Whitewash
The rest of this week’s posts will be a little different to usual, but before we get to them there’s something I wanted to mention here.
I don’t write about politics much on the Journal. The count in the column over there on the right tells me there’s 12 posts tagged under that heading, but even then they’re only broadly political and not really about any particular incident or headline. And that’s a deliberate decision on my part. Out in Meat Space you can’t shut me up about politics, certainly not after a couple of beers.
That’s reason one. I know what I get like. If the new Batman cartoon gets me all frothy about the brain, imagine what important things do to me. The Journal is meant to be an enjoyable diversion, for both myself and for you good folks out there. Losing my shit about the latest fuck-knows-what every single day would get pretty depressing pretty fast.
Reason two is that I’m acutely aware that not everything that makes it to your screens is the most thought-out, carefully-worded and insightful passage in the history of the language. Shocking, I know. Now, if I occasionally write something batshit crazy at four in the morning about toy robots, its actual influence on the rest of my life is negligable to say the least. For the moment, let’s put aside the ever-increasing likelihood of a hypothetical potential future employer googling me and then deciding that maybe the guy who gets all het up about the fate of the Tyrannosaur in Jurassic Park III isn’t the competent team-player they’re looking for. An ill-thought-out screed that you don’t really mean about a hot-button political issue, on the other hand, has the potential to seriously screw up your life. And I don’t need that pressure at four in the morning.
Does that mean I don’t think it’s important to have political views? Or to engage in political debate? Of course not. I don’t think a lot of the debate that happens online is always particularly useful, but that doesn’t mean it’s always unimportant. I just don’t really think that’s what the Journal’s for, and believe me if I thought there was something important that I just couldn’t shut up about, I’d bring it up.
Two things have seriously pissed me off recently. I’m not sure I’m able to articulate appropriately why they irritated me so much, but I don’t really want to let them slide without a remark.
The first I found out about via two posts by David Brothers over at 4thletter!, and was also covered in a post by Jonathan Bernhardt at Funnybook Babylon. I have nothing to add but a deep-felt conviction that there are times when the sheer fucking ignorance of my fellow human beings makes me long for the day when the Martians turn up and blow us all the fuck away.
And then the second was the recent rumour that Jake Gyllenhaal will soon be playing the Prince of Persia.
Wow. What great casting.
Perhaps they can black him up for the role. Perhaps he can put on a comedy Asian accent. Perhaps the production company is anticipating that there will be no kind of outcry from the country currently occupying the bit of the world historically known as Persia because they never ever fall out with the Americans, do they?
This is fucking insane. Who thinks this is a good idea? Does anyone not realise that a clue to the ethnicity of the main character is right there in the pissing title?
Bring on the Martian death rays, I say.
on May 27th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
This type of casual racism is bugging me a lot, lately. Mostly because I’ve been recently told the last book I did will not be picked up by Diamond distribution because ‘US audiences won’t like it’, which I strongly believe is because (although, I’ve not been told this explicitly) of its refusal to make the Muslim characters in it the bad guys. And the Jake Gyllenhaal thing is dismaying, but Hollywood has always preferred to cast white stars in ethnic roles, just think back to Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Peter Sellers in The Party or, worst of all, fucking Chuck Connors (blonde hair, blue eyes) playing Geronimo! They tend to cast people of the correct ethnicity in stuff they see as ‘worthy’ Oscar-bait.
I’m not knocking all Americans, as that would make me as guilty of racism as some of the people I’m criticising, (and the fact I’m currently going out with one means I know not all Yanks are ignorant or bigoted) it just seems that the ones that are are the ones that make these important decisions, and it’s strange considering it’s a nation almost entirely made of immigrants.
on May 28th, 2008 at 9:50 am
That’s a fucking shame about Diamond, and it says volumes about the insularity of the current comics market.
Casual racism is exactly the correct phrase for it; habitual racism with a lack of any kind of forethought. I don’t know what bugs me more, the idea that it didn’t occur to a single member of the ludicrously huge group of people involved in film preproduction that this would be offensive, or that they did realise this and discounted it anyway.
Anyway we cut it, the producers want to take advantage of and profit from Arabic culture without disturbing the delicate sensibilities of the masses by acknowledging that not everyone is white. Of course, the more depressing conclusion is that the producers believe that mass audiences will not relate to an Asian protagonist.
On a different subject, are you still having trouble with leaving comments here? It’s a new Wordpress version, so I’m hoping the bugs have been ironed out.
on May 28th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I had no trouble leaving the comment yesterday, and it’s still the case today!
If producers do actually believe audiences won’t relate to an Asian protagonist, then they’re absolutely daft, seeing as the biggest movie star in the world (in terms of audience bums-on-seats, anyway) is probably Jackie Chan. Well, he was before he made that advert for Woolworths, anyway.
But you’re probably right, the way Hollywood remakes Asian cinema instead of distributing the originals properly is disappointing and depressing, and I’ve yet to see a Hollywood remake of an Asian movie that was anywhere near as good as the original. It’s not just Asian or Middle Eastern films either, Hollywood execs seem to think everything has to be ‘in American’ to appeal to mass audiences, which is why they remake even British TV shows for US channels.
on May 29th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
It’s like the pointlessness of remaking, frame-for-frame, Spanish zombie flick “REC”. Subtitles really shouldn’t be that scary. That’s modern literacy levels for you.