Recognise desi beauties, not foreigners: Abhishek - Page 6

Originally posted by: Equine

but, to say tht v r not suposd 2 cast foreign borns coz thy dont look indian enough is a racist statement and i oppose tht.

Authenticity does play a factor though.

Can you imagine Matt Damon playing Nelson Mandela in Invictus? Denzel Washington playing Colonel Shaw in Glory? Julia Robers playing Memoirs of a Geisha?

My problem is not with foreign born actors. My problem is with talentless foreign born actors and the trend towards fairer and fairer when Indians have a wide spectrum of skin tones.

My major beef with foreign casting in Indian cinema, apart from the racial prejudice towards fairness is our tendency towards ethnocentrism, stereotypes and creating caricatures. The really white men tend to be British generals, villains and smuggles. The black man is always some bad ass body guard. Africans are caricatured as tribal dancers and voodoo practitioners. Asians are caricatured as slant eyed kung fu fighters and their accents are made fun off.

Ideally movies should show representative cross section of the population. There should be some emphasis on authenticity. Even in our Indian movies based abroad, all the friends, coworkers, neighbors are all Indian. How many of us living abroad have entire workplaces abroad? How many of us are friendly exclusively with desis? How many of our kids have only desis in classroom. And then when a foreign person is portrayed, it is as a caricature.

The foreign star does not have to be the fair and pretty face, or some skin show. Cast some foreign gals and guys as the hero or heroines friends. Not caricatures, but realistic characters. When basing films abroad, throw in local looking people as neighbors, acquaintances, coworkers, shopkeepers and keep them realistic. Show interracial families and kids. Make a movie where the hero falls for a foreign girl or the heroine for a foreign guy. Make a story that represents a local cross section of the foreign locale.