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Reconstructing identity based on modern Projections

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ToughDiamond
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29 Apr 2023, 9:47 pm

When I tried to post a reply in agreement with NaturalPlastic's assertion about Blazing Saddles, along with a URL, the site wouldn't let me, but it lets me post the URL on its own. So here's the URL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H2W1lK7P-I
For a minute I thought WP was censoring me for being politically incorrect, but it seems it's just that the software is rubbish.



cyberdad
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29 Apr 2023, 9:57 pm

A lot of black audiences actually preferred to watch Bruce Lee in the 1970s > blackxploitation movies but I accept that simply seeing black faces on cinema was enough to get them into the cinemas to watch.



ToughDiamond
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29 Apr 2023, 10:09 pm

Pepe wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
I just view substituting black characters for white as a fashion thing. I don't think it changes anything much politically or socially. Usually I don't much mind, but occasionally I feel a bit of disdain and boredom if I think they're just jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of it. I marvel that some people take it very seriously.


Well, I'm autistic.
In most things, I prefer representations to be factually, erm, factual.
But there are times when artistic merit is acceptible.
It really depends.

Usually I too get annoyed when they deviate from the original story just to get a black guy, a woman, or a disabled person in the movie. I initially thought that's what the BBC had done with its 2023 version of Great Expectations, but then I noticed they were deviating from the book quite wildly for non-PC reasons, so I ended up quite enjoying it. Though of course the book was fiction in the first place, so factual correctness was never really possible. Hmm.....it's been a long time since I expected a story advertised as true to actually be true. I think it was the film "The Invention Of Lying" that was set in a (fictional) world in which all movies were absolutely truthful and extremely boring as a result.



cyberdad
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29 Apr 2023, 10:11 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
Pepe wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
I just view substituting black characters for white as a fashion thing. I don't think it changes anything much politically or socially. Usually I don't much mind, but occasionally I feel a bit of disdain and boredom if I think they're just jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of it. I marvel that some people take it very seriously.


Well, I'm autistic.
In most things, I prefer representations to be factually, erm, factual.
But there are times when artistic merit is acceptible.
It really depends.

Usually I too get annoyed when they deviate from the original story just to get a black guy, a woman, or a disabled person in the movie. I initially thought that's what the BBC had done with its 2023 version of Great Expectations, but then I noticed they were deviating from the book quite wildly for non-PC reasons, so I ended up quite enjoying it. Though of course the book was fiction in the first place, so factual correctness was never really possible. Hmm.....it's been a long time since I expected a story advertised as true to actually be true. I think it was the film "The Invention Of Lying" that was set in a (fictional) world in which all movies were absolutely truthful and extremely boring as a result.


People will vote with their subscriptions/viewership then. Its still a free market and if there is a perception of PC deviating scripts then media companies will take notice.



ToughDiamond
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29 Apr 2023, 10:42 pm

cyberdad wrote:
People will vote with their subscriptions/viewership then. Its still a free market and if there is a perception of PC deviating scripts then media companies will take notice.

They will if they start losing money. But it's hard to find a script that doesn't deviate from the truth or the original book, so my guess is that the public on the whole don't much care about veracity and fidelity as such.



cyberdad
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29 Apr 2023, 10:53 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
People will vote with their subscriptions/viewership then. Its still a free market and if there is a perception of PC deviating scripts then media companies will take notice.

They will if they start losing money. But it's hard to find a script that doesn't deviate from the truth or the original book, so my guess is that the public on the whole don't much care about veracity and fidelity as such.


There's a spectrum of responses to scripts that deviate. Take star wars or LOTR for example, 95% of fans are young white males who are intransigent to the script not deviating from what George Lucas or Tolkien wrote down.

But the moment you introduce cute fluffy baby characters (like Grogu) or strong female roles like Rey Sykwalker you might estrange the fanbase but you increase the viewership to include young kids with no investment in the canon or females or a black audience who might not have otherwise watched SW otherwise. For Netlflix or Amazon = $$



ToughDiamond
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29 Apr 2023, 11:00 pm

^
Yep.



Pepe
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29 Apr 2023, 11:23 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
I think it was the film "The Invention Of Lying" that was set in a (fictional) world in which all movies were absolutely truthful and extremely boring as a result.


