Colorblind casting is the right approach to theatre, I firmly agree with this. The world might not be ready for Raisin in the Sun to be translated to Vietnamese and performed entirely by Vietnamese people, I say go for it.

This works so well because theatre is a practice. Any play, even if it's performed once by one company (surely the mode for plays) is of the ages. Merry is black in your stage adaptation of the Fellowship, you say? Of course he is, everyone knew Isaac was going to get that role, he's a natural for it.

Cinema is a product, not a practice or a process. Like it or not, it makes a single, definitive statement about a story. It's fair to dislike it when those choices differ dramatically from those made by the author, including in matters of appearance.

If you think rabid fans won't be put off by 'trivial' things like an eye color mismatch, think again. You singling out skin color is your special pleading, reflecting your interests. I reject it. It is one of many aspects of casting in film which differs from the stage, for good reason.

The problem is that casting is explicitly not colorblind. Nobody would complain if a Nigerian studio did a black-only version of LotR because (presumably) they have more black actors than white.

It's the intentional woke fuckery, just so the studio can talk about racist manbabies or whatever, that is toxic. They're trying to start this very review-brigading as an excuse for however bad the show turns out. If it tanks they blame the ratings, not the material.

metoo

I don't know why this fixation with the colour of the skin.

I was merely pointing out that they changed a character, one that was very distinctly described, that obviously would be at the center of flamed debates and cause uproar.

My understanding is that the more people talk about the movie, the less Disney need to spend in marketing it.

Of course best actor for the role, but the studio never put it that way, so they are to blame IMO.

Also, I mean, the blue fairy is called blue (it's actually turquoise in Italian) because she has long turquoise hair.

The new fairy is bald.

Kinda provocative, does it make for a more compelling story or is it for attention grab?

We'll see when the movie comes out.

I was very surprised by the Wheel of Time reviews (they were almost entirely racist) because I thought the casting was great in that show. It was an eye opener when I finally looked up “what other people are saying” after I watched a few episodes.

Obviously for RoP, Amazon is hoping to avoid the WoT review mess.

So a future movie about the Ukraine war is perfectly fine if Zelenski is portrayed by a very talented black woman and Putin by a Japanese drag queen?

Perhaps we as a society can eventually get to the point where nobody cares what color skin people have. That seems like a great outcome to be.

For historical depictions, it matters.

Maybe. If race matters to the story, then it might be confusing if the person doesn’t look like the race they are supposed to be, to some viewers. If race isn’t really part of the story, I don’t see how it matters.

If the best actor for Black Panther was white would you have an issue with that?

Well, the Black Panther being a black superhero character, with African background, which is important to the story, means the "best actor" should include those qualities.

It's not just about "best" in acting abilities alone (as if those can be taken in abstract regardless of the story), but best in fitting the character and the role.

So you're kind of making the parent's point.

Why do you think that is what the parent post meant? He said he doesn't care about "the right skin color". If he doesn't care about skin color, then why can't Black Panther be white? I don't think the post was claiming it matters if it is intrinsic to the plot.

>Why do you think that is what the parent post meant?

https://effectiviology.com/principle-of-charity/

https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/steelmanning

I'd rather not assume people are card carrying KKK racists, if nothing they said necessitates that...

Regardless of the intended position neither would make him a "card carrying KKK racist".