it if is total fiction.

 

There are 50 credited actors in Annie. 13 are black. It’s NYC. 26% black seems pretty normal for NYC. What’s your problem?

Annie (2014) - “Cast” credits - IMDb

 

Ask yourselves this: Would the same people celebrating minorities casted as White characters be celebrating minority characters being recasted by White people?

General rule of thumb, if it's only wrong for one race to do something, there's probably some element of racism in your ideology.

I have mixed thoughts on recasting.

Am I a fan of doing it for diversity's sake? No. Can some people pull off being recasted in a role that is typically and iconically involving a person of another race (Ex. Mary Jane Watson is iconically a red-head, so it wouldn't make sense to have a Black person starring as Mary Jane Watson, just like it wouldn't make sense for a White person to star as T'Challa or Storm)? Absolutely. Generally, I think a better way of increasing opportunities for minority actors is writing NEW minority characters, rather than replacing traditionally White characters as minority characters. But it's been tastefully done before.

Just because you want White people to star as White characters doesn't make you any more racist than someone who wants Black people to star as Black characters.

 

To be honest, I don't remember any outrage at the time over Robert Downey's "black face" character in Tropical Thunder or Darth Vader being played by a white guy when they took his mask off, do you?

But to your point, the only reason why Aerial is a "white character" is because the original cartoonist drew her that way. There is no reason for her character to be any particular race, as her race has no bearing on the story, and she is a mythical creature so it's not like you have to worry about the realism of her appearance, she can look like anything you want her to look like.

 

That's your opinion.

It would also be narrow-minded for you to believe that anyone who doesn't like the casting choice because they consider Ariel to be iconically red-headed, is a racist.

If you like the casting choice and enjoy the movie, good for you. I'm just not a fan of branding everyone who doesn't a racist.

 

For complete accuracy, there is only one casting choice

 

Hair color seems like a stupid thing to be so upset about, but this actress does appear have red hair for the movie ... do you want to find another reason be upset and hate the movie before you watch it?

 

Yes, I'm sure she found a way to dye and groom it underwater.

Again, if it's such a stupid thing to worry about, if it's not a big deal, they wouldn't have gone through the effort in recasting the role in the first place, then changing the hair color to red, which was a deliberate choice.

You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's virtuous and important to increase minority representation in exactly this way, then say it's not a big deal that they're doing it.

 

Lol ... I think you are putting too much thought into this. She's a mermaid. She's not real. She doesn't have to follow human rules of hair grooming in the same way she doesn't have to follow human rules of having legs and no scales. Maybe her hair just grows that way ... I mean, prove it doesn't.

What do you mean by "recasting"? You know the original cartoon wasn't a real person who got cut, right?

And this stuff doesn't bother me. I really don't care what race actors are, and I've never said it's virtuous and important to cast black people, but it seems a little racist on your part to assume she got the job because of some affirmative action quota instead her being talented and winning the audition.

 

What is this babble about recasting? Went to IMDb; this is the first live version, no?

 

As I said before, that's awfully narrow-minded of you. It's quick judgments like that why people are hesitant to believe accusations of racism these days because that word is thrown around so loosely.

If you don't have a problem with White actors being casted in iconically or typically Black roles, then at least you're consistent, but I don't happen to share the same mindset.

 

With the exception of the Lemonheads cover of take it easy, I tend to only like covers that are intentionally diff than the org…otherwise, why bother?

 

This arguing over the term "recasting" is stupid. The character has always been portrayed as a pale red-headed girl.

Now the character is being portrayed by a Black girl with clearly fake red hair.

 

I wouldn't call playing a mermaid a "white role". Like I said, it could be played by anyone because there is no background story about race involved here. It's not they hired a black actor to play George Washington.

 

If they did, would you draw the line there? If so why?

How about a White person person playing MLK?

A Black person playing Hitler?

 

Did you think the red hair in the original CARTOON was real?