Would color blind casting work for historical epics in India? - Page 3

Originally posted by: FilmiDhun

No. I only want historically accurate representation s while casting actors.

I am SICK of the new trend in western media of casting people of colour just for the sake of tokenism and for scoring brownie points among social justice warriors. 🤢🤢🤢

I don't find these kind of gimmicks or initiatives even the slightest bit praiseworthy. Its particularly infuriating when a movie or piece of work is only praised because of these things when it should be solely judged based on its quality.😵

I'm a nut for historical details too. But I have accepted that films will twist a lot of details. Even Ridley Scott did it. But it's impossible when they ask you to ignore the evidence before your eyes. Like a black Duke in Regency England. Even more disturbing is the fact that some of the fans feel proud that they are taking back their agency or doing one up to the white racists. I really don't see anything empowering about appropriating some other culture's history and glossing over the oppression of your own ancestors. This is a gimmick since it will be shot in Britain. Don't tell me that there's a scarcity of talented white British actors there. That's a whole lot like what Karan said about doing auditioning 400 girls and finding Alia Bhatt the most suitable for SOTY.

Originally posted by: capricornrcks

It is a Utopian idea. How can you pretend that different races don't exist? It's like pretending my garden has roses and only roses. I don't see other flowers. If the movie/series is successful, the coming generations would underestimate the effect of the heinous acts and bigotry which were committed by Europeans and believe that the society was more inclusive in those days. You shouldn't nurse resentment for the cruelties suffered by your ancestors. But at the same time you shouldn't forget their sacrifices and the efforts to stand up for their rights. From what I'm reading those who support color blind casting in both communities would prefer to conveniently forget that things were worse in the past. Apparently many black actors are tired of constantly acting as slaves in historicals. Closing your eyes does not make the truth go away.

THIS! 👏

Originally posted by: MujheMaarjaneDo

Historicals hardly work in India anyways😆.

Plus the thing is simple, In India a Punjabi played a Marathi warrior, and nobody cared. Or a Muslim North Indian played a Maratha Shiv Sena leader. People lapped on to it, without batting an eye.

Now the issue would have happened, if new articles came out praising Thakrey movie makers for choosing a member from the group which generally used to be the target of Shiv Sena. Saying it is some sort of empowerment of North Indians. Than we could have seen a huge social media uproar. I mean nobody cared that a black man was shown as God in Almighty Bruce or Lucifer series. But controversy arises when they use these gimmick to appear woke. It is the virtue signalling which makes things worse in Hollywood. And ofcourse there will always be cnuts in social media who will be racist, but these movie PR use those people to make everyone else racist, and than people who don't care, also start revolting.

Like when Charlie Angels reboot came, people didn't cared, than its director starting using the woman empowerment angle, and hell broke loose. Hollywood or Bollywood have always used political and activist fools for promotion and they will keep on using them.

That is because most subcontinent people look relatively similar... many Punjabis could easily pass for Marathis and vice versa... most Muslims could easily pass as Hindus too and vice versa... we are all more or less the same race...

But a fully Black African descent person could never, ever pass for white, neither could a fully white European descent person pass for black...

Totally different thing.

Originally posted by: capricornrcks

Would color blind casting work in India? Would we accept a black Jodhaa or a Chinese Padmavati or Rani of Jhansi? Would we even accept someone like Kalki or Tom Alter who grew up here and is speaks the language fluently and is familiar with the culture?

Fine..Can ignore (& have ignored) this as minor nuisance if all else is fine enough in depicting the character , the events etc etc..Like that White Tom Alter playing as South Asian with everything else fine enough..But definitely not if the race is pivotal per se (in one way or the other)..Like say a White playing the role of South Asian Mahatma Gandhi in a movie which also includes his SA experience..

In other words,conditional acceptance may be..

^^

saying for myself alone

Two interesting video of father son :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1jrKGQ9nIg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj1mJFbQor0

Originally posted by: Anjalika01

That is because most subcontinent people look relatively similar... many Punjabis could easily pass for Marathis and vice versa... most Muslims could easily pass as Hindus too and vice versa... we are all more or less the same race...

But a fully Black African descent person could never, ever pass for white, neither could a fully white European descent person pass for black...

Totally different thing.

Agree..

On a tangent but their admixture sometimes tend to produce an interesting grey zone wrt South Asians..Seen some North Africans (SSA+Caucasians) who can pass in India without batting an eye (save for fro of few)..Not even talking about Arabs..

Originally posted by: Agent_Vinod

Agree..

On a tangent but their admixture sometimes tend to produce an interesting grey zone wrt South Asians..Seen some North Africans (SSA+Caucasians) who can pass in India without batting an eye (save for fro of few)..Not even talking about Arabs..

Yep I agree! Many North Africans, Arabs, Balkans, South Americans, Roma gypsies, even some mixed black and white people can pass for Indians, and many Indians could pass as people of these ethnicities...

Tbh I wouldn’t care if someone who looked indian but belonged to a different race was cast as an indian in a HW (or for that matter Bollywood) film... problem would be when they don’t look it!

Originally posted by: Anjalika01

That is because most subcontinent people look relatively similar... many Punjabis could easily pass for Marathis and vice versa... most Muslims could easily pass as Hindus too and vice versa... we are all more or less the same race...

But a fully Black African descent person could never, ever pass for white, neither could a fully white European descent person pass for black...

Totally different thing.

You didn't got my point.

My point is, that we can easily create controversies too, but we don't.

These controversies are created by film makers themselves to grab more attention.

It is all about agenda. For example, many people had actually started to support the idea of Idris Elba of playing a James Bond or 007, after the initial protests online. But than makers had to send a curve ball by changing the fcuking gender of the 😂, because they wanted more controversy.😂 I mean no way a franchise built on a character of James Bond, a misogynist playboy, is suddenly woke😂.

The only time we had such controversies was when few online were against casting of Priyanka as Mary Kom. although in the end people just forgot it, and also few feeble ones were against the portrayal of Khilji, because Khilji never looked like an Khal Drago ka sasta desi version 😂.

See end point is, if I wanna show controversy, I can easily create it.

For example, Nawaz playing Bala Shab Thakrey, many online did made a joke of UP Muslim playing his role, Thakrey must be turning in his grave. Now imagine if makers of the movie, took these kinds of online posts, and made an article saying see how communal people still are, and somehow Nawaz playing Thakrey is some kind of empowerment, you could have seen much bigger controversy.

This all color blind casting and so on, they all are grabbing the BLM brownie points in the end seriously.