A very autistic approach in the movie (that I haven't seen).
I'd just like to point out that CREATIVITY is not the same as LYING. ;)



Pepe
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29 Apr 2023, 11:31 pm

cyberdad wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
Pepe wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
I just view substituting black characters for white as a fashion thing. I don't think it changes anything much politically or socially. Usually I don't much mind, but occasionally I feel a bit of disdain and boredom if I think they're just jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of it. I marvel that some people take it very seriously.


Well, I'm autistic.
In most things, I prefer representations to be factually, erm, factual.
But there are times when artistic merit is acceptible.
It really depends.

Usually I too get annoyed when they deviate from the original story just to get a black guy, a woman, or a disabled person in the movie. I initially thought that's what the BBC had done with its 2023 version of Great Expectations, but then I noticed they were deviating from the book quite wildly for non-PC reasons, so I ended up quite enjoying it. Though of course the book was fiction in the first place, so factual correctness was never really possible. Hmm.....it's been a long time since I expected a story advertised as true to actually be true. I think it was the film "The Invention Of Lying" that was set in a (fictional) world in which all movies were absolutely truthful and extremely boring as a result.


People will vote with their subscriptions/viewership then. Its still a free market and if there is a perception of PC deviating scripts then media companies will take notice.


I hope Disney is taking note. 8)



MatchboxVagabond
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29 Apr 2023, 11:45 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
I just view substituting black characters for white as a fashion thing. I don't think it changes anything much politically or socially. Usually I don't much mind, but occasionally I feel a bit of disdain and boredom if I think they're just jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of it. I marvel that some people take it very seriously.

The issue I personally have with it is that it's a money grab thing that ultimately just delays real representation. James Bond being potentially a black actor in the future is a missed opportunity. The 00 branch primarily covers Europe, which implies that there should be branches that primarily cover Africa, Asia and the Americas. Which leads to a whole bunch of potentially fascinating new ground that could be tread with other secret agents that are legitimately of different ethnic backgrounds and probably with different styles of getting the job done that we probably won't ever get if they make James Bond something other than white and British (or a Scot as with Connery). Even making him effectively Australian for a movie was more of a stretch than they should have done, they should have given us an Aussie equivalent that would have probably done pretty well later on in the wake of Crocodile Dundee.

The Little Mermaid is another one. That is a white character, why couldn't we get a movie with a black lead based on African mermaid stories, as I bet that there's at least a few.



Last edited by MatchboxVagabond on 29 Apr 2023, 11:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MatchboxVagabond
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29 Apr 2023, 11:47 pm

Pepe wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
Pepe wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
I just view substituting black characters for white as a fashion thing. I don't think it changes anything much politically or socially. Usually I don't much mind, but occasionally I feel a bit of disdain and boredom if I think they're just jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of it. I marvel that some people take it very seriously.


Well, I'm autistic.
In most things, I prefer representations to be factually, erm, factual.
But there are times when artistic merit is acceptible.
It really depends.

Usually I too get annoyed when they deviate from the original story just to get a black guy, a woman, or a disabled person in the movie. I initially thought that's what the BBC had done with its 2023 version of Great Expectations, but then I noticed they were deviating from the book quite wildly for non-PC reasons, so I ended up quite enjoying it. Though of course the book was fiction in the first place, so factual correctness was never really possible. Hmm.....it's been a long time since I expected a story advertised as true to actually be true. I think it was the film "The Invention Of Lying" that was set in a (fictional) world in which all movies were absolutely truthful and extremely boring as a result.


People will vote with their subscriptions/viewership then. Its still a free market and if there is a perception of PC deviating scripts then media companies will take notice.


I hope Disney is taking note. 8)

Considering how well The Lion King and Aladdin did, you'd think the Disney machine would be eager to strip mine other cultures for IP to rip off rather than continuing to culturally appropriate European culture. Instead, we're getting them remaking what they did, just worse with race swapped characters to try and cash in on the woke bucks and credibility.



Pepe
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29 Apr 2023, 11:51 pm

MatchboxVagabond wrote:
Considering how well The Lion King and Aladdin did, you'd think the Disney machine would be eager to strip mine other cultures for IP to rip off rather than continuing to culturally appropriate European culture. Instead, we're getting them remaking what they did, just worse with race swapped characters to try and cash in on the woke bucks and credibility.


Never watched the Disney channel.
I'll take your word for it.



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30 Apr 2023, 12:41 am

cyberdad wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
. Modern Mexicans have every right to "claim" Teotihucan (for example) as "their own" if thats their choice (and they do) because modern Mexicans ARE largely descended from the builders. .


You are making an assumption they want to be associated with indigenous culture which is completely wrong. They don't.

You cant even keep track of your own train of thought!

YOU are making that assumption. Not ME!! !! !!

The whole reason you started this thread was to lambast Mexicans for being ignorant dolts because YOU CLAIM that they claim the ancient ruins of precolumbian civilizations as "their own", and you claim that you know better than Mexicans themselves what they should claim, and what they shouldnt claim, and you claim that they shouldnt claim that stuff. :lol: :lol: :lol:



Last edited by naturalplastic on 30 Apr 2023, 1:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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30 Apr 2023, 1:13 am

cyberdad wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
"Blaxploitation movies" were low budget movies made by Blacks for Blacks. Often defying White sensibilities. Hardly "minstrel shows". .


Really? a lot of them were produced by Joel Freeman (a white man) and made for a mostly white audience
Even Black Caesar was an MGM production

The black actors were paid < contemporary white actors and rather than defying white sensibilities they were a form of anti-establishment porn overemphasising the sexual prowess and aggressive/violence of the black man. The profits from these movies went back to white owned/run studios.

Unlike popular white Hollywood movies at the time, these black movie roles were still caricatures. It wasn't till Roots (in the 1970s) and Spike Lee in the early 1980s that the "black experience" in the US ever translated onto the big screen

Jesus Christ...I was alive in the US in the Seventies. I remember my White parents grumbling because there was "nothing listed in the movie section of the paper to go out and see, but 'Shaft's Big Score'".

Whites (be they Archie Bunker or be they participants in Civil Rights marches like my parents) had no interest in seeing Blaxploitation movies, and were not interested in seeing "Shaft's Big Score". They were just that -cheap ass movies -exploiting the Black audience.I remember reading about how Blacks wanted to see a Black guy beat the crap out of a White guy and GET AWAY with it. In a nutshell thats what the genre's reason for being. Blacks also wanted to see their equivalents of James Bond (sexual active macho heroes) and so forth. White producers may have smelled money and commandeered the genre later in the Seventies (just like Whites made money off of Black recording artists with Black audiences),but the genre was not for, and did not appeal to White audiences.



ToughDiamond
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30 Apr 2023, 1:33 am

Pepe wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
I think it was the film "The Invention Of Lying" that was set in a (fictional) world in which all movies were absolutely truthful and extremely boring as a result.


A very autistic approach in the movie (that I haven't seen).
I'd just like to point out that CREATIVITY is not the same as LYING. ;)

I'd go along with that, even though they didn't.



cyberdad
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30 Apr 2023, 1:49 am

naturalplastic wrote:
[ YOU CLAIM that they claim the ancient ruins of precolumbian civilizations as "their own", and you claim that you know better than Mexicans themselves what they should claim, and what they shouldnt claim, and you claim that they shouldnt claim that stuff. :lol: :lol: :lol:


It's all a matter of conjecture of what ownership actually means. I posit the Soanish speaking part Spaniard Mexicans or modern Egyptians have no more claim (or connection) over precolumbian or old kingdom pyramid builders than you or I do.
Do they follow the culture? no
Do they follow the religion? no
Do they speak the language or read writing? no
Do they even eat the same food? no

Ancient civilisations are therefore the property of everyone? yes

I wouldn;t want the Afghan Taliban deciding what to do with Buddhist relics or statues just because they happening to be living on land once occupied by brown skinned hindus and buddhists.

BTW the Egyptians knowingly destroyed their own heritage when they bult the Aswan Dam flooding/destroying countless archaeological sites and memory of ancient Egypt. If it even mean't anything spiritual or cultural they would never have sunk these sites underwater. But they meant nothing to them.